Poll

Your Favorite David Cronenberg Film Is...

haven't seen any
0 (0%)
don't like any
0 (0%)
other
0 (0%)
Shivers
0 (0%)
Rabid
0 (0%)
The Brood
0 (0%)
Scanners
1 (1.4%)
Videodrome
15 (20.3%)
The Dead Zone
3 (4.1%)
The Fly
15 (20.3%)
Dead Ringers
3 (4.1%)
Naked Lunch
7 (9.5%)
M. Butterfly
0 (0%)
Crash
2 (2.7%)
eXistenZ
4 (5.4%)
Spider
1 (1.4%)
A History of Violence
11 (14.9%)
Eastern Promises
10 (13.5%)
A Dangerous Method
1 (1.4%)
Cosmopolis
1 (1.4%)
Maps to the Stars
0 (0%)
Crimes of the Future
0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 74

Author Topic: Cronenberg, David  (Read 12574 times)

jdc

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Re: Directors Best Poll - David Cronenberg
« Reply #40 on: April 21, 2012, 03:16:15 AM »
I am ashamed. I've never seen a David Cronenberg film.  :-[

have you corrected this, sir?
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AAAutin

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Re: Directors Best Poll - David Cronenberg
« Reply #41 on: April 24, 2012, 08:44:42 PM »
Can I vote for COSMOPOLIS yet?

Post-watch edit: You sure can! (But you won't.)
« Last Edit: September 27, 2012, 09:19:59 PM by AAAutin »

roujin

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Re: Directors Best Poll - David Cronenberg
« Reply #42 on: September 27, 2012, 09:34:32 AM »
Cosmopolis David Cronenberg, 2012

One disaffected techno-capitalist says to another one. The limo as echo-chamber. The 1% as echo-chamber. A series of encounters, two-handers inside a limo, each one seemingly about separate things (like Limits of Control?), but really about late capitalism and about death and about how those two things are seemingly inextricably connected. Pattinson's billionaire has seemingly acquired everything there is; but those impulses don't go away. Characters constantly say "I know this" (as in knowledge being another asset that can be catalogued and acquired, just another piece of capital); Pattinson late in the film retorts "show me something I don't know." Whether that's the shock of pain, the ultimate redemption of death, who can tell. But what's observable here, and what's truly remarkable is the formal precision, the coldness, the mastery, with which Cronenberg does all this. It's been a long time since I've seen a film that seemed so off, whose rhythms and editing patterns felt so alien. And then out of nowhere you start sensing the rampant absurdity of it all, the comic underside to the bizarreness of it all. Pattinson's prostate is asymmetrical, the visual punchline of taking a pee inside your own limo, pie attacks. Just another day. Just another day of trying to screw Sarah Gadon.
« Last Edit: February 19, 2020, 12:13:45 AM by 1SO »

ArmenianScientist

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Re: Directors Best Poll - David Cronenberg
« Reply #43 on: October 13, 2012, 04:43:52 PM »
Nice review, roujin. The film is definitely not bullshit.

Here is the last paragraph of another great Cosmopolis review, by Daniel Gorman. He pinpoints how Cosmopolis captures the zeitgeist far more effectively than The Dark Knight Rises.

Quote from: Daniel Gornam
In a recent blog post on Chris Nolan, critic David Bordwell highlights the following quote: "We throw a lot of things against the wall to see if it sticks [sic]. We put a lot of interesting questions in the air, but that’s simply a backdrop for the story… We’re going to get wildly different interpretations of what the film is supporting and not supporting, but it’s not doing any of those things. It’s just telling a story." I think even the most sympathetic fan of Nolan, and the Batman trilogy he helmed and is loosely commenting on here, would accept that his films’ politics are, at best, rather muddled. Conversely, what Cronenberg does so well with “Cosmopolis” has nothing to do with "seeing what sticks," but instead allowing the zeitgeist to seep in and infect the actual formal qualities of the work. The difference is, in effect, between creating a product that superficially reflects the times and creating an actual living, breathing embodiment of the times themselves. Disorder has been absorbed into our everyday modern lives, and Cronenberg’s horrifying farce shows us how untenable our precarious situation really is.

Totoro

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Re: Directors Best Poll - David Cronenberg
« Reply #44 on: October 14, 2012, 02:53:56 AM »
I wanted to see it, but it slipped through my fingers.

Devil

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Re: Directors Best Poll - David Cronenberg
« Reply #45 on: October 14, 2012, 05:33:44 PM »
Eastern Promises
A History of Violence

The Fly
Scanners
Crash


I don't know what it is but despite the fact that I love two of his films and I can embrace 'the weird' in his films I'm just not all that driven to see his work. I've sat down with a few of his other films but just couldn't get into them or was pulled away and never got back to them. Though I do want to give Dead Zone and eXistenz another go, as well as Cosmopolis
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oldkid

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Re: Directors Best Poll - David Cronenberg
« Reply #46 on: October 21, 2012, 12:29:12 AM »
Just getting into Cronenberg.  Here's my list thus far:

1. The Fly
2. A History of Violence
3. The Dead Zone
4. Videodrome
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mañana

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Re: Directors Best Poll - David Cronenberg
« Reply #47 on: January 09, 2013, 10:05:37 AM »
Cosmopolis - David Cronenberg, 2012

I keep hearing a lot of praise for the mannered acting and dialogue in this film, but that all didn’t seem like a choice as much as it just seemed shitty in a Canadian way. Sarah Gadon was definitely the worst offender, I thought, but others were infected too. What I did like was the peculiar structure where characters enter and exit the limo which all culminates in the meeting with the film’s Kurtz – all that definitely kept me on my toes. Anyway, I don't think I feel too strongly either way really, but Team Asymmetrical Prostate is worth a couple bones in my book.
« Last Edit: January 14, 2013, 03:46:03 PM by mañana »
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Sam the Cinema Snob

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Re: Directors Best Poll - David Cronenberg
« Reply #48 on: January 09, 2013, 04:21:53 PM »
Oh man, oh man, with each negative review I'm looking forward to this film even more. What's wrong with me?

AAAutin

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Re: Directors Best Poll - David Cronenberg
« Reply #49 on: January 09, 2013, 06:36:06 PM »
Oh man, oh man, with each negative review I'm looking forward to this film even more.

Well, I like it--so that should readjust your expectations.