Naked Lunch

Naked Lunch (Criterion #220).
1991 20th Century Fox.
Starring: Peter Weller, Judy Davis, Ian Holm, Julian Sands, Roy Scheider
Director: David Cronenberg
Buy Naked Lunch (the movie) from Amazon.

"I can think of at least two things wrong with that title." --Nelson Muntz, March 31, 1996.

This would be the film adaptation of the William S. Burroughs novel, which among other things, provided the up-and-coming band Steely Dan with their monicker. Jamie Hyneman from MythBusters served as an animatronics technician for the film.

Anyway, William Lee (Weller) is an exterminator who finds out that his wife Joan Lee (Davis) is stealing his insecticide for recreational drug use. Somehow, Lee is arrested for "possession", and he believes that he is hallucinating become of exposure to the bug powder. During his haze, William imagines himself a secret agent, and his controller, a giant bug (ewwww!) assigns him a mission of killing his wife, who is suspected of being an agent for "Interzone Incorporated". Lee disregards that assignment, only to return home to find Joan in bed with one of his writer friends, Hank (Nicholas Campbell). Lee shoots his wife during a William Tell routine.

William, having "accomplished" his "mission", goes to Interzone, where the aforementioned organization is based, and spends his time writing reports on his "mission", which eventually turns into the book Naked Lunch. While in Interzone, the typewriters are living creatures who give Lee advice on his mission. One such typewriter, Clark Nova, tells Lee to find Dr. Benway (Scheider), via seducing Joan Frost, a doppleganger of his dead wife, Joan Lee. Benway is the head of a drug manufacturing ring, producing "the black meat".

Lee finishes his report, and flees Interzone to Annexia with Frost. To prove to Annexian border patrol that he really is a writer as he claims, William shoots Joan in the head, and he is welcomed into Annexia.

Well...this movie was different to say the least.