Sleeper. Woody Allen. 1973.

Hey! Woody slapstick. One of his earlier, funnier movies.

I was indeed amused by the slapstick (it’s very Lucille Ball) and the one-liners, but I do think that he could have used something other than improv versions of Yakety Sax as the soundtrack.

That stuff gets on your tits after a while.

There’s some hilarious scenes in here, like when Diane Keaton does Marlon Brando. All the Keaton/Allen scenes have great comedy timing; as a pair they are impeccable.

I guess you could make the case that it’s a bit scattered, but I think it works a lot better than it should.

Naked Lunch. David Cronenberg. 1991.

It’s been a long long while since I read Naked Lunch… and I’ve seen this movie before, but can’t remember anything about it other than the typewriter.

But… all the autobiographical bits (Burroughs killing his wife, for instance) weren’t in the book? Were they?

This film is kinda restoring my faith in Cronenberg. Many of his 80s movies weren’t nearly as interesting as I thought they were, but he really leans into the material here. There’s a lot of straightening out (in all senses) of the source material, but otherwise it would have been an experimental movie, I guess. I mean, it’s a pretty straightforward film now, but one that retains a lot of the flavour of the novel, which is pretty impressive.

I kinda wonder how he convinced anybody to give him the money required for this pretty lavish movie after Dead Ringers had totally bombed a few years before.

This was another bomb, but not as bombey (that a word) as that movie.

I mean… I don’t think anybody could have imagined this doing as well as it even did, but perhaps there’s just some Burroughs fans at the studio that wanted to throw some money around?

The best bit in this movie is the scene in the car where they just read a Burroughs bit.

Dead Ringers. David Cronenberg. 1988.

Oh, yeah, I was watching Cronenberg’s movies kinda chronologically, but then I went away on some holidays. We watched eXistenZ in a hotel somewhere, and I thought it was quite good. I mean, better than most Cronenberg movies, because I’ve been kinda disappointed with them in general.

But I vaguely remember this one as being quite spiffy, so let’s see.

Again, Cronenberg has cast somebody in the lead role that basically looks like Cronenberg himself. It’s like a mania with him.

I like this movie. It’s oddly structured: It starts off with a montage (kind of) and then we’re into the real plot of the movie while I thought we were still doing the montage. “Why is this bit with the actress going on so much longer than the other bits? Oh, has the movie started for real?” Like.

I didn’t remember much of the specifics, but the plot took me by surprise. I thought it was all body horror and fun, but it’s a very dramaish drama. Irons gets to do a lot of stuff, from jealous drug addict boyfriend to cold psycho (aided by playing two roles, of course).

According to imdb, it was a major flop. I guess audiences that expected another The Fly were disappointed.

I didn’t much like The Fly when rewatching it, but even I’m kinda disappointed. This movie does make a kind of emotional sense, but plot-wise it’s a bit of a mess. The “bad” brother seemingly just ignores the “good” brother falling apart. Which is just odd, because he’s their meal ticket, really.

But it’s a good movie. Could have been half an hour shorter.