18. In Crimes of the Future, people simply eat the plastic soup
I.
David Cronenberg once directed wild films like The Fly, Videodrome and The Crash, but after eXistenZ he stepped away from the body horror genre. Until last year. Thatâs when he made one again, after 23 years: Crimes of the Future. (Cronenberg already made a film with the same title in 1970, but this is not a remake. Iâd skip the old one, by the way.)
In the future where this film takes place, pain barely exists and surgery is seen as âthe new sexâ. Protagonist Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen) has elevated surgery to an art form. Because his body keeps mutating and growing new tumors, he has himself operated on during underground performances by his assistant Caprice (LĂ©a Seydoux). What we see: lots of flesh, tattooed organs, operating tables that come to life, and a man with ears all over his body. In short: I loved it.
Crimes of the Future makes you wonder how far you can go in mutilating a body, even if itâs your own. How far can you go for art (very far in this film). Where exactly does beauty lie? The future Cronenberg sketches is not a comfortable one. We feel nothing anymore, until we literally start cutting into ourselves.
In the film we see a group of people whose bodies have changed to the point where they can eat plastic. They are seen by many as extremely radical, as the end of humanity in people.
The joke is that all of us (you and I) are ingesting microplastics. Through the air, through fruit and vegetables, through fish from the sea. There is an enormous problem with plastic soup in the oceans that not only threatens life there, but also affects us directly. We can do something about that, or we let it go in the hope that eventually, just like the child in this film, weâll foam at the mouth devouring a garbage can.
II.
Hollywood is on strike. Screenwriters have been at it for two months, now the film stars are joining them. Some 160,000 members of the film union SAG-AFTRA have stopped work. As a result, many major films and series face significant delays.
Next week Oppenheimer opens, the new film by Christopher Nolan (which was finished and arrives on time). The London premiere was moved up by an hour so the actors could still walk the red carpet before the strike began. This meant actors were not allowed to participate in events (or in interviews, as my colleague at NU.nl experienced).
The strike is partly about artificial intelligence. Actors fear that the technology will eventually make them redundant. And that fear is real. We see older actors receiving a digital rejuvenation, deceased actors rising from the dead, and deepfakes are becoming increasingly realistic. Producers are even offering to scan extras, with the option to copy their likeness into all kinds of films for eternity. They get paid a dayâs wage for that.
If this development escalates, even the worldâs biggest stars will eventually become unnecessary. That is why actors are now fighting for clear and strict agreements to prevent that from happening. Rightly so, because as director Justine Bateman said: âThere is no shortage of writers, actors or directors. There is no shortage of talent whatsoever.â
What we end up with if we rely too heavily on artificial intelligence is lifeless work built on the information the technology was fed. That kills creativity, because a computer never invents anything new. We humans want to be surprised (Parasite, Squid Game, Everything, Everywhere All At Once) and not have to watch any more algorithmic series and films like those Netflix pumps out. Go on, strike!
III.
When I was looking for an e-bike last year I considered a VanMoof, but not having bought one now feels like I slipped through the eye of a needle. The Amsterdam bike maker is in such poor financial shape that bankruptcy looms.
That is very bad news for everyone with a VanMoof. Because if it comes to that, support for the bikesâ hardware and software will stop. And they are already so difficult to repair outside of VanMoof. Should the parts run out and your bike breaks down, youâll have nowhere to turn.
If the support for the VanMoof app also stops, youâll have another problem. The app is the digital bike key. To solve that potential problem ahead of time, Belgian competitor Cowboy released the app Bikey this week. With it, people can store their VanMoof key, in case the VanMoof servers go down.
I donât think the app is really intended as a final stab in the back for VanMoof. âThis project is an initiative of the Cowboy software team, which loves bikesâ, the maker writes on its website. âWe firmly believe that every bike belongs on the road and thatâs why we decided to start this project.â
PS.
Jony Ive once designed the iPod and the AirPods. In 2019 he left Apple for his own company: LoveForm. Together with British audio brand Linn, LoveForm has designed a turntable. It is an ode to the companyâs LP12, which turns fifty. The new LP12-50 is a beauty of which 250 copies will be made. They will need to find 250 people willing to pay 60,000 euros for a turntable.
I donât bat an eye anymore at solving four Wordles at once. That doesnât mean Iâm a puzzle genius. Or that I have the patience to solve The Password Game. This is a free online game where you have to come up with a password. Sounds easy, until you have to meet dozens of bizarre rules that constantly get in each otherâs way.
Hereâs something Iâve been looking forward to: the new album by Blake Mills. The unconventional musician made the beautiful album Mutable Set in 2020 and is now back with Jelly Road. Mills is the kind of person who is completely woven into the music world. He played with Lana Del Rey, Julian Casablancas, The Killers and Rufus Wainwright. As a producer, the 36-year-old artist is said to have been a defining influence on Bob Dylanâs album Rough and Rowdy Ways, on which he also plays guitar and harmonium.
Last week I wrote about Threads, Instagramâs Twitter alternative. It was accessible in the Netherlands via a workaround, even though it hadnât officially launched in Europe yet. That had to do with strict European regulations. None of that matters now, because: the fun is over. Instagram has intervened and you can no longer post on Threads from the EU. You can still look at all the boomer memes that Americans share.
New in Las Vegas: The Sphere. A spherical building for concerts, sports events and other shows. The exterior is insane. Thanks to 1.2 million LEDs, the building transforms into an art project. You can see projections of the earth, the moon, or a large water droplet. The scariest thing is a gigantic moving eye.
âWe read English-language books in the original â any intellectual knows thatâ, writes Nikki Dekker in her interesting essay in De Groene. I do the same. But why, actually?
Joaquin Phoenix plays Napoleon in a new epic by Ridley Scott. Grand imagery in the trailer (and I can hear a Radiohead cover).
An origin story about Willy Wonka sounds like a bad idea. But the trailer for Wonka looks exactly like the film you want to see around the holidays. With Timothée Chalamet as the chocolate fanatic and Hugh Grant as⊠an Oompa Loompa. Directed by Paul King, who previously made the wonderful family films Paddington and (even better) Paddington 2. That bodes well.
Starting next week Barbie is in cinemas. Canât wait. I recently discovered that a number of Barbie dolls were made in a special Hitchcock series. Here you can see them in the box: The Birds, Rear Window and To Catch a Thief.
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