The Worst Film Ever

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

This is one of the most unique (and bizarre) movies I've ever seen. I didn't really like it that much, mainly because it seemed pointless. The mood and style were interesting but where was it going? What was the big idea, the force driving us through the film? Having now read up a little on it, I like it a bit more. William S. Burroughs seems to be an interesting but pretty sad figure. That he accidentally shot his wife is baffling and tragic. It's hard to believe or to feel sorry for him. But it happened and can't be changed. Apparently this movie is basically about him. It's kind of moving that he became an author because of the intensity of what happened. Hopefully it helped him heal or move on.The whole movie is very yellowy/orange/brown in colour. And there are lots of close-ups. It's very claustrophobic - we can't escape this world. It's dreary. It generally seems hot, characters are often sweating. Every scene predictably has Bill (Peter Weller who played Robocop and dropped out of Robocop 3 to do this) with his pale, expressionless face casually conversing with either a giant talking bug of some sort or otherwise some man in a suit. The movie is so calm all the way through. It only intensifies occasionally in grossness or eroticism. Cronenberg seems to have a thing about drawing parallels between sex, disgust, pain, fear, I don't know, a bunch of things. There's always morphing and moaning, blood and guts. Pleasure and pain get mixed up. Those primitive urges, I guess they all come from the same place.One reason I didn't connect too much with Naked Lunch is the drug aspect. I don't plan to ever do drugs. I don't get it. It's so easy to avoid them completely (and the same for smoking and even alcohol). Why waste money destroying yourself? Hence I don't empathise with those kinds of habits. Especially since people seem to do it out of boredom. Their life is so plain or empty that they turn to drugs. Why not read great books or watch great movies or learn about maths and science? There are so many deep truths and unsolved problems that could blow your mind. There are so many safe, real, tangible things to explore and enrich your life with. How do drugs have any appeal at all?Cronenberg's movies always seem very focused and patient and sincere. You might not get what's happening but you sense that thought has gone into it. You're *meant* to have "that" reaction, whatever "that" might be.This movie is frustrating if you're expecting the wrong thing from it. It really doesn't seem to go anywhere. I've never been great at following dialogue. There are probably some abstract gems here or there that I missed. But if you feel like something really weird but slow and calm, Naked Lunch is one-of-a-kind. I'm assuming there's a lot more to it than I understood. For now, I'm glad I experienced it, I was frustrated that I didn't "get" it at the time but for some reason it's growing on me as I remember it.

After developing an addiction to the substance he uses to kill bugs, an exterminator (Peter Weller) accidentally murders his wife and becomes involved in a secret government plot being orchestrated by giant bugs in a port town in North Africa.In order to recreate the beat movement, Cronenberg turned to jazz, as he saw beat writing as jazz with the typewriter as instrument. Howard Shore, Cronenberg's regular composer, did a fine job recruiting the necessary talent. (Weller, interestingly, has a background in jazz and even received a master's degree.) Cronenberg has used scenes from "Exterminator", "Junky" and others, as well as "Naked Lunch". So this film could have been titled just about anything, as it is not a straight transfer of the book it borrows its name from. He also created the idea of using bug powder as a drug; Burroughs wrote on drugs and exterminating, but had never himself combined the two. Indeed, the whole bug theme was greatly expanded by Cronenberg, leading to the creatures that are very much something up Cronenberg's traditional theme of the "new flesh".Roy Scheider came on board because he asked to be, having been a big fan of Burroughs. This is fortunate for everyone, as he is among the best actors in the business and makes an excellent Benway. Who else was up for the role is unknown.Prior to the shooting, Peter Weller met with William Burroughs, of whom he was a big fan. Burroughs apparently had slight objections to the casting because of Weller's looks, but Weller felt he was playing William Lee, not Burroughs, so there was no need to directly imitate the voice or looks of the author. This was a wise choice on Weller's part.The film presents women in an interesting way. Cronenberg relies on Burroughs' view of women as an alien species. Without ever getting misogynist or anti-women, the story does tend to create a sense of "the other" regarding women. What this says about Burroughs is unclear -- of course, he had a complicated sexuality, but was it something more? What is needed is more Julian Sands.

I recommend watching this in the early morning hours when your mind is glazed with the sheen of your early morning donuts. The surreal scenes work with the jazz music. It's about communication. The typewriters keep turning into fleshy organisms that talk themselves. They look like insects and the one hybrid typewriter is like a huge insectoid alien. The same one that gives him one mission thats sitting in the bar. Plus he gets his first mission which is to kill his wife. So he kills his wife, but I totally forgot that that was his mission. It is really cool how the movie maker accomplished this because I didn't clue into that he carried out his mission until later. He didn't even know it at the time and then it gets revealed to him by another insect machine that he was programmed to not even know he was carrying out a mission. The most effective agent is a unconscious agent. The most effective agent is an unconscious agent. Think about that. Then there's the story of the guy who teaches his rear how to talk. It just becomes this unconscious agent without a brain. Just a talking machine like the typewriter who keeps giving him the missions. The only difference between an operative and non- operative is they write reports. Then they mention the new world order near the end. It's like the whole New york media is in internal operation focused on these grotesque cockroach type machines that keep spewing intoxicating stories like drugs for the mind.

"Naked Lunch", by its very nature, is likely to strongly divide audiences. It's the logical enough merging of two distinctive visions, that of the very influential "beat" author William S. Burroughs and the highly individualistic filmmaker David Cronenberg. Right from the start you know it won't adhere to anything resembling traditional narrative. Instead, it goes straight for the bizarre, the mind blowing, the metaphorical, and the shocking. It exists in a true dream world where anything is possible. Instead of being a truly faithful adaptation of a novel that is described as many as being "unfilmable" anyway, it weaves in elements from Burroughs's own life with memorable results.It takes place in a Northern Africa community known as the Interzone, where an exterminator and aspiring writer named William Lee (Peter Weller) has fled following his accidental shooting of his wife Joan (Judy Davis). The story involves such details as drug addiction - Bill and Joan are hooked on the very substance that he uses to kill insects - and a secret plot being hatched by talking bugs that grow progressively larger. Bills' encounters with the assorted oddball human characters are no less surreal.Burroughs and Cronenberg fans should be delighted with this films' striking depictions of unreality. The creature effects, courtesy of Chris Walas and company (Walas and Cronenberg had previously collaborated on "The Fly") are incredible; the grotesqueries on display - for one thing, the bugs talk out of their sphincters - are the kind of thing that Cronenberg has always excelled at creating.The jazzy score by Ornette Coleman and Howard Shore is intoxicating, as are the production design by Carol Spier and the cinematography by Peter Suschitzky. The cast all deliver fearless and riveting performances; the heavy hitters include Ian Holm, Julian Sands, and Roy Scheider, and Davis pulls double duty by playing the companion of Holms' character as well. They all play this so well that they just completely pull you in. Weller offers a deliciously deadpan performance as the philosophical Bill.As far as films that delve into the writing process go, "Naked Lunch" may be one of the most out there in existence, but it does provide a certain amount of rewards for adventuresome film lovers.Eight out of 10.