Naked Lunch
Thursday, May 15, 2008

A film by David Cronenberg, from a novel by William S. Burroughs. I watched this film because I always expect work produced by Cronenberg to be weird.

Plot summary: an exterminator's wife has been using his bug powder as a drug. He's at the police station when they ask that he speak to someone. Turns out to be this big disgusting bug, which asks him to kill his wife. Why? Supposedly, she's an agent and not really human. Later, he "accidentally" shoots her in the head. After that episode, the film follows a circular path covering the same issue(s) over and over again.

Can't say I was disappointed. This is a perfect film art school movie. I can imagine a professor prodding students to find the hidden themes, symbolism, metaphors, subtext, context and the like in this film.

Since I loathe cockroaches and all manner of bugs, I found this film to be disgusting and creepy.

The only thing I enjoyed was Peter Weller's well shaped lips.

But was it a good film? Honestly, I dunno. I was wondering if there was some kind of anti-communist, anti-homosexual, or pro-homosexual, pro-communist subtext. It had a very 1950s feel to it. And the repressed 1950s gave us the over-expressive 1960s and 1970s.

I think only someone during those eras could "get" what was going on in this film. 'Cause I didn't.

Labels: David Cronenberg, Naked Lunch, Peter Weller

posted by GoldenAh
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The Brood
Tuesday, April 8, 2008

The Brood starts with Dr. Raglan (Oliver Reed) helping one of his patients in front of an audience. At first I thought they were doing the re-enactment of a play, but it turns out that the patient needs this role playing to get healed.

The Brood is about a woman, Nola, whose marriage has ended. She's insane, by the way. Her husband, Frank (Art Kindle), share custody with their kindergarten age daughter, Candice. The child is left with Nola, over the weekend, at the clinic she's getting psychiatric treatment at.

The plot begins to move forward when Frank finds bruises, scratches and bite marks on Candice's back. He demands to know what is going on at the clinic. He threatens to take full custody of Candice. From then on, we get glimpses of what Nola's problems are with everyone in her life. Especially her mother and father.

She is an angry woman. Very angry.

Dr. Raglan is no ordinary therapist. His work with this particular patient, Nola, gives 'birth' to a whole host of murderous problems.

It's such a quiet soft-core horror movie. There are no special effects, no screaming and no hysterics that's usual in this genre. It has some interesting shock value moments: glimpses of weird flesh sacks and skin deformities.

This is a David Cronenberg movie, and rated R. However, I think today's R rated films makes this one a very tame PG. There was a bit of blood, but nothing compared to today's gore-festivals.

Labels: Art Kindle, David Cronenberg, Oliver Reed, Samantha Egger, The Brood

posted by GoldenAh
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