It's the inevitable and long-awaited DAVID LYNCH POLL

Trying to influence the vote with all caps?

They say it on every poll thread, but this really is hard.

This is a pretty tough poll, but I'm gonna go with The Elephant Man because it's really sadly underrated.

I will venture to predict that every film will get at least one vote.

TP:FWWM is easily the worst though, right?

I would vote for Twin Peaks if I could but of the films its either Mulholland Dr or Inland Empire.

Dune's pretty bad too.

Mulholland Drive, but I haven't seen Inland Empire yet

Dune's the only one I like.

Dune's bad in a great way.

For me it's between Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive.

I will vote for Dune if nobody else will

Fear is the mind killer!

THE SPICE EXTENDS ENERGY
THE SPICE EXPANDS CONSCIOUSNESS

Weird thing about Dune is, it pulls off some strange trick of being 100% exposition and still making no sense.

By happy chance, Eraserhead should be coming from Netflix tomorrow. Haven't seen it in nearly 20 years. I'll wait until I've seen it again to vote.

Which is FANTASTIC

xp

xpost to myself
I mean, unless you've read the book or seen the movie a dozen times, both of which I have done. :)

Ranked:

The Elephant Man
Twin Peaks Pilot/Twin Peaks Season 1
Blue Velvet
Mulholland Drive
The Straight Story
Lost Highway
Eraserhead
Twin Peaks Season 2
On The Air
Wild At Heart
Inland Empire
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
Dune

mulholland drive in a landslide (deservedly)

Actually I think there is one other thing I am missing. Some three part hotel thing also written by Barry Gifford. It was meh.

FUCK

Wild at Heart needs some love, too.

My memory may also be too kind on the On The Air.

Wild At Heart's pretty clunky though.

yeah Alex the hotel thing is bad - Crispin Glover's in one segment. Never understood Gifford's appeal.

Mulholland Drive will win, but it's not his best. For me, it's between INLAND EMPIRE and Blue Velvet.

I don't get the Inland Empire love at all.

yeah its technically impossible for it to be better than mulholland dr

mulholland drive
blue velvet
eraserhead
inland empire
elephant man
wild at heart
tp:fwwm
straight story
lost highway
dune

yah

Mulholland Drive, followed by Blue Velvet

inland empire
eraserhead
elephant man
mulholland drive
straight story
lost highway
dune
blue velvet
wild at heart

Haven't seen Fire Walk With Me. Need to rewatch Dune, Lost Highway, Blue Velvet (hated that one but everyone seems to love it). I can live without seeing Wild At Heart again really.

Mulholland Drive, followed by Blue Velvet

yeah, I settled on that finally, too

mullholland dr is an insanely overrated movie.

impossibe

a thread about lynch would be disappointing without totally different and in fact opposite opinions

If MD is overrated, life is overrated.

I expect someone to defend the touching humanity in Wild at Heart.

(xpost)

Mulholland Dr. = one dream, a somewhat entertaining middle section, an ok atmosphere, a few GREAT scenes
Inland Empire = like four different worlds, all somehow intertwined (God knows how), that all work together to entertain you for over three hours...brilliant atmosphere, cool music scenes, fascinating stories that never drag, you can love it without understanding it...it's like Mulholland Dr. x 25.

well that one guys head does go flying off xp

fascinating stories that never drag

uh

Blue Velvet
Mulholland Drive
INLAND EMPIRE
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
Eraserhead
Wild at Heart
Dune
Lost Highway
The Straight Story
The Elephant Man

(but it's all real close) The essence of Twin Peaks is #1, though.

Jeez, I'm waiting on my IE DVD from amazon so I feel like I shouldn't vote until I've seen it, but this closes in 3 days, so...Blue Velvet.

Mulholland Dr. I still would have liked to see as a series - if that was just the pilot with some added stuff, wow.

fascinating is a bit wrong, yes. but definitely interesting

Corrected: that all work together badly to entertain bore the pants off you for over three hours what seems like eternity

mullholland dr is a perfectly good movie. it's just that claiming it's lynch's best work is completely bonkers insane in my opinion. tape store otm re: a few GREAT scenes, but quite frankly a significant portion of that movie feels like someone making a parody of lynch.

everyone, these are the top four:

mulholland drive
blue velvet
eraserhead
inland empire

arrange 2-4 as you please

trying to imagine a parody of lynch that still didn't feel like lynch is a brain-twisting exercise

otm, he does it on purpose

Mulholland Dr. is wayyyyy more boring than Inland Empire. After you watch it once or twice and figure out that it's a dream, do you really ever want to watch it again? I mean, apart from the tryout scene/"Llorando" clip(/lesbian make out sessions???), it's not THAT great/entertaining. I liked it quite a bit, i'm just turned off by the idea of it being considered Lynch's best work.

^^^Yes, I realize that I just lost what little credibility that I had.

I could watch the "real" last third of MD forever. Naomi Watts being rejected by girlfriend and Hollywood, condescended to at Hollywood parties by ghoulish Ann Murray eating walnuts, drinking bad coffee and masturbating in her apartment -- very painful.

"After you watch it once or twice and figure out that it's a dream, do you really ever want to watch it again?"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

mulholland drive has all the best lynchian symbolic, thematic etc potency while actually being cohesive (it doesnt seem like hes just being willfully strange) and one of the great performances ever from naomi watts.

There's duff stray bits that seem like stuff from the TV pilot (the conversation in the Denny's; Robert Forster), but, still, a remarkable salvage job.

I voted for MD.

Twin Peaks
Blue Velvet
Eraserhead
Dune
RABBITS
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
The Straight Story
The Elephant Man
Mulholland Drive

Lost Highway

Inland Empire (mostly for the inclusion of RABBITS)
Wild at Heart

TP:FWWM is easily the worst though, right?

no!

you cant really fuck with the rebekah del rio - llorando scene

actually I think Wild At Heart is probably the worst

"There's duff stray bits that seem like stuff from the TV pilot (the conversation in the Denny's; Robert Forster), but, still, a remarkable salvage job."

Agreed. This is why it's not #2 on my list.

Wild At Heart isn't the worst by virtue of the soundtrack and the crazy head blowing off scene.

But yeah it's pretty bad.

Eraserhead (1977)
Mulholland Drive (2001) / INLAND EMPIRE (2006)
Blue Velvet (1986)
The Elephant Man (1980)
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992)
Wild at Heart (1990)
Lost Highway (1997)
Dune (1984)

haven't quite worked out where I stand with inland empire. need to see it a few more times. eraserhead doesn't make sense anywhere else so it burbles to the top. blue velvet has some special significance for me, that *so* wrecked my head in '86.

it's great that lynch is currently in a second golden age.

I loved wild at heart when it came out, saw it 3-4 times. it was such a daffy, off-the-wall cinema experience. it hasn't aged well, though.

and the crazy head blowing off scene.

I don't even remember this scene!

i'd defend wild at heart as maybe "least appreciated" (although there are several candidates for that). for me it's the dividing line between his great movies and his varying-degrees-of-not-great movies (with wild at heart just on the side of "great"). i think it's kind of his airplane! -- a zillion jokes (not all of them "jokes", of course), with enough things that work to make up for all the ones that don't. lots of great scenes. the car crash in the desert with sherilynn fenn picking at her brain iis easily in my POX david lynch scenes.

the conversation in the Denny's

this is one of my favorite bits in md! it captures a humdrum-but-surreal dream-feel so well, maybe better than anything else in the film (other bits seem more stylized). it is sorta tv-piloty in relation to the whole, but the sequence is flawless execution. and it wakes up the dozers.

tm OTM re: car crash scene

Mulholland Drive is the best movie of this decade you guys.

lotsa memorable sequences in wild at heart - strobe light / thrash metal dancing, koko taylor, fetid new orleans, fenn's car crash, the weird motel scene with john doe, jack nance, et al. the glue holding everything together is pretty weak, though. and by glue I guess I mean nicolas cage.

a certain sequence in the film was a lot more mysterious before "wicked game" got played to death, too.

Hey Naomi Watts fans, I dare you to check out CHILDREN OF THE CORN PT. IV: THE GATHERING. I have a VHS tape in my basement.

now I'm thinking I need to rewatch these 3:

Wild at Heart (1990)
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992)
Lost Highway (1997)

ooh was that the one after URBAN HARVEST?

x-post

no thanks, ts. that sounds like an offer from a serial killer.

xpost

I wonder if wild at heart would've aged better if lynch had reeled in cage and dafoe a bit. he should've hung a sign on the camera that said, "do not chew the scenery. you are not dennis hopper."

i like cage's goofier moments. the dancing, his ridiculous "taste the peach" anecdote (eat the peach? whatever it is), his little spiel at the end to the guys who have just kicked the crap out of him.

Nic Cage is like the Rod Stewart of American film actors - a great, promising start followed by the most horrifying "sellout" bullshit ever

"take a bite of peach"

that's the one.

also, source material for the shot of diane ladd with her face covered in red lipstick? when i saw black moon a few months ago i noticed a similar scene there, and that seems like the kind of movie lynch would have loved, but i don't know if they were both referencing something else?

Hey Naomi Watts fans, I dare you to check out CHILDREN OF THE CORN PT. IV: THE GATHERING. I have a VHS tape in my basement.

-- Tape Store, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 08:23 (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

:D

Nic Cage is like the Rod Stewart of American film actors - a great, promising start followed by the most horrifying "sellout" bullshit ever

Not sure that scans, Shakey, since not only was Rod BORN to sell out, but he made lots of great moments after his purported classic years.

this applies to Nick Cage too

I voted for Blue Velvet because it is the closest he's come to a flawless movie. Many of the others are great, but have rather glaring flaws. The Straight Story is the only one that I don't enjoy, but it is probably better than I would give it credit for.

My list (Does not reflect actual quality of the films):
Blue Velvet
Lost Highway - way underrated, wish it would come out on DVD
Wild At Heart
Dune - I love this movie despite some really misguided choices, I wish he'd do another Sci Fi film
TP: FWWM
Mulholland Drive
INLAND EMPIRE - just got the DVD today!
Eraserhead
The Elephant Man

this applies to Nick Cage too

!!You crazy! Everything after Red Rock West is nigh unwatchable!

Bangkok Dangerous
Next
Ghost Rider
The Wicker Man
World Trade Center
The Ant Bully
The Weather Man
Lord of War
National Treasure
Matchstick Men
Adaptation
Sonny
Windtalkers
Captain Corelli's Mandolin
The Family Man
Gone in Sixty Seconds
Bringing Out the Dead
8MM
Snake Eyes
City of Angels
Face/Off
Con Air
The Rock
Leaving Las Vegas
Kiss of Death
Trapped in Paradise
It Could Happen to You
Guarding Tess
Amos & Andrew
Deadfall
Honeymoon in Vegas

i like face/off kinda

(more than mulholland dr. or lost highway that's for sure) (i watched mulholland w.dr vick and we snoozed non-stop)

eraserhead is still lynch's best easy -- tho i didn't see inland yet

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/94/Alia-Alicia_Witt.jpg/250px-Alia-Alicia_Witt.jpg
"for he IS the kwisatz haderach"

Although there is much I enjoy in it, I agree that Mulholland Drive is overrated.

The thing about MD that grates on me is that Lynch insisted on leaving in all these plot strands that were meant to be developed in the TV series and then very obviously tried to tie it all together in a fairly hackneyed manner.

He should have chopped a lot of this stuff and focused on the main plot. He could have even dropped most of the Justin Therroux plot, and it probably wouldn't have been missed.

Bringing Out the Dead is good.

And Snake Eyes has a great start (and terrible end.)

And Lord of War could have been great only it wasn't.

THat's the best I can do.

What a fucking BRO
http://www.nndb.com/people/720/000024648/david-lynch.jpg
http://www.humanities.uci.edu/fvc/f05pics/f05_davidlynch.jpg

mulholland dr. is the best film of the last 25 years.

I said decade, but i'll join you on the the quarter century action.

it's not better than eraserhead

tho

hence the 25 year cutoff

(adaptation is good, face/off is fun, it does get pretty thin after that)

face/off's atrocious.

Angelo Badalamenti spitting espresso into a linen napkin is pretty pointless.

I found that pleasing.

i saw face/off alone and somewhere strange, like den haag -- that may be why i enjoyed it at all

Face/Off was where I got off the John Woo wagon (no wait actually I got off when he hired Travolta for that silly stolen nuke movie)

Broken Arrow? aw hell yeahs

i have fonder memories of all these than i do of mulholland, where all i remember is my butt bein numb

I voted for Dune as it's the one I return to most often. Wild at Heart was the one I liked most at the time of release although I haven't seen it in ages. The rest of them seem willfully and arbitrarily difficult - which is fun, but not as meaningful for me.

There's actually still a few from Lynch I haven't seen.

INLAND EMPIRE
Mulholland Drive
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
Eraserhead
The Straight Story
Blue Velvet -- if people on this thread have been overwhelmingly anti-IE and anti-FWWM, allow me to slag on this one for a few minutes (before coming to my senses and realizing that if this is his worst, that's not too bad at all)

How cuet was MacLachlan in BV tho??!

and the crazy head blowing off scene.

there's also the hand blowing off scene, with the punchline of the dog running out the back with the hand in its mouth. Sick sick sick.

Very cute, especially his jaw.

(xpost)

I didn't see Adaptation up there, but yeah that's good too.

I saw Some Like It Hot for the first time last night, and Tony Curtis posing as the millionaire oil baron reminded me of Kyle McLachlan a little.

I didn't see Adaptation up there, but yeah that's good too.

-- Alex in SF

??

there's also the hand blowing off scene, with the punchline of the dog running out the back with the hand in its mouth. Sick sick sick.

and lifted from kurosawa.

I hated Adaptation and Bringing Out The Dead (both of which I saw because I - rather foolishly, it turned out - hoped a decent director would give Cage something interesting to do). Snake Eyes I've only seen the tail end of.

And these are the vaguely defensible ones with name directors! Where's the love for Leaving Las Vegas (worst abuse of Sting in a sdtk EVAR)or The Weatherman or 8MM? I am SURE there are ILXers here somewhere that love Con Air... maybe this is a different thread altogether...

maaaaaybe

i would watch Con Air, The Rock and Kiss of Death anytime.

You need to post to the Billy Wilder thread, jaymc.

"??"

What? I liked it. Made me laugh.

i can't wait till he starts getting senile but continues to make films until he's 99

the first 45 minutes of Lost Highway are the greatest movie david lynch ever made. sadly, it's followed by about 2 hours of the worst movie david lynch ever made.

ie gets my vote because, even though it does repeat some of md's themes, it's the one lynch movie that i feel is truly his vision, fully realized.

also, i like it best.

Lost Highway - way underrated, wish it would come out on DVD

Out in R2, 2-disc set. I have it, it's great. Get one of those cheap Philips players you can rig for region free play, totally worth it.

yr all jerks! (well, some of ya, anyhow). Wild at Heart is great and I think has stood up really well over time. All things considered, I think it's a pretty daring film, and one which encapsulates so much of what I think is great about Lynch. Plus it was Nicolas Cage's best other than Adaptation. (But, ha, yeah, Shakey, I saw Leaving Los Vegas when it came out, and the Sting songs were sooooo ridiculously loud on the soundtrack as well as just being awful and awfully placed within the film).

I also don't understand the hate for TP:FWWM. I think it's pretty amazing.

Count me in among the "Mulholland Drive is overrated" camp...although I haven't seen it in a couple of years and should likely re-visit it.

Call me crazy, but I'm voting for Wild at Heart.

Is there no love for The Straight Story? Or The Elephant Man? David Lynch tearjerkers are better than anyone else's tearjerkers, and I'm including Autumn In New York when I say that.

Looking at that list above I never realised quite how much shite Nicolas Cage has been in. Is there anyone to top him? The sheer, unrelenting quantity is amazing. Someone should do a worst Cage film poll (not me tho).

I really dislike "Lost Highway."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4eQ6ZsGbmY

The first 45 minutes of Lost Highway are the greatest movie david lynch ever made. sadly, it's followed by about 2 hours of the worst movie david lynch ever made.

I agree with this.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Just watched Eraserhead again this afternoon -- it's just as good as I remember it, but doesn't vault past later films. My vote's going to Blue Velvet.

It's all about Eraserhead for me.

I really had a bad reaction to Mulholland Dr when I saw it. Sitting in an a college auditorium with a bunch of folks doing the whole "I love it cuz I have no idea what's going on" thing even though I could tell pretty easily Lynch had tacked on a Wizard Of Oz "and you were there and you were there and you were there and you were there and you were there" ending to the show pilot without removing the subplots that would have nothing to with Naomi Watts' dream logic. Having seen Wild At Heart and a few other things since, I'm actually really psyched to see Inland Empire. Knowing he's just going hardcore indulgence means I won't sweat hype or middlebrow acclaim.

So you don't like Mulholland Drive because other (silly) people liked it because they thought it was a meaningless freak out?

I really dislike "Lost Highway."

I don't know how I feel about it. For a long time I was feeling Ebert on the point that it shows "contempt for the audience," which it kinda does. It sets up a fascinating mystery, then abandons it in the weirdest way possible, then never comes back to it, and in fact meanders for the rest of the movie. He's obviously fucking with us. But... is that part of the appeal?

So you don't like Mulholland Drive because other (silly) people liked it because they thought it was a meaningless freak out?

I didn't like it because of the lame structure I described (uncut TV pilot with extended "it was all a dream" cop-out capper thrown on out of financial necessity), but thanks to the environment I caught it in I was more irritated than I might have been otherwise.

The take on Mulholland Drive's appeal I most respected was my middle-aged pal Greg who said "I like movies where you find a murdered body...and it's you."

And there was some good titty, too.

da croup OTM - about the structure, anyway. Love Mulholland Drive, don't mind the tacked-on ending, but I am bothered by some of the hanging threads - obvious remnants of the the film's origins in a failed TV show pilot. I accept the incoherence, 'cuz the digressions are all compelling, but they result in a rather shapeless, aimless film. The director character is given too much screen time, the cowboy and his otherwordly mob bosses too little, the renagade cop and the diner dreamer are just non-sequiturs.

I like the film 'cuz the core story works beautifully, and I respect the fact that Lynch made a satisfying film out of his wrecked TV show, but it does give plenty of ammo to folks who accuse him of random weirdness for its own sake.

I think "Elephant Man" - it's corny as hell but it makes me cry

I like the end, it reminds me of Herzog

the real answer is probably blue velvet, but i'm going to vote for mulholland drive because i like it more and have seen blue velvet too many times.

FWWM is not the worst, I think it's better than wild at heart and dune, and maybe lost highway.

Moodles - I dunno where you are, but Lost Highway is definitely on DVD in the US, I netflixed it.

i don't understand the FWWM hate--

yeah maybe i would have edited out the sexy bathroom-turkey-gobble-gobble scene but there is not much else i would change about that film

the last scene always hits me pretty hard

It's mostly just pointless. I mean the Chris Isaak part s'okay, but there's nothing in the Laura Palmer piece that wasn't explicitly revealed and done better in the TV show.

RONG.

heart says straight story, junk says mulholland

Gotta go with "Blue Velvet". It's simply untouchable.

Blue Velvet (although I'm waiting for my parents' Blockbusters to get their sole copy of Inland Empire back)

I've always held "Mulholland Drive" as my favourite, but the more I think about "Inland Empire" I'm convinced it's almost as wonderful. However, I'll stick with MD and see how I feel in a couple months.

Mullholland Drive

"I'm as blank . . . as a fart!"

also, I like the 'gobble gobble' scene

haven't seen inland empire, eraserhead, lost highway or straight story. of the ones I've seen, Blue Velvet edges Mulholland Drive.

I nearly said, "don't you fuckin look at me!" to someone today.

it's "daddy," you shit-head.

I really had a bad reaction to Mulholland Dr when I saw it. Sitting in an a college auditorium with a bunch of folks doing the whole "I love it cuz I have no idea what's going on" thing even though I could tell pretty easily Lynch had tacked on a Wizard Of Oz "and you were there and you were there and you were there and you were there and you were there" ending to the show pilot without removing the subplots that would have nothing to with Naomi Watts' dream logic

dude, all those subplots totally have everything to do with her character's dream logic! take the bumbling hitman character. basically, in her dream world this guy is incompetent because it allows her fantasy lover (who is apparently at least 2 people conflated into one, her real-life ex-lover and the actress who she was passed over the role for, who she also was in love and/or had a fling with) to escape her intended death (which she in "real life" apparently hired the hitman to carry out) and wander into her bathroom/heart/pants.

same with Theroux's director character, he's portrayed as a guy who is constantly ordered, pushed around or shit on by others (i.e. the studio, his wife, etc.) in watts' character's dreamworld this provides her the psychological explanation as to why she didn't get the role: it was a conspiracy involving the studio, mob, creepy midgets, and a supernatural cowboy (hey, it is dream logic after all), not the fact that director was sleeping with the other girl or something else as mundane.

makes sense. perfect sense. right? *shifty eyes*

anyway, does it really matter how much of these were unresolved threads from the pilot or not? in the end it only matters what the final edit conveys, and i think lynch mostly knew what he was doing by leaving those threads in there. even if it was in that intuitive, "happy accident" way kind of way in which he likes to work.

it's "daddy," you shit-head.

Are you talking to me?

Blue Velvet out of all of these has the best lines

Ha, Latebloomer I was just attempting to write a response similar to yours, but you said it way better.

MD was about 2/3rds new material shot specifically for the film. Lynch didn't make it a movie by tacking on an "it was all a dream" ending.

x-post

ha, usually i'm the one that says that!

Jed: That wasn't my understanding at all. 2/3 new material? I understood that he shot very little new footage. A good deal less than a 1/4 of the film's total running time.

Yeah Jed, that's not what I understand at all. In fact early scripts of the pilot show it to be almost word for word the entire movie up to the hour and a half mark.

x-post

yeah i don't believe he shot all that much new material. still, it doesn't matter much. it's all about editing.

Yeah but again the original pilot script is basically the first hour and a half of the movie with little to no modification.

I thought it was just the ending and the nakey lesbo scene.

Club Silencio and what came after being the new stuff.

you're right, it seems there's 45 minutes of new material in the film.

I have seen the tv pilot and it is basically word for word until when Rita cuts her hair and that is where the pilot ends. there were a couple of scenes cut, some added... but nothing too drastic.

That being said, if anyone thinks that its just a tacked on dream ending, you really need to watch the film more closely.

xposts

Filming for the pilot began in February 1999. The pilot script balanced normal and surreal elements, much like Lynch’s earlier series Twin Peaks. The pilot laid the groundwork for story arcs, such as the mystery of Rita's identity, Betty's career, and Adam Kesher's film project. [2]

Plot points of the feature film's ending—the physical relationship between Rita and Betty, the bizarre trip to Club Silencio, the "alternate reality" and "identity swapping"—were written and shot after the pilot was completed. Lynch filmed most of the new scenes in October 2000, funded with money from French production company StudioCanal.

"That being said, if anyone thinks that its just a tacked on dream ending, you really need to watch the film more closely."

Oh no I think it's a very AWKWARDLY tacked on real ending which makes the pilot events a dream. It's still a good movie though.

MD is one of the rare films to get better as it goes along.

I believe that the new stuff that was added is the most brilliant realization of what noir films in the 40s and 50s wanted to do, but never could (mainly because of the censors)

the makeout scenes between Justin Theroux and Robert Forster, sadly, ended up on the cutting room floor.

even more sadly the subseqent scene where billy ray cyrus joined them for a threesome in a paint-filled hot tub weren't even filmed:-/

it was going to be a musical sequence over the end credits, a la Inland Empire

anyway, does it really matter how much of these were unresolved threads from the pilot or not? in the end it only matters what the final edit conveys, and i think lynch mostly knew what he was doing by leaving those threads in there. even if it was in that intuitive, "happy accident" way kind of way in which he likes to work.

Funny, I just looked up the script for "Fire Walk With Me" to find out what Gerard the One-Armed-Man was shouting at Leland in the smoking RV scene, and, among other things, he shouts "THE THREAD WILL BE TORN, MR. PALMER, THE THREAD WILL BE TORN!"
The only other mention of "thread" in the script is in the "Blue Rose" code scene with the red-headed woman. Stanley notices the different-colored thread in her dress, which Chet notes is Gordon's code for drugs. Thread - Alteration - Editing - Masking - Codes - Drugs - Death: these things all linked

this thread must have started as a pilot!

I'm starting to think the "quinoa" short on the IE DVD may be Lynch's most revealing work, esp. with respect to TP: FWWM. He basically making Garmonbozia (Pain and Suffering). The cigarettes, the attention to timing and mixing and material and darkness. The way he tells his assistant to tell him when to do things (paradox).

The Quinoa thing is great - I like that whenever he makes a gesture towards trying to show something to the viewer (like how much water to put in, or what the correct consistency is) it is actually not visible in the shot.

I like the ones without an id-like bad guy, so I like Mulholland Drive and The Straight Story.

I think Mulholland Drive was a good pilot and that the second season would have sucked.

I like the ones without an id-like bad guy, so I like Mulholland Drive and The Straight Story.

is there an id-like bad guy in Inland Empire...? There are various threatening figures, but that doesn't seem like the same thing.

Haven't seen it yet.

The bad guy in The Straight Story is Alvin Straight! He says it many times!

part of the film's irony is that this genial old coot was a fucking monster as a younger man.

The bad guy in Mullholland Drive is Naomi Watts! She's a hard, cold killer and crazy to boot!

I was gonna bitch about Eraserhead not getting enough love but then I rememberd mark s is repping for it so let the hollywood meta retreads with midgets get all yr love, whatevs.

the baby in Eraserhead=scariest thing ever

the phantom is the bad guy in inland empire, duhr

i just remembered the cowboy in mulholland drive and love that guy

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

the phantom? who the hell is that?

surprised Inland Empire ranked so low here, given the posts

http://www.uneeda-audio.com/phantom/phantom5.jpg

Billy Zane was not the vilian, he's a cool dude.

http://www.hotflick.net/flicks/2001_Zoolander/Thumb/2001_Zoolander_207.jpg

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=phantom+inland+empire

shakey talking with authority all over this thread and doesn't even know who the phantom is! ha!

ha! ha!

oh gimme a break I saw the film once and I don't recall anyone being repeatedly referred to as "The Phantom" in it sooooo sorry. wtf

well, he's the phantom

also not aware of any "talking with authority" I may have done on this thread (outside of expressing my own personal preferences, I didn't offer much) but whatevs

blame Reagan.

yeah that's what i meant, personal preferences ;)

Understand why Mulholland Drive & Blue Velvet won, surprised by the margin. Voted for Eraserhead, tempted to go with Inland Empire.

I knew it would be either MD or BV, and I'm totally happy it was the former.

Shasta's prediction was true. Psychic!

So glad I got in a vote for Eraserhead at the last minute, the relative lack of votes for it is an outrage.

wonder who FWWM fan is, i applaud you

I hovered over FWWM briefly when I couldn't decide between MD and IE.

I haven't seen Inland Empire. I just put it on my queue.
Mulholland Drive is my touchstone.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=pbkhNabG3po

not enough hallways u_u

hahah

i didn't see this but i vote eraserhead over blue velvet, just
i need to see inland empire again to rate it properly

had i voted it prob. would've gone to IE

can someone explain to me exactly what they get out of mullholland dr? i mean, i want to like it or at least get *something* out of it since lots of smart people seem to think highly of it, but i thought it was maddeningly pointless.

mullholland drive had amazing naomi watts lesbian scene performance. the part where she's auditioning is pretty great. where has naomi watts acted better?

xpost: And you liked Lynch's other work? Personally, I love MD most for its impressionistic dream logic. It isn't totally surrealistic, but it is off just enough that the tension lurking underneath is really jarring when it surfaces. There's plenty to love about the film, though, IMO, but if you plain don't like Lynch's style, then I can see why you'd want to shop elsewhere.

J.D. - also thought it was maddeningly pointless.

(and yeah, I plain don't like Lynch's style fwiw)

No, that would be Inland Empire.

(Terry Gross Voice) That was really great.

yeah that scene is sort of the thesis statement. it's a movie about movies. there's other stuff jumbled up in there too, but if you're looking for a "point," it's about how art works (and movie art in particular). "don't play it for real until it becomes real." "no hay banda." the singer lip-synching a song about crying, with a tear painted on her face, but rendering the song in a way that inspires actual tears in the audience. the necessity of artifice in breaking through to something actual.

like in this scene, just try to keep track of the layers and reversals of meaning, how much it does with so few moves in just a minute and a half.

i haven't seen every lynch film, but i loved blue velvet enough that i don't think i'm adverse to what lynch does. like, i like that the weird and semi-inexplicable elements in BV are balanced by the relatively straightforward plot, and i find the story and characters in that film a lot more compelling than the ones in MD. i guess the "crying" sequence in MD is as weird and creepy as the "in dreams" sequence in BV, but i don't find it as memorable because i don't feel any connection to the characters or care about the story. and so much of MD just seems so arbitrary and tacked-on — the whole subplot with the director, especially — whereas everything in BV feels necessary and vital and scary. i'm down with 'impressionistic dream logic' but i guess i just didn't get enough pleasure out of the surface of MD to care. i mean watts is ok i guess but does anyone think that she's as powerful and memorable in mullholland dr as isabella rossellini or dennis hopper was in blue velvet?

that said, i'm glad people are responding to this and i'll probably give MD a second chance eventually.

Did Lynch get into that Transcendental Meditation stuff before or after Blue Velvet?

not enough love for The Straight Story in this poll. would've voted for Blue Velvet myself though.
Dune and Twin Peaks are amongst the worst film ever though.

i thought Mulholland Dr was pretty cool, i always like art phenomenons that have websites with a zillion theories devoted about it.

Dune was a movie that I really disliked when I watched it, but found myself quoting and remembering fondly afterward.

THE WORM IS THE SPICE

Have seen two or three references to TM with Lynch's name attached in the paper lately. V odd.

is donovan the next-most-famous TM practitioner?

oh wait, macca's a fan too:

http://adventuresintranscendentalmeditation.blogspot.com/2009/01/paul-mccartneys-concert-for.html

George Harrison was the true believer. There's also Mike Love, Al Jardine...

Have seen two or three references to TM with Lynch's name attached in the paper lately. V odd.

odd why/how? he wrote a book on the subject.

Just recently watched the first episode of "On the Air" and it is AMAZING...

not enough love for The Straight Story in this poll

Seriously. I just teared up watching the scene between Farnsworth and the old guy sharing WWII horror stories.

still haven't watched. must rectify.

No problem ranking it third in my list.

Great, great film. Right there with Blue Velvet for me (and arguably a better film, albeit not nearly as historically significant).

Sissy Spacek's small work doesn't get enough notice either.

I really should watch The Straight Story. I'm generally only really taken by Lynch's early period (Eraserhead and his short films) and late period (MD & IE). Oh, and everything Twin Peaks. That stuff in the middle doesn't really speak to me as much. I'd avoided watching The Elephant Man until I bought the Lime Green set, which was stupid, because it's really a very lovely and affecting film. Utterly unlike most of his other work, but it definitely suggests that he also has potential as a director of straight (har har) films.

No problem ranking it third in my list

me too, after MD and Eraserhead. Really unlike any other 'G' rated film I've ever seen.

silencio

http://www.contactmusic.com/news.nsf/story/david-lynch-opening-paris-nightclub_1225481

My teenage son is getting very into Lynch. Mostly Twin Peaks, but we watched Eraserhead together over the weekend; his first time, my dozenth or so. Hadn't seen it in many years, but it still resonates with me. Hypnotic, disturbing, yet often extremely funny. Not only my favorite Lynch film, one of my favorite films ever.

word, Eraserhead is the shit

I had the chance to watch a restored print in March as part of the Miami Film Festival, and the audience was scared and amused at all the wrong moments. I still find it about ten minutes too long.

all the RIGHT moments, I should say.

what, if anything, would you say "Eraserhead" is about?

An ugly man looking for love in a black and white world.

sounds about right

nightmares

reconciling an overwhelming preoccupation with sexual desire and the responsibilities of fatherhood

alternately, a bunch of shit that passed through david lynch's head

philadelphia

It's about how awful old radiators were.

i always found it to be anti-children, in some way

like, I think Lynch had a kid around that type, and Eraserhead is just some nightmarish version of that , of suddenly becoming a father and losing so many of the things you treasured, or something? ok, i'm not really sure at all

there's an extra on the eraserhead DVD of lynch talking about the making of the film at length, it's pretty entertaining + engrossing for what is basically 90 minutes of this

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/dvd05.jpg

Ninety minutes of Lynch discreetly away from the microphone.

i could honestly listen to lynch rambling into an old-timey radio microphone all day

i wished his ranting on the inland empire dvd was as long as the movie itself

Lynch moves away from the microphone so he can breathe

btw y'all

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBoEMTtCJnE

I think my favorite story from that doc is how lynch had a paper route while making eraserhead and iirc he solicited money to finish the film from the ppl he delivered to

Ok, so speaking of Lynch DVDs - on the Short Films of Lynch DVD (and I think some other Lynch DVDs too) there's a "Calibrate Your Television" section where you're supposed to adjust the brightness of your set to the point where you can just see the "hidden image" on the screen.

So is my TV broken or is Lynch just fucking with me, because I can't see a thing no matter how bright I set it?

best part of the eraserhead doc is his talking about finding a dead cat at an abandoned industrial site while scouting locations for eraserhead and submerging it in a pool of oil for safe keeping, then returning like nine months later and filming henry dredging it up (still there!) and poking it with a hanger. ha ha. such a card.

reconciling an overwhelming preoccupation with sexual desire and the responsibilities of fatherhood

― strongo hulkington's ghost dad, Tuesday, June 14, 2011 10:08 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark

it's about working a shit job in a dead-end town, living in a crummy apartment and having a bad relationship with a girl you don't really understand. you meet her parents and feel hideously uncomfortable. they're weird and serve you bad food. you desire other women but are also terrified of your desire. you dream pointlessly as a way of evading your situation and responsibilities. eventually you have a kid without wanting one, and you hate that, too.

duh, lol, that was SUPPOSED to be a response to this:

what, if anything, would you say "Eraserhead" is about?

― anarcho-misogynist puppies (DJP), Tuesday, June 14, 2011 10:03 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark

ranked order incl. major shorts/TV

Blue Velvet
The Grandmother
Eraserhead
Twin Peaks finale
Mulholland Dr.
Twin Peaks pilot
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me
Premonition Following An Evil Deed
Lost Highway
The Elephant Man
The Cowboy and the Frenchman
Dune
The Straight Story
Industrial Symphony No. 1
Wild at Heart

only thing i actively dislike is W@H.

oh hai put inland empire in there after TP:FWWM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLIxS7Bdz10

Your order just about works for me except that I'm not super crazy about Blue Velvet. I mean, it's a good film, but it falls short as an expression of the Lynch that I love. Your top nine (inc. Inland) is otherwise pretty spot-on. The Grandmother is excellent.

This is how I would rank them:

Lost Highway
Straight Story
Elephant Man
Lynch's Twin Peaks episodes
Mulholland Dr.
Blue Velvet
On the Air
Fire Walk with Me
Wild at Heart
Eraserhead
Inland Empire

Haven't seen Dune or any of the shorts. After a very good first 30 minutes, Inland Empire is a 2,5 hour snoozefest, and Eraserhead is a "film student film" with all the positive and negative things that implies. Everything else worth a watch, at the least.

Don't want to rank. I'll just continue telling everyone how gay I am for Inland Empire.

Don't want to rank. I'll just continue telling everyone ERASERHEAD

would the twin peaks series have won this if it had been included?

Rewatched half of Dune last night, god that movie is awesome.

dune is terrible. but i will pretty much drop everything to watch it any time it happens to be on tv.

saw The Straight Story projected in 35mm today for the first time since '99 i believe. Built around a killer performance obviously, but one of the most moving American films of its era. That scene with Alvin and the other WW2 vet in the bar...

also forgot the US distributor

WALT DISNEY PICTURES PRESENTS
A DAVID LYNCH FILM

"a Miller's Light"

Straight Story is incredible. the ending is just perfect, just perfect. just the look on Harry Dean Stanton's face tells you everything.

i have a VHS copy that i showed to an old friend in from out of town last year at Christmas. we were both on the verge of tears by the ending but he still said thank you so much for showing this to me.

one of my favorite movie scores too (I tend not to notice unless they're obtrusive)

actually it's "What does a Miller Lite taste like?"

"... that's fucking crazy, man"

Rewatched Mulholland for first time in a decade or so and it's aged really well for me... wondering if I should rewatch Inland Empire again.

i screwed a couple guys for drinks; no big deal. this one guy was kinda cute. fucker had a dick like a rhinoceros. he'd fuck the shit out of you, i tell you what. he'd buy me a couple of drinks after. we'd talk. he'd tell me about the town he grew up in, all the little girls he fucked. there was a chemical factory in this town, and he'd tell me it was putting so much shit in the air you couldn't think straight. it got to a lot of the people. there was a lot of crazy shit going on there-- people having weird dreams. seeing things that wasn't there. this one time, this one little girl--she was staring off at something one time. starts screaming. the people hanging round come to her and ask what's wrong. and, uh, she says she sees the end of the world. all fire and smoke and blood running. you know. like they say. the wailing and the gnashing of teeth.

― difficult listening hour, Wednesday, April 8, 2015 9:28 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

Alex in SF, yes, you should

I guess it's time to rescreen The Elephant Man.

Lost Highway really does feel like a dry run for Mulholland Drive... and it's remarkable to see how loathed Fire Walk With Me was even 10 years ago. A theater screened it here a couple weeks ago and I thought it was incredible, just devastating.

Sheryl Lee's performance in FWWM is all-time

oh, she's phenomenal! obviously there was just too much baggage and hurt feelings from the stars in the press after the series, but i'm surprised it's taken until relatively recently for FWWM to be rated at all. it got less votes than fucking DUNE here in 2007!

Yes, it would be much higher, maybe third.

i think i voted for The Elephant Man because i love it, it's so tender and unique. it's heartbreaking. I don't think it's my favourite and it wasn't then either, I just feared that it wouldn't get many votes.

everything about Lost Highway is soooooo 1997

So here is my top five.

Inland Empire is his most relentlessly daring feature, much more mature than Blue Velvet.

Yeah, I would swap out IE for BV for sure.

It's ridiculous that I still haven't seen Straight Story. Inexcusable.

FWWM only getting 1 vote in this is shameful

Finally saw Straight Story for the first time a few weeks ago, great movie

This poll would be so different now.

Personally I'd vote for the elephant man or TP:The Return depending on how it works out.

And if anyone does redo it then the three seasons of TP should be included.

As should all of the major shorts, tbh, I'd find someone choosing the Lumiere bros. film over anything else to be a respectable choice.

BV is expertly paced. My problem with IE is he seems to have lost -- temporarily, on the evidence of the new Twin Peaks -- the ability to know when a scene runs too long.

According to whom?

Uh, me.

Oh, well then case dismissed.

the return is already my favourite david lynch thing ever, from sheer pleasure alone. i've never had this much fun watching anything at all. even the slow parts are beautiful portraits in their own right. it's a grab bag of genres and concepts interwoven in a way that completely works, that makes this a unique, trailblazing and utterly inventive work of art. it's not like anything. it's not even like twin peaks.

wouldn't be surprised if the return would win in a redo, assuming it ends as well as it's been going

haha, i already posted this on alfred's facebook comment thread, but might as well post it here too:

Twin Peaks: The Return (even if the last 4 episodes are Dr Jacoby / Amp spray painting his shovel I’m comfortable with this ranking)
Mulholland Drive
Blue Velvet
Eraserhead
Inland Empire
Twin Peaks
The Elephant Man
Lost Highway
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
Straight Story
Wild At Heart (I recognize it is somewhat disliked but I love it)
Dune

(i wrote the parenthetical to wild at heart early on in my ranking when i thought it would be near the top and needed some sort of halfassed justification, but it still holds. also i fully recognize that any list that is this long and includes the words "love" on the second to bottom ranked item is easily dismissable as fanboyism, but you know what, fuck you! FUCK YOU)

Twin Peaks: The Return (even if the last 4 episodes are Dr Jacoby / Amp spray painting his shovel I’m comfortable with this ranking)

otm

doesn't matter what happens now, it's already won

My problem with IE is he seems to have lost -- temporarily, on the evidence of the new Twin Peaks -- the ability to know when a scene runs too long.

there are many scenes in The Return that some would say run too long, so hold on to your butts

but yeah... besides the return, it's still mulholland drive

there are many scenes in The Return that some would say run too long, so hold on to your butts

― Karl Malone, Thursday, 17 August 2017 14:56 (ten minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

people who complain about that are not reading the series 18 hour movie correctly imo. people don't go to an art gallery and criticise an artwork for not doing enough.

still, hold on to your butts

yeah, you need to be prepared to just go where it takes you.

also i want to be specific about a principal character's presence but can't spoil, so will say this: twin peaks revolutionised tv; the return isn't a trip down memory lane, it's not fan service, it's revolutionising tv again. lynch has incredible things for cinema, but imo he's never turned the whole of cinema upside down.

Alfred, curious why you've not watched the new TP beyond the first episode. Did it disappoint or is it just a time thing? Or are you waiting for the box set?

so far, i would rate The Return above everything else he has done. it really feels like the culmination of a life's work.

I don't have Showtime! I watched the first two episodes because a friend sent them

I don't agree with Alfred at all but it's maybe notable that inland empire is Lynch's first self-edited feature since eraserhead

jed otm, & depending on the day I might be that premonition following an evil deed voter, one of my favourite films ever

people who complain about that are not reading the series 18 hour movie correctly imo. people don't go to an art gallery and criticise an artwork for not doing enough.

― rove mcmanus island (Autumn Almanac),

A film is not an art installation though.

tv doesn't have to be starsky & hutch either

i just mean the return is a show to let happen. there's no correct way to watch it, it is what it is, it succeeds at being what it's meant to be imo.

I can't wait to watch it!

it's… very hard to explain without spoiling something critical

there's a scene in which nothing happens for almost two minutes, so in effect it's like one of his paintings come to (sort of) life. it's sequenced in such a way that it's quite jarring. some people were convinced lynch was trolling them.

I for one was fairly impressed that MacLachlan could sustain a belch for an entire two minutes (oops, spoilerz).

the return is incredible and one of my favorite things he's ever done but at the moment i'd still rate it under fire walk with me. idk i think fire walk with me is one of the most empathetic works of art ever and whenever i watch it i end up crying through most of it. the return isn't (yet) working on this level for me (which i'm guessing it probably isn't meant to)

i agree w/ the erstwhile KJB this much: some of you should find more than one, or three, filmmakers to worship.

that would be off topic though

Yes, you should do a search for the 'shouting at strawmen' thread, Morbs.

I worship one filmmaker and one filmmaker alone: Chris Marker. I cherish dozens and dozens of others.

Not convinced the nexus of those loving Lynch/Kubrick and fanboys for Nolan/Innaritu/Darabont is as vast as all that, or that Dunkirk-fellating zombies are also chomping at the bit to get into lengthy discussions about Barry Lyndon.

fair 'nuff, you don't hafta prove yr bona fides to me, E.

But, also, if Lynch is one of your *only* favorite filmmakers, try harder, et al.

Dunkirk-fellating zombies

Lynch is too much (and too easy) of a gateway for fanboys to stop with his films.

But, also, if Lynch is one of your *only* favorite filmmakers, try harder, et al.

For the life of me I have no idea who the "et al" addressed here are, maybe they'll show up itt soon tho idk

I'm not sure I even know any other filmmakers. Did Lynch do the Dukes of Hazzard movie? If not, I worship that guy, too.

Truly a huge problem right now is the monopolization Lynch-only fanboys hold over American culture.

Ime the overlap is more that Kubrick-fanatics will spend day and night shouting about how Nolan is no Kubrick. It's really, really important to them.

Why am I even here? The gay threads died years ago.

you're misinterpreting me, guys. what i meant to say is

suck it

That was very suck-cinct.

It's funny, Lynch has cycled in and out of being my favorite active filmmaker since I was 17 and saw Blue Velvet. It's hard to rank or compare him against other people from 2000 on, say, because his output in that time has been so sporadic. But Mulholland Drive/Inland Empire/TP:TR is an amazing late career run.

It's dumb imo to get hung up on his fanboys. I'm sure there are blinkered Tarkovsky stans too. Lynch is a virtuosic and imaginative artist and I'm happy to be alive while he's doing his thing.

It'll probably be hard to argue against TP:TR being his greatest thing once it's done, just in the sheer scope and creative freedom of it. But for non-18-hour work, I'd go:

Mulholland Drive
Inland Empire
Blue Velvet
Eraserhead
TP:FWWM
The Straight Story
Wild at Heart
The Elephant Man
Dune
Lost Highway

Of those, I only count the last two as failures. And they're both still worth seeing.

I'm sure there are blinkered Tarkovsky stans too

me

j/k i've only seen five movies all by david lunch

sooooo sensitive, Brad! ;) plz go to something in this series with me.

http://metrograph.com/series/series/107/gotta-light

kudos to the programmers, I wish there was more stuff like that here

Apologies (mainly to myself) for continuing down this avenue because it is simply too dumb to bother with but I guess it might be true to say that lynch brings along more non-cinephiles than a lot of filmmakers in the same vague area maybe, by virtue of being American and having made a tv show? Just from peeping reactions to the new TP there are ppl for whom lengthy shots/scenes are insane and revelatory in & of themselves (I think even ~those ppl~ prob have a lot of faves tho so idk let's just leave this stupid convo)

morbs, i'd really love to see kiss me deadly in a theater but unfortunately it's in dreaded dcp

yeah, I've seen it on film before so i wouldn't do that. More likely the shorts programs.

i'm def down for one of the shorts programs and possibly 2001

I think I've mentioned this elsewhere, but Wild at Heart started out as way overrated and FWWM was way underrated. These days, I think the opposite is true. Also, I love Lost Highway way more than most people on here. Dune was the first Lynch film I saw and I'll always love it, even though it is extremely flawed.

Here's my list:

Blue Velvet
Mulholland Drive
Lost Highway
Inland Empire
Eraserhead
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
Dune
Wild at Heart
The Straight Story
The Elephant Man

Breakaway is a great 5 minute seduction.

I guess it might be true to say that lynch brings along more non-cinephiles than a lot of filmmakers in the same vague area maybe, by virtue of being American and having made a tv show?

That was def true with the OG TP, not sure the new one is having the same effect. I'd say it's not only because he's worked in TV, but also because he's totally immersed in pop culture, or at least some corners of it, so he gives some relatively accessible (or accessible-seeming) handles to people in a way that Hou Hsiao-Hsien or Joanna Hogg or etc do not. Once people grab hold of those pop references, they may be confused by what happens next. But he's pretty approachable on the surface. (See also Wong Kar-Wai, e.g., compared with someone like Tsai Ming-liang.)

Re thread subject, dunno if I've done already. I don't really enjoy ranking things so I'd cop out and go for a four-way tie of fwwm/md/ie/ss as features I love p much equally; I also love the elephant man, and eraserhead & blue velvet are near-perfect formally imo. The Gifford ones I connect with least although I like lost highway a lot more than I used to (I'm sorta suspicious of an opinion about lynch that I suspect to have gone unrevised over the years)

I continue to reserve judgement on dune until the day I stay awake through the whole film.

xp yeah that too

There was a thing going around on twitter with people saying their favorite films of 77, and seeing Eraserhead along films like That Obscure Object of Desire and The Devil, Probably, is so weird. Lynch has kinda made at least one masterpiece in five decades in a row now, and that's probably as good a reason as any to have him as a favorite filmmaker. He's not mine, though, far from it.

He might be my favourite living American one, if I had to pick, which I don't, and neither do you

Well, you know, Sean Baker, so...

Love Sean Baker, one of only 2 directors I follow on twitter iirc

he's probably my favorite living American filmmaker lol wins otm xp

Sean Spicer is my favorite American.

gesundheit

Anita Baker is my favorite American.

Anita Cocktail is my favorite living American drag queen

caught up in the crapture

Giving You The Breasts That I Got

One thing to add about Lynch's works: they gain a lot from being seen in movie theaters. I feel very lucky to have been able to see Dune, Wild at Heart, FWWM, Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, and Inland Empire all during their original theatrical releases. I'd love to see Lost Highway again in the theater because I really struggle to get the right volume levels at home to be able to catch all of the brilliant creepy dialogue between Pullman and Arquette in the early scenes without then being walloped by Fred's crazy sax playing.

Inland Empire was a particularly intense and singular theater experience. The effect of being a captive audience in a three hour movie where coherence gradually melts away and spans of time start to lose all meaning was quiet powerful, like being trapped in a nightmare. It's not an experience I can copy at home where it's just way too easy to be distracted while watching it, it just loses that sense of total immersion.

otm. seeing Mulholland Drive in a theater in May blew me away, i had only seen it once before in 2007 at home & it just didn't click. but that was in preparation to see Inland Empire when it opened here. it only played for a week and i'm so glad i got to see it in a theater. i'll never forget that opening title sequence. i've gotta rewatch it soon - got a sweet Japanese blu-ray of it for like 10 bucks on Amazon.

also i've been fortunate enough to see FWWM in a theater twice - although the first time was five years ago with a crowd that was treating it like a MST3K thing, laughing at the 'awkwardness,' which... whatever, standard shitty crowd, but they kept it up through Leland's assault on Laura. I saw it at a different theater with a much smaller, more subdued crowd in July, and it was just devastating.

whenever there is a re-do of this poll - i guess when The Return ends in a few weeks - I'll probably vote Mulholland Drive, but I wish I could vote for the final episode of season 2. even though it's not feature length, imo it's the most spellbinding & powerful thing Lynch has ever done.

having said that, still need to see Wild at Heart, Straight Story, & the Elephant Man. stoked to see WAH in a theater next week on 35mm. lots of Lynch revivals this year! I'd love to see Lost Highway in a theater, the DVD i got looked like shit & I think I said this upthread but it really felt like a dry run for Mulholland Drive, with a much duller color palette, extremely dated soundtrack & aesthetics, and a depiction of evil/total absence of love that imo is much better explored in The Return.

a crowd that was treating it like a MST3K thing

oh good, it's not just NYC that needs the death penalty for this.

whenever there is a re-do of this poll - i guess when The Return ends in a few weeks

What's your hurry? Some of us didn't have the money to subscribe to Showtime.

also, not a film (notice there is no TP original series in the above poll).

Eraserhead, The Grandmother, Twin Peaks finale, Premonitions, The Return eps 3 & 8, The Alphabet

xxp it was part of a local series that usually screens 80s/90s blockbusters that could be read as camp but aren't like Manos: The Hands of Fate or whatever. along with FWWM, they've done Total Recall, The Shining, The Thing, Dead Man, RoboCop, Predator, Terminator 2, Groundhog Day, Point Break, Batman, Die Hard... those are just off the top of my head, and FWWM sticks out like a sore thumb in that group, besides maybe Dead Man and The Shining.

I was lucky enough to see Lost Highway the first time at the historic Tampa Theatre while on vacation, complete with organist before the film. Memorable evening, but I still don't care for Lost Highway much.

What's your hurry? Some of us didn't have the money to subscribe to Showtime.

also, not a film (notice there is no TP original series in the above poll).

― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Thursday, August 17, 2017 2:38 PM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i don't have cable or a Showtime subscription. my TV gave me a 7 day free trial for Showtime, I watched all 14 episodes in 3 days and will pay for one month to see the last 4. and i absolutely think Twin Peaks should be included, all seasons separately. you could debate the merits of including the original series because it wasn't all directed by Lynch, but The Return is an 18 hour movie.

Nitpicking probably but the "18 hour movie" thing bugs me. Each ~57 min segment is is demarcated by opening and closing credits. Each has its own structure and momentum, and features a musical interlude. Etc. Just let it be a tv show, nothing wrong with that.

To be fair lynch didn't call it an 18-hour movie, he called it "a feature film in 18 parts", which makes more sense. People kind of conflated the first half of that construction into the second, assuming it's "meant" to be a single unbroken thing - which it obv isn't, or it would have been released that way. It was produced as one big thing and then the episodes/chapters were formed & as you note given their own internal structure.

would def put Ep 8 in my top ten of things he's ever done and probably in the top 10 best standalone episodes of a tv series ever

Isn't that how a significant amount of tv is made these days? xp

nbd; also nbd but when this poll is redone I think it should include individual eps of TP & TP:TR limited to those Lynch directed. I also want to be able to vote for short films. Altogether I think that's still under 50 options.

Sweet. Eager to rep for s2 finale

Inland Empire was a particularly intense and singular theater experience. The effect of being a captive audience in a three hour movie where coherence gradually melts away and spans of time start to lose all meaning was quiet powerful, like being trapped in a nightmare. It's not an experience I can copy at home where it's just way too easy to be distracted while watching it, it just loses that sense of total immersion.

― Moodles, Thursday, August 17, 2017 1:03 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Unfortunately missed it in the theater but watched it in the dark and with headphones on (LOUD), which felt effectively immersive and nightmarish.

Episode 8 of The Return is one of the most jaw-droppingly amazing things I've ever seen on film.

And one of the few instances I can think of where I can use 'jaw dropping' as a literal descriptor of my experience.

Isn't that how a significant amount of tv is made these days? xp

I'm not a tv expert but I don't think so, I imagine even the few tv series that have a single director are split into episodes at the script stage and I really don't think it's usual to film a season as a single film, I could be wrong tho

I have no idea what I'm talking about either really, high five

there is no major tv series with a single director, TP:TR is a glaring exception

Wasn't true detective a single director? There are a few classic non-US ones like Berlin Alexanderplatz too

non-US tv is a totally different beast imo

yr right about Fukunaga tho, forgot about that (was def noted as unusual at the time!)

All I meant is that series like 13 Reasons Why and Stranger Things that are made for the all at once dump streaming market are presumably conceived and written as a whole and fully shot before airing, unlike what I understand to be past tv practice, and have exec producers, dp's etc guiding the overall vision even if the actual directing of actors is farmed out in a more workmanlike way.

Anyway, to make this post somewhat worthwhile, I'm going to say again that I think Lynch is definitely at his best when making short films, whether they're standalone productions or folded into longer works. Ep 8 is basically 4 loosely-connected shorts, the most talked about of which is also the most derivative and least satisfying, to me.

there is no major tv series with a single director, TP:TR is a glaring exception

― Οὖτις, 17. august 2017 21:34 (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Wasn't true detective a single director? There are a few classic non-US ones like Berlin Alexanderplatz too

― blog haus aka the scene raver (wins), 17. august 2017 21:37 (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

+ The Knick and Show Me a Hero.

everyone otm wrt being in a theater experience. this is why i bought a projector a few years ago and use it to watch just about everything

I noticed David Lynch has his own brand of coffee they sell at whole foods (for $2 more than the other coffee they sell)

Pamela Fryman directed 196 of the 208 episodes of How I Met Your Mother

the commercials they did for the Japanese canned coffee w the original Twin Peaks crew and all new storyline is cool. all that stuff is on youtube.

i have mad respect for David Lynch. i first saw Mulholland Drive in a theater with a film geek friend who was my first post-HS friend and he introduced me to the Athens hipster scene and awesome movies. his roommates all worked at Vision Video and constantly had stuff. anyways we saw MD and it was unlike any movie i had ever seen. we were laughing with joy at every scene that occurred, at the seeming randomness of it all, at the anarchic mockery underlying these pretty regular subject matter of Hollywood actresses and murder mysteries. the Gen x love for twisted 60s nostalgia and one-scene characters. the boogeyman popping out from around that corner and the perfect reaction/soundtrack mix to solidify this temporary nightmare in your psyche. the holy shit is that Billy Ray Cyrus? the cowboy? what the fuck?

i watched all of Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet a few years later with some other friends that were super into that stuff and had the big VHS box set that spelled out TWIN PEAKS on the side. i've seen Eraserhead a few times now, last time at the Plaza Theater in Atlanta with a close friend of mine and the parental angst and pressure to live this absurd bleak (but beautiful) trudgery was so wonderful and poetic and industrial. it really feels like a documentary of another world. i've only seen half of Lost Highway, i think i made it to the part where the guy falls into the table and impales his head on it. the movie made me feel bad and i was not terribly interested in watching it at the time. we did find the OST CD at a thrift store recently though, and it fucking rules.

a few years ago i bought Straight Story on VHS and have watched that a few times and have cried so much both times. the movie is a perfect example of new Twin Peaks style imo, they opening shot is this weird overhead crane shot that holds for a long time w only ambient things going on for a good bit. the movie all leads up to this meeting that is possibly the best, most hopeful and loving ending of any movie i have ever seen, with Harry Dean Stanton. i am so glad he has gotten to work with Harry and so many other actors from over the course of his career. the new Twin Peaks is a victory lap.

so there are long scenes of "nothing" but the characters walking, sweeping, or just breathing. why is this upsetting to us? it is perfectly normal. it is even more normal than the "normal"
parts of the show that use cuts and editing. shouldn't we relate more to something that is in real-time? visual culture has cultivated shorter and shorter attention spans through constant jump cuts. when confronted by an unedited scene we become self aware as an audience - is this a Zen technique? to us, we are so accustomed to cheating time through editing/video/film, the passage of normal time in that medium has become funny, painful, obvious, awkward. in visual media the normal is weird and the weird is normal.

While we're on this particular trivia trip, James Burrows directed all 194 episodes of Will and Grace. No, I don't know why.

The coffee commercials are in the TP Blu-ray set, fyi.

spark plug poster shows 15 then 3

cooper's room is 315

season 3 episode 15 tonight

just sayin

Twin Peaks: The Return (even if the last 4 episodes are Dr Jacoby / Amp spray painting his shovel I’m comfortable with this ranking)

― Karl Malone, Thursday, 17 August 2017 14:39 (two weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

― rove mcmanus island (Autumn Almanac), Thursday, 17 August 2017 14:51 (two weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

doesn't matter what happens now, it's already won

― rove mcmanus island (Autumn Almanac), Thursday, 17 August 2017 14:52 (two weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

is it too late to walk this back or

mulholland drive is the best

the finale made me so frustrated. who cant relate the family home that becomes a part of nightmares/dreams. Lynch perplexes me cuz I don't always enioy what he does

Please keep all specifics to the spoiler threads...Haven't even started yet!

is it too late to walk this back or

― rove mcmanus island (Autumn Almanac), Monday, September 4, 2017 12:04 AM (six hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

if anything the last two episodes convinced me that you and karl were right

^seriously!

It's time:

It's the inevitable and long-awaited DAVID LYNCH POLL REDUX (this time including Twin Peakses, et al)

is it too late to walk this back or

― rove mcmanus island (Autumn Almanac), Monday, September 4, 2017 3:04 AM (nine hours ago)

lol

after 9 hours of puzzle solving do you want to walk that back or

;)

The Return hands down

sorry clemenza, that was posted in the wrong thread

No problem--looked away immediately, so I didn't process anything. (Facebook's been a bigger problem, but so far I've dodged everything.)

if anything the last two episodes convinced me that you and karl were right

― ToddBonzalez (BradNelson), Monday, 4 September 2017 23:44 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

having slept on it, i'm definitely coming around again.

So how comes everyone is down on Wild At Heart these days? It must be partly because some of what he made after is *so* good/much better and so many films have ripped WAH off that it no longer feels as fresh? Cause boy.. people sure did love it at the time.

The trailer is great too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCQwumNQL9E

I think I said this in another thread, but Wild At Heart definitely went from being overrated to underrated. It's a good, but flawed film, not unlike most of Lynch's films.

Reading back my earlier posts ITT, I can say that my love of Mullholland Drive has grown a lot over the years. I've really been obsessing over this film a lot lately.

The span of scenes from the Cowboy to Club Silencio is pure gold, one classic sequence after another.

I agree with Moodles, I know like 5 people whose favorite movie is Wild at Heart. And every Lynch fan I know adores it. Its aesthetics are very in tune with the culture rn.

crispin glover tho

mulhollad drive #1, inland empire close second here

Yeah very true about the aesthetics! Lana Del Rey must’ve watched it 100 times.

Yeah the way they have a very balanced power dynamic in their relationship + their own integrity + while still being sexy af and not giving a fuck what other people think + fucking constantly + being extremely cool + still embracing fantasy. Also the way the movie just glows, it’s so saturated a warm and overwhelming.

Anyone see the new Criterion docu about Blue Velvet? It's called Blue Velvet Revisited and it's amazing. Fabulous soundtrack too by 'Cult With No Name'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWkb3gATtqw

If that’s the one by the German student who attended the set and shot silent 8mm, it’s not new or by Criterion - was released 4-5 years ago, played festivals and Ltd engagements. I saw it as a one-night double feature with a print of Blue Velvet, which was great.

(ah yeah, per the soundtrack clue, it is)