Cinema Egzotik: The Night of Jeff Goldblum
This year’s edition of the Imagine Film Festival revolves around the sequel film. Egzotik joins in with a programme on Jeff Goldblum, the actor whose finest roles happened to be in the remakes of the 1950s classics The Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Fly.
Egzotik programmer Martin Koolhoven explains. “With all the mediocre remakes of horror classics we”ve been seeing in the last few years, you”d almost forget they can also be a great success. Both Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Fly were tremendous 1950s horror films with remakes so good it”s arguable which is the better: the original or the remake. Is it down to chance that the eccentric actor Jeff Goldblum has a role in both films?”
The Invasion of the Body SnatchersPhilip Kaufman US 1978 English spoken. Dutch subtitles. 115'
Turning a classic into a brand new one. Philip Kaufman pulled it off, partly thanks to the performances of Donald Sutherland and Jeff Goldblum. Whereas Don Siegel delivered a biting metaphor for the communist paranoia under McCarthy, Kaufman focused on the feeling of mental disintegration. When alien plants take over our bodies, what's left of us? Psychiatrist Leonard Nimoy (Goldblum) steadies the nerves, but every bit of green is suspect. Just wait for the moment that piece of celery gets violently chopped!
The FlyDavid Cronenberg US/GB/CA 1986 English spoken. Dutch subtitles, 96'
Cronenberg transforms a zany B film plot into a tragic portrait of physical deformation. The Fly is not only an unprecedented showcase of body horror, but also a masterful romantic tragedy that draws us into the nightmare of a brilliant scientist (Jeff Goldblum). He genetically fuses with a fly in a pioneering experiment, only to have his mind and body gradually disintegrate, to the horror of his entourage.
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Cinema Egzotik was the cult programme of director Martin Koolhoven and Ronald Simons, Eye programmer and editor-in-chief of The Cult Corner.
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