Saturday, April 3, 2021
Cosmopolis (2011)
The core of the film is the star traveling to his haircut. He knows a barber that gives a certain honest kind of haircut that he can’t find on his end of town, and not even riots nor the president’s motorcade will stop him from getting that haircut. Because he’s Robert Pattinson.
It all sounds familiar, doesn’t it? You might think (as people often do) that Cronenberg saw the future, but in this case, the film was based on a 2003 novel. I can’t speak for the book, but the film is worth watching, and then watching again, and again.
Sunday, January 31, 2021
Videodrome (1983)
Everybody likes movies that predict the future, and sci-fi directors have a knack for it. The details may be a little fuzzy, but David Cronenberg’s broad strokes paint a bold picture of anarchic content creation and distribution, which some critics say is the Internet. That’s a stretch. I would say that Videodrome predicted some parts of Internet culture, but to its original audience it was just another romp through Cronenbergian delusion.
No, Videodrome is not the Internet. It’s the future, and the future is the past. Nostalgia lets us live in the moment because we can pin that moment down to a fixed point in time and space. This moment, this vision of the future, is as classic as they come.
Tuesday, December 15, 2020
Us (2019)
Us is a film comprised of foreshadowing, nuance, and ambition. There is a lot of talk of coincidences, clones, and tunnels. There are clones in tunnels.
The concept is foreshadowed for 30 minutes before the plot really starts moving. It’s a psychological horror movie that feels a little like a political thriller. While a film’s tone should normally not take so long to establish, the movie earns its time, using it to educate the audience on the goings on, and there are several surprises.
Thursday, November 19, 2020
Wrong Turn (2003)
Does Wrong Turn warrant critical analysis? I think so. One would expect a new franchise in the slasher genre to be warmly received, especially during the dry spell of the 2000s. It’s The Hills Have Eyes (1977) meets Deliverance (1972). Both films are more artful by a mile, but Wrong Turn has the magic formula of idiots going into the woods and not coming out.
Saturday, November 14, 2020
Jason X (2001)
It’s Friday the 13th in space. Rarely does such a collision of genres exceed expectations. When your expectations are anchored in a character with Jason’s long and varied history, anything is possible.