Twin Peaks: Classic or Dud?

still my all-time favorite television show despite its descent into shit partway through the second season.

OTM, but: I recently re-watched the second season for the first time in many years and, though the mid-season sag is justly maligned by many, I think it is great for campy fun (particularly the sub-Cinemax Noir 101 plotline with James and the femme fatale) and mostly a pleasant diversion between the murder mystery & Windom Earle/ Black Lodge main themes. This was also the first time I had watched the second season on DVD, as opposed to my VHS dubs from the shows original prime time run (complete with Desert Storm newsbreaks and even a random episode of Cop Rock!). One might imagine how those VHS tapes have held up after (gulp) almost 20 years of near-perpetual abuse (I had a serious TP jones as a teenager & the tapes have been loaned out to countless interested parties over the years, usually at my insistence). Anyway, what I'm taking the long route to getting at is that I was blown away by how red-saturated the DVD transfer was. I had thought that the oversaturation was due to my third-hand dubs, but I realized that Lynch really did push the red that hard, and it totally worked! The perpetual exaggeration of warm tones is just as key to the aesthetic as the music or coffee/cherry pie/logtrucks.

Just got the last set of DVDs from the library. I started watching ages ago and got bogged down in the aforementioned descent into shit. Now I've just got the last episode to go, which I've never seen!

Everyone's hands inexplicably shaking in the third-to-last ep = awesome

Clotpoll, you're in for a big treat. TP last episode = best. shit. ever.

the bf and i holed up in my new "multimedia room" for 2 days, baked a cherry pie, drank coffee and just watched all of these. he'd never seen them before, this was my 6th or 7th time watching the series all the way through including its original airing -- i was 9. someday, my log will have something to say about this.

I might be too hard on the second season drop-off there, it's been a while since I've watched those episodes. It seemed basically like a lot of less talented people trying to emulate Lynch's weirdness and coming up with lame, self-conscious quirk that completely misses what made the show special in the first place. The storylines aren't particularly interesting. The Windham Earle plot, which had the potential to be great, was completely wasted. Too much time is spent with James, my least favorite character. I think this has more to do with the actor, James Marshall, who possesses some kind of magical anti-charisma. The Black Lodge stuff kept me interested though.

I spent a night drinking with a friend of mine who is also a big TP fan. We nerdily went through the boxed sent and picked out favorite scenes. There's a great moment in Season 2 where Major Briggs calls Bobby over in the diner and tells him about a dream he had about Bobby's future. Totally oddball, touching father-son moment that seems just kind of tossed in there. We, being fairly smashed and sentimental at that point, watched the scene about 10 times and talked about our dads. The next day said friend found Don S. Davis, AKA Maj. Briggs, on MySpace (!?) and sent him a message about how fantastic his work on the series was and mentioned that scene in particular. He responded fairly quickly with a super-nice message about what a great actor Dana Ashbrook was to work with and how he treasures the time he had on the show. Two weeks later, the guy passed away. That really bummed us out. Made us realize how emotionally invested we were in the show. I can't really say I've ever had anything remotely like that with any other television show. Or film or novel for that matter.

Aw, poor Pete.

Wish I hadn't been spoiled for a lot of the actual plot developments but it's not like that matters with the Black Lodge stuff. Yeah, fantastic.

David Lynch in general, sucks ass. This is after having watched only 2 films: Blue Velvet and Mulholland drive Drive. I'm never going to give him points for innovation and great pathos/art direction in some scenes (or whatever it is that people like best about his films)... because the movies (Blue Velvet and Mulholland drive Drive)as a whole suck ass.

That was the same problem with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
And I refuse to like uhh whats it called. umm Garden State for different reasons. As a whole, it sucked balls (but not as bad as the other two). Juno is OK with me and Little Miss Sunshine is better than OK. Thanks for reading my rant.

but I never saw twin peaks either.. just so you fanboys/girls won't cry because someone is hating your favorite tv series or whatnot.

Thanks, CaptainLorax.

Twin Peaks has dated horribly. I tried showing 'er indoors recently and neither of us could sit through it. At the time it was the best thing ever, though.

Anyone who hates Blue Velvet or Twin Peaks is DEAD TO ME.

Juno and Little Miss Sunshine can go fuck each other.

also, don't understand connection to TP.

I like your opinions CaptainLorax I would like to hear more.

I don't think anyone had made that undeniable ass-sucking connection between Eternal Sunshine and Blue Velvet before.

Also, your explanation of the ball-sucking vs ass-sucking binary is clearly a landmark in 21st century film criticism.

I have to take the whole movie into consideration when I judge film. I'm really a structuralist as a critic. If some parts/elements/characters/plot/scenes suck balls or ass it is entirely relevant to the whole of the movie. And that's the best way to judge a movie, your initial impression. No technical jargon. So "suck ass" is a completely meaningful analysis. And so is "suck balls".

When people ask how good was that movie? The word good, is an emotion, kinda like it sucked balls is an negative emotion. The rating system is inherently emotional based.

which brings me back to using an initial impression as a good determinant of the movie as a whole.

What parts/elements/characters/plot/scenes did you think sucked balls or ass in Blue Velvet? Honestly curious. Always thought that was one of his most cohesive films.

it was just kinda boring, in an eyes wide shut sort of way

still not a bad film, just not great

and playing with taboo in movies... I just saw the film called Pathology - worst movie ever.

so didn't suck ass. it was good but boring.

but Juno (the most obnoxious film ever made in the history of the world) and Little Miss Sunshine were good or great because you felt swell about them coming out of a theater. and any sort of analysis outside of straight emotional impressions isn't really important. does your left brain function when you watch a film? i mean, not saying Lynch is some CEREBRAL SHIT, but come on man. there's certainly more there than the irritating twee horseshit that you mentioned.

i'm kinda drunk too, but i'm not getting anything other than "I LIKED IT AND THEREFORE IT IS GOOD". not much fun for discussion.

for me, cerebral shit has to be more intelligent than what Lynch is getting into.
I do enjoy delving into intelligent soulful shit or great art and emotional concepts, but, give me John Waters - Polyester, or Clockwork Orange, or Suspiria over a movie where the whole premise is basically an abduction of a guy into a weird artsy world... some scenes might of had great cinematography but I see great cinematography + better plot in other movies. I like lots of movies that make me think more than Blue Velvet. I wish I could thing of a great thought provoking movie now or a movie that is all around good and has an unique weird art style.. but I'm grasping at straws for names at the moment. How about City of God or Life Aquatic or A Boy and his Dog or The Warriors or The Seven Samurai or A Few Dollars More

I think that there can be intellectualism in cinematography or art direction even if the film isn't particularly thought provoking - Lynch fans should agree with me on this point.

whatever im friends with David Lynch on FACEBOOK captainlorax

lorax, did you just srsly throw down the gauntlet of "Life Aquatic vs. Lynch, which is smarter?"

which art direction + plot is better: blue velvet vs. life aquatic. that's what I was mentioning those movies for.

Hey Lorax Fistful of Dollars pwnes A Few Dollars More

see the problem here is that too many people skip the step in the iconoclast flowchart where it says "is it possible that i am confusing 'having different and interesting worldview' with 'being mildly retarded' Y/N?"

the way lynch crafts the people, their emotional responses, underlying feelings & motivations can be very intellectual, or rather - not used in the vast majority of movies... thats where I see him as an intellectual. that and the art direction, style and cinematography can be intellectual. The plot of Blue Velvet didn't intrigue me.

I wish I could remember the great "artsy" movie I saw this past year.

help me list some good films where the left brain is obviously stimulated

New Topic: help me list some good films where the left brain is obviously stimulated

I think that there can be intellectualism in cinematography or art direction even if the film isn't particularly thought provoking - Lynch fans should agree with me on this point.

Using intellectualism in conjunction with any Lynch movie makes absolutely no sense at all whatsoever.

I've never seen Twin Peaks, but will do soon.

However I saw Blue Velvet about 2 weeks ago on TV and thought it was one of the best films I'd ever seen. Some of the inexplicable bits are incredible, they let you think and try and decide what they mean yourself. I like the level of ambiguity there. Also it's really enthralling in and of itself, like the final scene with Julee Cruise playing as the bug is crushed by the bird. It takes guts to do things that don't make clear and absolute sense.

CLASSIC

Even after the second season when they find the killer and Lynch isn't directing anymore and you know it will never be as good as it once was, you still CANNOT STOP WATCHING. Love the show. Except I wanna kick Billy Zane in the nards.

http://img517.imageshack.us/img517/76/picture1sy2.png

^^^ this is like my favourite moment in television

James Marshall is truly one of the world's worst. He and Eric Da Re and all the other crappy actors make the show more lolably soap operatic though, which is obviously classic.

caek otm, that scene never fails to make me tear up a little

FYI, folx:

Full Series Streaming on CBS Site

Now you can go about squandering your work day.

YES, thank you caek!

It's weird that you dig John Waters stuff, ACO, and Suspiria, CaptainLorax, but not Blue Velvet. I mean, these aren't terribly dissimilar.

Also, I don't mean to imply that Lynch is an intellectual filmmaker AT ALL. The guy himself openly talks about his process as being nearly wholly intuitive.

intuitions, complex emotions, can be intellectual... art can be challenging.

http://i35.tinypic.com/2h7eyic.gif

intuitions, complex emotions, can be intellectual... art can be challenging.

― CaptainLorax, Sunday, September 28, 2008 10:29 PM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

so can opinions

That scene freaked me the fuck out the first time i saw that movie. Almost as much as the weird face at the end of Inland Empire.

whats the point, he just has a normal movie with eerie settings and throws in something surprising

wheres the meat?