Potential spoilers ahead




I thought it was a little long in the begining, although I just may be missing something. There was definitely a point where it turned from this movie about a movie star into a nightmare experience. The plot was like an Escher painting, and was quite marvellous to watch unfold from a writer's perspective, and all the little bits like the rabbits and the movie theater sequence were excellent. For some reason, and this mystifies me more than anything, this seemed to me the most accessible storylines of his previous works. I understood it. It would take a looong time to explain it and untangle it in a coherent way, not to mention interpret the many layers of meaning the film has, but I could if I set about to do it. I don't know if I'm just overly familiar with his work or what...I can't even really explain how I know what it's about. As far as the film goes it is truly an "experience" and almost a hodge-podge of his entire career; everything from Eraserhead to Mulholland Drive is alluded to in the film, and at times seemed like him having fun with the cinematic medium and cinema as a concept in general. It was truly fantastic. After that turn happened I didn't want it to end and I was fascinated by how it was going to end and was glad that it was a good hour longer than most films because I didn't want the resolution to come too abruptly.

My only complaint is that some of the editing was a little bad, such as it were. From an editor's perspective I could tell at times what he was trying to do, but I could also tell that there were better places to do the same thing and have smoother transitions. I'm very picky when it comes to cinema. I'm not saying it's bad, I just think Lynch should have stepped away from the AVID or FCP or whatever he was using and let someone else do it. Mind you, there was a lot of good stuff. But there was enough "bad," or at least, "miscalculated" cuts that could have been smoothed out. But maybe that's what he was going for, and maybe I'm just being a snob.

I just saw it in W. Hollywood too, which was by far the best way to see it, especially if you're not from there, because I'd been walking up and down Hollywood Boulevard as a tourist for the past three days, the tatty charm, layered ephemeral history and melancholy of the place had soaked in--especially the melancholy, so the movie's references were all the more vivid. I was riveted for the whole three hours, and was in a weird trance when I came out of the theater into the late afternoon half-light.

I liked the weird editing and the odd cinematography. I even liked the shakycam stuff, and I normally can't stand that. I think that Lynch is getting more and more into exposing the mechanics of filmmaking, more tightly and self-referentially calling attention to every level and layer of craft and artifice.

It's structured less like the Moebius strip that Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive were and more like a branching assocation of stories--less binary, more multiplicity--all of which added up to----a love letter to Laura Dern maybe, to Hollywood, to filmmaking, and a familiar Lynchian attempt to melt down all the boundaries between 'realities.'

Which is Feb 8th and you can (or could) get tickets at sfindie.com

I heard somewhere that the DVD will be released on August 14th...complete with extras and bonus material (something unheard of with Lynch films).

Next stop:

Lost Highway DVD

They really need to put that film on DVD. It's been waaay too long.