February 'Nick's Pix:" CRASH & Book Signing!

3 hours ago
5 min read

There are movies that entertain you, movies that move you, movies that scare you, and then there are movies that crawl under your skin, set up permanent residence, and refuse to let you off the hook. David Cronenberg’s Crash is absolutely one of those movies.

This is not the terrible 2004 Oscar-winning embarrassment with Sandra Bullock and Matt Dillon. No, no, no. This is the real Crash.

The 1996 David Cronenberg adaptation of J. G. Ballard’s profoundly disturbing, deeply erotic, and fiercely intellectual novel about sex, technology, trauma, and desire.

And yes, I am thrilled, honored, and maybe just a little terrified to be hosting a screening of it on the big screen.

On Wednesday, February 11th at 7:00 p.m., as part of my 'Nick's Pix' series, I’ll be introducing Crash at the Lake Theater in Oak Park.

It will be shown in a gorgeous 4K restoration, which is important because this movie deserves to be seen properly, in all of its cold metallic beauty and unsettling intimacy.

I’ll introduce the film beforehand, and after the credits roll, we are absolutely going to talk.

There will be discussion, trivia, giveaways, prizes, movie passes, T-shirts, and yes, this screening also doubles as a book-signing event for my new book 40 Years, 40 Films, which I’ll be selling and signing before and after the movie in the lobby.

Come early, hang out, talk movies, grab a book, and buckle up.

The Movie...Wow...The Movie

Crash is one of the most challenging films ever made. It’s an erotic thriller, but not in any conventional sense. Written, produced, and directed by Cronenberg, and based closely on Ballard’s 1973 novel, it stars James Spader, Deborah Kara Unger, Holly Hunter, Elias Koteas, and Rosanna Arquette in some of the bravest, most fearless performances of their careers.

The story follows James and Catherine Ballard, a married couple whose relationship is already emotionally and sexually fragmented. After James survives a brutal car accident, he is drawn into an underground group of people who are sexually aroused by car crashes, scars, injuries, and the reshaping of the human body through violent encounters with modern technology.

What follows is not a plot you “follow” so much as an experience you endure, absorb, and try to process long after it’s over.

Dark Themes, Grand Style

This is a movie about obsession. About marriage. About alienation. About desire curdling into something unfamiliar. About people trying to feel something, anything, in a world where sensation has become muted.

Cronenberg has always been fascinated by how technology alters the body and the mind, and Crash might be his purest expression of that idea. Cars become extensions of the human form. Scars become erogenous zones. Trauma becomes intimacy. It is not meant to be comforting. It is not meant to reassure you. It is meant to confront you.

A Story About The Book

I read Ballard’s novel many years ago, and I can tell you from personal experience that it has a physical effect on people. I was reading Crash on the Red Line here in Chicago when a woman sat next to me, glanced over my shoulder, and started reading what I was reading.

About forty-five seconds later, without a word, she quietly got up and moved to another seat. That is the power of Ballard’s writing, and Cronenberg somehow manages to translate that same unsettling energy to the screen.

The Reception

This was a controversial film from the moment it premiered at Cannes, where it won a rare Special Jury Prize for its originality and audacity, even as jury members openly disagreed about its very existence.

It was attacked, protested, threatened with bans, slapped with an NC-17 rating in the U.S., and delayed because powerful people were afraid of it. And yet, over time, it has come to be recognized as one of Cronenberg’s greatest achievements.

The British Film Institute named it the best film of the 1990s. J. G. Ballard himself said the movie was better than his book. Roger Ebert admired it without liking it. Mark Kermode called it pretty much perfect. It’s divisive. You will either be fascinated or repelled. Possibly both at the same time.

And that’s why I’m showing it.

Cronenberg and Hunter

David Cronenberg is one of my favorite filmmakers of all time. If you can adapt Naked Lunch, which is an unfilmable book by any sane definition, and turn it into a coherent, powerful movie, you can adapt anything.

Crash is one of his riskiest, strangest, boldest films, and it features astonishing work from its cast.

The great Holly Hunter, in particular, is fearless here, coming just a few years after winning an Oscar for The Piano and diving headfirst into something icy, sexual, and emotionally opaque. Everyone involved commits fully, without apology.

No Kids: NC-17

This is an adult film in every sense of the word. It is rated NC-17. No kids. No easing you into it. There is explicit sexual material, disturbing imagery, and themes that are going to make some people deeply uncomfortable. Good. That discomfort is part of the conversation. That’s why seeing it with an audience, on a big screen, followed by a discussion, matters.

I’ll be there to guide you into it, and we’ll talk about it afterward. I’ve got behind-the-scenes stories, context about Ballard, about Cronenberg, about the film’s legacy, and about why movies like this still matter. We’ll argue. We’ll laugh nervously. We’ll unpack it together. And we’ll celebrate cinema that takes risks.

This is why I go to the movies. This is why I host these screenings. And this is why I wrote about great cinema in 40 Years, 40 Films, my autobiographical journey through forty years as a professional film critic, one movie at a time, starting in 1985.

I’ll be signing copies before and after the screening, and I’d love to meet you, talk movies, and share this experience with you.

The Event Details

So here’s the deal:

Wednesday, February 11th
7:00 p.m. at the Lake Theater in Oak Park
Tickets are just $9 for adults, $7 for seniors
Get them at classiccinemas.com/nick

Join Me For a Wild Ride

So if you’re looking for something safe, familiar, and comforting, this is not your night. But if you want something challenging, subversive, strange, and unforgettable, then join me on Wednesday, February 11th at 7:00 p.m. at the Lake Theater in Oak Park for David Cronenberg’s Crash.

Prepare yourself.

Buckle up.

This is a wild ride, and I cannot wait to take it with you.

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