Mulholland Drive

xpost Lost Highway might be Lynch's worst movie, Mulholland might be his best. It's a jarring turnabout, tbf.

Glad/jealous you had your first time with it! My favorite Nick Nolte movie, hands down.

Where did this fit in to MD?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfGOOL6j_F8

Also watched LH recently and was kinda struck by the car chase scene where whazzhisname beats up the speeding tailgate-er on mulholland and how i like the idea of david lynch having an axe to grind about disorderly drivers and cars in general

Should I find a way to watch Inland Empire (Y/N)? Now I'm curious what I could be missing...

Yes

Absolutely. It's within spitting distance of MH's greatness.

(Hints are afoot that it may be a Criterion release before long.)

Or, sorry, more or less confirmed I guess

pic.twitter.com/YEWyFLKyAB

— Janus Films (@janusfilms) January 20, 2021

Cool - I will

inland empire could be the most 'RIYL mulholland drive' movie of all time

I might have to pick up the Criterion Blu-ray of Mulholland Dr.; I feel like I could watch it over & over again. Not sure exactly why... something about it is just so watchable, on a scene-by-scene basis (even when you know what's coming).

otm -- the colors are dangerous

inland empire >>> mulholland dr.

like^^^ -------------- ^^^don't like

Madness.

Yes, morrisp, these films are meant to be watched and rewatched. I first saw IE late at night, in the dark, on a laptop with headphones, volume turned way up (and immediately followed by the hour+ of extra footage on the second DVD). I don't know that that's the ideal way to see it but it was still a pretty righteous way to see it. An unforgettable experience.

MD may be the best movie to wake up in the middle of, late at night and disoriented/altered.

I still love Eraserhead and Blue Velvet and the OG Twin Peaks, but I'm strongly coming around to the idea that my top-tier Lynch is everything he's done from Mulholland Drive forward. (Which is to say, MD, Inland Empire and TP:TR)

The first half of MD has a “welcoming” quality, and a lightness of touch, that I sure didn’t associate with his movies. And it’s, like, “funny”... I wasn’t expecting that! (When Billy Ray Cyrus showed up, I was like - ok, whaaaaaat is this movie)

Yeah Mulholland Drive is deceptively warm-feeling, for a movie that ends as a tragedy. I love its weird colorful Hollywood.

top-tier Lynch is everything he's done from Mulholland Drive forward.

^^

I like Lost Highway a fair bit, although the car chase scene is the worst thing in it. He's made at least two films worse than LH, though.

fwiw, he couldn't have made Mulholland Dr. if he hadn't made Lost Highway, so even if you don't like it, it's still necessary.

credit sequence with Bowie's "I'm Deranged" + Bill Pullman playing Coleman-esque free jazz at club = best sequences

The video cuts to Particia Arquette's butchered body as one of his best and most horrible ideas. The "call me"/"I'm there right now" scene at the party is essential in his work.

as = is

are!

Rewatched Lost Highway recently and it wasn't nearly as bad as I remembered. It's still near the bottom of the Lynch pile, but I sorta like it now.

Inland Empire is amazing but I can't rewatch it with any regularity. It is a Bad Trip.

I disliked Fire Walk With Me pretty strongly when it came out, but I appreciate it now. It’s still kind of a mess, but pretty powerful – I didn’t appreciate what it was doing at the time, I wasn’t “ready” for it. (It was probably also helpful for The Return to come along and help recontextualize it.)

fire walk with me still his masterwork, even in light of the return, imo

no greater work of empathy in film

Yeah, I totally didn’t get it as a young person. I was like – “Why do we need to see all this graphic, horrible stuff that we already know happened?”

I watched Fire Walk with Me on VHS in '93 without watching a millimeter of Twin Peaks and loved this terrific shambles.

totally second the echoes of MD in twin peaks: the return, that's what I kept thinking about as I watched the show (I saw the film first). which also explains why I am pretty convinced the return is the best season of TV I've ever seen

need to see inland empire now

fire walk with me still his masterwork, even in light of the return, imo

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Wednesday, April 7, 2021 8:37 PM (thirty minutes ago)

no greater work of empathy in film

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Wednesday, April 7, 2021 8:37 PM

truest truth

I watched _Fire Walk with Me_ on VHS in '93 without watching a millimeter of _Twin Peaks_ and loved this terrific shambles.

By the way (R.I.P.) - https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/tv/2021/04/07/walter-olkewicz-dies-twin-peaks-actor-starred-jacques-renault/7133539002/

fwiw, he couldn't have made Mulholland Dr. if he hadn't made Lost Highway, so even if you don't like it, it's still necessary.

Yeah, I liked Lost Highway fine at the time, and then Mulholland Drive clearly had him (being forced to) rework ideas he'd come up with for LH and doing them better. It's a positive about Lynch as an artist that ideas, themes and modes echo and recur through his work.

I think the first half of Lost Highway is some of his best, the closest to a straight Lynch horror film. Pullman recounting his dream, and that wonderful imagery of the smoke filling the hallway, is one of my favorite images in his work. Whenever it transitions to Getty, though, I rapidly lose interest. I like to pretend the first half is just a short film.

Pullman's dream is one of the most unnerving Lynch scenes, which is saying a lot. I need to rewatch LH, it has been my least-favorite Lynch ever since I saw it but because of that I have only seen it once.

ideas, themes and modes echo and recur through his work

By the end of TP:TR, I was using the phrase "David Lynch cinematic universe" in all sincerity. His works each have their own specific vibe, but they also all have variations on many recurring themes. (Allowing that in this sense Dune may not be canon, but I also haven't rewatched that one since it came out.)

Dune is absolutely canon (see the post-credits sequence where The Cowboy and Bobby Peru are riding a sandworm across Arrakis).

I’m aware from my Twin Peaks research that Mulholland Drive was originally conceived as an Audrey Horne spinoff series.

Silencio!

Yeah I guess Dune would be canon for the introduction of Kyle MacLachlan (our hero) alone.

Several actors from Showgirls (1995) appear in MD, but I won’t go down that rabbit hole.

showgirls and robocop def part of the david lynch extended universe

OMG you just prompted me imagine a Lynch-directed Robocop and I'm pretty sure part of my brain just exploded

Yeah there are bits throughout tptr that specifically recall every lynch project, even stuff like hotel room

Richard Horne is the grown-up Eraserhead baby.

And the pine weasel episode, which is the only one I saw when it originally aired and wondered, 'this is the show everyone is so gaga about?!?'

misread this as garden weasel and thought there was some Larry Sanders/Twin Peaks crossover i wasn’t aware of.

Larry Sanders would definitely exist in the Mulholland Drive multiverse

Do we have a discussion/anticipation thread for the new series he’s reportedly working on?

xpost I don't recall if they ever mentioned which network Larry Sanders was on so we can't say for sure that he didn't air after The Lester Guy Show.