Spider

'sposed to come out next week, I think.

Yep, Columbia Tri-Star's disc comes out next week, I believe. I just sent a review copy off to Butane so the boy should whip up a review shortly.

(Riiiiight, Butane?)

W/ 3 featurettes and a comentary if memory serves, and while you wait for the official review in the Corner DVDfile has one right now.

Yeah, it might be until Friday, Monday that latest before I get through it all, but I can't wait. I love Cronenberg.

Cool. It sounds as if they are giving Spider a good DVD treatment. I didn't get a chance to see it during it's limited theatrical run so I'll be very interested to hear a review of the DVD.

Wow! Hunted down a copy of the book and read it waaayyy back when Cronenberg was announced as the director. Enthralling little story (would recommend it to avid readers... probably not to "beach-going" readers), but not your typical Cronenberg fare. Plus there was a lot of "literary" stuff in the book that would be near impossible to adapt. Had me curious as to how he would handle it.

Well... Spider, hit a little arthouse cinema right near me only three weeks ago! (In fact, I was logging on today to search the archives to see if anyone else had seen and commented on it.)

I loved the film. The acting was superb. The adaptation was superb. The whole feel of the film was perfect-- even while Cronenberg found ways to make it feel like a part of his own universe.

Cronenberg fans should not miss this film!

I am very,very curious as to how others will enjoy it. I have a passable knowledge of mental disorders and their symptoms, and found myself referring to it as the film unfolded. Makes me wonder how someone unfamiliar with the workings of schizophrenia will interperit the events.

At any rate... here's requesting that some, or all, of you drop in after you've seen it and share some thoughts.

(Edited because, really, I do know how to use those UBB code thingies.)

The movie is leaps and bounds better than eXistenz, on par with Crash and Dead Ringers... not as good as his hard sci-fi films of the 70s and 80s, very atmospheric though. And Ralph Fiennes deserves a handshake from each and every one of us.

It fits in Cronenberg's 90s catalogue of 'serious' filmmaking... where he gets to do an Eraserhead routine. I don't like it when Cronenberg gets into ironic dark comedy mode though... the feel that plagued Naked Lunch and eXistenz (typically characterized by Ian Holm cameos, or Roy Scheider unzipping himself from a foam woman suit). Spider dips into that, particularly towards the end. Cronenberg's nod-nod wink-wink say-no-more technique... it works for the other David, not him though.

But the beginning and middle of the movie fucking sing (in large part thanking Fiennes).

Anyone notice a Nosferatu influence here? If you watch Nosferatu, the Count's movements are somewhat spider-like, and if you watch the way Spider moves, it reminds me of Nosferatu. Particularly, there was one scene of Spider descending a stairway that I thought must have had some Murnau influence, consciously or unconciously. But then, near the end, when Spider goes in to the housematron's room, and he's hovering over her body, my suspicions were confirmed--this shot is directly lifted from Murnau, and Fiennes' pointy nose puts me even more in mind of Count Orlok.