Crimes of the Future

As the ubiquitous commodified presence of pepped-up plastics and frenetic fossil fuels, begin to osmotically transform incumbent biological organisms, mutations matriculately metastasize and preponderantly promulgate across the land, the macabre growth of peculiar novelties transitionally emergent through stressed out synthesis.

Is it as farfetched as it sounds could we gradually adapt to consume plastic, to find sustaining fulfilling nourishment within the manifold products created thus?

I figured we wouldn't adapt and microplastics and forever chemicals would produce widespread woe, the former too tiny and omnipresent the latter too eternally carcinogenic. 

But life is consistently resilient as trees growing on outcrops reliably demonstrate, or the ways in which South American jungles have consumed ancient towns, the fact that fish continuously evolve. 

When I was young, and I considered pollution it seemed like waterways were under serious threat, especially considering how much sewage winds-up in rivers and oceans, it's a big time issue, sustainably speaking.

But even in those polluted waters we still find many resident fish, who somehow still live immersed in destructive chemicals, how do they do that?, how do they survive?

The perseverance of these fish lends credence to Crimes of the Future, and its endemic evolutionary theory that we'll one day live off plastic.

As we slowly mutate, new organs will spontaneously develop within our virulent bodies, to be registered by a curious government meticulously concerned with classified engagement.

Perhaps performance artists would indeed show off their newfound growths, in enigmatic underground showcases composédly cataloguing piecemeal evolution.

It's classic Cronenberg the reemergence of the Master still proving he can convincingly perplex 50 years later, many horror films have a short shelf life but his work from the '70s and '80s still seriously impresses.

Fittingly, it's difficult to know if the film's intended to be taken seriously, or exists solely to kerfuffle while provoking opaque comic registry.

Classic ambiguity conglomerately clasped in distinct dialogues convolutedly conversing, the characters consistently lying to one another, lucidly opposed unconcerned cross-purposes. 

Of course animosity manifests between old school humans and the emergent mutants, which makes for startling solemnities through eclectic interactive discomfort.

Kristan Stewart really impresses I had no idea she could perform that well, Cronenberg really brings out the best in her, the acting's good all around but she stands out.

Irrelevantly, I'll bear in mind this scenario as long as fish continue to swim.

Hope future generations don't adapt to eat plastic.

That sounds much worse than bugs.  

Dead Ringers

Symbiotically existing in enriched systemic ecology, unwavering strict calisthenic sophistication, enraptured cozy charismatic extroversion, hesitant timid imaginative reserve, it's nice to share things, to openly bond with your closest friends, to have someone who listens intently, no matter what, with supportive perceptive inquisitive professionalism, inflating recourse to the sensual, with compelling jocose trust.

But from a rigid analysis of the potent data provided, it's clear they've never fallen in love, nor entertained the influence of an other, nor experimented outside of work.

Fraternal camaraderie bromantically heeled and coalesced, a love interest offers escape, from nothing other than endemic exclusion.

And as one twin rises, the other falls apart, the two still irrevocably united, as jealousy struts and strays.

Dark reckonings hark the one, as wild recreation threatens everything he's worked for, the other firmly relying on his research, and their unyielding warm fidelity.

If only he hadn't introduced temptation.

If only they'd persisted in nascent womb.

Dead Ringers bluntly interrogates duality, as purest electrosynthesis meets dialectical destruction.

Infusing interstellar heights with nebulous oblivion, it diagnostically conceives a tragic provocation.

The blend of successful starstruck elegance and distraught candid mayhem produces an unsettling effect, purest material Cronenberg, even as he approaches the lofty mainstream.

I actually skipped this one years ago when I was eagerly renting his early films, because I was worried it'd be too bourgeois, like he'd done something John Waters or John Carpenter would never do, for which I could find no categorical compulsion.

I remained deathly afraid.

But the result's nothing too scary, although it's quite different from Scanners or Videodrome, it's like Cronenberg's trying to do something more traditional (a drama) but still can't restrain himself, so it unreels like a high brow slightly grotesque farce, that's descended into chaos by the end.

Would have been cool if they had found partners at the same time, or had pursued l'amour less sophomorically.

Cohesive reflexive unity.

Extensively engrained.

Socioculturally cocooned.

Still not enough Jeremy Irons (Beverly and Elliot Mantle).

Don't wait an extra 15 years.

Maps to the Stars

Is it possible to take a sterile excessive stale antiseptic and fill it with enough dry 40% neat conversations to soberly materialize a fumigated aesthetic, like sparkling versatile antithetical lard, an affordable Naked Lunch, its sacrificial form industriously high-strung, its intellectual content flowing with literary immiscibility, which, on the one hand makes you feel like insecticide, on the other, like a priceless set of handcrafted heirlooms, David Cronenberg's Maps to the Stars, a restrained hard-lined masterpiece of elitist horror, a subdued synthesis of the mundane and the maniacal, stronger than both Cosmopolis and A Dangerous Method, inflammable family histories, seductively liaising, emphatically, eviscerated?

It is, Cronenberg's patient strategic mix of obnoxious refinements, youthful misgivings, and childish incredulity, slowly building its complex web of serendipitous interconnectivity, makes you wish you were about to pleasantly throw up after having spent $627 dollars on a bottle of scotch, like gentrified gentility, frenzied fire starters, was that Mr. Mugs?, all-knowing and ever-so-loveable Mr. Mugs?, shot down by 21st century infantile ennui, prevented from teaching his lessons, consigned, forevermore?

Bashful, so difficult to blend these elements without being overtly pretentious or inadvertently condescending, still allowing them to preserve their autonomy, pulsating, integrated, heterogeneity.

It's somewhat of a satirical take on both these potentialities, expertly derelicted, by a master who continues to innovate.

Reminded me more of his early texts Stereo or Crimes of the Future than A History of Violence or Eastern Promises.

His roots.

Back to his roots.

Cosmopolis

A brilliant young billionaire, having maintained his fortune by grammatically applying the mathematical rhythms of nature to the metaphorical constructs of his social interactions, something like that, philosophically travels throughout New York in his cork-lined limo, calmly discussing various subjects with his astute personnel, occasionally stopping to chat with his literary wife, protests pulsating outside, historical echoes allusively gyrating, definitive risks annihilating his wealth, the pursuit of pleasure conjugally detected, security forces requiring guidance, meaning, substantially, trying to break its way through.

On his way to have his hair cut.

Operating within a conscious surrealistic intellectual structure spatially adorned with sudden startlingly ephemeral enactments (momentary dreamlike logical displacements), wherein questions of tangibility become remarkably fluid before alternatively reverting to their previous states, David Cronenberg's Cosmopolis examines an individual's steady response to a shockingly increasing barrage of multilayered financial, cultural, and, derivatively, psychological derailments, whose consequent disruptions cannot be experientially sublimated.

Mr. Packer's (Robert Pattinson) unaffected emancipated solution attaches a horrific qualification to the concept of freedom.

Even when Cronenberg zeroes in on the cerebral, he can still find other ways of exemplifying his roots.

A Dangerous Method

Usually I'm a big fan of David Cronenberg's films but A Dangerous Method didn't work for me. Which is surprising considering that if someone had suggested that I could go see a movie that blends Sense and Sensibility with Blue Velvet I would have responded with glee and eagerly anticipated an upcoming screening.

Oh well.

While Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen) and Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) become acquainted with one another their dialogues are sound enough. Both are working within a traditional framework and trying to modify its rigidity in order to make room for modern theories. Freud's disciplined innovative approach is contrasted with Jung's emphasis on the hyper-experimental and both confidently support their differing yet supportive points of view (they're working within a new theoretical paradigm which calls into question various institutional bulwarks but coming at it from different practical angles). Their analytic proclivities and formidable egos squander the potential of a prolonged working relationship, however, and eventually their productive bond is ruptured.

The main problem with the film comes from the interactions between the two and patient/student/love interest/colleague Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley). As her and Jung start having an affair, the dialogue becomes increasingly maudlin and precludes any chance of a sharp unifying disruptive climax. When it suddenly jumps to scenes displaying their raucous lovemaking, the movie takes on a comedic aspect whose carnally cerebral concupiscent dexterity playfully problematizes/extends its focus on professionalism.

Classic Cronenberg.

But while the rigorous carnivalesque dreamlike fortitude radiates Method's formal elements, the melodramatic sentimental tedious exchanges surficially complicate things.

Perhaps Cronenberg is simply trying to say that it's the dreamwork that's more important?

Who knows.

Eastern Promises

David Cronenberg's new film Eastern Promises juxtaposes extreme violence and gentle tenderness in a subtly hypnotic fashion that transfixes your attention upon its natal brutality, like The Godfather meets Videodrome. A 14 year old Russian prostitute dies during childbirth leaving behind an incriminating diary. The on-duty midwife Anna (Naomi Watts) discovers the diary and enlists the assistance of a Russian caterer named Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl) to assist in its translation. Semyon is the mobster responsible for recruiting the young prostitute and after reading several of the diary's photocopied pages, decides that it's in his best interests to obtain it. Meanwhile, Anna's uncle is also translating the diary, Semyon's son Kirill (Vincent Cassel) has murdered the brother of a rival syndicate, and mild-mannered Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen), Semyon's chauffeur, is dispensing realistic bits of streetwise vernacular with a remarkably tranquil hard-boiled lucidity. Mortensen's performance is exceptional and one of the strongest of 2007. His Russian accent is borderline flawless and his character tenaciously charming. Steven Knight's script is diverse enough to allow Cronenberg to effectively display his grotesque humanism, and Naomi Watts turns in another stellar outing. It's nice to see Cronenberg successfully retuning his style at this stage in his career while continuing to invigorate his work with the same raw, macabre, pyrotechnic backbone that worked for him thirty years ago. Gave me shivers.