Crimes of the future (David Cronenberg)

[Grouchy]

https://i.redd.it/e305ym6qcox81.jpg

[Grouchy]

Might be the most Cronenberg-y movie of Cronenberg's entire career, which makes sense given that it's an old abandoned movie idea he had and the title is recycled from one of his first features. Even more notable than the nauseating, edgy graphic content is the ambiguity of it all. The movie ended leaving me substantially confused about some of the plot, although obviously curious enough to talk about it even with one of the other patrons, and old Black lady who had some hearty chuckles during the movie. Because (and I don't know if this has been stressed enough) this movie is funny as well as disturbing.

[Ezee E]

BOORRRRRINNNNNG.

Which is weird because there's some haunting imagery and a weird tick-y performance from Kristen Stewart, but ooof.... I couldn't wait for this to end.

[Skitch]

I heard boring as well.

[Grouchy]

I don't know, at no point was I bored. In fact the ending is too abrupt, I was ready for another half an hour of it.

[Grouchy]

You know what's boring? The 1970 Crimes of the Future. Some intriguing concepts as per the course, but I found my attention wandering all the time.

[DFA1979]

I doubt this one comes to my area but if it does I'm going.

[Philip J. Fry]

1535704013026430978

[Pop Trash]

I don't know, at no point was I bored. In fact the ending is too abrupt, I was ready for another half an hour of it.

Neither was I. Then again, I'm perfectly content watching Jim Jarmusch and other slow cinema auteurs, so your mileage may vary. I also thought it was kinda funny in a bone dry way. Some interesting ideas about microplastics, the nature and future of art, mutations as a metaphor for cancer, etc. The abrupt, ambiguous ending gives the viewer a lot to chew on (pun intended!). Might be the best movie I've seen so far this year, but I'm a Cronenberg auteurist. I also heard mixed things about it out of Cannes, so was pleasantly surprised by how much I like it.

[baby doll]

The Cronenberg film it reminded me most of is Crash, as this is more like a demonstration of a thesis than a proper narrative (there never seems to be anything at stake), though on first viewing it strikes me as somewhat less successful than that film as the dialogue is often pretty on the nose--e.g., Léa Seydoux's spiel during the climatic autopsy; the undercover brother who's also an art critic, although I found that scene pretty funny--whereas the earlier film demonstrated its ideas concretely without having to talk about them at length (although, on the other hand, it's not as funny). Accordingly, the characters aren't like real people (only Kristin Stewart's horny bureaucrat even approximates one, though I'm still a bit vague on what this character's function is in the narrative beyond providing one of the film's best punch-lines) but more like algebraic figures in an equation: as in Crash, by subtracting the messiness of human psychology, Cronenberg is not only able to demonstrate his ideas about human evolution--in themselves, not especially profound--with an uncommon conceptual clarity but also to make the demonstration dryly hilarious by having the characters approach what should be emotionally charged situations with pure logic. (My favourite exchange: "You have his corpse?" "He's my son.") That people are saying the film is boring just proves that, when people say they like "intelligent" science fiction for its ideas and world-building (and this film has both up the wazoo), what they really like are science fiction stories but feel insecure admitting it, as if SF were a lesser genre and needed the fig leaves of ideas and world-building to make it respectable as grown-up entertainment. (I'm guessing the people who find this movie boring would also find Olaf Stapledon's Star Maker boring as well.)

Incidentally, why does Viggo Mortensen spend the entire movie dressed like Shredder from the Ninja Turtles?

[Peng]

I normally wouldn't be too keen on a film where its thematic text comes right to the forefront and swallows a lot of plot points/plot connective issues nearly whole like this. But that the text (a neat intersection of Cronenberg's life-long preoccupations and a director's dense late style) and its approach (each instance of dense text mostly accompanied with bonker visual correlation, as if eye-catching unregistered organ growing out of its core body) are closely intertwined makes it come off engrossing. Plenty of bone-dry, mordant humor throughout as well, like a guy whose eyes/lips are sewn shut with ears growing all over his body, who is then shrugged off as too obvious in his performance art world. Plus, while I really like the film, I plain out adore Stewart's performance, with each of her bizarre-energy choices here somehow perfectly fitting this bureaucrat who tries and very much fails to contain her aroused fangirling over Mortensen's work. 7.5/10