Film Capsule

If you find yourself around a bookstore or newsstand for some last minute holiday shopping, or holiday returns, look for the new issue of Cineaste Magazine. The Winter 2012 issue has some great features and articles, including my review of David Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis starring Robert Pattinson.

It’s one of my favorite films of the year, and I argue that it already deserves reconsideration after being coolly received by audiences and critics. While it may seem a departure from Cronenberg’s body horror classics of the 80s, Cosmopolis too transposes the fears and fascinations of contemporary society into monstrous amalgamations of man and machinery. In today’s world of global economic meltdowns and polarized class rhetoric, however, humans no longer meld with televisions or the DNA of flies, but rather with streams of information—vast, unknowable, and meaningless.