Naked Lunch

December. 27,1991      R
Rating:
6.9
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Trailer Synopsis Cast

Blank-faced bug killer Bill Lee and his dead-eyed wife, Joan, like to get high on Bill's pest poisons while lounging with Beat poet pals. After meeting the devilish Dr. Benway, Bill gets a drug made from a centipede. Upon indulging, he accidentally kills Joan, takes orders from his typewriter-turned-cockroach, ends up in a constantly mutating Mediterranean city and learns that his hip friends have published his work -- which he doesn't remember writing.

Peter Weller as  Bill Lee
Judy Davis as  Joan Frost
Ian Holm as  Tom Frost
Julian Sands as  Yves Cloquet
Roy Scheider as  Dr. Benway
Monique Mercure as  Fadela
Nicholas Campbell as  Hank
Michael Zelniker as  Martin
Robert A. Silverman as  Hans
Joseph Scoren as  Kiki

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Reviews

SnoReptilePlenty
1991/12/27

Memorable, crazy movie

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LouHomey
1991/12/28

From my favorite movies..

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Nessieldwi
1991/12/29

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

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Hattie
1991/12/30

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

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funeralfortheliving
1991/12/31

Naked lunch is a visual and metaphoric masterpiece about creativity art and poetry and the depths of insanity that have given us the most astonishing and creative leaps towards human evolution. David Cronenberg unfortunately is a true auteur in a business ran like a production line assembly due to the audiences inability to enjoy anything that doesn't relate to what they have been brain washed into identifying with. William Burroughs actually stated that this film was the closest adaptation to anything ever attempted out of his writings and is the only time I have ever heard a writer say a film adaption didn't make them cringe at its gross misrepresentation. So why would the lemmings who pay 13 dollars to view Transformers 3 have a problem with this imaginative astounding work of art? It is simple, if you don't like films like this your an idiot there is no way around it. People are going to try and use excuses like free will and some things are not for everybody. But lets be real those are nice ways of saying you have chosen to be stupid. Do people in the Olympics say you can't compete because it's just not for everybody, no they understand you can't compete because your not talented or skilled enough to even stand on the side lines. But since we live in the land of the symbolically deformed and challenged it's OK to pretend being a sucker is great seeing as the kindergarten level propaganda employed is the only means of selling garbage and lies to pee brains just to keep our economy above total depression. How could a cgi crap fest with no story or character development like Dred get higher ratings than a master piece of the symbolic like Naked Lunch? Once again proving stupid people only like movies that spoon feed them all the answers in one sitting like 6th sense and Memento. Movies that have only one message and one goal knowing the morons who flood cinemas have to be slapped in the face for 1 1/2 hours to go oh I get it after the final reveal that leaves nothing to be imagined rams right down their butter lubricated throats. This is why I left film school just like in ancient rome Americans have been turned to brainless sheeple who think true art is to be demonized as the devil and replaced by product ruled by bottom line and would rather watch Happy Feet than be philosophically challenged. Congratulations you are all new age christians who burn art, feign experience, and take your queue's from a square that promises a safe distance from perception and knowing. True roman solders defending the status quo as being a mass of mindless idiots who cling to the lowest human functions of domestic drama and talking point arguments founded in identifying your self as a soulless sellout with no sense of individuality; instituted by a culture industry that promises minimum wage for your suspension of the constitutional rights given to you by people who valued truth and knowledge. So if you are incapable of relating to anything artistic or meaningful and like to get caught up in societal ignorance's and your idea of philosophizing is am I a good Ma Ma and Da Da, or think fundamental life choice is what should I wear to the prom or which homoerotic child's game is playing tonight on the idiot box, you might not even want watch this and you surly should not be leaving a review. You don't see dyslexic people leaving reviews to grammar text books or blind people reviewing books not available in braille do you? And you surly don't see moron's reviewing Einstein and Tesla claiming their works to be worthless drivel because they can't understand it so why in the world of cinema is it OK? You don't see me going to web sites that sell foreign books in other languages and saying this is just a bunch of gibberish because I don't know how to decipher it do you? Yet IMDb is flooded with reviews of piaxar-latent inhibitionists who think talking animals are visceral genius and farting cartoons are comedic bravado. Stick to your lame human dramas please and stay out of grown ups business. Have some kids or go play at the local playground you'll find subjects more in line with your intelligence level. Schopenhauer was right.

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Xander Khudanich
1992/01/01

I think Naked Lunch is one of the best movies I have ever seen (I've seen a lot of them). The film is based on the book "Naked Lunch" by William S. Burroughs. For yet with books by this author I do not know, but I think in the future, be sure to read his work. Filming a movie based on the book of the eccentric writer, Canadian director David Cronenberg, prone in his work to the constant shocking, decided to mix with original work of reference to the rest of creation of the author, as well as elements of the biographyWilliam Burroughs. Get in the end surreal mixture is able to confuse anyone.

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Dalbert Pringle
1992/01/02

Naked Lunch is definitely the kind of flick that'll get most "thinking" people either burping, or farting, or, most likely, doing both at the same time, long before the picture is even over the rainbow. I'm not kidding.Naked Lunch is gastronomical! It's when you stop to consider that one of the main characters in Naked Lunch is in actuality a "talking" sphincter (it's true), that this will excuse any foul response to this poor-excuse-of-a-movie, without any apologies required.I have to say that it was actually really comical at times when this babbling butt-hole and Bill (Peter Weller) were engaged in one of their many screwy conversations, or whatever. I mean, what, in the hell, are you supposed to say to a sphincter? Go ahead! Try talking to your own sometime and see what kind of a response you inevitably get from it.It did kind of strike me ironically that, here in Naked Lunch, it just happened to be this extremely vocal arsehole who was calling all the shots with Bill, ordering him around, and telling him to do this and that. Yeah, irony-of-ironies, Bill, a grown man, is being bossed and bullied around by, of all things, Sir Admiral Anus . It's, naturally, all fun and games at first, but, typically, as novelties often go, this gabbing, little Corn-hole gets to be a total pain-in the-butt (literally) after a short while.It took (of all the lopsided-minds in this world) the most whacked-out one of them all (director, David Cronenberg) to bring Naked Lunch to the big screen. Any idiot with half a brain in his head could have told this nut (which I'm sure they did) that the William Burroughs' novel of the same name was impossible to film. But, Cronenberg, believing himself to be creating the work of a genius from the work of another genius forged ahead like a real, little trooper and produced an utterly awful film. Bravo, Cronenberg! You can have your Naked Lunch, and eat it, too.I won't even try to outline the ludicrous plot of Naked Lunch, 'cause, let's face it, there ain't one. In that way it's exactly on par with the Burroughs' novel.Right from the start Naked Lunch is absolutely nonsensical to the nth degree. The story runs off in so many different tangents, seemingly all at once, that it will make your poor, little head spin-spin-spin. I'd confidently say that you'd probably have more luck getting a clear story just talking to your own sphincter, rather than try to piece together Naked Lunch's rectal-mess.So, as I suggest, leave all your worldly troubles behind you and come on down to the Breakfast Club where they're serving a scrumptious Naked Lunch for your Last Supper.

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amazing_sincodek
1992/01/03

I generally love Cronenberg's films. They (generally) have a unique, dark, hallucinogenic sensibility that is often compared to David Lynch, but characteristically differ from David Lynch's films in that they often get progressively weirder as they go, constructing their own logic and drawing the viewer further and further from what (s)he expects to see in cinema.Naked Lunch is the only exception I've seen so far. Though the first 30 minutes or so suggest something familiar from his previous films, the rest of the film is too obvious in its intentions (namely, a figurative discussion of the writing process and of Burroughs himself), with no surprises or additional weird stuff being introduced. All the weird stuff gets introduced in the first 30 minutes, and then the "rabbit hole" feeling disappears.There's nothing wrong with that, I guess, if you are a fan of Burroughs, or, alternatively, if you AREN'T a fan of Cronenberg. That is, this movie, while certainly pretty disgusting and weird relative to mainstream films, is actually pretty generic in its artistic sensibilities. It uses metaphors which are easy to interpret and nests social commentary in its dialogue in a way that is easy to recognize.I wanted a movie that would challenge me, confuse me, and unsettle me more and more as it progressed. Instead, I started yawning and fast-forwarding as the same metaphors were recycled over and over. Again, this is fine from the standpoint of traditional art and narrative construction, but I expect Cronenberg's films to go beyond what I am able to interpret. No such luck here.

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