{"id":9064,"date":"2014-06-11T16:48:44","date_gmt":"2014-06-11T20:48:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=9064"},"modified":"2014-06-11T16:57:25","modified_gmt":"2014-06-11T20:57:25","slug":"sailor-and-lula-on-the-big-screen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=9064","title":{"rendered":"Sailor and Lula on the Big Screen"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"WildAtHeart_feature\"<\/a>

Kids: this is what happens when you never brush your teeth and eat Cracker Jack before bedtime.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

2014 seems to be shaping up into a year where David Lynch\u2019s career is getting a refocus of sorts, with Adam Nayman continuing his retrospective on the director\u2019s work (David Lynch in Nayman\u2019s Terms<\/a>) in a series of lectures in Toronto, and Lynch and Mark Frost\u2019s iconoclastic series Twin Peaks<\/strong> (1990-1992)\u00a0is\u00a0<\/strong>slated for a proper Blu-ray edition (packing together the series, the feature film + long-sought after deleted scenes) on July 29 from Paramount.<\/p>\n

Lynch also made the headlines when he announced a contest<\/a> in which the selected winner will be awarded a full scholarship for an M.A. in Film at the Maharishi University of Management in Iowa. (The deadline is June 21st for the program that combines filmmaking and meditation \u2013 Lynch\u2019s current passion.)<\/p>\n

David Lynch hasn\u2019t made a feature film since Inland Empire <\/strong>(2006), and hasn\u2019t shot a feature-length movie on film<\/em> since Mulholland Drive <\/strong>(2001), and although he\u2019s been involved with shorts, segments within anthology works, and a Duran Duran concert film in 2011, he\u2019s stepped away from the harsh spotlight as America\u2019s most beloved oddball, which is a shame because even when his work isn\u2019t wholly organic, there are those magnetic, moody sections which manage to simultaneously amuse and horrify.<\/p>\n

Case in point: Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me<\/strong> (1992), which is an awful mess (no deleted scenes could fix the nonsensical first hour) except once Lynch is done with useless cameos and protracted weirdness, the story of what happened to Laura Palmer finally kicks in and the film gets really nasty, with a great use of editing and sound design to maximize the horror of a sadistic murder. (I\u2019ve always argued there\u2019s a superb prequel episode in that film, and years ago I cut a 48 minute version to prove the film could function as an R-rated episode.)<\/p>\n

\"WildAtHeart1990_BR\"<\/a>Wild at Heart<\/a><\/strong> was made during the production of Twin Peaks<\/strong>, and like the series\u2019 spin-off film, it\u2019s also got big flaws that slow down the narrative until the story of Barry Gifford\u2019s Sailor and Lula starts to get back on track and we\u2019re headed for a great showdown.<\/p>\n

Full confession: I hated the film when it was first release, and my disliking at the time\u00a0likely stemmed from Lynch\u2019s script lacking the plotting and structure from his collaborations with Frost, a veteran TV writer and showrunner who knows (in TV, at least), how to avoid indulgent distractions.<\/p>\n

WAH isn\u2019t awful, but it\u2019s not a maligned masterpiece. There are amazing moments within the film\u2019s bloated running time, but it\u2019s tough tolerating two lead characters who may be genuinely in love, but are also grating idiots. Like Inland Empire<\/strong>, WAH is a divisive work because on his own Lynch can drift and wander; sometimes he creates haunting works, or something interminably dull.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also Nicolas Cage\u2019s channeling of Elvis, and dialogue lifted from the book which doesn\u2019t always work. Lynch has shown (and does so several times in WAH) that more can be said through behaviour and sparse words, or even the repetition of words over almost pornographic close-ups bubbling with menace (as when Bobby Peru grabs Lula and repeats F-bombs through his stumpy mouth in a scene that snaps from sleazy to explosive).<\/p>\n

\"PerditaDurango_aka_DanceWithDevil\"<\/a>Uploaded are reviews WAH, newly released on Blu-ray by Twilight Time with all the extras from MGM\u2019s prior special edition DVD set, plus Perdita Durango<\/strong> \/ Dance with the Devil<\/strong><\/a>,\u00a0 Alex de la Iglesia\u2019s 1997 film version of Gifford\u2019s related S&L novel which showcased two minor characters in WAH \u2013 Perdita Durango, and Mexican crime boss Santos. I\u2019d love to see Iglesias\u2019 uncut version with the weird CGI material that\u2019s apparently in the Spanish release version, but for now, at least in North America, we have a somewhat uncut version from el cheapo label Unapix.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll upload a cluster of reviews over the next few days (including a trio of Twilight Times) and will be back with more material next week, as the free entry deadline for the Toronto Urban Film Festival is this weekend, and I\u2019ve much trippy stuff to render over the next few days.<\/p>\n

Expect a composer podcast, director podcast, and reviews of recently completed TV series next week, plus a link to my TUFF entry when it\u2019s up on Vimeo and YouTube.<\/p>\n

Cheers,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mark R. Hasan<\/strong>, Editor
\nKQEK.com<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviews of two idiosyncratic films featuring characters from Barry Gifford’s Sailor and Lula series – David Lynch’s nightmarish Wild at Heart (Twilight Time) + Alex de la Iglesia’s graphic Perdita Durango \/ aka Dance with the Devil (Unapix).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9083,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[2838,2761,2837,1267,2562,2563,2830,2836],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/WildAtHeart_feature_b.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-2mc","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9064"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9064"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9064\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9082,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9064\/revisions\/9082"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}