I saw this when it first came out in 1986 with Ade Omotosho, in the sadly now-defunct Leicester Odeon Cinema on Rutland Street (coincidently - playwright Joe Orton had his first sexual encounter in the toilets there. Where’s his blue plaque, Leicester City Council?).
It was on terrestrial tv last night. I’d forgotten that Cronenburg directed it. He’s one of my favourite directors purely because his whole film career has been one extended mapping out of his obsession with anal penetration. You can see his initial hysteria gradually mellowing to mild disgust and resignation over the decades. I expect him to be celebrating the act sometime in the 2020s.
Anyway. The Fly is hilarious, one of the best comedies of the 1980s. Check out the pods! Check out Seths computer! All you have to do is ask it a question and it does all the work for you! Some fool (Todd Lincoln) is currently remaking it. Kurt Neumann’s 1958 The Fly is great too.
i should say that eXistenZ (ok I can't remember where the silly capitals go) is kinda cheeky with the anal penetration thing, although, slightly bizarrely it's meant to be about salman rushdie?
maybe it's a jude law thing rather than cronenburg gettin all comfortable an seaside postcard-ish with it.
do you think he minds being replaced by Thierry Henry an (allegedly) justin timberlake as the fella most straight men would like to get with?
surely there's someone else as i am a little behind the times
my next comment won't be about ass sex, i promise
Posted by: lee | July 05, 2004 at 04:14 PM
Good to have you back Lee! And why stop now?
1.You are eminently the most qualified person (and not just the most qualified reading this blog) to comment on anal sex.
2.I get the majority of my google traffic from people with no interest in movies but with an astonishing ability to put two or three innocent-ish words together to invent new and frankly pornographic niche interests/activities.
But also - don't just feel confined to the ass area.
Posted by: Josie | July 05, 2004 at 06:35 PM
And speaking of Cronenburg's obsession with penetration, I've had a quick trawl of the interweb looking for images of those most effective medical instruments belonging to the Mantle twins from Dead Ringers ("Eww! Aren't women's bodies weird!"), but to no avail.
Have you had any better luck?
Posted by: Terry | July 22, 2004 at 08:32 PM
No Luck either Terry. I have the search skills of a faux-librarian but they did me no good. Loads of refs, the funniest of which was this from Amazon:
"... -Jeff Shannon Description In Dead Ringers, David Cronenberg tells the chilling story
of identical twin gynecologists-suave Elliot and ... $25 Off Tools & Hardware. ... "
although someone called gauntgirl's comment that "In David Cronenberg's film Dead Ringers, the case for Canadian identity is convoluted at best", was a pretty close second.
Maybe one of the readers who only gets here by accident after inserting their favorite unhealthy pass time into google's orifice can mail me some?
Surely a huge gap in the market there.
Suddenly everything I write seems slightly obscene.
Just off to give Ebay a check...
Posted by: Josie | July 22, 2004 at 09:06 PM
In reference to your July 1 2004 comment:
If Todd Lincoln gets a chance, I am sure you will be amazed by what he is capable of. If you get a chance check out Leave Luck to Heaven.
-Michael Walsh
Posted by: Michael Walsh | February 10, 2005 at 06:13 PM