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DVD Videodrome - Criterion Collection
Love it or loathe it, David Cronenberg's 1983 horror film Videodrome is a movie to be reckoned with. Inviting extremes of response from disdain (critic Roger Ebert called it "one of the least entertaining films ever made") to academic euphoria, it's the kind of film that is simultaneously sickening and seemingly devoid of humanity, but also blessed with provocative ideas and a compelling subtext of social commentary. Giving yet another powerful and disturbing performance, James Woods stars as the operator of a low-budget cable-TV station who accidentally intercepts a mysterious cable transmission that features the apparent torture and death of women in its programming. He traces the show to its source and discovers a mysterious plot to broadcast a subliminally influential signal into the homes of millions, masterminded by a quasi-religious character named Brian O'Blivion and his overly reverent daughter. Meanwhile Woods is falling under the spell, becoming a victim of video, and losing his grip--both physically and psychologically--on the distinction between reality and television. A potent treatise on the effects of total immersion into our mass-media culture, Videodrome is also (to the delight of Cronenberg's loyal fans) a showcase for obsessions manifested in the tangible world of the flesh. It's a hallucinogenic world in which a television set seems to breathe with a life of its own, and where the body itself can become a VCR repository for disturbing imagery. Featuring bizarre makeup effects by Rick Baker and a daring performance by Deborah Harry (of Blondie fame) as Wood's sadomasochistic girlfriend, Videodrome is pure Cronenberg--unsettling, intelligent, and decidedly not for every taste. --Jeff Shannon
"Videodrome" is Cronenberg's greatest cinematic triumph, taking the philosophy of TV-critic Marshall McLuhan (who contended "the Medium is the Message") to the next level, where if the Medium is the Message, then the Message in the jaded, faded, infected world of "Videodrome" has devoured the messenger and is roaming around looking for fresh meat---or Flesh.
"Videodrome" is evolutionary. It is radical. It is revolutionary. And if you've seen it, it is probably rewiring your brain even as you innocently read this review. Sucker!
Cronenberg is a revolutionary: "Videodrome" is a chronicle of the means by which the media assumes the role of both human Id and subconscious: to nasty effect. And nasty is right: Videodrome eats the human Id and serves it up in hardy seconds and thirds. Max Renn(the inimitable James Woods) sees the sado-masochistic "Videodrome" as a tool to boost ratings for his Canadian independent film channel, not knowing that it also uses its broadcasting ability to reconfigure the human brain towards cruelty, torture, rape, dissection, perversion, and ultimately assassination.
The acting is all detached and lab-sterile perfect, but you knew that already: James Woods is seamy, desultory, wicked, precise. Deborah Harry was born for this role. Sonja Smits (Bianca O'Blivion)is a touch tedious, but looks good and does what she has to do; Peter Dvorsky lets the nervous tics do the acting, Les Carlson (Barry Convex) is a study in creepy corporate plasticity, and Jack Creley chews scenery as the reclusive Brian O'Blivion, who refuses to deal with anyone directly and sends all his interviews out as pre-recorded videotapes. Choose your format, Beta or VHS?
"Videodrome" bumps and grinds to perfection because Captain Cronenberg---always a visionary cartographer of the boundaries between the mind, the flesh, the Id, and high technology---knows where he wants to take it; Director of Photography Mark Irwin is a superb first mate, steering a wide range of visual images from the realm of banality and commonplace to the outlandish, freakish and bizarre in a heartbeat. Is Renn hallucinating? Does he have a brain tumor? Is that pulsating, fleshy, blood-red and vibrating "videotape" really pulsating, and is Renn really inserting it into his stomach?
Look at the scene transitions, particularly the seamless shift from bedroom to torture chamber. Reality is indistinguishable from Media. Soon our unenviable Mr.Renn illustrates an entirely new meaning of "Plug and Play".
To remain silent on this sumptuous Criterion Collection release would be criminal. The transfer is clean and crisp, which is precisely what you want in a flick where Deborah Harry's lips get plastered across the telescreen. Cronenberg's commentaries are always intriguing, chiefly because he knows to fill in a few gaps with nuggets of information (like telling us that one of the Japanese porn producers in the film later went on to become Canada's Minister of Culture---ehehehe) but leaves the larger mysteries untouched. Bravo!
There's even a creepy little modern short film by Cronenberg called "Camera" with the inimitable Les Carlson, which is unrelated to "Videodrome" but nonetheless ties nicely into the theme of televised reality. Best of all, this tasty special edition is served up like an old VHS Cassette with "Videodrome" 'hand-written' in marker on the side. Sweet.
In the final analysis, "Videodrome" is a film 20 years before its time. We now wrestle every day with the issue of TV and meaning, and typically we lose. For Cronenberg, certainly "Videodrome" was a caustic, wicked commentary on media and consumer culture, but coming hard on the heels of Timoth Leary's drug culture (doesn't "Tune in, Turn on, and Drop Out" fit in the world of "Videodrome"? Or in our own, for that matter?) I don't think that's all there is to it. I think it's more like---Prophecy.
Play. Pause. Replay. Rewind. Play.
Die.
JSG
"It has a philosophy, Max!"
After several viewings of Naked Lunch I have now indulged on this new dvd rerelease from Cronenberg and I must say that he is intent on getting his message out explicitly to whomever views this film. We hardly see any modern science fiction films reaching up to this level of subject matter in such a raw demeanor which easily sets this a timeless classic in its genre. The subtlety of the plot makes each scene more abrasive in its aim to shock the viewer and the special effects really set the bar to the era this film was made. Also the developement of Max Renn's character is convincing as he is becoming more and more desensitized to The Videodrome until the boundaries between the two subjects become blurred and Max inevitably becomes a "monster" as a result of his exposure to it. Cronenbergs' stories seem to deal with the mutation of the human being with the more perilous being that we created with technology and the end result and not a pretty one. Such a criticism on our modern evolution is definitely the point he wants to get out in his films and although I have yet to see "The Fly" I'm sure it will be a proponent of this inherent philosphy. By interpreting it in such a creative and entertaing way do I rate Cronenberg as being of the greatest science fiction storytellers of late, portraying the plight of human existence in the realm of technological overstimulation. A must for any modern science fiction or post-structuralism readers.
Made me a Cronenberg admirer
I recently got a chance to see Canadian director David Cronenberg's recent feature A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, and even though I think that movie has been a tad overrated by critics---its insights into violence and human nature don't really go much further than "even normal people have a capacity for savage violence" and "violence may be justified in certain situations," ideas which have been essayed in other, better films (Clint Eastwood's UNFORGIVEN is one that pops into mind)---I found Cronenberg's direction interesting. He's like a scientist observing human nature---human nature engaging in some pretty weird stuff. His objective style---which almost reminds me of Eastwood's approach as a director, although Cronenberg doesn't make such a show of his simplicity as Eastwood sometimes does---was the closest A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE came to real subversion, because it made the sudden bursts of (graphic) violence disturbing, and it never glamorized it. (UNFORGIVEN didn't either, which is why I thought of Eastwood's 1992 anti-Western.) Even in the film's finale---in which screenwriter Josh Olson seemed to have lost his nerve and gone for a predictable final showdown---Cronenberg simply looked on with an implicitly questioning eye as we watched one of the characters engage in acts of violence that might have doted on with heroic slo-mos by a hack action director like Michael Bay or Renny Harlin. Thus the film did end on a less-than-exhilarating note (to its credit, I suppose).
At the very least, A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE made me interested in some of Cronenberg's earlier films, and VIDEODROME is one of the first I saw after seeing VIOLENCE. The subject matter and the imagery of VIDEODROME is, of course, edgier and more taboo-flouting than in VIOLENCE---but there's Cronenberg's style again, seeming to passively record the "adventures" of Max Renn (James Woods), a sleazy TV producer who discovers Videodrome, a TV torture show that starts to have an effect on Renn.
I won't spoil any of the film's plot developments, but I will comment on what it all means. You know the common question about whether watching violence on TV makes you become violent? In its own way, I think that's the question VIDEODROME is provoking with its disturbing imagery. That, and the character of Max Renn is perhaps a chilling harbinger of the kind of TV (or even film) exec that exists today, frequently trying to pander to mass tastes with the programming they put on the air, without really thinking about whether it's really all that good for the audience or not. (I would dare say that VIDEODROME is almost as prophetic as NETWORK was about television in 1976.)
Are they any faults to this movie? Well, perhaps Cronenberg---who also wrote the screenplay---slightly overdoes the gore and shock effects towards the end of the movie. (The same problem afflicts his 1986 hit THE FLY.) And perhaps one could find Cronenberg's apparent distance from the material---that "objective" style I was talking about earlier---to be a liability in VIDEODROME: it could make for a rather cold, unpleasant experience for certain squeamish viewers.
It's a close-run thing, but, in the end, I found VIDEODROME to be a fascinating experience. Hey, I think it's a, I guess, "pleasure" to watch a sci-fi/horror film that isn't merely gratuitous gore effects and thin characters. Okay, VIDEODROME may not necessarily be the strongest in the characterizations department, but it's about much more than empty shock. Oh, and James Woods is da man! Recommended.
David Cronenberg's 1981 horror film is a darkly paranoid story of a homeless man (Stephen Lack) mistakenly believed to be insane, when in fact he can't turn off the sound of other people's thoughts in his telepathic mind. Helped by a doctor (Patrick McGoohan) and enlisted in a program of "scanners"--telepaths who also can will heads to explode--he becomes involved in a battle against nefarious forces. A number of critics consider this to be Cronenberg's first great film, and indeed it has a serious vision of destiny that rivals some of the important German expressionist works from the silent cinema. Lack is very good as the odd hero, and McGoohan is effectively eccentric and chilly as the scientist who saves him from the street, only to thrust him into a terrible struggle. --Tom... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Jennifer O'Neill - Stephen Lack - Patrick McGoohan Director(s): David Cronenberg DVD Release Date: Released the 28 August 2001 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Director David Cronenberg's eXistenZ is a stew of corporate espionage, virtual reality gaming, and thriller elements, marinated in Cronenberg's favorite Crock-Pot juices of technology, physiology, and sexual metaphor. Jennifer Jason Leigh is game designer Allegra Geller, responsible for the new state-of-the-art eXistenZ game system; along with PR newbie Ted Pikul (Jude Law), they take the beta version of the game for a test drive and are immersed in a dangerous alternate reality. The game isn't quite like PlayStation, though; it's a latexy pod made from the guts of mutant amphibians and plugs via an umbilical cord directly into the user's spinal column (through a BioPort). It powers up through the player's own nervous system and taps into the subconscious; with several players it... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Jennifer Jason Leigh - Jude Law Director(s): David Cronenberg DVD Release Date: Released the 19 October 1999 Usually ships in 24 hours
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David Lynch's 1990 Wild at Heart is an utterly random and ugly experience with pockets of startling imagery and inspired set pieces. Based on a Barry Gifford novel, the film stars Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern as lovers on the lam whose relationship is tested and who meet some truly dangerous wackos (including an almost-simian Willem Dafoe). Lynch's thoughts seem to be everywhere, and he expects the audience to keep up with a story that seems more a collection of avant-garde whims than a coherent vision with the intuitive brilliance of his Blue Velvet. Cage gives one of his more chaotic performances, but then he was just reading Lynch's signposts. --Tom KeoghMore Info about this DVD Actor(s): Nicolas Cage - Laura Dern Director(s): David Lynch DVD Release Date: Released the 07 December 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Myself, I found it a "different" foreign film. It actually had a plot. She was treated cruelly, to be sure. The events in Frigga's life turned her into one cold, hard, calculating individual, whose revenge was total, and all-encompassing. That being said, there are some that may enjoy this "blast-from-the-past," but, had I known what I was getting for my money, I would had kept my cash in my pocket. 2 stars. More Info about this DVD Director(s): Bo Arne Vibenius DVD Release Date: Released the 28 September 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Arguably the best and most personal of director David Cronenberg's early films, The Brood is an extremely unsettling horror film about familial disintegration and emotional trauma taken to a monstrous extreme. Art Hindle (Black Christmas) stars as a man embroiled in a bitter custody struggle with his estranged wife (Samantha Eggar), who is undergoing therapy at psychiatrist Oliver Reed's controversial institute. Reed's treatment causes his patients to give form to their inner conflicts, and Eggar--whose psyche is at the boiling point from childhood abuse as well as the custody trial--creates a horde of homicidal humanoid children who enact bloody revenge on anyone who has threatened their "mother." Cronenberg's first feature with name actors and composer Howard Shore has its... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Oliver Reed - Samantha Eggar Director(s): David Cronenberg DVD Release Date: Released the 26 August 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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