Crimes of the Future (2022)

 I guess I'll be crossposting from other platforms for a bit while I decide how long I'm going to continue posting on socials and how often, so here's my sorta-review of the latest David Cronenberg movie Crimes of the Future and a mention of the 1970 short film of the same name. Some spoilers may follow.

It would be factually inaccurate but spiritually honest to say Crimes of the Future (2022) is a sequel to Videodrome, but don't watch it just because you remember really liking Debbie Harry in that kinda kinky 80s movie where videotapes were relevant and James Woods was always sweaty.

Do watch it if you would like to confirm for yourself that Cronenberg's still got it, baby.

I like the concepts and the performances. It does seem like he's dialed back a bit from the prurient in recent years, which is not surprising, and I appreciate the acknowledgement of environmental conditions we've created for ourselves without an exit strategy.

It's almost like one of his very early films, story-wise, but where the weird biomechanical tech fx are relegated to background radiation instead of put under a magnifying glass.

It does make me curious how this one was received by people who have never seen another Cronenberg movie. I know I've never seen Viggo in a role like that before (it almost seems like it was made with Callum Keith Rennie in mind?), and I'm always quietly delighted to see Don McKellar.

I really liked Kristen Stewart in this. Are we cool with her now? IDK but I thought she played the part hypnotically. I think I would watch a whole side-movie with just her and Don McKellar running that weird black books office.

The leading lady (Lea Seydoux as Caprice) was fine, I don't know her from anything else but I couldn't help but feel like she was there mainly to evoke 1980 Geneviève Bujold and I think she did that well. Viggo Mortensen looked like he was having a ball and had the most enviable chic desert nomad wardrobe for the whole thing. 

The med tech women! I would also watch a movie that told more of their story 

The grungy place they all lived in is what's haunting me right now, though. Set design could not be more oppressive is it was set in a prison. 

Comparing Crimes of the Future 2022 to 1970 is like comparing The Lawnmower Man by Stephen King to (Stephen King's) The Lawnmower Man (1992). I won't recommend the 1970 short film; you'll know in the first two minutes whether you'll make it another hour.

It's inscrutable and unenjoyable, yet it's uncomfortably magnetic in the way Cronenberg films tend to be. The sound design is jarring and triggering and malicious. Lots of men's naked feet. Unexplained bodily effluvia. Implied sexual extreme deviance. Also, randomly, a pre-City Lights Brian Linehan. That's Numberwang!