Good start, but then it gets ruined

Better Late Then Never

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

I admired the underlying message, and the seemingly clever imagery. I loved the unique atmosphere that is similar to Terry Gilliam's Brazil. And I was fascinated by the gorgeous animation and the designs of the animatronic bugs. But I think this movie is very self-indulgent for its own good. Very, very self-indulgent that the most important action in the movie, which led to all its series of events, happened very quick and there wasn't enough focus on it.The movie's biggest concern is using metaphors that I really didn't care to figure out what they stand for. Therefore, I wasn't engaged with the story nor the characters. Also, the tone of the movie is very slow and cold exactly like the acting.I'm really frustrated because Naked Lunch is my first Cronenberg film, and I was ready to enter his universe, and to be presented to his distinctive directorial style and to his wonderful work as I heard and read many times. That being said, Naked Lunch won't be my last Cronenberg movie because I really felt there was something special and really good deep inside this movie in spite of the fact that I didn't like it.(6/10)

Naked lunch is a visual and metaphoric masterpiece about creativity art and poetry and the depths of insanity that have given us the most astonishing and creative leaps towards human evolution. David Cronenberg unfortunately is a true auteur in a business ran like a production line assembly due to the audiences inability to enjoy anything that doesn't relate to what they have been brain washed into identifying with. William Burroughs actually stated that this film was the closest adaptation to anything ever attempted out of his writings and is the only time I have ever heard a writer say a film adaption didn't make them cringe at its gross misrepresentation. So why would the lemmings who pay 13 dollars to view Transformers 3 have a problem with this imaginative astounding work of art? It is simple, if you don't like films like this your an idiot there is no way around it. People are going to try and use excuses like free will and some things are not for everybody. But lets be real those are nice ways of saying you have chosen to be stupid. Do people in the Olympics say you can't compete because it's just not for everybody, no they understand you can't compete because your not talented or skilled enough to even stand on the side lines. But since we live in the land of the symbolically deformed and challenged it's OK to pretend being a sucker is great seeing as the kindergarten level propaganda employed is the only means of selling garbage and lies to pee brains just to keep our economy above total depression. How could a cgi crap fest with no story or character development like Dred get higher ratings than a master piece of the symbolic like Naked Lunch? Once again proving stupid people only like movies that spoon feed them all the answers in one sitting like 6th sense and Memento. Movies that have only one message and one goal knowing the morons who flood cinemas have to be slapped in the face for 1 1/2 hours to go oh I get it after the final reveal that leaves nothing to be imagined rams right down their butter lubricated throats. This is why I left film school just like in ancient rome Americans have been turned to brainless sheeple who think true art is to be demonized as the devil and replaced by product ruled by bottom line and would rather watch Happy Feet than be philosophically challenged. Congratulations you are all new age christians who burn art, feign experience, and take your queue's from a square that promises a safe distance from perception and knowing. True roman solders defending the status quo as being a mass of mindless idiots who cling to the lowest human functions of domestic drama and talking point arguments founded in identifying your self as a soulless sellout with no sense of individuality; instituted by a culture industry that promises minimum wage for your suspension of the constitutional rights given to you by people who valued truth and knowledge. So if you are incapable of relating to anything artistic or meaningful and like to get caught up in societal ignorance's and your idea of philosophizing is am I a good Ma Ma and Da Da, or think fundamental life choice is what should I wear to the prom or which homoerotic child's game is playing tonight on the idiot box, you might not even want watch this and you surly should not be leaving a review. You don't see dyslexic people leaving reviews to grammar text books or blind people reviewing books not available in braille do you? And you surly don't see moron's reviewing Einstein and Tesla claiming their works to be worthless drivel because they can't understand it so why in the world of cinema is it OK? You don't see me going to web sites that sell foreign books in other languages and saying this is just a bunch of gibberish because I don't know how to decipher it do you? Yet IMDb is flooded with reviews of piaxar-latent inhibitionists who think talking animals are visceral genius and farting cartoons are comedic bravado. Stick to your lame human dramas please and stay out of grown ups business. Have some kids or go play at the local playground you'll find subjects more in line with your intelligence level. Schopenhauer was right.

There was a time when the only filmmaker making films who seemed like a likely candidate to bring Philip K. Dick's A SCANNER DARKLY to the Big Screen was David Cronenberg. Maybe not... What NAKED LUNCH has to say about WRITING is interesting; what it has to say otherwise is open to interpretation. "Guilt is the key," we're told at one point. Certainly, guilt played a big part in Burroughs's life as a writer- but, beyond that...? "Exterminate all rational thought," Peter Weller as Bill Lee says: "I gave up writing when I was ten. Too dangerous. I've found my profession. I'm an exterminator." Huffing the poisons he sprays to exterminate bugs causes him to hallucinate (Or DOES it...?). He sees a large bug, which literally talks out of its ass; it tells him that his wife is from Interzone, Incorporated and that she must be killed. He meets a Mugwump, a creature that quite literally OOZES sex, who gives him a ticket to Interzone and suggests that he procure a typewriter- a Clark Nova ("It has mythic resonance.")- and begin writing. He visits Dr. Benway (Roy Scheider), who mixes up a "cure" for Lee's wife. Says Benway: "It's like an agent- an agent who's come to believe his own cover story, but who's in there, hiding in a larval state, just waiting for the proper moment to hatch out." Lee then kills his wife (played by Judy Davis) while playing "William Tell" (a game wherein you shoot an apple off of someone's head). He then flees into the Interzone. There, his typewriter metamorphosizes into a talking bugwriter and he wonders (of homosexuals): "Could I be one of those sub-human things...?" He is, of course, and comes to the conclusion that "America is not a young land. It is old... and dirty and evil." Says the bugwriter: "... a writer lives the sad truth like anyone else. The only difference is- he files a report on it." Cronenberg has filed his report, and NAKED LUNCH is it. Unfortunately, Cronenberg, like David Lynch, began to take himself so seriously that he started doing things just for the sake of being weird. And, like Lynch, he eventually began to parody himself.

An exterminator becomes addicted to the substance that he uses to kill bugs, and accidentally ends up murdering his own wife. This leads to him becoming involved in a secret government plot in a port town in North Africa, seemingly orchestrated by giant bugs.William S. Burroughs is one of those three influential writers known collectively as the Beat Generation (the other two being Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac), and this film – and the book its adapted from – is one of the reasons why. Partly autobiographical, partly the absurdity of Burroughs imagination, 'Naked Lunch' is an excellent film.As you watch the film, it's difficult not to be taken aback by its sheer zaniness and surreal nature; however, it's fascinating to find out that, under those layers of fantasy, Burroughs is recounting stories from his own life. Drug addiction; the accidental murder of his wife; the need to escape from the glare of city life – these were all things that Burroughs endured himself and subsequently penned down. But in pure Burroughs fashion, the author adds some mutant bugs and a crazy plot to spice it up.And then you add Cronenberg to the equation, who himself is famed for his outrageous and sometimes ridiculous films. Cronenberg manages to bring Burroughs' vision to life in a very strong way, keeping the film moving at a frenetic pace and never really letting the viewer feel like they finally have a grasp of what is going on. At each turn, the film takes a new, unexpected twist, and we're all the better for it.But the best thing about the film is Paul Weller. Between typewriter-shaped cockroaches and insane hallucinogenic experiences, Weller somehow instils a level of gravitas. Maybe it's his everyman good looks, or his ability to seemingly move through every scene with a quiet presence, but Weller (as lead character Bill) makes you believe in the world. Through everything that he does, you stay on his side, and that gives this strange film it's emotional core.This is not Cronenberg's best film, I think, but 'Naked Lunch' definitely ranks up there as one of the better ones. The absurdity of it all had the potential to be off-putting; but bring together the intimacy of Burroughs' writing, the imaginative Cronenberg direction, and Weller's grounded performance, and you have a brilliantly made movie. Watch it.