Just Finished Reading: Naked Lunch

Ok...wow! This was a strange book to read. This book doesn't really have a plot or a storyline, but is a combination of a bunch of different little stories. I didn't realize that at first so I was getting confused. Once I realized that though, this book was a lot easier to read. My favorite part was probably the part with the mugwump. That or that great section about the man who taught his asshole to talk. While reading it it seemed really familiar to me, and then I realized that it was in David Cronenberg's film version of Naked Lunch. That movie isn't really an adaptation of this book, however. Instead it just has a few elements from this book and other books of his as well as some aspects of William S. Burroughs's real life. Anyways, reading this makes me really interested in his other books, so I'm going to have to check them out.

My Review: A Dangerous Method

Is is possible for Michael Fassbender to do a bad movie? I really don't think so. I don't know if he just chooses excellent movies or if movies instantly get better with his presence. And what a presence it is. Even looking very old fashioned with his mustache, glasses, and attire, he still manages to be unbelievably sexy. Every time he flashed that Fassbender smile in this movie I couldn't help but smile myself. Oh right... A Dangerous Method. I have to admit that I am totally biased in favor of this film. Not only does it have a cast that I really love, but it is directed by one of my favorite directors, David Cronenberg. Having said that, I did really like this movie. I thought that it was sexy and interesting and was made even better by the fact that I had to read a lot of Freud for my Sexuality and Culture class last semester. Fassbender was great as always, and even though he was smoldering, he probably had the least interesting role. I really loved Viggo Mortensen as Freud. He was the only person who managed to bring some humor into the film and really gave an effortless performance. I understand why Cronenberg likes to work with him so much. I thought that Keira Knightley went a bit over the top playing the crazier Sabina in the beginning of the film, but she was much better as the recovering psychology student version of Sabina. The scenes with Fassbender and Knightley are VERY sexy, including (or especially) the scenes where he's not spanking her. I was bummed that Vincent Cassell's role was pretty small. I loved the scenes with him and Fassbender, where he helps Carl Jung develop the courage to start his affair with Sabina. My rating: 8/10

Spotlight On: Geena Davis

This week's spotlight is a pretty short one, but I love Geena Davis. I have only seen her in four movies, but those four are some of my favorites. She is a great actress and she is also really charming, and has one of the best smiles in Hollywood history. I haven't seen her in anything recently, but I would love to see her work more! Here are some great Geena Davis roles...

The Fly

In The Fly, Davis plays a reporter who falls for a guy who is turning into a fly after he gets into a teleportation device with, well, a fly. One of the movie's creepiest (and most disgusting) scenes is her nightmare where she dreams that she is giving birth to a giant maggot. Her best scene, however, is the ending where she has to kill the disgusting creature that was once the man that she loved. I feel like a huge dork for admitting this, but I actually cried the last time I watch this movie...



Beetlejuice

In Beetlejuice, Davis plays a woman who drowns to death, and then gets stuck haunting her house with her husband while new people move in. They want the people out of their house, so they try to scare them off by possessing them and wearing sheets, but unfortuately nothing works...



Thelma and Louise

Love this movie! Davis and Susan Sarandon are both amazing in this film. They play two girls who just want to go on vacation, but after they kill a guy who tries to rape Davis's character, they head off to Mexico. Davis plays the more emotional of the two heroines, but also the one that really continues their crime spree. Here is one of my favorite scenes from the movie.



A League of Their Own

Here Davis plays a woman who is recruited to be a part of the first female baseball league. While her sister wants it more, she is the one with the more natural talent. While I do wish that her character would have stayed (!), her heart just wasn't in it, and she wanted to be with her husband.

Movie I Want To See: A Dangerous Method

I finally saw the trailer for this today and it looks amazing! The fact that it is a Cronenberg film alone is enough to make me want to see it, but it is also filled with actors that I just love! Michael Fassbender, Keira Knightley, Viggo Mortensen, AND Vincent Cassel!! Brilliant! Also, who would have thought that a movie about Sigmund Freud would look so sexy?!?

Spotlight On: Keira Knightley

This week's spotlight is on the lovely Keira Knightley. I have been huge fan of hers since I was like thirteen. I remember seeing her on a movie poster for Pirates of the Caribbean way before it came out and I just thought that she was gorgeous! Well, not only is she beautiful, but she is also a very talented actress, and one of my favorites working today. Here are some of my favorite films of hers that I have seen throughout the years.

Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace

A lot of people don't know this, but one of Keira Knightley's first film roles was in the first Star Wars prequel. She played Sabe, the decoy for Natalie Portman's Queen Amidala. Apparently she was cast due to a strong resemblance to Portman. I really don't think that they look all that alike anymore, but when I saw this in theatres when I was nine, I couldn't tell the difference between when Portman was the queen and when Knightley was.



Princess of Thieves

When I was a kid I was a sucker for warrior girl movies, so I totally had this on VHS. In this film she plays Robin Hood's daughter. Interesting fact: Stephen Moyer from True Blood plays her love interest Price Philip. I actually did not know that until a few minutes ago when I was on IMDB. I haven't watched this movie in forever!



The Hole

In this movie, Knightley plays a popular high school girl who gets trapped in a bunker with three of her classmates. What is hilarious is that I actually own this movie. I remember I waited forever for it to come out on DVD in America because I really wanted to see it, so I just bought it. Its not the best movie in the world, but it's not terrible. Both Knightley and Thora Birch give good performances.



Doctor Zhivago

I actually saw this version before the one with Omar Sharif and Julie Christie. I  recorded episode one off of the TV when it was on PBS and I would watch it all the time. I didn't see the second episode until a year or so ago when I got it from Netflix. I always loved Knightley as Lara, the pretty Russian girl who is seduced by an older man then falls for a married poet/ doctor.



Bend It Like Beckham

In this film, Knightley plays a soccer player who has dreams of moving to America to play professionally. One of the very few films where she isn't playing the pretty girl. I just think its funny that theres even a part where she is mistaken for a guy...



Pirates of the Caribbean

Now onto the movie that made her famous. I remember that I was beyond excited for this movie to come out. We got to the theatre so early that we had to wait in the hallway, because the previous showing was still going on. My favorite scene in the movie has always been the part when Barbossa shows Elizabeth Swann the curse...



Love Actually

In Love Actually, she plays a character who finds out that her new husband's best friend is in love with her. She is in one of my favorite scenes in the whole movie, which you can find HERE

King Arthur

Knightley has always been great in period films, and this one is no exception. This movie has Guinevere as a warrior woman, which you don't see very often. Not one of my favorite films of hers, but it does have its good parts.



Domino

In this films she plays Domino Harvey, who was a real model turned bounty hunter, but this film is very very loosly based on her life. What this films is probably the best remembered for is Keira's awesome short haircut.



Pride and Prejudice

This is the film that got Keira her Oscar nomination. It was well deserved, because she was perfect as Elizabeth Bennett in this adaptation of the Jane Austen classic. My favorite scene has to be the part where she rejects Mr. Darcy's proposal.



Atonement

My goodness, the green dress that she wears in this film is absolutely gorgeous!! In this film she plays Cecilia, a woman in love with the beautiful James McAvoy. Unfortunately, her little sister accuses her love of raping a guest at their house, so they are torn apart. I think that her and McAvoy have such great chemistry in this film, and that library scene is SEXY AS HELL!!!



The Duchess

I remember seeing this movie in theatres and just bawling my eyes out during the scene where she has to give away her baby. I don't remember if I've seen it since, but now I really want to rent it. She gets to wear some amazing costumes in this film.



Never Let Me Go

I love this movie so much. Here she plays a clone named Ruth who was made so they could harvest her organs. In the book she was a rather unlikable character, and I think that Knightley does a great job in this film.



Upcoming:
I am super excited to see her in the upcoming David Cronenberg film A Dangerous Method. It also features Viggo Mortensen and the handsome Michael Fassbender.

She is also going to be in a film called Seeking a Friend For the End of the World with Steve Carell that is coming out next year.

Spotlight On: David Cronenberg

This week's spotlight is on David Cronenberg, who is one of my favorite directors. He is most commonly associated with the "body horror" genre, which is a genre that deals with people's fears of bodily transformation. They are often quite grotesque, but usually involve some of the greatest practical effects in film history, which is what I love about older horror films. If Cronenberg's older films were made today, they probably would use CGI for all of the effects, and would thus be not as horrifying. Every single one of Cronenberg's films, even his non-horror ones, are really interesting to watch, and he has contributed greatly to both the horror and the science fiction genre. I have not seen all of his films, but here are the ones that I have seen and loved.

Rabid (1977)

Rabid is about a girl who gets skin grafts after being burned in a motorcycle accident. Her surgery goes fine, but she then develops a sort of stinger under her armpit that feeds on peoples blood. Instead of killing them, though, it turns them into zombies. I think that this movie is a really interesting take on the zombie film, and is a great example of body horror. When you see the stinger, which is always in a close-up, it is absolutely disgusting. It isn't the zombies in this movie that scare me, it is simply the image of this pink fleshy phallic-type thing that emerges from her body.





The Brood (1979)

The Brood is kind of like a horror film version of Forbidden Planet because the monsters in this film are physical manifestations of the mother's emotions. Instead of creating a giant invisible monster, though, she creates a brood of killer deformed children. The creepiest part of this movie has to be the part where the mother opens up her cape and shows the sack thing that the children are growing in. She then goes on to remove a baby from the sack and lick it clean. Yeesh...




Scanners (1981)

I'm not even going to say anything about Scanners. Just watch the video and it will say everything that I want to say...




Videodrome (1983)

Videodrome is a really cool sci-fi/ horror film. It has makeup by the great Rick Baker and some of the most grotesque/ amazing practical effects on film. This movie is quite disturbing at parts and is a perfect example of body horror.



The Dead Zone (1983)

The Dead Zone is based on a story by Stephen King about a guy who wake up from a coma with psychic powers. It has a great performance by Christopher Walken and is a break from body horror for Cronenberg. It is sort of a "with great power comes great responsibility story" because whenever Walken's character touches someone's hand, he sees something bad that will happen in the future and then does everything he can to change it.




The Fly (1986)

Now onto one of the greatest sci fi/horror movies every made. "I am becoming....Brundlefly." I just love this movie! It has Jeff Goldblum as a scientist who invents a teleportation device, but then starts turning into a fly when one flies into one of his machines. This movie has some of the most disgusting things ever put on film, and will always have a special place in my heart for having the ability to make me scream. (That is not easy to do for a movie.)




Dead Ringers (1988)

Dead Ringers is an incredibly underrated film and has, in my opinion, Jeremy Irons' greatest performance as Elliot and Beverly Mantle, twin gynecologists. Elliot is the asshole, and Beverly is the sweet one who starts going crazy after he believes his girlfriend is cheating on him.




Naked Lunch (1991)

This has to be one of the most disturbing movies I have ever seen. I don't even know what genre you would call this film. It isn't really a horror film, or science fiction. I just don't know... There are some really cool scenes in this movie though. You've got typewriters turning into giant bugs and tons of weird creatures. This whole film is absolutely bazaar, but is probably one of the most creative films of the 90s.




M.Butterfly (1993)

I had never heard about this movie at all before I watched it, so I was SHOCKED by the ending! I never suspected for a second that she was a man! I thought that the big twist was that she was just pretending to be all innocent and modest to get information from him, but I never expected that she was a man!



Crash (1996)

Crash is a really interesting film about people who get off on car accidents. Apparently there was a lot of controversy about this movie, but I think that it is incredibly sexy!




eXistenZ (1999)

Cronenberg retuns to body horror in the science fiction film about a virtual reality game. To play the game, you have to have a bioport installed in your spine so that you can connect to these fleshy game pods.



Spider (2002)

This movie stars Ralph Fiennes as Spider, a schizophrenic man who is piecing together memories of his childhood. It is a great psychological thrilelr and one of Ralph Fiennes best performances.



A History of Violence (2005)

This is a fantastic movie about a guy who kills two people who try to rob his diner and ends up a local celebrity. But by being on the news, his past comes back to haunt him.



Eastern Promises (2007)

His second collaboration with Viggo Mortensen, this is a great film about the Russian mafia and sex trafficking.



Upcoming:

His next film will be A Dangerous Method, about Sigmund Freud. It stars Viggo Mortensen, Michael Fassbender, Keira Knightley, and Vincent Cassel.