David Lynch's Inland Empire

[marrost]

y4hFEDYmMcM

Shit's gonna get crazy.

[aolsux]

holy shit, release date??

[marrost]

I actually think it's today in the city, but I heard that it's gonna spread out a lot more on the 29th.

[marrost]

Come on guys. Watch something good.

[niveK]

holy crap. I'm a big Lynch fan, I have been since Twin Peaks was on TV. I clicked that video expecting to see a typical coherent trailer. When I forget to expect a Lynchian trailer thats when the movie industry needs a Lynch movie more than ever.

[marrost]

holy crap. I'm a big Lynch fan, I have been since Twin Peaks was on TV. I clicked that video expecting to see a typical coherent trailer. When I forget to expect a Lynchian trailer thats when the movie industry needs a Lynch movie more than ever.It's a shame no one's gonna show a 3 hour Lynch film haha.

[niveK]

3 Hours? I'll sit though it. Did you see the clips of him promoting the movie on a street corner in HOllywood and hanging out with a car?

[marrost]

3 Hours? I'll sit though it. Did you see the clips of him promoting the movie on a street corner in HOllywood and hanging out with a car?Haha no post em.

Yea he shot it all on digital supposed to be really nuts.

[reductiondesign]

Oh my god. I want to see this SO BAD.

This looks even more twisted than Mulholland Dr. Amazing.

[marrost]

Oh my god. I want to see this SO BAD.

This looks even more twisted than Mulholland Dr. Amazing.What makes Mulholland Drive more twisted than his other stuff?

Not being a dick, I haven't seen it yet.

[reductiondesign]

What makes Mulholland Drive more twisted than his other stuff?

Not being a dick, I haven't seen it yet.

Seriously? Woah--see it. It's by FAR my favorite of his, with Eraserhead taking a close second.

Mulholland Drive's storyline is so jagged and folded back on itself that it takes multiple viewings to get it. I've heard Lost Highway is also like this, but I've yet to see it. The only film with a more bizarre storyline I can think of is Primer. And now, it looks like it's got competition.

[marrost]

Lost Highway is fucking incredible. Shit needs to come out on dvd already.

o48xhnA8Z-o

[reductiondesign]

Lost Highway is fucking incredible. Shit needs to come out on dvd already.

A good quality DVD. I've been avoiding the region 1 disc out there, it's supposed to be TV-quality.

[niveK]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ut6zdE8qWj0

[imthenewcancer]

david lynch makes me feel like an idiot...i cant sit through any of his movies...i just dont get him...theyre kind of pretty though

[marrost]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ut6zdE8qWj0HAHAHAHAHAHA.

"He's just chillin on a corner in Hollywood..... WITH A FUCKING COW."

[reductiondesign]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ut6zdE8qWj0

Hahaha, that's awesome. I would love to meet him.

"Without cheese, there wouldn't be an Inland Empire." What?!

[marrost]

Inland Empire (2006)http://reel.com/Content/reelimages/mop/rating_40.gif

David Lynch (http://reel.com/filmography.asp?NMID=82370&SFor=3)'s Inland Empire is a three-hour cinematic adrenaline shot to the movie junkie's heart, a film so ambitious and varied in tone that it's almost too much to absorb in one sitting. It's also nearly impossible to define, as there are no precedents for it aside from Lynch's own Lost Highway (http://reel.com/movie.asp?MID=14002) and Mulholland Drive (http://reel.com/movie.asp?MID=132952). The film is simultaneously a playful Hollywood satire, an experimental digital video performance-art piece, and a haunting murder mystery in which it's unclear whether or not a murder has even been committed—or for what reason. Most of all, it's Lynch's love letter to Laura Dern (http://reel.com/filmography.asp?NMID=73912&SFor=2), a brilliant actress whose fearlessness rivals the director's own.

Like Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire begins with a flurry of arresting images that only make sense when the movie is over. It then settles into an initially straightforward story about a fading actress (Dern) who gets a part in a film that she hopes will revive her career. Strange things start happening on the set almost immediately, and Dern and her costar (Justin Theroux (http://reel.com/filmography.asp?NMID=91142&SFor=2)) learn that the script they're shooting is a remake of a cursed movie that was never completed.

This premise gives way to a number of subplots dealing with violently jealous husbands and lovers, Polish gangsters and prostitutes, murderers and doppelgangers, and even a strangely frightening sitcom in which all the characters are giant rabbits. Appropriately, given the diversity of subjects and characters, the style of the movie veers wildly from one extreme to another—moments of quiet introspection are juxtaposed with pop musical numbers, and terrifying horror set-pieces share the stage with self-referential Hollywood comedy. Yet the movie never feels cluttered or incoherent—its long running time allows Lynch to explore dozens of topics and tones without shortchanging any of them.

To describe the plot in detail is to rob the viewer of Inland Empire's greatest pleasure, which is its complete unpredictability. It's another of Lynch's puzzle films in which repeated images and lines of dialogue deepen in meaning as the story progresses, and when Inland Empire is over, one feels compelled to watch it again immediately to test out theories that have developed over the course of the first viewing. Few directors of Lynch's stature invite their audiences to become such active participants, and even fewer continue to redefine the language of moviemaking so aggressively with every new film.

Lynch's critics accuse his films of being muddled and claim he's just a stylist who can't tell stories, a charge that's patently absurd. In fact, Lynch is a terrific storyteller—he just doesn't tell stories the same way everybody else has been doing it on film for the past 75 years. All of Inland Empire's dazzling technique is at the service of an affecting story that expands upon the ideas that have obsessed Lynch since Lost Highway: the fragility of identity, the ways in which possessive men destroy the women they love—and hate—and the struggle to recognize what's real in a media-saturated culture.

Exploring such complex issues requires having extremely gifted performers, and the director has assembled another of his great ensembles for Inland Empire. While Lynch is undeniably a great visual filmmaker, he's an equally strong director of actors: Anthony Hopkins (http://reel.com/filmography.asp?NMID=78784&SFor=2), Dennis Hopper (http://reel.com/filmography.asp?NMID=78796&SFor=2), Naomi Watts (http://reel.com/filmography.asp?NMID=92689&SFor=2), Richard Farnsworth (http://reel.com/filmography.asp?NMID=75249&SFor=2), and many others have been at their best in his films, and Laura Dern's performance here surpasses her own excellent work in Blue Velvet (http://reel.com/movie.asp?MID=106) and Wild at Heart (http://reel.com/movie.asp?MID=2629). Her role is the connective tissue that holds Lynch's experimental epic together and gives it resonance, and she plays every emotional note flawlessly in what is easily the best performance in any American film this year.

Dern gets solid support from Jeremy Irons (http://reel.com/filmography.asp?NMID=79227&SFor=2) as the director of her accursed film and Harry Dean Stanton (http://reel.com/filmography.asp?NMID=90264&SFor=2) as Irons' eccentric right-hand man. Best of all is Justin Theroux, whose subtle work here rivals his different but equally strong performance in Mulholland Drive. Theroux may be one of the most underrated actors working today: equally at home in a low-budget genre piece like Kurt Voss (http://reel.com/filmography.asp?NMID=97416&SFor=3)'s Body Count (http://reel.com/movie.asp?MID=116925) as in the studio franchise picture Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (http://reel.com/movie.asp?MID=137354), Theroux has a chameleon-like ability always to seem as though he's playing himself, no matter how outrageous the film or part.

And he is the perfect leading man for Lynch, a director whose films are fanatical in their uncovering of the masks people wear in their daily lives. Ironically, Lynch himself wears no such mask—more so than any director since Fellini (http://reel.com/filmography.asp?NMID=75351&SFor=3)—his films give the viewer a direct pipeline to his own preoccupations and subconscious. The intimacy and immediacy of digital video has allowed Lynch to make his most personal film yet, and the result is one of the richest and most rewarding moviegoing experiences of 2006.

— JIM HEMPHILL (www.reel.com)

[IAmNietzche]

David Lynch is batshit nuts and has a huge hard-on for Laura Dern.

[A picasso blue]

Whats the fucks going on in that part where the people have rabbit heads..???

[IAmNietzche]

Whats the fucks going on in that part where the people have rabbit heads..???
Lynch.

[-Aaron-]

Whats the fucks going on in that part where the people have rabbit heads..???

Just used to confuse the audience a little more. Its a normal thing with David Lynch movies. I'm still wanting to see this.

[A picasso blue]

im aware of how fucked his moves are.

but that part caught me as especially weird.

apparently this movie is just a series of short stories

[reductiondesign]

im aware of how fucked his moves are.

but that part caught me as especially weird.

apparently this movie is just a series of short stories

There's a review a few posts up that totally discredits that idea.

[From: Skulls]

I'm so fucking pumped to pick this up and finally watch this today.

[eraserhead]

I'm sorry to bump such an old thread, but I picked this up today and can't wait to watch it...I'm obviously a huge Lynch fan and I've never seen this one before. very excited to watch it tonight.

[aminorthreat55]

I just got this from the library recently but haven't gotten around to watching it yet. Hopefully its as good as it looks.

[Cheshire_Buddha]

This is yet another film that I've been meaning to watch for the longest time, but it's just flown completely by me.

Then again, I'm much more interested in Lynch's Rabbits, which I've been meaning to try and track down for an extremely long time. Six years too late. Curses!

[eraserhead]

I just got this from the library recently but haven't gotten around to watching it yet. Hopefully its as good as it looks.
i got it from the library too, haha

[OtherBen]

has no one here seen it yet?

as usual with lynch films i got frustrated halfway through but by the end i completely came around and pieced it together. such a talented film-maker.

[eraserhead]

Mulholland Dr completely blows my mind everytime I see it

[mrzippo3]

Mulholland Dr completely blows my mind everytime I see it

Odd to see a thread on Lynch after I just watched this movie for the first time. Wow. So confused.

[eraserhead]

This movie is a complete and total mindfuck. I can't even begin to explain.

Has anyone else seen this movie? I need someone to talk to. I honestly have no fucking idea what I just watched.

[aminorthreat55]

This movie a complete and total mindfuck. I can't even begin to explain.

Has anyone else seen this movie? I need someone to talk to. I honestly have no fucking idea what I just watched.
I'll probably get around to it on Friday. Assuming I'm confused as well, I'll probably bump the thread then.

[aminorthreat55]

I absolutely loved this, although a huge chunk of the second half of the film (90 minutes to maybe 140) confused the shit out of me.

[eraserhead]

hahaaha the movie's meant to be confusing. the whole thing is open to interpretation.

[eraserhead]

probably gonna watch this tonight, for the second time since November. I'll let everyone know how it goes.

I might pee my pants.

[Thomas Balkcom]

STILL haven't watched this

[Colorblind!]

REALLY need to see this.

[coryatlarge]

Bump. Just watched this because it's going off instant on netflix the 16th. If you haven't seen it yet and still want to get on it now haha.