Saturday, March 31, 2018
Wednesday, March 28, 2018
Enemy Time refuses to go anywhere near the Nightmare Man . . .
. . . that guy twists the usual linear flow of shit into so many paradoxical pretzels-it ain't even funny, comrade!
We gave it a minute . . .
. . . and the Happy House and Enemy Time finally patched things up.
Uh . . . it ain't pretty.
But it'll do.
Tuesday, March 27, 2018
Nightmare Man at the Center of the Defense Labyrinth . . .
. . . Enemy Time can't stand this creep. Twists their shit into surrealistic pretzel paradoxes, disrupts the usual linear flow.
Nightmare Man: a valuable asset for the defense of every Happy House!
Monday, March 26, 2018
Sunday, March 18, 2018
The Lynch Meditations 12: Wild at Heart (1990)
"Everything's bigger in Texas!"
-Former Texas Governor Rick Perry
Okay. Wild at Heart works a little better for me this time. It's basically a hallucinatory redneck soap opera pervert version of The Wizard of Oz. Or something like that.
David Lynch isn't exactly a redneck himself . . . so is this cultural appropriation? Redneck-sploitation? I'd be lying if I told you I actually gave a fuck one way or another. I've known some rednecks. They inspire little to no pity in my heart. Hey, they got their Fake President trump, right? I'm sure they're all wealthy and healthy and free of opioid addictions and have secure employment and all those bigly income tax refunds are no doubt buyin' every last one of their dreams and aspirations.
No Spoilers . . . so I'll just describe my favorite scene:
Two lovers
Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern
on the run into the night
riding in their super-cool convertible
headlights barely pushing back the darkness
they see clothes scattered across the highway
and a car run off the road, headlights on
so our lovers pull off to investigate
to find the corpse of a man lying beneath the bestilled car's headlights
a young woman comes staggering out of the dark
gibbering semi-coherently about losing her pocket
due to a massive head wound-presumably incurred in the crash
Cage and Dern follow the young woman around some trees
trying to coax her to get into their car,
drive into town,
drop her off at an emergency room,
somethin'
but the scene is also about two of the living
trying to call a dying soul back
fighting against the gravity of the abyss
in a film filled with goofy grotesques, rape, sexual violence, incest, and hysterical overacting
this is an unexpectedly poignant moment.
Oh, and that bit about shooting a porno Texas Style-that was funny. I dug that.
NEXT: 4/8/18: Twin Peaks Episode 8 (1990)
-Former Texas Governor Rick Perry
Okay. Wild at Heart works a little better for me this time. It's basically a hallucinatory redneck soap opera pervert version of The Wizard of Oz. Or something like that.
David Lynch isn't exactly a redneck himself . . . so is this cultural appropriation? Redneck-sploitation? I'd be lying if I told you I actually gave a fuck one way or another. I've known some rednecks. They inspire little to no pity in my heart. Hey, they got their Fake President trump, right? I'm sure they're all wealthy and healthy and free of opioid addictions and have secure employment and all those bigly income tax refunds are no doubt buyin' every last one of their dreams and aspirations.
No Spoilers . . . so I'll just describe my favorite scene:
Two lovers
Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern
on the run into the night
riding in their super-cool convertible
headlights barely pushing back the darkness
they see clothes scattered across the highway
and a car run off the road, headlights on
so our lovers pull off to investigate
to find the corpse of a man lying beneath the bestilled car's headlights
a young woman comes staggering out of the dark
gibbering semi-coherently about losing her pocket
due to a massive head wound-presumably incurred in the crash
Cage and Dern follow the young woman around some trees
trying to coax her to get into their car,
drive into town,
drop her off at an emergency room,
somethin'
but the scene is also about two of the living
trying to call a dying soul back
fighting against the gravity of the abyss
in a film filled with goofy grotesques, rape, sexual violence, incest, and hysterical overacting
this is an unexpectedly poignant moment.
Oh, and that bit about shooting a porno Texas Style-that was funny. I dug that.
NEXT: 4/8/18: Twin Peaks Episode 8 (1990)
Saturday, March 17, 2018
The Lynch Meditations -12
Wild at Heart is, for me, the flat-out goofiest and most willfully distasteful and tacky of all of Lynch's movies. If you would've asked me what my least favorite Lynch film was a year or two ago, Wild at Heart would be the bottom of the list. But not because I think it's a bad film. I just find it unpleasant to watch. But I admire its commitment to sheer bugfuckery. Yeah, that's it: I admire it even if I don't exactly enjoy it. This is Lynch getting as close to doing a John Waters film as he possibly can-not that anybody can actually do what John Waters does other than John Waters, but Lynch gives it a go.
So, let's see what I think of it now.
Well, not right now, not this exact moment. In this moment, as I type, I have the same opinion, basically.
I mean, after I watch it again.
So . . . let's see what I think about it . . . two hours and change into the future?
Yup. That's it . . .
Thursday, March 8, 2018
The Lynch Meditations 11: Twin Peaks Episode 2 (1990)
"Some ideas arrive in the form of a dream."
-The Log Lady
This episode contains a favorite scene: Agent Cooper throwing rocks at a glass jar as Sheriff Truman reads off the names of various people connected with the Laura Palmer murder. Agent Cooper frames this bizarre ritual as some kind of exercise in near-mystical lateral thinking derived from study of meditative practices from Tibet. Cooper gives a brief historical lesson on the Chinese invasion of Tibet, and one is left wondering, "Is Dale Cooper an FBI Agent with a FREE TIBET bumper sticker on his car?" In retrospect, this scene is a massive piece of misdirection, but it does open up a larger investigation into the corruption swirling beneath the surface of Twin Peaks: illicit drugs, the prostitution ring run out of the One-Eyed Jacks casino across the river, and, of course, Laura is connected to all this. But I get the sense that this early scene was maybe meant to be a portal into that larger world, since the original intent of the series creators was to never solve the murder of Laura Palmer, and have the show be an ever spiraling set of tangents from that tragic starting point.
Whatever the original intent, there is a later scene which, in hindsight, seems like a massive red flag as to who the murderer is supposed to be . . . I won't say what it is if you haven't seen the show, but, well, I dunno . . . maybe not everything is so obvious about Laura Palmer's murder. But someone sure stands out . . .
We have some very atmospheric scenes of scared people venturing into dark woods with their way illuminated by a bouncing flashlight beam-a visual which would recur in Fire Walk With Me. An angry man's face takes on a red tint out there in the woods, and an unknown figure lurks in the shadows-surprisingly creepy stuff. It doesn't look like a TV show in these moments. It looks like cinema. Once upon a time, this was an important distinction. TV tended to look like shit when compared to movies. Now, TV looks great. In many instances. Sitcoms still tend to look like shit. If they're filmed in front of a live studio audience.
The most famous scene here would be Agent Cooper's dream voyage to the Black Lodge and an encounter with the Man from Another Place-a little person in a red suit, who speaks in riddles, and does a really hip dance. This is where the series begins to unveil the metaphysical nature of the conflicts roiling beneath the placid surface of Twin Peaks. Things have been quirky, and a little spooky up to this point, but now a gateway to another reality has opened before us-what will happen next? What new revelations await behind the red curtain?
NEXT: 3/18/18: The Lynch Meditations 12: Wild at Heart (1990)
-The Log Lady
This episode contains a favorite scene: Agent Cooper throwing rocks at a glass jar as Sheriff Truman reads off the names of various people connected with the Laura Palmer murder. Agent Cooper frames this bizarre ritual as some kind of exercise in near-mystical lateral thinking derived from study of meditative practices from Tibet. Cooper gives a brief historical lesson on the Chinese invasion of Tibet, and one is left wondering, "Is Dale Cooper an FBI Agent with a FREE TIBET bumper sticker on his car?" In retrospect, this scene is a massive piece of misdirection, but it does open up a larger investigation into the corruption swirling beneath the surface of Twin Peaks: illicit drugs, the prostitution ring run out of the One-Eyed Jacks casino across the river, and, of course, Laura is connected to all this. But I get the sense that this early scene was maybe meant to be a portal into that larger world, since the original intent of the series creators was to never solve the murder of Laura Palmer, and have the show be an ever spiraling set of tangents from that tragic starting point.
Whatever the original intent, there is a later scene which, in hindsight, seems like a massive red flag as to who the murderer is supposed to be . . . I won't say what it is if you haven't seen the show, but, well, I dunno . . . maybe not everything is so obvious about Laura Palmer's murder. But someone sure stands out . . .
We have some very atmospheric scenes of scared people venturing into dark woods with their way illuminated by a bouncing flashlight beam-a visual which would recur in Fire Walk With Me. An angry man's face takes on a red tint out there in the woods, and an unknown figure lurks in the shadows-surprisingly creepy stuff. It doesn't look like a TV show in these moments. It looks like cinema. Once upon a time, this was an important distinction. TV tended to look like shit when compared to movies. Now, TV looks great. In many instances. Sitcoms still tend to look like shit. If they're filmed in front of a live studio audience.
The most famous scene here would be Agent Cooper's dream voyage to the Black Lodge and an encounter with the Man from Another Place-a little person in a red suit, who speaks in riddles, and does a really hip dance. This is where the series begins to unveil the metaphysical nature of the conflicts roiling beneath the placid surface of Twin Peaks. Things have been quirky, and a little spooky up to this point, but now a gateway to another reality has opened before us-what will happen next? What new revelations await behind the red curtain?
NEXT: 3/18/18: The Lynch Meditations 12: Wild at Heart (1990)
Wednesday, March 7, 2018
The Lynch Meditations -11
What if you only watched the episodes of Season One and Two of Twin Peaks that were directed by David Lynch? Will that unlock a secret version of the show? Is there a certain recondite combination of button presses on the DVD remote that will open up the Twin Peaks debug menu? Is that what the Black Lodge is: the debug menu for Reality Itself?
Only one way to find out . . .
Only one way to find out . . .
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