20. Naked Lunch (1991)

this is a film based on a book i haven't read by william s. burroughs (apparently the S is significant... i call bullshit...)

the (semi-autobiographical?) protagonist Bill, who's something like a junkie Tom Waits with less gravel in his voice, played by Robocop from Robocop 2 apparently, winds up in I THINK north(?) Africa after he plays a game of William Tell with his wife and shoots her in the head (for the first time at least). his wife was shooting up yellow bug killing powder like heroin (Bill had a stable job killing bugs) and he gets hooked on that before getting hooked on BLACK MEAT (think giant non-existant black centipedes unsanitarilly pumped through a meat grinder lookin like diseased ground beef then dried up, powderized and injected.) Will trips face running from the cops after getting detained and talking for a while with a giant beetle that spreads its wings to reveal its mouth-orifice (yeah, it talks) which looks more like a big hairy anus than a mouth.

the beetle with the anusmouth returns again later as his talking type-writer and officer to report to for the seemingly non-existent Interzone (which is some kind of agency Bill has to report to via this talking anus beetle typewriter, and is also what Bill refers to his new locale in Africa). Interzone the PLACE (which is really a town in Africa) is a haven for arabs with typewriters, drug manufacturers and incredibly rich (or at least relative to the African economy) white folks who like to have sex with young arab boys (lots of homosexual undertones, and as it progresses, overtones).

it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I've heard the book makes even less sense. it's directed by David Cronenburg (eXistenZ, the Fly with Jeff Goldblum) so as you can imagine, there's some insane leaking disturbingly human fleshy pussing spitting dripping sexualized bugs and mugwump alien being things.

this is really a story about a writer who pursues an extreme diet of drugs that may not even exist in the fictionworld of "Naked Lunch" and most probably not in our real world either. He's tripping on drugs not yet synthesized. He's tripping on drugs that he made up in his own head because he's tripping so hard. He trips so hard on irrelevant things that he forgets writing his book, also titled "Naked Lunch." but he's written it. and he's got to stay in Interzone to finish it -- hopefully before he hallucinates another game of William Tell or loses any lasting grip on reality.

I watched this movie sober. here's the trailer ::