LeonLouisRicci

In 2025 Cinephiles, even Cronenberg Haters, Know Much About the Auteurs "Style" and Fixations. He Gets Under-Your-Skin and Stays There.

Things that Set Him Apart From Run-of-the-Mill Filmmakers.

He is also Definitely Different from even the Best Main-Stream Directors who Deliver Quality, if Formulaic Films.

There are a Few Unique, Off-Beat, and Uncompromising Visionaries with Little Regard for Box-Office Receipts or Critical Back-Lash.

He Fits Comfortably with those Misanthrope Movie-Makers. Other Praised and Scorned Directors such as David Lynch, Robert Altman, and Stanley Kubrick, who Give No-Ground When Creating Their Movies.

It's "Art for Art's Sake" and that's what it is.

While Pop-Culture Flows Like a River Carrying the Majority and the Many with it, there are Inevitable Branch-Breaks that Diverge, that are Smaller, but No-Less a Part of the Mass.

Just Large Enough to be Noticed but Within Contain Less-Similar Substance that is the Same but Different.

Cronenberg is and Always has been a Director that Went "Quirky" into the "Wild" Developing Flourishes and Fun to be Had from Not Being the Regular-Stuff.

A Differentness, a Treat, a Singular Sensation, a "Path Less Traveled" and Therefore Sure to be a Surprising Peek from the Ordinary.

"The Shrouds" is Cronenberg Being Cronenberg, for Better or Worse, Take it or Leave it. It is what it is.

A "Fun-House" Film Full of Odd-Ball Characters (an entrepreneur grieving incessantly over his departed wife, a woman "turned-on" and aroused by "conspiracies", a junk-food junkie tech-wizard hacker who is as crazy as 3 blind mice ),

Inhabiting Goof-Ball Environs (high-tech monitoring bodies buried within screen-infested monuments), and an Off-the-Wall Mystery, Possibly Espionage, Mucking it All-Up, and Medical-Profession Madness that May Be Conducting Fringe, Illegal Experiments on the Living and the Dead.

It's just Another Cronenberg Buffet of Severed Limbs, Body-Horror-Obsession, and More Clownish Creations than a Slimy-Side-Show.

All Done Appropriately "Dead-Pan".

Nothing in this Bizarre Display of Cinematic Entertainment is Predictable, Pedestrian, or Plain.

It's a Movie for Maniacal Fans and Far-Out-Their Thinkers.

Dream-Like Fantasies Fraught with WTF Ideas Formulated in a Film-Format Fit For the Edge of Movie-Making.

Made for Someone, who Knows who, and that's the "Charm".

For Fans of the Avant-Garde and Out-of-the-Box-Art...

It's a Must-See...

Others Prone to the "Every-Day"...

Not So Much.

In 1942 Film-Noir was a Yet to be Discovered Genre in the Process of Forming From German Expressionism, American Crime Pulp-Fiction.

Cornell Woolridge (aka William Irish) Wrote this, His 1st, of Many to Come Lurid Stories, that were Adapted or Inspired by the Prose, into Movies Spun from His Work.

A Dark and Brooding Scribe who was Fully Engaged and Embedded in the Penny-a-Word World of Popular Tainted Tales. Where He and His Partners-in-Crime Wordsmiths Like Chandler, Hammett, and Others were Paid to Play in the Underbelly of Literature.

Prolific Creators that were Laying the Foundation of Pulp-Culture Fiction.

This was a Low-Budget "B", Fast-Paced Urban Environs where Claustrophobic Streets and Rooms Symbolized the "Traps" of 20th Century Stomping Grounds.

A Decaying Over-Populated Citizenry Confined by Semi-Poverty, Stifling Natural Growth Void of Sunlight and Oxygen Suffocating Smog Crushing the Life of Many Unfortunates.

Here We can Find, References of the Piercing Class-Struggle with the Way Clair Trevor is Taking Constant Put-Downs.

Barked by Her Upper-Class Employers. Demanding by way of Sharp-Tongued Orders and Commands with No-Respect or even a Hint of Understanding Her "Slaves" of Servitude.

A Surely Motivating Factor that Pushes the "Help" into Seeking a "Way-Out" of the Completely Opposite Life She Lives, While Her "Betters" Live in Sprawling Mansions in Wide-Open Spaces. A Place where there is "Room" to Breathe Fresh Air.

That will Become a Constant Battle-Ground for Film-Noir to Thrive and Develop into a "Working-Class" Dream Factory for the Desperate Post-War Population Slowly being Siphoned of any Chance for the "American Dream" to Come True.

The Film-Noir Pulpit Populated by "Truth-Telling" Messengers more than Willing to Expose the Flaws in the System and be a "Fly-in-the-Ointment" to Bug and Irritate those Holding-Up the Facade of Fake "Equality" and Faux Platitudes.

Offered as Hope Backed-By those who have No Chance of Giving an Inch for Everyone to Participate on a Level 'Playing-Ground".

Film-Noir was just Getting Started, in "Little" Movies Like this, Perpetuated by an "Everyman" of Limited Stature and Appeal.

Like Burgess Meridith, Not Tall, Not Handsome, Not Anyone Special or Worth a Second-Look. Caught in a Web of Wondering Who He is, and Where He Belongs.

It's No Surprise that the Very Buildings where He Works and Lives Delivered a "Blow" to the Little-Guy, Saying You are Unworthy "Little Man".

A Real-Life Possibility on the Minds of the Masses. That would, of course, also be On-the-Minds of the Makers of Film-Noir. Art Imitating LIfe.

Are CGI Artists Unable to Create Their "Creations" Only in a Mono-Sepia-Tone Template that was Dull and Dismal "Out-of-the-Box". What Gives?

Movie-Goers have been "Handed" this sort of Bland Artistic Excuse for Monsters and Fantastical Landscapes for 20 Years Now.

Can Somebody, Anybody Please Explain to a Computer-Artist No-Nothing, What's Going on Here?

You Hear a Murmur once and a while from Professional Critics that Goes Something Like This..."It looks like a video-game."

Then there is Silence ...

Until the Next Dull Display is Offered-Up as a So-Called Million-Dollar Expensive Process. Someone Got Took.

It is Anemic, Hard-on-the-Eyes, and just Plain Painful for Anyone Looking to be Entertained and Enjoy some Groovy, Graphic-Arts.

But in 2025 Movie after Movie that Falls of the Assembly-Line is Another Artistic-Wasteland of Creatures, Monsters, and Other-Worlds.

If these Other-Worlds as Presented Again and Again have "Boxes of Crayons", it must ONLY Include Grey, Brown, Blue, White, Black, and Silver.

It has Long-Been-Now......Pop-Culture Fatigue.

Nothing Inspiring...Nothing Dazzling, Nothing Entertaining.

Slogs of Depressing Vistas where "Rainbows" are Not-Known to Exist and Everyone is Color-Blind.

YUCK

Someone Give these CGI Artists a Healthy Dose of Mind-Expansion "Mushrooms".

They Sure Could Use an "Awakening" from Their Inability to Sense and See that Their "Art" is Atrophied on Arrival and Destined for a Not-to-Kind Historical Wrath.

Do Not Support this Inexcusable, Exhausting Exercise in Art-Exploitation-Desecration.