Scanners
by David Cronenberg
from MGM (Video & DVD)
David Cronenberg's 1981 horror film is a darkly paranoid story of a homeless man (Stephen Lack) mistakenly believed to be insane, when in fact he can't turn off the sound of other people's thoughts in his telepathic mind. Helped by a doctor (Patrick McGoohan) and enlisted in a program of "scanners"--telepaths who also can will heads to explode--he becomes involved in a battle against nefarious forces. A number of critics consider this to be Cronenberg's first great film, and indeed it has a serious vision of destiny that rivals some of the important German expressionist works from the silent cinema. Lack is very good as the odd hero, and McGoohan is effectively eccentric and chilly as the scientist who saves him from the street, only to thrust him into a terrible struggle. --Tom Keogh
Welcome to the world of the Scannersa race of humans with telekinetic powers that can wreak havoc beyond your most dreaded nightmare. Writer/director David Cronenberg (The Fly, Naked Lunch) brings the terror closer than ever beforehe brings it right into your mind. Cronenberg is a modern-day horror master whose name fits in easily with the likes of King, Craven and Carpenter...and Scanners, with its spectacular and shockingly realistic special effects, is a startling masterpiece of the genre. When a rogue Scanner of unparalleled power (Michael Ironside) wages a bloody war against the normals, young empath Cameron Vale (Stephen Lack) is recruited to trackhim down. But Vale is inexperiencedand a battle with another Scanner could mean a grisly death...or worse. Can Vale vanquish his insanely violent, power-mad adversary? Only one thing is certain: Scanners delivers the chills-down-your-spine, heart-in-your-throat, you-can't-watch-but-you-daren't-leave goods (Time)!
Dead Ringers
from Warner Home Video
Claire Niveau is in love with Beverly. Or does she love Elliot? It's uncertain because brothers Beverly and Elliot Mantle are identical twins sharing the same medical practice apartment and women - including unsuspecting Claire. In portrayals that won the New York Film Critics Best Actor Award Jeremy Irons plays twin gynecologists whose emotional dependency collapses into mind games madness and murder. Genevieve Bujold the Los Angeles Film Critics Best Supporting Actress choice is Claire. And David Cronenberg (The Fly) won Los Angeles Film Critics Best Director honors for melding split-screen techniques body doubles and Irons' uncanny acting into an eerie fact-based tale - unnerving but also enthralling. (Desson Howe The Washington Post).Running Time: 115 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE/THRILLERS UPC: 085392143320
Like many other films by Canadian director David Cronenberg (especially Crash), Dead Ringers presents the cinematic and psychological equivalent of an automobile accident--you dare not look, but you can't turn away. The film marked a directorial breakthrough for Cronenberg, who was able to continue some of the themes explored in his earlier horror films while graduating to a higher, more critically "respectable" level of artistic sophistication. The film is loosely based, amazingly enough, on a true story about twin gynecologists who routinely traded each others' identities, lives and even lovers. Utilizing innovative split-screen technology (years before computer manipulation made such trickery much easier), the film stars Jeremy Irons in flawless dual roles as the identical brothers Beverly and Elliot Mantle. Their ability to instantly switch identities leads them to a shared relationship with a well-known actress (Genevieve Bujold) and, ultimately, a physical and psychological tailspin that sends them both to the brink of madness and death. The scenario suggests that both men are halves of a whole, and that one cannot exist without the other. But when Beverly pursues a kinky, drug-addicted affair with the actress, his more self-controlled brother is helpless to prevent their mutual decline. In this way Dead Ringers becomes a fascinating and stylistically clinical study of duality, and Cronenberg doesn't shy away from the dark and unpleasant aspects of the story. (One look at the movie's display of bizarre gynecological instruments and you'll know why women find this film particularly--and unforgettably--disturbing.) --Jeff Shannon
Dead Ringers - Criterion Collection
by David Cronenberg
from Criterion
Like many other films by Canadian director David Cronenberg (especially Crash), Dead Ringers presents the cinematic and psychological equivalent of an automobile accident--you dare not look, but you can't turn away. The film marked a directorial breakthrough for Cronenberg, who was able to continue some of the themes explored in his earlier horror films while graduating to a higher, more critically "respectable" level of artistic sophistication. The film is loosely based, amazingly enough, on a true story about twin gynecologists who routinely traded each others' identities, lives and even lovers. Utilizing innovative split-screen technology (years before computer manipulation made such trickery much easier), the film stars Jeremy Irons in flawless dual roles as the identical brothers Beverly and Elliot Mantle. Their ability to instantly switch identities leads them to a shared relationship with a well-known actress (Genevieve Bujold) and, ultimately, a physical and psychological tailspin that sends them both to the brink of madness and death. The scenario suggests that both men are halves of a whole, and that one cannot exist without the other. But when Beverly pursues a kinky, drug-addicted affair with the actress, his more self-controlled brother is helpless to prevent their mutual decline. In this way Dead Ringers becomes a fascinating and stylistically clinical study of duality, and Cronenberg doesn't shy away from the dark and unpleasant aspects of the story. (One look at the movie's display of bizarre gynecological instruments and you'll know why women find this film particularly--and unforgettably--disturbing.) --Jeff Shannon
In Dead Ringers, David Cronenberg tells the chilling story of identical twin gynecologists-suave Elliot and sensitive Beverly, bipolar sides of one personality-who share the same practice, the same apartment, the same women. When a new patient, glamorous actress Claire Niveau, challenges their eerie bond, they descend into a whirlpool of sexual confusion, drugs, and madness. Jeremy Irons' tour-de-force performance-as both twins-raises disturbing questions about the nature of personal identity.
All the Vermeers in New York
by Jon Jost
from World Artists
Probably the most maligned American Playhouse production ever aired, All the Vermeers in New York inspired unanimous contempt from TV reviewers. This 1990 anti-rhapsody in Manhattan landscapes forewarned its viewers of a tedious experience, and People magazine said it was "as exciting as watching a painting dry." What they objected to as "arty" may have had something to do with Jost's static photography or minutes-long lyrical interludes. Composed in, on top of, and around steel and stone urban monuments--as opposed to the warm and unabashed human subjects of Vermeer--Jost's brash depiction of a post-Reagan-era Manhattan and its inhabitants (at various turns a usurious art dealership, a cutthroat Wall Street brokerage, and the superficialities of the New York dating scene) may make Woody Allen's Manhattan seem like a scenic flight in positive-thinking guru Tony Robbins's helicopter, but Jost's dramatic interest isn't in mere exposé. A stock trader's lust for the killer deal is juxtaposed with his obsessions for a rare painting and later for a homesick, unemployed French actress (Emannuelle Chaulet). He spies her in a room looking at the same painting--but what they are looking at becomes, in the psychological context of the film, as mysterious and elusive as what they are looking for. Jost's most expensive movie to date--a mere $250,000--turned out to be the most virulent of his unflinching critiques of the destructive powers of materialism in the American--or, by the romantic and historical associations he provides, European--psyche. --Christopher Chase
New York's opulent art and financial worlds collide when a stressed-out stockbroker meets a beautiful and cagey French actress... DVD SPECIAL FEATURES: a souvenir booklet; scene access; the original theatrical trailer; an isolated music track with concert version of late composer Jon A. English's film score; filmographies; and production notes. Widescreen anamorphic format, 16:9 enhanced; Region 0.
Perfect Strangers
by Larry Cohen
from MGM (Video & DVD)
Even the most innocent eyes can see the difference between good and evil. Anne Carlisle (Liquid Sky) and Brad Rijn (Special Effects) star in this chilling urban noir thriller about a contract killer whose entanglement with a beautiful single mother could get them both killed! After whacking a rival deep in the bowels of Manhattan, a scrappy young hit man named Johnny (Rijn) is shocked to discover that a two-year-old boy has witnessed his brutal crime! But when his underworld bosses order him to eliminate the eyewitness, Johnny wages a desperate battle with his own morals and battered conscience especially as he embarks upon a dangerous affair with the toddler's mother (Carlisle), a bohemian beauty who doesn't realize her new lover has a deadly hidden agenda!
Dead Ringers
from Anchor Bay
Like many other films by Canadian director David Cronenberg (especially Crash), Dead Ringers presents the cinematic and psychological equivalent of an automobile accident--you dare not look, but you can't turn away. The film marked a directorial breakthrough for Cronenberg, who was able to continue some of the themes explored in his earlier horror films while graduating to a higher, more critically "respectable" level of artistic sophistication. The film is loosely based, amazingly enough, on a true story about twin gynecologists who routinely traded each others' identities, lives and even lovers. Utilizing innovative split-screen technology (years before computer manipulation made such trickery much easier), the film stars Jeremy Irons in flawless dual roles as the identical brothers Beverly and Elliot Mantle. Their ability to instantly switch identities leads them to a shared relationship with a well-known actress (Genevieve Bujold) and, ultimately, a physical and psychological tailspin that sends them both to the brink of madness and death. The scenario suggests that both men are halves of a whole, and that one cannot exist without the other. But when Beverly pursues a kinky, drug-addicted affair with the actress, his more self-controlled brother is helpless to prevent their mutual decline. In this way Dead Ringers becomes a fascinating and stylistically clinical study of duality, and Cronenberg doesn't shy away from the dark and unpleasant aspects of the story. (One look at the movie's display of bizarre gynecological instruments and you'll know why women find this film particularly--and unforgettably--disturbing.) --Jeff Shannon
Scanners [Region 2]
David Cronenberg's 1981 horror film is a darkly paranoid story of a homeless man (Stephen Lack) mistakenly believed to be insane, when in fact he can't turn off the sound of other people's thoughts in his telepathic mind. Helped by a doctor (Patrick McGoohan) and enlisted in a program of "scanners"--telepaths who also can will heads to explode--he becomes involved in a battle against nefarious forces. A number of critics consider this to be Cronenberg's first great film, and indeed it has a serious vision of destiny that rivals some of the important German expressionist works from the silent cinema. Lack is very good as the odd hero, and McGoohan is effectively eccentric and chilly as the scientist who saves him from the street, only to thrust him into a terrible struggle. --Tom Keogh
Scanners [Region 2]
David Cronenberg's 1981 horror film is a darkly paranoid story of a homeless man (Stephen Lack) mistakenly believed to be insane, when in fact he can't turn off the sound of other people's thoughts in his telepathic mind. Helped by a doctor (Patrick McGoohan) and enlisted in a program of "scanners"--telepaths who also can will heads to explode--he becomes involved in a battle against nefarious forces. A number of critics consider this to be Cronenberg's first great film, and indeed it has a serious vision of destiny that rivals some of the important German expressionist works from the silent cinema. Lack is very good as the odd hero, and McGoohan is effectively eccentric and chilly as the scientist who saves him from the street, only to thrust him into a terrible struggle. --Tom Keogh
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