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The Nextlander Watchcast Episode 108: eXistenZ (1999)
🕑 Added 2024-09-30 21:54:49 +0000 UTCWe close out our month of vaguely video game related movies with the goopiest game in town, eXistenZ! Join us as we dive many layers deep into the subrealities of Cronenberg's fleshy cyberpunk delight to see if it holds up to our fond memories.
CHAPTERS:
(00:00:00) - The Nextlander Watchcast Episode 108: eXistenZ (1999)
(00:00:37) - Intro.
(00:02:19) - What are we doing here? We're talking about eXistenZ!
(00:03:47) - Vinny has questions, and we talk a little about when we first saw this thing.
(00:11:48) - Alex's one David Cronenberg story.
(00:14:47) - Some background on the movie's inspirations and production.
(00:19:21) - Our (shockingly young) cast.
(00:25:03) - High praise for Howard Shore and the effects team.
(00:30:39) - Our immediate introduction to the GamePod.
(00:41:37) - Death to the demoness!
(00:49:39) - Break!
(00:50:05) - We're back, and it's time to pull out a tooth bullet.
(00:58:13) - It's Gas! That guy who works at the Country Gas Station!
(01:05:58) - Let's go see what kind of accent Ian Holm has.
(01:08:53) - Time to jack into eXistenZ.
(01:19:07) - We are going Trout Farm mode, we are Chinese Restaurant maxing.
(01:31:17) - Well, the waiter's dead. Now what?
(01:37:29) - We've finished all the side-missions, let's get back to the main quest.
(01:45:54) - You are the queen of eXistenZ! Here's your VR tiara (VRa?)
(01:50:32) - A Death to the Demon encore!
(01:57:35) - Final thoughts.
(02:03:48) - Some forward-looking talk about our October theme: horror anthologies!
(02:08:14) - Outro.
Comments
Matt M.
Oh, and I was fresh off of Naked Lunch -- incredible movie where there are layers of reality due to drug use instead of technology -- and it was delightful to see Robert Silverman as D'Arcy. Like pretty much everyone else in a short movie, could've used more of him!
Matt M.
I finally re-watched this movie and then finally got around to this podcast... One of the things that really struck me is how it's not trying to "get one over" on the viewer. There are twists and turns but it feels weirdly collaborative. The movie isn't trying to be more clever than audience... It knows you're catching details and already questioning elements and is just trying to play in that space. The Sixth Sense came out the same year and (maybe along with Fight Club) kind of plagued us with a decade-long run of films, Shymalan and otherwise, bending over backward to try to have a big "twist" moment for the audience. eXistenZ stands rather uniquely for a movie that both isn't trying to speak down to its audience and isn't trying to underestimate or fool them; that's just not the goal. Also, the fact that Cronenberg himself isn't a gamer is striking. I know there was a lot of VR content in the 90's but Cronenberg really does have an intuitive (or otherwise highly researched?) sense of the meta layer of gameplay. The Salman Rushdie connection made total sense once I heard it on the podcast. I remember thinking that "fatwa" stood out in a kind of dated way. I did think that rear-projection effect was pretty good. When they drop the pink phone out the back and you see it glowing and receding into the distance... was really good. Maybe that could have been a digital effect but I noticed and appreciated that detail.
nextlander
This is episode 108, I just titled it incorrectly on this page.
Glen Greer
Was there an episode 108?
Kevin Martin
I LOVE THE WATCH CAST!
Raymond Terry
Check out the trailer for this movie. The marketing team was desperate to make it look as hip and cool as The Matrix.
Zeemod
So I really liked The Fly, and I REALLY liked Videodrome. I'm not sure about this one. The off-putting fleshnology was not the most off-putting thing about this movie. Also gonna guess the fact that this came out 1 month after The Matrix had something to do with it not performing well?
Dr. Judge, Private Eye
Not sure I've ever been less surprised to hear "Vinny has questions!"
