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Naked Lunch - Criterion Collection

Naked Lunch - Criterion Collection
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Director(s): David Cronenberg
Publisher: Criterion
Binding: DVD
Brand: Image Entertainment
Language(s): English
ISBN: 1559409479
Studio: Criterion
Product Description
You are now entering Interzone, William S. Burroughs's phantasmagorical land of junk, paranoia, and crawly things. Best travel advice: "Exterminate all rational thought." In David Cronenberg's superbly shot, unnerving warp on the Burroughs novel, the novelist himself becomes a main character (played in an implacable monotone by Peter Weller), with elements from Burroughs' life--including the shooting of his wife during a "William Tell" game, and bohemian friends Kerouac and Ginsberg--added to frame the book's wild visions. This is, ironically, a somewhat rational approach to an unfilmable book (and it makes a hair-curling double bill with Barton Fink, another look at writerly madness, with both films sharing Judy Davis). Cronenberg is a natural for oozing mugwumps and typewriters that turn into giant bugs, of course. But in the end, this is really his own vision of the artistic process, rather than Burroughs's hallucinatory descent into hell. --Robert Horton
Studio: Image Entertainment Release Date: 11/11/2003 Run time: 115 minutes
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Customer Reviews
"Creepy Goodness"
Written By: me
Probably my runner up behind Kurosawa. Cronenberg's work is amazing. The tangibility of them is what hit's home for me. The schitzophrenic undertones don't hurt either.
"Too (odd)vante-garde for me"
Written By: The Concise Critic:
Conspiring monster bugs. . .ejaculating typewriters. . .inter-zone intrigue. . .
As a statement on addiction--interesting.
As a statement on writing--interesting.
As entertainment--duh?
Well-acted, well-made, but just, at times, so flat-out weird that it makes it, well--not enjoyable.
"One of the best movies ever!!"
Written By: slickmd627
If you're not a fan of the absurd, surreal, or bizarre, you will not like this. But if you are, Cronenberg created a genre defining film with "Naked Lunch." It is every bit as Bohemian as Borroughs intended, and every bit as nightmarish, as you expext from Cronenberg. In this story, the main character's art and addictions manifest physically and begin to control him in ways he couldn't imagine.... Excellent!

FYI- If you read the commentary by William S. Borroughs, included in the insert, it will make you appreciate Cronenberg's vision 10 fold!
"Dark, Disturbing, and worth watching"
Written By: Antigone414
This has been a long time favorite movie of mine. Based on the equally strange book written by William S. Burroughs, this movie will make you feel as though you are hallucinating. The plot centers around drugs and homosexuality, so if these things offend you, you probably won't enjoy it much. I think the two most disturbing parts of the movie, for me, were Kiki dying, and the arabic typewriter sex scene. Very strange stuff. Highly recommended to people looking for an intelligent, mind bending movie. This one is a modern classic.
"BENWAY!"
Written By: James T. Brown
this here criterion collection two dvd set of cronenberg's Naked Lunch is fantastic--the film is fully clear and digitized, and the amazing soundtrack (in part by jazz great ornette coleman) is crisp and clear (i'd also highly recommend checking out the soundtrack to the film)--as is the general sound of the film as well.

the film is its own naked lunch, which has syncretized more or less the exposition (and leaving some narrative vestiges) of the book with a largely biographical elaboration on burrough's life-events--running somewhat linear to the writing of the book. the movie is really, when we get down to it, about naked lunch--about how it was written. this should be self-evident in the film--the ruse of the 'agent' being writing the book. he is not in interzone (which wears tangiers' clothes) but rather still in new york. this is evidenced in that the resturant burroughs and cloquet visit in new york is also analogous to the interior of the apartment of the americans in tangiers. etc. it's a shame they spared some of the most 'compelling' scenes of the book, yet i can appreciate one saying that they are absolutely unfilmable--or at least 'reprehensible' as to capture them on film and show them to an audience (Hassan's Rumpus Room comes to mind).

though, moreover any of this, the dvd set is very well worth it. and if you are considering to buy it--do so.
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