Another one of those modern horror piece of shit films that may have some amount of technical excellence (in particular some of the cinematography) but is ultimately in the service of another cruel and nihilistic specimen of trauma-porn that invariably gets praised by pseudo-intellectual sociopaths who are ashamed of their own affluence.  Like Funny Games for those who didn't get the joke.

I would have welcomed the little yellow box at the end, but it's almost as if Prime knew this film would make you too miserable to bother with another movie.

4/10
 

I have Prime but barely watch stuff on it. The selection is better than Netflix but I find it weirdly glitchy (constant buffering issues, which I rarely get with my other services, as well as audio and video getting out of sync), even on the Fire Stick (the whole purpose of which is to watch Prime).

I saw on the AV Club, there was a recent article about "Why does the Oscars hate horror films?"

It's a longstanding peeve, but in thinking back over the past year, and a number of otherwise well-reviewed disappointments like X, Barbarian and the above Speak No Evil (inexplicably at 84% on RT), and I can't help but laugh at the opening assertion "Horror films have never been better".  I have to beg to differ, myself.

And no mention in the article of what is the very best horror film of the year which is guaranteed to be nominated, and win at least one or two awards, Tar.  Am I stretching the definition of the genre a bit?  Maybe, but then again I think it's always been a stretch of the horror genre to include a police thriller like Silence of the Lambs (isn't it interesting how Manhunter is never mentioned as horror?).
 

I feel some of these sentiments as well, even if I like modern horror on average more than you guys do. There’s a level of thematic calculation that becomes too transparent, taking precedence over a deeper sense of horror. Oddly enough, one of the reasons I liked Barbarian is because it put the visceral ahead of the thematic. I didn’t feel like I was reading a blog post with neatly highlighted points, but watching something that was actually trying to scare me.

Jinnistan wrote:

I'm not going to lie.  I'm sick of the nihilism.  It isn't because I'm any less misanthropic, it's just that I don't get anything out of frustrated catharsis.  Funny Games was over 20 years ago.  Ils was over 15.  There's nothing provocative or shocking about traumatic sadism anymore.  It's just sociopathic at this point.

Some of the reviews for Speak No Evil have called it "satire" or "social comment", but that's all bullshit rationalization.  What is being satirized?  "Middle class mores".  And what is the comment?  That these people are too nice and accomodating?  And the film "incriminates both sides"?  Because nice polite people are just as bad as child mutilators?  Who the fuck is buying any of this crap?  Just admit that you enjoy child mutilation and normies getting tortured already.  I don't have time for this kind of humorless dehumanizing cruelty.
 

But this is sort of my point as well. Asking audiences to cheer along to this kind of dehumanizing violence doesn't sit right with me. And not just because of the violence and what that means about society.But because it is lazy. And then it becomes increasingly insulting when we start talking about these movies being satire or social commentary when these are clearly the figgiest of fig leaves trying to disguise that it's really all nothing but a geek show. That the violence is the only attraction here.

But wasn't the first Evil Dead also a geek show. Or Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Or the kind of violence Fulci uses in his trilogy? It's hard to argue that they aren't. So what exactly is the difference?

I think it gets into some muddy territory but one of the main distinctions is that then the violence, or in the case of TCM the implication of the violence, was actually designed as something repellent. There was truly a feeling of enduring their stickier moments. And through that, a kind of reconciliation we are forced to make with how we feel about this kind of violence. Or, in the case of Raimi's sequel, he turns the violence into such a cartoon that we might be grossed out by it, but it isn't actual recognizable as violence in our world...so we can cheer it on without it being any real comment on the morality of the audience.

But something has changed. And I think the change doesn't begin with Grindhouse films, which were frequently meant to revolt and keep a large segment of society away. It was with F13 and making a franchise around a murderer who, while we don't sympathize with, we root for doing as much damage as possible. We feel cheated when Jason doesn't up the body count with every movie which starts to becoming telling as to why we are into this. At this point it isn't even about transgression because this kind of on screen violence has already by then been absorbed into the culture. It's simply about making an attraction out of murder. Murder is fun. And that's where it started to get fucked up.

One of the reasons I found myself able to appreciate the Terrifier sequel was because the violence in that is so egregiously awful, you actually want it to stop. I felt it has found a line again that people would want it to stop crossing. It makes murder very much not a fun thing, no matter how much the villain seems to be enjoying it. We arent with Art, we are similarly being held captive by him. And I think that is an important distinction. I left that movie truly debating why I had wanted to sit through that in the first place.

Or at least that is the credit I gave to it before I saw MKS and other fans of the film describe the films excesses as fun or enjoyable and I was just like, on what fucking planet. While I can understand cinematic violence as catharsis, this doesn't feel like that. It feels like people being much too willing to allow their lizard brain to be tickled for pleasure. And that is what makes me uncomfortable

I want to respond to some of these points but I'm trying to hold myself to a time limit. I’m going to follow up on my ragey commentary about Crimes of the Future with some talk more pertinent to the film. Part of what I think places this one above Cronenberg‘s other films is the scale of its premise, with its profound implications for the future of humanity and even the future of the planet, in contrast to other Cronenberg films that revolve around something isolated and anomalous, such as The Brood or Scanners. I know those are old examples, but bear with me. Cosmopolis dealt with dystopian themes, and I was getting the sense that Cosmopolis and Crimes of the Future were indicating a more philosophical direction in his “evolution” as an artist.

But then I learned that he did another Crimes of the Future back in 1975? So much for my hypothesis. I didn’t know about that one so now I have to look into it. And why should I be surprised? Looking at his filmography I realize he’s done more movies I’ve never heard of than those with which I am familiar. 

What the fuck goes on in that imagination of his??? With Crash I assumed he was on the outside looking in on some of the subject matter to which he returns for Crimes, but in Crash, it was deviation, not the norm.
 
I’m not saying I want to have sex with David Cronenberg, but I do wonder what the hell goes on in his bedroom. Then again maybe he’s one of those guys who makes disturbing art and is totally normal in real life. 

I have a couple minor criticisms for Crimes. First of all, I hate when I have to stop the movie because an actor delivered an unintelligible line that’s apparently important for the plot. The first one, and this is no spoiler, is delivered by the lovely Tanaya Beatty. Her character, “Berst,” and her associate “Router” (played by the also–lovely Nadia Litz but please don’t make it a contest between the two because I could give a fuck), I suspect it is implied that these two have undergone cosmetic surgery or are otherwise altered in some way because their mouths are often so motionless when they speak that I was more than once confused about which character was speaking and had to ask myself if they really were speaking without moving their mouths at all, as if they were mechanical creations themselves, or possibly able to speak telepathically, or in whatever circumstance that might result in such a phenomenon. Their lips do move, but often just barely. So there’s this moment in the film, and this is not a spoiler, where Berst becomes wide–eyed and says something completely unintelligible, in response to which her associate gasps, and it’s clear that whatever Berst said is a big deal. I stopped and rewound the movie three times and still could not make sense of it. So I turned on the closed caption function, which is a clunky process on my player; I have to exit the movie, navigate to the language menu, yadda yadda, then disable it again after I’ve learned the answer to the puzzle. Again, this is not a spoiler, I’ll just save you the trouble. The line is “They have a Sark Unit.” The other line I needed captions for is delivered by Viggo Mortensen’s character Saul Tenser as an answer to a question posed by Caprice, played ever–so generously by the staggering beauty Léa Seydoux. Saul speaks some cottonmouthed gibberish in response to a question asked by Caprice, an answer which gets punctuated by the film's score as being something important. Again, this is not a spoiler, I’m just saving you the trouble when I report that, according the captions, the line is “You, and me both.” 
This is a peeve of mine. Why let that slide? I’m not talking about a line that is supposed to be obscured, possibly to be clarified later on. I’m talking about a line that by all indications was inadvertently unintelligible, and highly significant. I’m sure we could all think of examples from other movies but I won’t digress because I write too slowly.  
My other criticism dovetails with the previous one a little, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing from a viewer’s perspective, if the viewer happens to be into gorgeous women. Crimes is apparently set in a world in which only drop–dead flabbergastingly gorgeous women are allowed to exist. Maybe it has something to do with the evolution/metamorphosis concepts of the film, and not just an excuse to fill the screen with mind–blowing babes. I’m grateful for it, don’t get me wrong, and to be fair I don’t recall any particularly ugly men in the movie either, so maybe they’re all tapping the dystopian fountain of youth. And my gratitude climbs to another level for the fact that they, oh thank GOD! The women of Cronenberg’s future have PUBES!!!! Blessed, beautiful beacons of hope, every lovely little lock of liberty singing their sweet song of maturation, anthem of adulthood, HOPE that we are perhaps not doomed to a future marred by our current societal sickness, this porn–induced pedophiliac obsession with barely–legality, embodied in prepubescent sex symbols, signifying catastrophic stunted psychological development on a societal scale. Maybe Cronenberg’s optimistic vision of the future ain’t so dystopian after all, and again I think there's no spoiler in my saying that Crimes of the Future is ultimately, imo, an optimistic film. 

I'd love to talk about Mumbai Mafia and The Alchemist Cookbook, as well as go deeper into the desecration of end credits, but I'm over my time limit already. 

Still, people work hard for those credits, and I think SAG–AFTRA, DGA, Writer's Guild, Teamsters, and at least a dozen other unions should have something to say about it. Worse, all that "watch next" garbage often pops up while the movie is still playing. And yes, Netflix's "What to Watch Next" popup trash, which takes up way more of the screen and delivers the insult that we are too brainless to know what to watch next, is much much worse than Prime's little yellow "Up Next" box... aside from the fact that Prime's "up next" box disables subtitles!  In which case, by the time you back–button your way out of there, you've missed something, and if you rewind to see what you missed, surprise! You've triggered the yellow box to pop up again, making it impossible to ever see the thing you missed. 

But I said I would stop. I'm stopping. I'm stopping I'm stopping I'm 

Rock wrote:

Rampop II wrote:

I’m not saying I want to have sex with David Cronenberg,

Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuure

Rock wrote:

I feel some of these sentiments as well, even if I like modern horror on average more than you guys do. There’s a level of thematic calculation that becomes too transparent, taking precedence over a deeper sense of horror. Oddly enough, one of the reasons I liked Barbarian is because it put the visceral ahead of the thematic. I didn’t feel like I was reading a blog post with neatly highlighted points, but watching something that was actually trying to scare me.

I think part my issue with it also has to do with its attempts to scare. This very much seemed to be its premise in those first very good 40 minutes or so. The set up is full of menace. It's great at insinuating something in the shadows. Something we don't quite understand.

But then there is the big reveal and it's the same kind of thing we've seen a dozen times before. But now with the added benefits of forcible breast feeding, just because the audience is going to love being grossed out by that. As soon as its intentions revealed themselves from the shadows, I found everything obvious and quickly veering into funhouse territory. Which ain't my bag.

While it probably isn't fair to imagine all of the better ways the movie could have gone after it established itself, that's all I can think of. Just offering something slightly different than emaciated woman monster bashing peoples heads in.

I mentioned it in the movieforums, but I watched the film Coherence a few days after this, and it is a film that (even though it is not really a horror film) establishes a premise and then keeps tightening the screws on the promise of that premise. That got under my skin. Barbarian was just ended up being a smudge of dirt I could quickly wash off as soon as it ended.

crumbsroom wrote:

A couple of random questions about non movie stuff for the two Americans here that I'm going to ask in this thread because it is getting more traction.

1) Are American children also required to do speeches in the early grades of school, where they choose a topic, and have to read a 3-5 minute long  speech on it in front of the class?

2) If so, are these done competitively like they are here. Do the best from each class get chosen to read in front of the entire school.

3) I am also wondering, what these are called. When I was young in Canada they were known simply as 'speeches'. But certainly America has a more official sounding moniker for them (if you do them at all, I have no idea)
 

Short answers:
1. Yes, and
2. Both (yes and no)
3. The competitive type tends to be in the form of elective (non–compulsory) classes and extracurricular clubs/teams, in secondary education aka high school. I think our high school had Forensics as an elective in which students would practice amongst one another and Debate Team as an extracurricular thing involving competitions between various high schools similar to the format of athletic events.  In–class assignments would be called presentations or oral presentations or something similar. I don't know when those started, maybe around 3rd or 4th grade. They can of course be terrifying for some kids. I know one egregious example of such an experience from an old female friend who was so terrified of standing before the class that she refused, glued to her seat, more terrified of standing and presenting in front of the class than of the consequences of her refusal. But unlike Eddie Murphy's bit about taking a zero rather than do a math problem on the board with a hard–on, this girl's monstrous teacher dragged her to the front and paddled her before the rest of the class. 
If I were the kind of guy who keeps a list of "People to Kill..."

crumbsroom wrote:

A couple of random questions about non movie stuff for the two Americans here that I'm going to ask in this thread because it is getting more traction.

1) Are American children also required to do speeches in the early grades of school, where they choose a topic, and have to read a 3-5 minute long  speech on it in front of the class?

2) If so, are these done competitively like they are here. Do the best from each class get chosen to read in front of the entire school.

3) I am also wondering, what these are called. When I was young in Canada they were known simply as 'speeches'. But certainly America has a more official sounding moniker for them (if you do them at all, I have no idea)

Depends what you mean by "early grades".  There wasn't anything like this in K-6 (roughly ages 5-12) that was either required or competitive.  Sometimes there'd be classroom book reports or some other project that would involve saying something about it in front of the class, but it went no further than that.

By middle school (ages 12-14), we had the thing Rampop described called "forensics", which was purely elective, and was competitive with other schools' teams in the area.  (I won a 1st place once for a performance of Dave Barry's "Tomato Butt".



And by high school there were things like 'mock trial', 'mock congress', etc., which were basically extemporaneous speaking exercises/competitions which ostensibly involved ambitions of future public service.  It was a great way to groom youngsters in how to speak bullshit well and convincingly for a few minutes at a time.  I did this a couple of times, but lost interest once it became clear that those who were always winning were the least sincere people involved, and as a matter of fact would earn extra points for flipping their position and arguing the exact opposite halfway through.  You see, "public service" rewards this kind of flexibility.  Most of these winners went on to lucrative careers as corporate consults or cable news pundits.