Originally Posted by dissention

Anyone seen this? Forgive me, but if you have, can you make any bloody sense out of it? I love David Lynch, but jeezum crow, what a mess.

Originally Posted by GardenStateGirlie

I've seen it twice and even read the explaination of it on salon.com and still couldn't figure it out. I like to think i'm pretty good when it comes to those movies that you really have to think about. Not when it comes to this film though...I have not a friggin' clue.

Originally Posted by dissention

Anyone seen this? Forgive me, but if you have, can you make any bloody sense out of it? I love David Lynch, but jeezum crow, what a mess.

Originally Posted by GypsySorcerer

I love when filmmakers think their work must be incomprehensible to be brilliant.

Originally Posted by gldstwmn

I started watching it once but just thought the violence was gratuitous and shut it off. :shrug:

Originally Posted by hayley

It should also get credit for being one of only two movies that feature Melissa George that don't make me want to jump off a cliff.

Originally Posted by dissention

What's the other one? The Limey? I *love* that movie.

Otherwise, I can't stand her. Who in their right mind would pay to see her and Ryan Reynolds together onscreen in The Amityville Horror? :eek:

Originally Posted by dissention

Anyone seen this? Forgive me, but if you have, can you make any bloody sense out of it? I love David Lynch, but jeezum crow, what a mess.

Originally Posted by Lux

Romy touched on what I thought it was about or what I liked it to be about: the need for the audience to have a solution to a problem, to be guided on a 3 part structure or atleast some structure that fits easily into their comfort zone. And then people walk out trying to put logic to a series of events that must have tied in only because it's incomprehensible for them not to have tied in. Of course that is then ironic and like he wished that message would go over the audience's head because he knew it would be viewed by the people he's commenting on. Or perhaps it has nothing to do with that and I'm contradicting myself by being one of those that he's also commenting on. Bleh psychobabble. I'm high. I despised the reviews that pretended they knew what was going on. Sticking by my initial thoughts, it's just laughable, them thinking they pieced the puzzle together.

Originally Posted by Serrart

a critique to us the audience who digest every rubbish and consider it art

Originally Posted by dissention

"Where is Aunt Ruth?"

Originally Posted by dissention

I didn't think it was too bad. I laughed my ass off when the hit man killed that guy for the black book and accidentally shot a fat woman in the ass through a wall when he was wiping his prints from the gun.

"Ah! Something bit me!"

:laugh:

Originally Posted by sparky

Exactly what I thought the movie was ! Rubbish. And so many called it art.

Originally Posted by sparky

It lost me very quickly. I don't remember when it was that the damned thing fell apart. Considering the slapdash way it was thrown together, I think the whole thing was an accident. People talk about it as if it was some grandly structured and executed piece de resistance. Hogwash. It had some fascinating imagery. But so does an oil slick on a wet city street. At least THAT isn't confusing. Street Angel makes more sense than this thing.

Originally Posted by sparky

I resented the hell out of this movie, and would have walked out if I had been alone. All that, and I didn't even pay to see it.

It is the absolute height of Hollywood insider masturbatory back slapping that this swill was nominated for awards. Lynch must have been peeing all over himself at fooling everyone.

Originally Posted by cliffdweller

You know, I never thought about this...but how does it have anything to do with the meaning of the movie?

Originally Posted by cliffdweller

Yeah, this film is a total mystery to me. I get the theme of dashed dreams in magical mystical Hollywood [you know Lynch has a total fixation with Hollywood being the land where dreams come true :rolleyes:] but some of it doesn't make sense. He said that he wanted to make a lesbian love story, which if you ask me, was quite unconvincing.

Originally Posted by cliffdweller

Diss, have you ever seen Bergman's Persona? I think Lynch was riffing HEAVILY on this movie.

Originally Posted by dissention

I'm still amazed at the sheer awfulness of The Virgin Spring.

Originally Posted by sparky

Exactly what I thought the movie was ! Rubbish. And so many called it art.

It lost me very quickly. I don't remember when it was that the damned thing fell apart. Considering the slapdash way it was thrown together, I think the whole thing was an accident. People talk about it as if it was some grandly structured and executed piece de resistance. Hogwash. It had some fascinating imagery. But so does an oil slick on a wet city street. At least THAT isn't confusing. Street Angel makes more sense than this thing.

I resented the hell out of this movie, and would have walked out if I had been alone. All that, and I didn't even pay to see it.

It is the absolute height of Hollywood insider masturbatory back slapping that this swill was nominated for awards. Lynch must have been peeing all over himself at fooling everyone.

Originally Posted by dissention

Yup. I never thought about it that way, though, you might be right. I can't say I'm a big Bergman fan, in all honesty. :shocked: I'm still amazed at the sheer awfulness of The Virgin Spring.

Originally Posted by hayley

Actually, it's not nearly as smart as The Limey. It's Sugar and Spice. Hee. I <3 that movie. Have you ever seen it? She has black hair, and is obsessed with boning Conan O'Brien.

I spent several hours at work last week cutting out pictures of her from Amityville Horror ads and reviews, defacing them, and putting them together in a nice collection on my bulletin board.

Originally Posted by Serrart

And I thought in 30 years you'd be like Isak Borg in Wild Strawberries... :D

Romy

Originally Posted by Serrart

I'm not sure is art, but it's a good movie for me. I don't see much a problem with how it's done, it's nothing new from Nouvelle Vague, especially some Godard movies, so I don't understand the kind of reasoning "it's hogwash because I don't understand it"; it's impossible to control everything we watch, IMO.

Originally Posted by Serrart

Anyway, there's always the reassuring Alexander Payne, California and two hours of people talking of wine, no? ;)

Originally Posted by Serrart

I don't understand the kind of reasoning "it's hogwash because I don't understand it?

Originally Posted by amber

yeah, I figured it out. It's a vanity piece for David Lynch to be weird for weird's sake, and it is utterly incomprehensible. Did that clear things up?

Originally Posted by dissention

We're comparing Lynch to Godard now? I suppose if one were to equate the two, Novelle Vague is the perfect piece of "art film" trash to do it with. That thing has to be one of Godard's worst. It has nothing to do with the narrative (or lack thereof), it has to do with the sheer amount of half-baked ideas to be found in it. Nothing becomes a whole. At least Mulholland Drive can declare victory in that arena, no matter how incomprehensible it may be from narrative standpoint.

Mulholland Drive is hogwash simply because it's pretentious bull**** masquerading as brilliant art, the same as Nouvelle Vague. I enjoyed it for the absurd crap that it is, nothing more.

Originally Posted by dissention

As opposed to David Lynch and his two hours of cinematic masturbation? Yup. :nod:

Originally Posted by sparky

It's hogwash because NO ONE understands it, and there was no plan behind it. This is so close to Dadism it isn't even funny. If your audience needs a guide book to understand the meaning of your art, as Rolling Stone once said of Stevie Nicks, "Whose fault is that ?"

He might as well have tossed four buckets of Dunn Edwards at a wall and called it a painting. I think he was just lazy and cocky.

Originally Posted by Serrart

Lynch can do different, or a mixture of various forms and equally well (when he wants to), IMO.

Originally Posted by Serrart

I'd say exactly the same of Sideways (which I liked by the way). It gives exactly that feeling of fulfilling intellectualism that many so called "new directors" sell so well.

Originally Posted by dissention

Of course he can do different things in his movies that challenge the audience, but doing those things well is an entirely different ballgame. He certainly didn't pull it off with Mulholland Drive. I'm not about to congratulate him simply because he did something outside of the norm in terms of filmmaking, because the end result came out half-baked. I'll reserve my praise for something like Greenaway's Tulse Luper Suitcase; something that is completely different and original and done well, not put together in a slapdash manner for those who think they're in the loop to praise.


And I'd disagree. If we want to look at Alexander Payne as a "new director" that tries to fulfill his audiences desires with intellectualism, by all means do so. He makes movies that are funny on an intellectual level (Citizen Ruth proved as much), but he doesn't permeate his movies with an air of pretentiousness like David Lynch does. I wouldn't confuse intellectualism in films with self-congratulatory backslapping, but that's just me.

Originally Posted by GypsySorcerer

A gold star for you today. :nod:

Originally Posted by Serrart

As far as I know Dadaism according to Tzara's manifesto was meant to be an attack to society's conventions. Personally I wouldn't say Mulholland Drive is dadaist, but probably it wanted to create a sense of uneasiness in the audience. Not all the directors feel the urge to nest their public, sometimes a confrontational relationship can be very interesting too, I think.

Romy

Originally Posted by dissention

Of course he can do different things in his movies that challenge the audience, but doing those things well is an entirely different ballgame. He certainly didn't pull it off with Mulholland Drive. I'm not about to congratulate him simply because he did something outside of the norm in terms of filmmaking, because the end result came out half-baked. I'll reserve my praise for something like Greenaway's Tulse Luper Suitcase; something that is completely different and original and done well, not put together in a slapdash manner for those who think they're in the loop to praise.

Originally Posted by dissention

And I'd disagree. If we want to look at Alexander Payne as a "new director" that tries to fulfill his audiences desires with intellectualism, by all means do so. He makes movies that are funny on an intellectual level (Citizen Ruth proved as much), but he doesn't permeate his movies with an air of pretentiousness like David Lynch does. I wouldn't confuse intellectualism in films with self-congratulatory backslapping, but that's just me.

Originally Posted by dissention

Dadaism wasn't simply an attack on how intellectually stunted society became, it was also an attack on how the arts became intellectually repressed as well; Dadaists didn't like the rigidity that was prevalent in the arts. The entire principle behind Dadaism was to deliberately confuse people to try to get them to think and if Mulholland Drive isn't close to Dadaism, I don't know what is. :shrug:

Originally Posted by Serrart

I can assure you that I 'm not in the loop to praise anyone, especially David Lynch (I'm still laughing for most of Twin Peaks, Fire With me, Lost Highway while I loved The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet and more recently The Straight Story). The fact that it didn't give anything to you doesn't mean that it can't offer some input to others.

Originally Posted by Serrart

What does it mean to be funny on an intellectual level? To let some (or many) feel intelligent enough to appreciate it? You can make a funny movie or not, using certain languages or not, but the ''aren't we all enjoying this small feast'' kind of feeling is becoming a genre already. :nod:

Originally Posted by Serrart

Because Lynch doesn't seem to me a director who loves form for the sake of the form, he tranforms it in a meaning (whatever could be). I'd say he's closer to surrealists,

Originally Posted by Serrart

so maybe he could be a dadaistsurrealistgodardcopierfellinlovewithCocteauandflabbergastedbywarholwithoutforgettingfellinian dbunuelandfeelfreetoaddmore director :D

Originally Posted by dissention

What does it mean to be funny on an intellectual level? Jokes and wit that don't deal with flatulence, for one thing. It doesn't take much more than that.

Originally Posted by Serrart

What's the fun then? J/K ;)

Romy

Originally Posted by dissention

The fun is in knowing that without fart and piss jokes, Adam Sandler wouldn't have a career. :D

Originally Posted by Serrart

Hey, he's just become the favourite of one of snobbiest Italian critics for Spanglish. He's a genius and we still haven't realized it. ;) David would be really pleased.

Romy