Speaking of Hwangs, the opera singer who plays Seth Brundle, a.k.a. the Fly, will be showing his while singing arias about science and transformation. It's the nudity you know and love from Equus, coupled with the gore and special effects you crave! This includes an enormous fly that buzzes around the stage, and a singing transporter that presumably has a song that goes "Get your bare ass offa me! La-la-la-la-la-la-la!"

The, um, buzz on the show has been favorable. My favorite review comes from a 6-year old who claims she'll have nightmares, presumably about a nude dude singing "Bzz! Bzz! Bzz!" in a hearty baritone as he runs across the stage, arms akimbo, praying that he doesn't notice all the Parisian cleavage in the audience. As they say, it ain't over 'til the flaccid man sings, and if you think this sounds too weird to be true, recall that Paris is the original home of Grand Guignol, the genre into which most of Cronenberg's oeuvre fits. Turning the opera house into a Gallagher concert ("the first 6 rows will get splattered") is not new to zee French.

Of course, all this nudity, high C's and blood got me thinking: What other movies should become operas? The Lord of the Rings wouldn't work; opera already has a Ring Cycle. But Cronenberg's own Scanners would be a good start: the fat lady hits an especially high note and her Viking helmet explodes. And since he can't do anything worse than what he's recently done to it, George Lucas should bring Star Wars to the Met. I can't wait for R2-D2's number, filled with nothing but bleeps and blips set to a score Wagner would kill to have written. Who says we don't have culture here at Movies Without Pity? [Everybody. You should see the letters we get! - Zach]