Teddy Gomi

I am a firm believer that David Cronenberg's early work is his best work. While I personally wouldn't have selected the Brood as a representation of Cronenberg in the Canon, reflecting on it now makes me think it was the perfect choice. It doesn't have a lot of the flaws of some of his other early works and it really captures a specific aspect of the time it was made in. The film let's thing be ambiguous; but doesn't fall into complete ambiguity. It gives the characters, even the antagonists, many layers of complexity. And perhaps most importantly, the movie does not devolve into strangeness for the sake of strangeness. While strangeness for the sake of strangeness is a quality I love in Cronenberg's work (see: Videodrome); this can hinder the work's vision and drag films down to spectacle for the sake of spectacle reducing the impact, vision and statement of the film. So I am voting a resounding YES on the Brood and commending Kier-La Janisse for nominating it.

This is such an incredible horror film because it focuses almost entirely on atmosphere. It creates such an incredible sense of disorientation and dread along with it's incredible visuals it borders on being an art film. I keep seeing posters saying that the movie makes no spatial sense. Don't the characters talk about the school not making spatial sense in the film? I think this was done on purpose much as Stanley Kubrick later had his hotel make no spatial sense in The Shining.

I'm writing this to provide a little clarification about the term Bobos. The way the French Punk Rockers are using the term Bobos (an abreviated mashup of Bourgeois Bohemian) was actually coined in the American Book "Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There" by David Brooks which came out in 2000. The way that the term Bobo is being used by Brooks and the French is in fact antithetical to the way it is used by June on HDTGM. The French are using the term Bobo for people who spend a lot of money on things that are counter culture in order to look cool. These people are essentially Yuppies who want to look edgy. On your show you, June uses the term Bobo to describe something that is a knock off, such as cheap off brand sneakers. Brooks and the French would see someone wearing Nikes as being Bobo and the cheap off brand sneakers as being authentic. Whereas, June would see the Nikes as being cool and the cheap sneakers as being Bobo. These two terms appear to be accidental homonyms with different origins. The search for the origin of June's meaning for Bobo must continue.

Ok, I listened to this podcast today; and my biggest takeaway from it is does Armond White really believe that Miles Davis was on the side of Traditional Jazz? This blows my mind, not just that Miles Davis released albums of avante garde "Jazz is the Future" like "On the Corner" and "Call It Anything"; it's that the entire "Traditional Jazz is better than Modern Jazz" garbage was created as a reaction specifically against Miles Davis' music. What is really sad is that Armond White was alive when this reactionary backlash happened. Miles Davis back in the late 60s early 70s made crazy experimental futuristic music that was attracted a massive audience and traditional jazz fans started this backlash against it due to it's popularity. The whole "Traditional Jazz" is the real deal trope killed jazz music.