The Fly - 1986 - Dir. Cronenberg

What can I say!? I like this movie a lot. I've seen it a handful of times. It's great! Jeff Goldblum turning into a Fly? What's not to like? Not only that, but before he becomes a Fly, he turns into a hyper weirdo! The first shot is Jeff Goldblum's weird face! He manages to change tracks several times in the movie without making it feel strange or sudden. Able to hold both the Old Brundle and the Brundlefly at the same time. And the movie is just paced so well. It's all "BAM! Let's do this Transporter thing!" It's basically everything I like about Cronenberg at it's very best. Strange, body-horror, sex/pregnancy stuff that's weirdly funny the whole way through. AND RIDICULOUS SPECIAL EFFECTS! It has those nice 80's practical effects where they are treated like set pieces, like freakish ape and Brundlefly. There's nothing in this for me to not like. Actually, that once sequence where he's speaking and crawling on the wall always seems a little disjointed to me, but apart from that it's all good. Davis is great as our heroine. She's not one of those forehead-smackingly dumb or overly emotional. But she's not a cold-hearted/super hero female. She has great judgement and I think that's some too appreciate in a horror movie character. We also get a smirkingly fantastic performance from John Getz, who basically just plays the shithead role perfectly. It has a really nice cathartic ending, too. It's just an entertaining movie that deserves it's status. Also, Jeff Goldblum's hair? I mean... C'mon... Jeff Goldblum's hair!

This is why you can't leave a Jeff Goldblum in direct sunlight.

M. Butterfly - 1993 - Dir. Cronenberg

You know! I didn't have really high expectations for this movie but I totally dug it WAAAAAY more than I thought I would. Although, I should point out that I expected it to be the musical which I know next to nothing about. So, yeah, I'm fairly uninformed about a great deal of the background to the film, well, I WAS. The movie did a really good job of letting me know enough about the opera to follow the story. Maybe I missed some clever nods, but I think I got the thematic tomfoolery the story was playing. And I DUG the tomfoolery. It's a real clever twist. ALSO, Cronenberg was surprisingly adept at directing. His previous films and tendencies actually do show up in more subtle ways. Yes, BODILY TRANSFORMATION. I mean, I got the hell behind this movie. Jeremy Iron and John Lone are both awesome. Lone is totally such a bitch at the beginning of the movie, but still terribly mesmerizing. Even gender aspects aside, it must have been a pretty challenging part to play, considering how complex the character is. Oh, and Ian Richardson is in it. I loves me an Ian Richardson.

It looks like Jeremy Irons is having sex with the girl from the Ring.

Dead Ringers - 1988 - Dir. Cronenberg

The movie starts out with creepy music and a series of drawings of early medical experiments and torture devices on a bright red background. It is not easy to tell which is which, if there is any distinction at all. Cronenberg can set a tone like no other. ESPECIALLY in the 80's where you could expect some degree of mutation and people being taken apart in the strangest ways. Although, perhaps of all of my favorite directors, I seem to be most critical of Cronenberg's films. Maybe because he seems to always get so close to exactly what I want to see but then somehow (for me) drops the ball. Or I don't know. Maybe I'm just picky. Either way, Dead Ringers certainly has the basic idea of PERFECT MOVIE. I think maybe it wanders a little bit more than I would have liked. Feels a little unfocused and a little loosy goosey, but MAN! Cronenberg kicks thematic ass like nobodies business. He's so good at loading the screen with visual metaphors and motifs. And they are ALWAYS right up my alley too. Like a lot of Cronenberg movies, it feels slow as hell. He plays with the idea of Jeremy Irons being twins a lot, and trying to decipher who is doing what. So it's a lot of fun. The addiction part of the film feels a little repetitive, especially after he makes the AWFUL instruments, which may very well be the peak of the film, Irons being dressed in red gowns in a very religious manner, hopped up on goof balls, about to mutilate a vagina. MAN, they don't make 'em like Cronenberg anymore. And certainly not with the class that man makes 'em with.

Oh man, it's a table of Vagina Nightmares.