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Get your blanket, get your beer. Grab your pot (if that's you're sort of thing) and your closest friend. Spend your Saturday morning with a good movie and close yourself off from the world. Set your mind at ease for a few hours and join the Saturday Morning Movie Club. Oh yeah!


Naked Lunch

September 17th 2008 22:19


My fascinationation with filmmaker David Cronenberg begin a few years ago after I watched his film 'Existenz.' It was strange, yet highly entertaining. I wasn't sure what exactly happened during the movie and after multiple viewings, I am still just as uncertain.

Years later, here I sit not really sure what I think about him. I like his stuff, I love that there is a somebody out there challenging the audience like he does, but, truthfully, his movies are just fucking bizarre.


Last night I sat down and watched 'Naked Lunch.' If I was asked to write a plot synopsis about this movie, I would be at a lose for words. So here is what is posted for the plot on imdb.com:

"Not an adaptation of beat writer William S. Burrough's novel but a mix of biography and an interpretation of his drug- induced writing processes combined with elements of his work in this paranoid fantasy about Bill Lee, a writer who accidentally shoots his wife, whose typewriter transforms into a cockroach and who becomes involved in a mysterious plot in an Islamic port called Interzone. Wonderfully bizarre, not unlike Burrough's books."
-written by Keith Loh


Sure. Yeah. That's what it's about. After one viewing I'm really not sure what the hell it's about. But I'll damned if it wasn't fascinating.




I mean I get that we are looking at a man deeply disturbed by an addiction to drugs and that this is a deep look into the psyche of that man, but then again this may be entirely wrong. I just can't be sure. It feels like it is 'about' so much more.

I can't say that I'm a David Cronenberg expert, but I have seen most of his films. I've seen 'Existenz.' I've seen both of his more recent films, 'A History of Violence' and 'Eastern Promises' and liked both them considerably. I have tried to watch 'Crash' a few times, but have never made it throught the entire thing before becoming so unsettled I had to turn it off. Recently I say 'Dead Ringers' and 'Videodrome' which are just as bizarre but slightly more straighforward than 'Naked Lunch.' I saw 'The Fly' years ago (scared me to death as a little kid) and haven't revisted it since. So I still need to see a few of them including 'Scanners,' which I am really looking forward to.

I would say my favorite is 'A History of Violence' although I feel like true, deep fans of Cronenberg wouldn't pick it as their favorite. It is probably straightforward for them and that may be why I like it. I do 'get' that movie. I love it's themes about how sex and violence are closely related and I love the perfermances throughout.

But 'Naked Lunch' has had me thinking all day. I love when movies do that. They get inside of you and won't let you just leave it all behind. I can see that I could really become a deep Cronenberg fan if I would just had a little more push. I will probably rewatch a lot of his stuff over the next short while and that may be enough to become a fanatic.

I don't know why, maybe it's because they both challenge their audiences so much, but I have always put Cronenberg and David Lynch in the same category. I guess that category is the 'not for everybody because they make you work' category, but I also get the feeling the true, deep fans of either of these guys wouldn't ever put them into the same category whatsoever. I feel unqualified to talk about them. I feel a little like a poser when I say I like their movies. And hell, maybe I am. But I am just fascinated by them and if you have seen anything either has done, I'm sure you are too.

Look at this pic. I mean, what the hell?
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Comments
3 Comments. [ Add A Comment ]

Comment by jon

September 18th 2008 00:54
Hi -- I've sent you an email already but sometimes they don't get through. Would you like a domain for this blog? If so send an email to charles -at- orble.com (change the -at- into a @) and he will be able to set one up for you.

You may also need to add the email address admin -at- orblemail.com to your address book in order to receive Orble admin emails in the future.

Thanks,
Jon.

(Orble Admin)


Comment by Tracy

September 18th 2008 20:27
Hi Matt

Fantastic review, I agree, it's a perplexing film...

Tracy

Comment by Cibbuano

September 22nd 2008 03:07
I read half of the book, but I couldn't stick to it. It was just heroin jumbled phrases and snippets of gay sex fantasies that went on for pages..

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