eXistenZ

tranCendenZ  Denise cooks in a lot of movies (Naked Lunch and M are pretty exceptional) but there’s really interesting costume design here. And hair. Which makes sense. Player character models. (We also love Tamara and Carol) I remember reading a brutally dismissive single paragraph review of this in my mother’s People magazine and immediately needing to see this. They were hung up on the breast-shaped game console and possibly bailed on the movie early. There is a fair criticism that after Crash, this feels like backsliding. Glossy, literary, ACTING! and here we are back at the fleshy effects, the cold affect, and the science fiction. It’s funny, which I always kind of forget. There’s some winking, “ain’t I a stinker?” self references and indulgences. It’s very interesting to ponder how this relates to video games now. I’m not an expert but there are certain things I still see in newer games. It’s quite spooky that way. I know, but the sequence where they order the special is one of my favorite things. Generally, it is so fun to have so much of the plot just be “this is what the game is” so you absolve yourself of logic and explaining everything and get to see an extrapolation of stuff from DC’s early shorts. I think this movie has an important message. It’s not the one David was building off of Salman Rushdie with. Death to the creator. Death to the game.  It’s nice that Jude Law is no longer 19 years old. He’s currently 32. Willem remains my favorite. I also wish Cronenberg could’ve done more movies with Jennifer Jason Leigh.