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1 article from 2009

9 June 2009 8:40 AM, PDT | ifc.com | See recent IFC news »

Since he emerged out of the psychotronica closet of his first potent but crude features, there have been two fairly distinct David Cronenbergs -- the extremist/obsessive who's been happy to exploit the fleshier anxieties of science fiction and surrealism, and the critic's darling that sprung up around the time of the still-underrated "Crash" (1996), all the easier to laud for having left the icky aspects of genre behind him. Relative to the psychosexual force on exhibition in "Videodrome" (1983), "The Dead Zone" (1983), "The Fly" (1986), "Dead Ringers" (1988) and "Naked Lunch" (1991), it seems to me that "eXistenZ" (1999), "Spider" (2002), "A History of Violence" (2005) and "Eastern Promises" (2007) are both fairly prosaic and predictable, especially in light of the critical handstands they inspired. It's not all as cut and dried as that, of course, but it still leaves "M. Butterfly" (1993) lingering, coyly and enigmatically, right in the middle. Cronenberg fans never warmed to this unsensationalized Broadway adaptation, »

- Michael Atkinson

1 article from 2009