World Famous Comics: Videodrome - Criterion Collection
Videodrome - Criterion Collection
Starring: James Woods, Sonja Smits, Deborah Harry, Peter Dvorsky, Leslie Carlson Directed By: David Cronenberg Average Rating: Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Audience Rating: R (Restricted) Binding: DVD Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Special Edition, Widescreen, NTSC Label: Criterion Number of Items: 2 Region Code: 1 Release Date: August 31, 2004 Running Time: 89 minutes Theatrical Release Date: February 04, 1983
Amazon.com essential video: Love it or loathe it, David Cronenberg's 1983 horror film Videodrome is a movie to be reckoned with. Inviting extremes of response from disdain (critic Roger Ebert called it "one of the least entertaining films ever made") to academic euphoria, it's the kind of film that is simultaneously sickening and seemingly devoid of humanity, but also blessed with provocative ideas and a compelling subtext of social commentary. Giving yet another powerful and disturbing performance, James Woods stars as the operator of a low-budget cable-TV station who accidentally intercepts a mysterious cable transmission that features the apparent torture and death of women in its programming. He traces the show to its source and discovers a mysterious plot to broadcast a subliminally influential signal into the homes of millions, masterminded by a quasi-religious character named Brian O'Blivion and his overly reverent daughter. Meanwhile Woods is falling under the spell, becoming a victim of video, and losing his grip--both physically and psychologically--on the distinction between reality and television. A potent treatise on the effects of total immersion into our mass-media culture, Videodrome is also (to the delight of Cronenberg's loyal fans) a showcase for obsessions manifested in the tangible world of the flesh. It's a hallucinogenic world in which a television set seems to breathe with a life of its own, and where the body itself can become a VCR repository for disturbing imagery. Featuring bizarre makeup effects by Rick Baker and a daring performance by Deborah Harry (of Blondie fame) as Wood's sadomasochistic girlfriend, Videodrome is pure Cronenberg--unsettling, intelligent, and decidedly not for every taste. --Jeff Shannon
Description: When Max Renn goes looking for edgy new shows for his sleazy cable TV station, he stumbles across the pirate broadcast of a hyperviolent torture show called "Videodrome." As he unearths the origins of the program, he embarks on a hallucinatory journey into a shadow world of right-wing conspiracies, sadomasochistic sex games, and bodily transformation. Renn's ordinary life dissolves around him, he finds himself at the center of a conflict between opposing factions in the struggle to control the truth behind the radical human future of "the New Flesh." Starring James Woods and Deborah Harry in one of her first film roles, Videodrome is one of writer/director David Cronenberg's most original and provocative works, fusing social commentary with shocking elements of sex and violence. With groundbreaking special effects makeup by Academy Award®-winner Rick Baker, Videodrome has come to be regarded as one of the most influential and mind-bending science fiction films of the 1980s, and The Criterion Collection is proud to present it in its full-length unrated edition.
Snuff, Hallucinations, & Mutations, Oh my!!!! Rick Baker, James Woods, Stomach cavity caches, Bubbling videotapes, Bubbling, bullet-rittled bodies, a uniquely erotic sex-scene, man morphing with his gun, assassintion plans, and a guy who exists entirley on videotapes. Bizarre doesn't begin to descibe this fiasco. There is only one word to descirbe such madness as this..... Cronenberg.
MORAL OF THE STORY: Kill your television!!!!
humorless, yawn. I really wanted to like Videodrome - I'm a Canadian myself and his later work is compelling. I found Videodrome boring, too self-serious, and some of the plot points inconsistent. I can't go into a lot of detail without spoiling some of it, but it involves explaining away one character as a recording when previously in the film, that character was obviously interacting in the real world.
It seems like Videodrome tries hard to make some philosophical point that doesn't really come through ("Long live the new flesh" is catchy but not meaningful). The much touted special effects were also disappointing, though ambitious and unusual. I realize this is all pre-CGI, but when you consider Blade Runner and Star Wars, also pre-CGI, their effects hold up over time while Videodrome's just look a bit silly. The actors do a fine job, but one has the sense that Videodrome's focus is not the actors or the plot but the idea at the center of it about the possibilities of a new technology at the time. Much in the same way that movies about the internet at the beginning of its arrival seem hilarious in their perspectives about what the net could be used for, Videodrome is a consideration of what mysteries lay behind analog video.
Good things? Criterion's print is beautiful and the colors are crisp and clear. Extras are interesting, and the packaging is made to look like an analog tape from the era - perhaps capturing the tongue-in-cheek attitude that the movie would have benefited from.
I recommend Videodrome for people who are compelled to watch ALL the Criterion films, fans of Cronenberg, and special effects junkies. I wouldn't write it off completely, but it's not a strong classic. It's worthwhile primarily because of its position in time and in Cronenberg's career.
Videodrome - Good condition There were no problems with the product when i recieved it, i got it right on time, and overall i was very satisfied. If i order any movies or books or whatever it may be, i will get it from this site.
Soon, we will all have "special names" The idea of people being brainwashed into drones just by watching television is a very serious and scary idea. Mostly because I'm in front of it a lot.
After watching this I thought that this was a very Cronenberg film. The ever-returning theme of humans integrating with machinery is very much presented here by James Woods' character blending in with his hallucinations and becoming the new technology everybody must be afraid of. The gun mutating with his arm is the obvious example of this. This is all done with a lot of gore and slime, and this is regrettably what the movie's undoing is.
The acting is very good; James Woods delivers one of his best performances ever. I can not really think of a much better performance from him (maybe Hades in Hercules). Deborah Harry was far better then I expected her to be, her performance gave a very erotic feel to the first two acts, but her character regrettably got lost in the last part. The rest of the cast was fairly unknown to me, but they delivered a good enough effort considering the material they were presenting.
In the third act Cronenberg has to wrap this intriguing premise up in a satisfying way and resorts into gore and violence (expertly executed by Rick Baker) and ultimately fails in conveying his message clearly to the audience. He should have kept the gore in the background and the characters in the foreground. The double ending was well thought of by the way.
The next thing I was worried about is the dating of the movie. The subject of videotaping and watching TV seems to feel less important now in these days of the information age. Computers have taken over the supremacy from the TV when it comes to information-distribution. The internet is omnipresent. A remake should be made of this movie every twenty or so years to keep it fresh.......gosh did I just say that I am so going to hear this later on. On the other hand: there is of course Ghost in the Shell (1995) which tells a very similar story, only in reverse. A virtual entity wants to become one with the original technology, that of the human body. When you look at this in total, I think this can not be counted with the better movies made by Cronenberg, such as The Fly (1986) and the Dead Zone. "Videodrome" is one of Cronenberg's finest films. It's sick, twisted, and superb.
Brilliant would be an understatement Searching for logic in a Cronenburg movie can sometimes feel like searching for a needle in a haystack. You know there is a message somewhere, but it could possibly take forever to find it. I think there are two questions this movie is asking it's viewers. The first being; Why do people subject themselves to watching this kind of cinema and television? And the second being ; What effect does this kind of cinema and television have on it's viewers? In those questions themselves lies the answer; Depends on the viewer.
Now that I've gotten all the phsycological stuff out of the way, lets talk about the movie itself.
James Woods might possibly give the best perfomance I've ever seen in a horror movie, along with the rest of the cast. Everything in my opinion is absolutely perfect, from facial expressions, to hand movements, to dioluge, is just perfect in every way possible, and I could not ask for anything more.
The special effects are mind-blowing. We have, pulsating TV screens, torture, a torso that eats (don't ask), multiple gun shot scenes, and one scene of a man literally melting that make Scanners seem like a kids movie. There is a lot more also that I won't go in to, but there is no shortage on gore, I can assure you of that.
This Criteion print is, for lack of a better word, beautiful. There are two audio commentaries, one by the director and one by actors James Woods and Deborah Harry. A 40-page booklet featuring multiple essay's by film critics. Featuretes on the special effects of Videodrome, and my favorite feature, a roundtable discussion with directors John Carpenter, Mick Garris, John Landis, and David Cronenburg from 1982 discussing horror films in general.
This movie is extremely ahead of it's time, and although it was made in 1982, it feels like it could easily been made in the late 90's. This is without a doubt in my top ten horror films ever made.
The fact that I'm sitting here reviewing a film with such passion that was made before I was born speaks for itself. GO BUY THIS NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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