eXistenZ

1999 piece of shit
Rating: 4/20
Plot: Genius video game maker Allegra Geller and some video gamers convene in what apparently is a barn to try out her newest creation--eXistenZ! A kid with a tooth gun tries to kill her, and Allegra and Ted Pikul have to travel into her game to. . .well, I'm not sure what they have to do.
Why do I keep watching David Cronenberg movies? I feel like I'm missing something every time I do. For example, was this a comedy? Parts of it were definitely funny, but I'm not sure if that was intentional. Is the acting deliberately bad? Is the really lame reality vs. fantasy theme stretched to such a degree of lameness that it in fact implodes and becomes this intelligent satire that isn't lame at all? Was it Cronenberg's intention to create a movie that made me wish I could shoot myself in the face with a tooth gun and end it all rather than finish the movie? I was left with questions other than "Why do I keep watching David Cronenberg movies?" Why were Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jude Law allowed to act in other movies after this one? Why did the studio allow a movie to have such a stupid name? eXistenZ? That costs it a few rating points right there. Is Canada to blame for this? This is as bad as that Mario Brothers movie and manages to make the script for Tron look like Othello. There's very little in this movie that looks or feels normal--tooth guns, writhing and throbbing fleshy video game systems, two-headed insects, Willem Dafoe--and the onslaught of weirdness makes the experience entirely unpleasant. I always feel really dirty after watching a David Cronenberg movie, and a shower was even required after this one.