Videodrome

Rating:
Summary: Another good Cronenberg film
Review: Brian O'Blivion declared that there is no reality outside of perseption. He also felt that public life on television was more important than private life in the flesh. O'Bilivion also felt that the visions of the Videodrome subliminal signal caused his brain tumor and not the other way around. He also said that the tumor in his brain was not a tumor but rather a new organ caused by his body's changing due to the Videodrome new flesh bodily transformation. The new flesh seems to mean public life on television rather than private physical life, so in the end of the movie, Max kills himself in order to go to another state of consciousness, which is the visual media persona, or rather, the public television life but dead in actuality, like professor Brian O'Blivion was.

He also said that Brian O'Blivion was not the name he was born with but that it was his television name and that soon everyone would have a special television name that relates not to their real selfs but rather to their television persona.

As O'Blivion said, there is no reality outside of perseption. This is similar to when he said that television is more real than reality itself. This methaphor would allude to that since the media can present and dictate, in however fashion it pleases, peoples' opinions and thoughts to them.

In the short film "Camera", available on the Criterion edition, the director states that cameras cause death, as by making the person age while the person would be watching the movie, similiar to Videodrome's cancer-tumor subliminal signal. However, the director does at the end become sympathetic to the camera, since spending life as an actor influenced the director as such. The director stated, the old camera and "I seemed to have aged together".

Part of a film's popularity can be due to the genre it is in, Videodrome, like Naked Lunch has a science-horror feel to it, Words like weird and strange, can to some give the impression of not being able to understand a concept, while a certain audience might perceive a connotation like exotic, foreign or interesting.

Like Naked Lunch, Videodrome is another Cronenberg movie concerned with world domination.

Rating:
Summary: A BIZZARE TRIP INTO THE ~UNKNOWN~
Review: I picked up this movie because I am a huge Debbie Harry fan and decided to see how it was.

From start to finish this movie bent my mind in half! I didn't really know what to think of it at first until I watched it again. VIDEODROME really grew on me after a while and I came to like it. Deborah Harry and James Woods give great performances in this twisted little tale of violence and torture!

I won't spoil any of its twisted little details!

Pick it up and give it a watch!

BEWARE OF THE TELEVISION!!!

Rating:
Summary: an unusual film with an interesting plot
Review: This review is for the Criterion Collection DVD edition of the film.

Videodrome is a really original film with plot elements which I think are likely inspirations for the Matrix films and The Ring.

The film is about a TV station executive who is loking for new material to broadcast. He comes across a video feed of a person being tortured and decides to broadcast it. Later he is provided with a videotape and when he watches it, the TV starts to act as if it were alive. He believes that he is hallcinating but is unable to tell.

The film has some very interesting scenes and special effects including a gun that comes out of the TV that can best be described by seeing it yourself. Some may find the film disturbing because of graphic violence and some sexual content. This DVD version includes some scenes that were originally cut to avoid an X rating, but knowing the MPAA it would likely get an R rating if it were released today.

The DVD has some excellent special features but one of them is disturbing.

Disc 1 contains the film with two optional audio commentaries, one by David Cronenberg and Mark Irwin, the other by James Woods and Deborah Harry. There is also a short film by Cronenberg titled "Camera."

Disc 2 contains a new documentary on the film's makeup effects titled "Forging New Flesh", an audio interview with the film's special makeup effects creator and the video effects supervisor, a 26 minute scene from a Canadian talk show that has talks with David Cronenberg, John Carpenter, John Landis, and Mick Garris. There is also a behind the scens gallery with hundreds of photos film posters, stills and other shots, The complete footage from the torture and "Samurai dreams" videos shown in the film (though simulated they are very disturbing,) and a set of theatrical trailers, and a promotional fraturette.

There is also a booklet in the liner notes with extra interviews.

Despite the violence and sex, it is not as bad as I expected. Fans of the Matrix and The Ring may also like this film.

Rating:
Summary: A Strange Journey
Review: Bizarre and trance like nightmare that leaves you wanting a shower. Some graphic gore, but the spooky stuff is mental..

Rating:
Summary: Have a nightmare tonight!
Review: Videographer watches the torture channel and becomes an organic robot at the hands of an evil man.

Rating:
Summary: Bizarre, creepy mindbender from David Cronenberg
Review: Videodrome is perhaps one of David Cronenberg's most essential films. Featuring nearly all of his trademarks/obsessions: flesh, eroticism, machinery, bodily transformation, violence and of course, disgusting special effects. It's a bizarre little sci-fi thriller about a small television station president (James Woods) who picks up a pirate transmission of a show called Videodrome which portrays acts of murder and torture. He tries to trace its origins, but soon discovers that it is more than just a TV show. It has the power to induce hallucinations in its viewers and could be potentially be used as a form of mind control. He takes it upon himself to uncover the sinister plot behind this deadly television signal.

Not your average plotline indeed. Videodrome may indeed be one of the most bizarre films ever released by a Hollywood studio. It's a film that a majority of moviegoing audiences will have no appreciation for whatsoever, but a fringe of weirdo movie lovers (such as myself) should find much to love about it. I've seen a lot, however Videodrome still manages to give me chills. It's a genuinely creepy movie, and the weirdo special effects are something to behold. Who could forget the images of the breathing videotapes or the cassette slot opening in James Woods' stomach?

Videodrome is highly recommended for fans of bizarre, twisted films and especially David Cronenberg fans. Be sure to check out the new Criterion DVD with a load of extras including commentary from Cronenberg and his DP, as well as actors James Woods and Deborah Harry.

Rating:
Summary: A truely Bizzare film
Review: Videodrome is an interesting film in that it makes absolutly no sense.

What it is about is James Woods is the owner of a local cable network that caters mostly to porn and extreme violence. When he finds this fettish show called Videodrome he figures he wants more so he can place it on his network. However he soon starts to hallucinate as a signal in the videodrome has triggered a reaction in his brain that causes him to mutate. Eventually he seeks revenge and desire to start a new race of man.

This movie is weird enough as is but what sets it over the top is that can get exceptionally violent and even a little gory. But it's the sexual undertones that rreally set this apart. You see the videodrome is actually the inner desires of an individual aka sexual desires or what they really want. IN the end though this is winds up being a messed up movie and really is only for a nitch audience. I really can't recomend this unless you want something out there that leaves asking more questions than you should be.

Rating:
Summary: Believe what you see?
Review: Cronenberg has achieved a huge cult following with his take on horror and science fiction. It's sophisticated, often controversial, and always incisive. He dissects contemporary society by looking into the day after tomorrow and giving a caustic spin to the commonplace - the motor car, the condominium, the television.

In 'Videodrome', James Woods plays a Canadian television entrepreneur, a man who provides material - usually suspect, often porn - for cable TV. In the course of his seedy research he finds a pirate broadcast of a strange, compelling programme. The torture and masochism he glimpses as the programme hisses and breaks up is ... well, it looks real. Or is it just incredibly well made, with the interference and fluctuating picture quality just an example of good engineering and clever directing, simulating clandestine status to give the show a bit of edge?

Woods teams up with a radio broadcaster (Debbie Harry) to investigate. They tune in, turn on, and drop into an underworld of research and exploration which exposes human vulnerability to the influence of television. Maybe it doesn't just have a numbing effect on the brain ... maybe it can take over your body ... maybe the broadcast can become flesh as TV and reality merge? This is television as an acid trip.

An engrossing movie, playing off its own ironic take on the ability of film and television to confuse, mislead, misinform, or corrupt. Cronenberg speculates on the impact of television by taking you into the surreal, asking you to suspend your disbelief ... then question your belief.

Woods' character is sated by all the garbage he's seen. Nothing surprises him any more. He needs something weird, something even more shocking than porn. Do people really need to be shocked? Given the mind-numbing diet of reality TV to which we've been subjected in recent years, maybe Cronenberg is wrong. Television doesn't have to push us to the extreme ... it can destroy our minds with monotony instead.

But `Videodrome' takes us beyond the unreal. Consider how much of your understanding and experience of the world is based on television news. The truth, and its corruption, is out there, and can come at you through your television screen. The moment we accept reality as what the television portrays, that's the moment it takes over our bodies as well as our minds.

A disturbing, thought-provoking, hugely entertaining film. Like many of Cronenberg's movies, though, you'll either love it or hate it. He's a man who doesn't seem to allow much room for a middle way. If you enjoy the unusual, if you appreciate the surreal, if you like to be challenged and explore irony, this may be a movie you'll love.

But for those of you already converted, this edition offers a compulsive package of extras - commentaries, featurette, a documentary, interviews, and an enthralling discussion of the nature of horror. Excellent package.

Rating:
Summary: Sexy Thriller, But Stupid
Review: Good movie. Good meaning. Good dialogue. Good visual effects and special effects. Good screenplay. Good setting. Bad sex scenes. Bad lighting. Bad cameraman. And some other stuff.

This movie's setting, which was a good one, was completely ruined by the lighting and the camera nagles were a little too straight.

Rating:
Summary: Proof: TV really does rot your Brain!
Review: "Videodrome" is Cronenberg's greatest cinematic triumph, taking the philosophy of TV-critic Marshall McLuhan (who contended "the Medium is the Message") to the next level, where if the Medium is the Message, then the Message in the jaded, faded, infected world of "Videodrome" has devoured the messenger and is roaming around looking for fresh meat---or Flesh.

"Videodrome" is evolutionary. It is radical. It is revolutionary. And if you've seen it, it is probably rewiring your brain even as you innocently read this review. Sucker!

Cronenberg is a revolutionary: "Videodrome" is a chronicle of the means by which the media assumes the role of both human Id and subconscious: to nasty effect. And nasty is right: Videodrome eats the human Id and serves it up in hardy seconds and thirds. Max Renn(the inimitable James Woods) sees the sado-masochistic "Videodrome" as a tool to boost ratings for his Canadian independent film channel, not knowing that it also uses its broadcasting ability to reconfigure the human brain towards cruelty, torture, rape, dissection, perversion, and ultimately assassination.

The acting is all detached and lab-sterile perfect, but you knew that already: James Woods is seamy, desultory, wicked, precise. Deborah Harry was born for this role. Sonja Smits (Bianca O'Blivion)is a touch tedious, but looks good and does what she has to do; Peter Dvorsky lets the nervous tics do the acting, Les Carlson (Barry Convex) is a study in creepy corporate plasticity, and Jack Creley chews scenery as the reclusive Brian O'Blivion, who refuses to deal with anyone directly and sends all his interviews out as pre-recorded videotapes. Choose your format, Beta or VHS?

"Videodrome" bumps and grinds to perfection because Captain Cronenberg---always a visionary cartographer of the boundaries between the mind, the flesh, the Id, and high technology---knows where he wants to take it; Director of Photography Mark Irwin is a superb first mate, steering a wide range of visual images from the realm of banality and commonplace to the outlandish, freakish and bizarre in a heartbeat. Is Renn hallucinating? Does he have a brain tumor? Is that pulsating, fleshy, blood-red and vibrating "videotape" really pulsating, and is Renn really inserting it into his stomach?

Look at the scene transitions, particularly the seamless shift from bedroom to torture chamber. Reality is indistinguishable from Media. Soon our unenviable Mr.Renn illustrates an entirely new meaning of "Plug and Play".

To remain silent on this sumptuous Criterion Collection release would be criminal. The transfer is clean and crisp, which is precisely what you want in a flick where Deborah Harry's lips get plastered across the telescreen. Cronenberg's commentaries are always intriguing, chiefly because he knows to fill in a few gaps with nuggets of information (like telling us that one of the Japanese porn producers in the film later went on to become Canada's Minister of Culture---ehehehe) but leaves the larger mysteries untouched. Bravo!

There's even a creepy little modern short film by Cronenberg called "Camera" with the inimitable Les Carlson, which is unrelated to "Videodrome" but nonetheless ties nicely into the theme of televised reality. Best of all, this tasty special edition is served up like an old VHS Cassette with "Videodrome" 'hand-written' in marker on the side. Sweet.

In the final analysis, "Videodrome" is a film 20 years before its time. We now wrestle every day with the issue of TV and meaning, and typically we lose. For Cronenberg, certainly "Videodrome" was a caustic, wicked commentary on media and consumer culture, but coming hard on the heels of Timoth Leary's drug culture (doesn't "Tune in, Turn on, and Drop Out" fit in the world of "Videodrome"? Or in our own, for that matter?) I don't think that's all there is to it. I think it's more like---Prophecy.

Play. Pause. Replay. Rewind. Play.