David Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis opens this week, and he’s currently making the rounds promoting it. When NextMovie interviewed Cronenberg, they asked him about The Dark Knight Rises, because why not? Opinions about The Dark Knight Rises are like smelly buttholes, or so the saying goes. Anyway, it turns out the Videodrome director is not a fan.
The chance of Cronenberg taking on a superhero movie is somewhere between zero and nothing, according to his interview with NextMovie.
“A superhero movie, by definition, you know, it’s comic book. It’s for kids. It’s adolescent in its core,” explains Cronenberg. “That has always been its appeal, and I think people who are saying ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ is, you know, supreme cinema art, I don’t think they know what the f**k they’re talking about.”
“It’s for a little kids! I’m not interested in that! I want to film a guy who has a car crash fetish, who wants to have sex with his girlfriend’s open wound!” …You know, that’s why I like David Cronenberg. The man knows what he likes.
The suggestion that directors like Christopher Nolan have elevated the genre doesn’t resonate with Cronenberg:
“I think it’s still Batman running around in a stupid cape… Christopher Nolan’s best movie is ‘Memento,’ and that is an interesting movie. I don’t think his Batman movies are half as interesting, though they’re 20 million times the expense. What he is doing is some very interesting technical stuff, which, you know, he’s shooting IMAX and in 3-D. That’s really tricky and difficult to do. I read about it in ‘American Cinematography Magazine,’ and technically, that’s all very interesting. The movies, to me, they’re mostly boring.” [Film.com/NextMovie]
“I don’t want to see Batman running around in a stupid cape! I want to see Viggo Mortensen running around with his wiener flopping everywhere!”
Though I can’t say I disagree with him there either. TDKR sort of hinted at the beginning that Batman was going to have to do more than just beat people up this time, but for the most part, that “more” turned out to be mostly “believe in yourself EVEN HARDER!” and “another training montage!” followed by him beating people up again. It was still an enjoyable movie, but if given a choice between Chris Nolan directing a Batman or Chris Nolan directing a Memento, I’ll take Memento. (If it’s between Chris Nolan directing a Batman and almost anyone else directing a Batman, yeah, I’ll take Chris Nolan).
Dang it, I just showed you guys my butthole, didn’t I. David Cronenberg is always tricking people into doing that. Ugh, now I know how Maria Bello feels.