Naked Lunch (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

Awesome movie

Part allegory, part biography, part drug fueled hallucination with comparisons to "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", "A Scanner Darkly" and "Trainspotting" this is a difficult movie to define. Less a direct conversion of the novel by Burroughs (because honestly, how?) and more an homage to the authors life and works, this film manages to do justice to the material and retain Cronenberg's weird and often grotesque style. Earns its "R' rating from the outset with adult themes and probably not suitable for every adult. Absolutely worth watching, and then rewatching. Criterion collection adds insight in the liner notes and bonus commentary.

This show was made from a book by a one of a kind author who lived a unique life & combined his life & his talent to create this story. William S. Burroughs' "Naked Lunch" was a novel many wanted to turn into a movie but it had to wait for F/X & a Director capable of filming its unreal expression of the Author's inner turmoil. David Cronenberg & modern film making combined to make it a unique & shining reality. The cast is dynamite & do a tremendous job of portraying Mr. Burroughs characters. Peter Weller from Robocop as Bill Lee, Judy Davis as Joan Lee/Frost their wife, Ian Holm of Bilbo fame as Tom Frost, Julian Sands as Yves Cloquet & Roy Scheider as a Doctor of deception & others you'll know. WARNING this show takes flight earlier & does not return. Get drinks first. A married exterminator & drug addict hooked on using his "bug powder" for intoxication as well as work begins his journey into psychosis on the train of hallucinations. His wife, then perceived as a problem, is easily removed at the direction of Bill's controller. It then becomes time to go undercover in a truly foreign country. Once there he will send out reports on enemy agents hiding in the same culture he is in. There are new customs, new friends, new enemies but still the same old Bill to try & deal with it all. That's this story line in a nutshell. It gives you No Idea about what is visually contained in this movie. All of these scenes play out in an exquisitely detailed & totally outlandish manner thanks to the direction of David Cronenberg. He was truly the one director to handle the job of book story to finished film here. What he accomplished before doing this film was only training for the making of "Naked Lunch". This movie is not ethereal & otherworldly the images are recognizable by anyone (I'm assuming you know what a typewriter is). Bill Lee our lead character is truly a stranger in his own strange land (pardon me Mr. Heinlein). To watch this show is to be in the middle of a psychotic mind visually. If you are a fan of the weird, the unusual, the bizarre & the unique you will love this. If you are a David Cronenberg fan this show is a non-stop Cronenberg fantasy you shouldn't miss. This was worth the wait & a BIG thanks to all the people that backed off trying this because they knew it wasn't time to try yet. 5 BIG STARS!

When going into David Cronenberg's vision of William Burroughs' hallucinatory novel, it's a good idea to keep the above tagline in mind. Like Cronenberg's other films, Naked Lunch is not for the weak stomached, but it's a triumph of a director's vision as he brings this long dubbed "unfilmable" book to life. The film is nearly impossible to describe, with Peter Weller in the starring role as an exterminator. He and his wife (Judy Davis) play a William Tell game which ends with her dead, followed by a trip to "Interzone", in which he experiences all sorts of insanity, including meeting an exact look-alike of his wife, typewriters which morph into cockroaches, etc. The makeup and visual effects are spectacularly done, and Cronenberg is at his near best as a director here as he brings Burroughs' nightmarish vision to life. Weller is exceptionally good, and the rest of the cast, including Davis, Roy Schieder, and Julian Sands in a scene you surely won't forget, no matter how hard you may try. Like the DVD release of Cronenberg's Videodrone, Criterion has lavished this first time DVD release of Naked Lunch, including a commentary by Cronenberg and Weller, as well as a fantastic documentary, and the usual array of extras.

This was a haunted and truly disturbed man according to this film. Well acted and astonishingly executed by all involved. It definitely requires more than one viewing to get the full impact of this one. Depicting a nightmare of visual allegory presented as a narrative, it has been confused as a Sci Fi film as well as a horror flick. There are aspects of both. But it is neither. A brilliant hallucinogenic film that is one of a kind. But not well received on it's original release. Enjoy at your own risk.

I just finished David Cronenberg's Naked Lunch. It was released in 1991, and is based on the William S. Burroughs novel of the same name. I've never read any of Burroughs' work, but now, I wouldn't mind researching it. This film is about an exterminator named Bill Lee - who is played here by Peter Weller of RoboCop fame. Bill is an ex-junkie, and is thrown back into drug addiction once he finds out that his wife is addicted to the bug powder that he uses on the job. He tries it once, and becomes hooked. He starts hallucinating. Giant bugs start spouting conspiracy theories to him. A giant alien-like creature, a "mugwump", has a conversation with him at a bar. Sounds weird, huh? It only gets weirder from there on out. And I mean WEIRD. One night, he and his wife decide to play a random game of William Tell that goes horribly wrong, in that he accidentally shoots his wife in the head, and she dies. He flees the scene, and heads off to the "Interzone," an exotic city that may or may not exist inside of his head. He starts to write a novel, a novel that will eventually become the book Naked Lunch. While he is in the "Interzone," his hallucinations get worse. They become so surreal and weird, that it is hard to differentiate between what is real and what is not. I don't have time to explain it all - some of the hallucinations were so strange, that I can't print them for fear of offending someone - however, one thing is certain: this is definitely a film that requires a second viewing. The character William Lee is loosely based on author William S. Burroughs. Burroughs really did shoot his wife during a game of William Tell, and this novel was written shortly after that incident. It may help to know that he was addicted to heroin at the time that he wrote it, which would explain all of the strangeness in the film. I DO NOT recommend this to everyone. It is most definitely not a film for anyone under the age of 17, and contains some shocking material. However, if you are in the mood for something different - and I stress the word DIFFERENT, then you may want to check this out. You may not understand all that is going on the first time around, but the point of the film is to make you feel as though you are on drugs yourself. I still don't know what to think about it. It certainly does stay with you afterwards, and it is very thought provoking. David Cronenberg is one of the best directors out there. After all, he gave us last year's classic, A History Of Violence. If you are familiar with Cronenberg or David Lynch, and you've enjoyed their previous offerings to cinema, then you'll probably want to see this. You may want to follow this up with a similar, albeit less trippy film named Barton Fink, which was released the same year, and also stars Judy Davis in a supporting role.

Regardless of how you feel about the novel or the film, you gotta commend Cronenberg's nerve at attempting to make Naked Lunch into a movie. Cronenberg's adaptation of William S. Burroughs seminal groundbreaking novel is an oddity not just in the world of cinema but also in Cronenberg's film career. In many ways I think Cronenberg was stretching the film medium as far as it could go as Burroughs did to the novel decades prior. From the outset you should be aware that this film is not a straight adaptation of the novel. Cronenberg wisely understood that to make a straight adaptation you'd need "400 million dollars and it would be banned all over the world". Instead of attempting the impossible he sought to create a more structured narrative that centered around the creation of the novel with bits and pieces from the novel popping up here and there. As a result though the film is far more limited in its scope than the novel was. Burroughs scathing metaphors for control, authoritarian abuse, scientific cruelty, and political corruption are not really featured within the film. The way in which Cronenberg makes up for this though is by giving an insightful cerebral look into sexuality and the human condition through Bill Lee. If you are into mind bending cinema that will challenge you with thought provoking imagery and themes this one will surely not disappoint. Criterion really packed this Blu-Ray with some great special features. They included marketing trailers, behind the scenes footage and interviews, slide shows of the extensive special effects and designs, an hours worth of Burroughs reading from Naked Lunch, commentary from Cronenberg and Peter Weller, and a fantastic making of feature. Pick this one up folks!

Not for everyone. Extremely interesting.

Where on earth do you start with this? I think that you either ' get ' William S. Burroughs or you don't and luckily for me he couldn't do anything wrong.Whether writing, painting, acting,' singing ' or just talking this man was a true genius. Cronenberg's Naked Lunch is a mixture of Bill's cut-up novel, autobiography and the writing of the novel and to my mind is absolutely sublime. The Criterion bluray isn't perfect but it's much better than any other release currently on sale and I highly recommend it. I was going to list all the details, extras etc. But www.Bluray.com does it far better than I, so leave me, go there, read and order this immediately!

Great movie from a great director, hard to understand if you are not used to this style but it always was one of my favorite movies!

Criterion Collection: Naked Lunch

Amazing sound, amazing picture, lots of neat special features and really liked the disc art sadly I did not enjoy the movie but a great film remaster nonetheless with nice extras

Full recommendation!