Brundle-Fly, A Sex Symbol.

Those are his bedroom eyes. 

I have the best ideas ever. I'm making myself a tuna sandwich for dinner tonight, I thought that it would be a good idea to watch Cronenberg's 'The Fly' (1986) while I'm eating. I'm a genius right? I'm just happy I kept it down. But nothing will stop me from loving this film unconditionally, no matter how many times I've seen it. It never ceases to amaze me. Naked Jeff Goldblum? Two please and popcorn. And Geena Davis, man she's a good crier in that movie. Half of her dialogue seems to be 'Oh god no!' But it's all good, she has an Oscar now, and Goldblum is still banging 20-year-olds, so I guess it turned out well for the both of them. 

Anyway, unto the matter at hand. I would like to discuss the evolution of Brundle-Fly from something profoundly sexual to something profoundly disgusting. There's got to be a marriage allegory in there somewhere. When you first meet that special someone it's all fireworks and butterflies, and by the time you're both in your golden years, you're plotting each other's death a la 'Dial M for Murder'. But god that last part to watch is hard isn't it. Geena's all in hysterics and the fly slowly points the rifle she's holding at himself. Moral of the story being, it's hard to kill a fly...when you love him. (Bad joke, get over it). 

We have already established that Cronenberg is a sick sick mofo, and that's why we all love him so very much. And I think that 'The Fly' is the film that illustrates this point. Jeffrey Sconce notes in his blog Ludic Despair, that despite all of the pressure to professionally consider 'Hannah and Her Sisters', the best film of the year in 1986, he couldn't in good conscious overlook the genius of this one film by Cronenberg. I'm in love with the film as well and really don't think there was a better film of that year, or decade for that matter. 
It's beyond amusing how being genetically spliced with a fly gives you the sexual charisma of a house on fire.  Seth Brundle and The Situation could have a fuck-a-thon to see who can last the longest, and Brundle would beat him by a mile. Brundle turns from sex maniac to complete physical disaster, and soon enough all of that lovely tan muscly skin turns into oozing, pea soup-like fungus stuff that only Cronenberg could have imagined and engineered. Brundle's final idea for redemption is to telepod himself with pregnant Geena Davis so that he can become more human, and the fly disease won't make his dick fall off. And finally when he completely starts to literally fall apart, she shoots him in the head...a few times, crying.
I will be showing this to my kids when I have them...gather around kids...it's lesson learning time. Sex and science don't mix. But I think we girls have known that forever. It's almost a little too hard to watch beautiful Jeff Goldblum (yes I said it) transform into pretty much the grossest thing ever. In my sick feeble mind, I kind of wish he would stay in fly limbo forever, doing those back flips and the parallel bars, willing to go all night at it. But I'm a sick person.