After developing an addiction to the substance he uses to kill bugs, an exterminator accidentally kills his wife, and becomes involved in a secret government plot being orchestrated by giant bugs in a port town in North Africa.
When he acquires a different kind of show for his station, a sleazy cable-TV programmer begins to see his life and the future of media spin out of control in a terrifying new reality.
After getting into a serious car accident, a TV director discovers an underground sub-culture of scarred, omnisexual car-crash victims who use car accidents and the raw sexual energy they produce to try to rejuvenate his sex life with his wife.
A game designer on the run from assassins must play her latest virtual reality creation with a marketing trainee to determine if the game has been damaged.
A mentally disturbed man takes residence in a halfway house. His mind gradually slips back into the realm created by his illness, where he replays a key part of his childhood.
Director:
David Cronenberg
Stars:
Ralph Fiennes,
Miranda Richardson,
Gabriel Byrne
The residents of a suburban high-rise apartment building are being infected by a strain of parasites that turn them into mindless, sex-crazed fiends out to infect others by the slightest sexual contact.
A young woman develops a taste for human blood after undergoing experimental plastic surgery, and her victims turn into rabid, blood-thirsty zombies who proceed to infect others, which turns into a city-wide epidemic.
Not an adaptation of beat writer William S. Burrough's novel but a mix of biography and an interpretation of his drug- induced writing processes combined with elements of his work in this paranoid fantasy about Bill Lee, a writer who accidentally shoots his wife, whose typewriter transforms into a cockroach and who becomes involved in a mysterious plot in North African port called Interzone. Wonderfully bizarre, not unlike Burrough's books.Written by
Keith Loh <loh@sfu.ca>
In Spain, after seven years, it was only released in Barcelona (Méliés Cinemes, November 1998) in a subtitled version. Later, in 2007, the movie was an official release limited in other provinces, also in a subtitled version. See more »
Goofs
The glass shot off Judy Davis' head changes to a plastic glass. First instance as the glass is falling off her head after the shot and then at end of film it is a plastic glass Ms Davis balances on her head. It remains plastic until it falls to floor and changes back into glass. See more »
I'm always dubious when books I love are made into movies. They never QUITE translate and something is always lost. The idea of filming 'Naked Lunch' is even more difficult than usual, because it isn't really a novel with a coherent, chronological narrative, more a sequence of surreal, absurdly dark and funny "skits". As such it would be impossible to make a successful movie out of the raw material Burroughs created. Luckily Cronenberg (and who would have been better equipped to make this?) has cannily blended scenes from the book with incidents inspired by William Burroughs real life, and made it work. Very well.
Fans of Burroughs are sure to be more satisfied with this than the more literal and less imaginative 'Beat'. Non-fans will hopefully be inspired to read Burroughs' work after watching this. Peter Weller is perfectly cast as Bill Lee, and the supporting cast are also fine. I like most of Cronenberg's output, and I would rate 'Naked Lunch' as one of his most successful movies, and the best depiction so far of the Beat sensibility.
51 of 62 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful to you?
| Report this
I'm always dubious when books I love are made into movies. They never QUITE translate and something is always lost. The idea of filming 'Naked Lunch' is even more difficult than usual, because it isn't really a novel with a coherent, chronological narrative, more a sequence of surreal, absurdly dark and funny "skits". As such it would be impossible to make a successful movie out of the raw material Burroughs created. Luckily Cronenberg (and who would have been better equipped to make this?) has cannily blended scenes from the book with incidents inspired by William Burroughs real life, and made it work. Very well.
Fans of Burroughs are sure to be more satisfied with this than the more literal and less imaginative 'Beat'. Non-fans will hopefully be inspired to read Burroughs' work after watching this. Peter Weller is perfectly cast as Bill Lee, and the supporting cast are also fine. I like most of Cronenberg's output, and I would rate 'Naked Lunch' as one of his most successful movies, and the best depiction so far of the Beat sensibility.