Yes, I haz blogging skillz. You know, it doesn't take much to give me a sense of accomplishment. Watch an entire season of a show on DVD, blog for four days in a row. I'm a simple girl with simple goals.
So I've been watching Naked Lunch, I seem to have a problem with sitting down and watching an entire movie (I blame the breakdown of my attention span on adulthood, when I was a kid I could stare at walls for hours. Of course, I also had an irrational fear of weather, so maybe not so great). So I've been breaking this one up into manageable 45 minute pieces this week. Which is smart, because I think if I tried to watch it all at once my head would explode with weirdness.
What follows is the least helpful movie review ever written.
1. Because I haven't even finished the movie.
2. Because I don't want to give anything away.
3. Because anything I do give away won't make sense when read in the harsh light of blogdom anyway.
It's an adaptation of the William S. Burroughs' novel, which sounds cool, but I will probably never read. Maybe I'll flip through it one day. Burroughs said the chapters didn't have to be read in order, which makes it the perfect book to half-read. Actually a book about opiate addicts and aliens and to quote Wikipedia "a wild, repulsive parade of images and characters that encapsulate the state of the 20th century" sounds like the perfect thing to read while waiting at the DMV or in a doctor's office or at the McDonald's drive-thru. Take that corporate America! Vanquished by the power of the written word!
So basically the movie is the guy from Robocop (Peter Weller) wandering around really fake-looking sets, talking to mysterious women (and men!), typing on typewriters that turn into cockroaches and then going to Interzone (which looks kind of like a really fake Egypt or Morocco).
I know what you're thinking. "Hey Sarah, this sounds like Raiders of the Lost Ark. I love that movie!"
And I would have to agree, they both feature lots of sand and when you squint Peter Weller kind of looks like Harrison Ford. And they are both teeming (yep, teeming) with phallic symbols (thanks again Freud!) The only differences are...
a. Naked Lunch has more drugs
b. Naked Lunch has more homosexuality.
c. Naked Lunch has aliens (however Raiders has Nazis. Nazis and aliens are pretty equal in the realm of film villainy.)
Please understand that I watched Raiders of Lost Ark about 7 years ago and have only seen half of Naked Lunch. I had to Wikipedia both of them. I'm developing a dependency to that unreliable fount of information. But hey, at least it's not roach powder! (You won't get that reference until you see the movie. Sorry, inside joke between me, this movie, and the millions of people who have already watched it).
So in conclusion...Naked Lunch seems pretty awesome so far. I'm a Cronenberg fan anyway, which means I like movies where people make phones out of bizarre aquatic creatures (eXistenz!) and make horrifying gynecological instruments (Dead Ringers!). He's also known (according to IMDB) as "the King of Venereal Horror." Venereal? Okay, that's kind of gross.
But the movie is claustrophobic and smart and funny (I hope you know how I define that word by now). And it has this nice way of doubling back on itself that makes it suprisingly easy to watch. If you have a strong stomach and don't need all of your questions answered, it's a worthy Netflix addition.
Also Nazis=Aliens
And on a good trivial note...
-In the film Weller shoots and kills his wife during a game of "William Tell." You know, the apple off the head thing.
Burroughs? Did the same thing in 1951. Spent 13 days in a Mexican jail for it.
Oh the 50s, such an innocent time.
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2 comments:
sarah szpak, you are the funniest girl I know, I am so glad we are related, oh fruit of my womb!! :)
fun fact: burroughs also lived on the west bank in new orleans, aka Tame Central, with his wife and kid(s?). At night, he'd creep into NOLA proper, steal cars, sell them for drug money, and pass out. He'd be back on the WB in time for his wife to wake up. (I'm guessing this is pre-William Tell). No idea if that's true or not, but I was told by a professor, which makes it as reliable as Wikipedia, right?
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