142: David Lynch

Alex and Nick profile the work of the iconic David Lynch. Stray topics include taking five years to make “Eraserhead,” Mel Brooks hiring Lynch for “The Elephant Man,” the pure Lynchian vibes of “Blue Velvet,” unabashed love for “Wild at Heart,” O.J. Simpson, the TV pilot for “Mulholland Drive,” Mary Sweeney, Angelo Badalamenti, TM, and much more.
This episode does not contain any “Twin Peaks” material. Alex and friend-of-the-pod Dan will have a full “Twin Peaks” discussion in the next episode.
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Transcript

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And you know. What. The book. Hey, everyone. Welcome to. What are you watching? I'm Alex with. Throw in. I'm joined by my best man, Nick, though. Still. How are you doing there, Bobby? Peru? Oh, Jesus. You know, I got to start having different reactions to these, though. This was a good one because I actually knew. Oh, wait, wait, what's a Bobby don't come up for air? Maybe I will, but not today, maybe I will. Oh, God. Yeah. I mean, there's so many rich characters to choose from here, but, yeah, what a time we're going to have today. Oh, man, what a time. Indeed, David Lynch, how do you feel? Oh, yeah. Man, this is, this is honestly, very, very cool because, my experience with David Lynch was fairly limited before this. I had seen some very big ones. I had not seen some very big ones, and there were a bunch in between that I honestly didn't really remember. Right, right. So but this was the first time in our history of doing this podcast where we covered a director, where I watched every one of their work chronologically in order. I love the chronological means. Yeah, well, yes, I know what it fucking means. What I'm saying is, I didn't even realize, I don't think, before we started researching this that there were a few you just flatly hadn't seen flash. So this were going to get your immediate first reactions from them, which I love. But yeah, we decided on this around Oscar weekend, so I've been like chipping away and watching one here, watching one there. And then with about two weeks to go before today, before we recorded, I watched them all again in order and wow, wow. I mean, we always say the same thing, but you really do get to know the person when you do this. And I mean the damned themes that are so common throughout his work, whether it's hard or whether it's rated G, it's, yeah, we are going to get into all of this and more. But it has been fascinating. It's always fun when we are researching these director ones, but these are some trippy ass movies, so it was different this time. This was different. But I think I'm going to stand behind what I have to say without recency bias here. Okay, okay, good. He has got to be one of the best artists of filmmaking that we have. Yeah. And has ever been true artist I mean, he's a painter, musician, an actor, an author, a screenwriter, a film director. He's an artist. And yeah, and there's so many things about him that I think people love or this love this like, because this love is not a word. Thank you. Sure. That's a lot of that. Is is that static? A lot of that is the effects that he uses. Just some of the mood he creates. Right. It's very understandable how that's not for you. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. We've even talking about all that stuff because quite frankly, I love it. I love seeing what his version of the world. Yeah, but what he communicates to us without seeing it in the way that he orbits it and includes it in his movies, is unlike any other director. I cannot give you a comparison. Right, right. Like it is. It is a poem. It is. Sometimes that message is delivered to you like that. Sometimes it is slapped in your face. Right? But more often than not, it's something that's never even said. It's so true. It's so true. I had it down a little bit in the outline, but this is a director that has is a bona fide adjective. Lynchian. Yes. Like that is part of the cinematic language. Whether you have studied and seen all of his films or you're making a film with some similar themes, I'm not saying you have to have studied every David Lynch film, but the man absolutely has a vibe, a type, a mood, and Lynchian is a thing. I see that all the time in reviews for movies, and that's very rare. Like we've done Kubrick. Kubrick in is absolutely thing, but it's it is him. Like, you cannot mistake what movie you're watching when you're watching one of his movies. No. And authorship is so clear. It's so clear. And, and I feel like there's so many different forms that Lynchian means. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Like, it could be the visual. Like, you could easily set on a visual and be like, This is David Lynch, isn't it? Yeah. Or it could just be the way that a character is. Yeah. Yeah. Like like there are so many bizarre characters that show up in his movies that it's like there's no other person in the world who would do this, right? You're like David Lynch, and you might be watching it going, what is this like? I'll just start at the top. Eraserhead. Like when, you know, the grandmother has to prepare, help, prepare dinner. So he's like lighting the cigar. She's lighting the cigaret for that, you know, tossing salad bowl. And you're like, but why? Yeah. Like, what's going on? No joke. Yes. Favorite part of that movie? Oh, my dad. Like the dinner scene, meeting the family. That's my favorite sequence, I suppose. But that moment of that, I was like this, that's that's Lynch. Yeah, here he is. Here he is. Can it all be explained? I don't know. It's not going to be by us. This is not a a here's what every David Lynch movie means podcast. We're doing what we always do, which is talking about how we appreciate the work, what we liked the movies themselves, but not like breaking them down. And what did that individual thing mean? What does that mean? I don't know if that's the best way to experience these films. I think the best way is to experience them. Just take them all. And do you know whether you go along for the ride or not? It's up to you. Do you know why we're doing it that way? Why? Because that's what we do. Okay, okay. There you go, folks. Lynchian common themes in his work. What is Lynchian mean? It means surrealism. It means, something as visually thematic as hallways, curtains, a lot of lip syncing in his movies. Like, very on purpose performative lamps, yet lamps, a lot of thematic juxtaposition. Like two totally different things. Oh, I did oh, I know, like Moebius narratives where we're just kind of. It's not like a circle. It's just kind of going around dreams. Nightmares. Yeah. Jack Nance, the Wizard of Oz, hugely Important to David Lynch is a whole documentary made about the influence that The Wizard of Oz has had over him. I'm not lying. There's a lot in his work where you go watch The Wizard of Oz, you're like, oh, shit. It's just that, like floating heads, floating orb. There it is. Wow. Okay. It's it's really fun to go out. Like, I watched all of his movies and then watch The Wizard of Oz on the plane out here. Of course I'd seen it, but I hadn't seen in a while. Went, wow, there's really a lot in here. I just love imagining little David Lynch watching this movie, becoming obsessed with it, studying it. It is. The Wizard of Oz is all over his movies. There's usually multiple, like verbal references in each thing. Characters named Judy, streets named Garland. It's just it's so vast. He's even got, the red shoes. Red shoes, of course. Of course. Yeah, well, Wild at Heart is kind of like his Wizard of Oz. In a way. It's. Yeah. Which is what, a film. Wow. What a what a way to think about that now. But, I mean, there's even, like, a good witch. An evil witch. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's that's what it is. That's what he's doing. Wow. There's that floating like orb that they see. It's, Yeah, they're breaking out into song. Like when he. I'll jump right to it when Nicolas Cage stops the music, when they're at the heavy metal show, and he just stops it and he's like, I'm gonna, you know, you've provided me a chance to defend my woman's honor. And then he just starts singing Elvis. That's what they do in The Wizard of Oz. They just start singing and it doesn't make sense. And you have to, as an audience member, go it wild at heart. Go. Okay, I don't think this is real, but I have to. He's inviting me in and he's going, go along with this ride or not. And it's not dissimilar to musicals, which is an interesting way to look at it and very true and interesting for me because of not being a fan of musicals. Right. For me, absolutely loving. Yeah. When that would happen, the there's a thing that I find very interesting about his movies where, like you said, the word acceptance. Yeah, you really do. I get that you might not like it. Yeah, but you do just it's it never feels like it's wrong. Even though you might not understand it but like sometimes you could watch a movie and they would do something like that and you'd be like this is so out of place. This is so not the tone. Right. But that's the argument in the David Lynch movie. It is at a place it is not the tone. It's like, oh how ever. Right. It's fucking work. Yes, yes it his films do work. They not I'm not saying they all work to the same degree, but they're when you are going back and rewatching them and rewatching them and studying them and try to figure it out, you're like, oh, some of his movies have been labeled as extremely complex. They're convoluted. I've understood them since, like, viewing one not perfectly, but like Mulholland Drive, the movie I just got. The first time I saw it, I knew what it was doing the dream, and then waking up. And then now we're in this and I got all that lost highway. Took a long time, took a long time for me to understand what's real, what isn't, what matters at what's real, what doesn't. All that's so. But the more you watch them, the more you are learning and the more you're seeing. But yeah, like this was when he came on the scene. He was not necessarily well respected critically. Now when we get into like Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, it's like, what the fuck is this? No one had seen anything like Blue Velvet in America. That from what I understand it, nothing like that really existed. Not on this level. And people saw it were like, oh my God, it's really changed a lot, especially to come out in the 80s exactly like exactly 86. And that that could be a movie that would work in the 70s. Yeah, yeah. And but in the 80s to for that to be a thing. Yes. It's it's wild at art. Right. It's damn right. And be popular. There's a lot of like misconceptions about Lynch that I feel like when you watch his work, you're like, this guy must be, I don't know, some, He's weird. I was going to say like a weirdo depressive who's, like, all dark and stuff, but that's not really him. He's just like this good old boy from middle America. Yeah, like he was born in Missoula, Montana. His dad worked for the Department of Agriculture, so they moved around a lot. Went to Stand Point, Idaho, Spokane, Washington, Durham, North Carolina, Boise, Idaho. Alexandria, Virginia. Where the city I got married in. That's where he actually met Jack Fisk, which is really cool. He was an Eagle Scout, good All-American boy. He attended JFK, JFK inauguration in 1970. He's married and he moves his wife and daughter to Los Angeles. He began studying filmmaking at the AFL Conservatory. Yep, just very cool. And you know, you look at those facts I'm not going to talk a lot about like, him and stuff, but Spokane, Washington very close setting for Twin Peaks Durham, North Carolina. It's where Blue Velvet is supposed to be. Philadelphia, which is another area he lived, is Eraserhead to him. So you're seeing how his upbringing, maybe personally, he had this, like really dark view of human nature and what they're capable of. But I actually think this is his, his the way he was raised, I think juxtaposed with his thematic style, is best represented in Blue Velvet, even in the first five minutes, when we're just up the white picket fence, gorgeous blue sky firemen are waving, dogs barking, everything's fine. And that camera just goes to the dirt and under and under and there's maggots and ants and filth and human ears. So everything may look really bubbly here on the surface, but America has always had. This is his thesis, I believe it's very dark underbelly. Yes. Even if you go two streets over, you are in a completely different world. And I love that he said something. I'm going to butcher this quote. Maybe you're familiar with it, but he loves, like, all the beauty and oh yeah, and everything that he puts into his movies if he goes. But there's always red ants eating something underneath. Exactly. Something like to that effect. Yeah. And, the way that he talks about dreams and nightmares, so when he goes into these dreams, like there is some moments in his movies that are some of the purest senses of love that I've ever experienced watching a movie. And then when he gets into his nightmares, gets dark. It's dark, and he does not shy away from it. And along that, if you're really talking about the purest of bliss and the absolute hellish of hell's, so much lives in between that. And that's where he goes. And it can get sexual. It can get, violent, violent. It can. It goes all here. But, it's it's all contained in someone who. It's not someone who's lost their mind. It's so intentional. Yeah. And, and he he knows exactly what he's doing, even if no one else does. And that goes for his crew. Oh, yeah, they usually don't. They're usually though the. I was watching clips of Lost Highway on YouTube, and the guy that gets the shit kicked out of him for tailgating. That guy. Yeah, he just popped in and had a YouTube comment and he was like, this is great, is great. Shoot. Virtually no one on set had any idea what the movie was about. No. It was it was great. I just I love that. And you here for Naomi Watts. Talk about that ad nauseum. Laura Dern yeah, you just got to, like, go with it. Trust what he's saying. And, you know, he's also another Lynchian thing that doesn't get enough credit for his movies or at the right moment, funny. And there's some funny, off kilter shit that happens that you just have to last. Yeah. And you're like Inland Empire. Not, you know, known for its humor. But when Jeremy Adam, when Jeremy Irons is arguing with the gaffer off screen with Bucky, the gaffer off screen, that's David Lynch. Like his voice up, down like, that's so funny. I don't know why you include that, but it's so funny. And yeah, he always does it. That weird characters in the back like doing something, smoking when McLaughlin walks into that apartment, you know, for like the fourth time in Blue Velvet and the dude, the yellow jacket has clearly, like, been shot, but he's, like, still standing there. Like, what? What is this? Yeah. So strange I love that, I love that I found myself laughing a lot more than I thought I would researching this. I mean, there's still dark, but he his sense of humor is he has one. That's my point. There's just something very cool about, The what? He doesn't know those ways of making something weird. Yeah. Where you do laugh at it and you do. You're you're like, what the fuck is this? But it's it never once takes you out. No, never. That part of the world. It's part of the world. Even when it doesn't fit it all. It's it's so cool. I just love it. I love it, sound very important. And he does a lot of his own sound mixing. But even go back to Eraserhead. The the droning, the constant droning, the machinery he loves machinery sounds. There's toward the end of Eraserhead, he's using a sound of it's like a machinery sound, that is, I'm convinced, the exact same sound that he's using toward the end of Twin Peaks The Return. So this is the beginning and end of his career, and he's still doing this shit. So you can watch Eraserhead and see things that he's going to do in Twin Peaks The Return. It is wild, but yeah, the sound and also the Angelo Betterment score. I'll call him Angelo from now on is that is so synonymous with David Lynch. That score, his music. So he didn't do music for every movie. But the ones that he did it like, it absolutely lives there. Totally. It feels like it's a it's a marriage made in heaven. Yeah. Like, yeah, like that. The way that Angelo is able to kind of articulate David Lynch's mood music is just when they go together. It's it's peanut butter and jelly baby. Great to watch special features with them in work. And he's like, I think it should be a little higher. Don't, don't. And you're they're like, yeah, doing sound effects and stuff and you can he's very, very specific about the sound. I would say one of of all the directors that have like a type named after them, like Lynchian, I think he probably cares about sound. Honestly, more than like most directors. He talks about that. Yeah, he talks about it so much. He's created, you know, albums of for his music. So I you cannot talk enough about that, about how this constant droning like, it might be annoying, you're like, what is going on? But it really, really means something to him. In, in talking about sound, I mean, this is it seems elementary when you're talking about what a film is, but he says sound and picture flowing through time together. And he goes sometimes in his particular case, sound is first. If he can figure out what the sound is, whether it's music or just noise, whatever that is that will end up playing for him in the way that he's crafting the scene. He knows his music choices like that and Angelo and sound score the soundtrack. He knows what songs he's going to put in, and we'll have that playing either in his head or on set. Yeah. And so he'll dictate his actors say your dialog slower or move slower if the music is playing, because he'll actually know the beat, the rhythm and he'll direct in that way. So while it's really just him knowing exactly how he wants to do it. Yeah. And the best, the best example I can talk about as it relates to his sound. And it's a tough example because it's really hard to find. But I was actually able, for the first time ever, to track down the pilot in 90 minute pilot of Mulholland Drive, because that's how it was pitched as a 90 minute pilot for ABC. Found it online. It's a bad like VHS quality, so I'm watching it. This is a fascinating experiment because that shot, the majority of that in 1999 cuts it together, and all the takes are the same that we see in the feature film scenes go sometimes go on a little too long. And why it doesn't work is for two reasons. The editing is way off. It is not well paced, it's too slow. You're like, you just you need to keep it moving. Like the movie gets the pacing right and the sound is all off. There's no Lynchian droning and the music is so off. The theme is the same. I believe in the beginning that great theme, but then we don't. I don't even think we hear any other Angelo score throughout it. And, you know, great example. Like when Justin throw goes, catches his wife, puts the pink paint in the jury, and then when the guys come back, a few is Adam, Kesha's hear the music in the background is like, did it do the it's very like playful. And the TV pilot dead serious. It's like an Adam catcher and it's so foreboding and there's no lynch like, fun or anything. It's just so, so serious. And I'm watching it go on the I see why ABC rejected this. This doesn't work like it doesn't. I mean, maybe I'm saying that because I've seen the movie now, but I could see why ABC rejected it, and then I could see how he would concentrate and build out the movie a little more, make it. And turn that two years later into a masterpiece. Yeah. Through sound, through proper editing. It's a it's a fascinating experiment. Highly recommend. If you can track it down. That's awesome. Very cool. Any other general thoughts before we jump into the filmography here? I guess just to talk a little bit because I think it's an important thing to talk about. Like a bit of the meditation. Yeah, yeah, sure, sure. So he has been a very big proponent of transcendental meditation for, I mean, over 30 years. Yeah. I mean, as long as I've known about his work he's been into, he's never missed the meditation. Right. And, from my understanding of what TM is, is that basically, you're given a mantra and you sit for twice a day for about 20 minutes, you are repeating that mantra in your head. And what that does, though, is that you basically, while you're awake, can dip into your, like, unconscious, subconscious level. And the way that he forms, he a lot of his stories are ideas. If you can fall in love with an idea, find one and then get like 70 and then you string them together. Yeah, yeah. You have a movie. Yeah, yeah. And by that measure, you can actually understand that how that's actually how his movies operate. Yes. It makes a lot more sense because a lot of scenes I mean, he finds a way in his Lynchian way to link them. And sometimes they're not linear, right. They actually most of the time they're actually not, but they're his ideas that are grounded in something that he is passionate about. Right? Like and some of them are based in real life. But a lot of them are like you know I got this idea, I really like it, I don't know what else to do with it. I'm going to go meditate and then meditate. And he'll come up with things and he won't know exactly how or where. But these are the ideas like I love the way we'll get to when we talk about Lost Highway, but he looks at that movie as the time that he was making it, all the ideas he was having at that time, those were all lost highways ideas. Yep. So like that was just a moment in time where this was what was going on in his head. Right. This is what he was, thinking about feeling, having nightmares, dreams, meditating. All of this was lost highway. Yeah. And then he moves on to something else. Yeah. The next one. And, I mean that there is no other artists that I can think of that talks about their process in that way. Like he makes what he wants to make his way, and he does not care whether you like it or not, whether it's digestible. Yeah. So I mean, a lot of his movies were relative bombs financially and critically when they came out. And now there's really no David Lynch movie. There's a few, but there's there's none. That's like, that's a piece of shit. Like in the culture, people have reclaimed these things and said, no, that we all just we botched it. And, you know, when it was released, this is actually a really good movie and has a lot of intention behind it. But yeah, the TM stuff is so important to him. It's some of the craziest shit that you see in his movies. You're like, how does someone think of that? It's in these TM sessions. It's it. Sure. Yeah, and I think a lot of his stuff comes from that fishing for a well of ideas and then not judging them, and then being like, well, they must mean something somewhere or I'll find meaning for it. Right, right. And that's. Yeah. So cool. It really is. It really is. Before we get into the filmography, an extremely important announcement up top, I will be talking about Twin Peaks. Tangentially. I'll be bringing it up because it's very important to David Lynch. But I told you, don't watch Twin Peaks stuff for this because it's going to bog you down. I mean, it's just it's a lot of content. So just focus on the feature films. You can skip Twin Peaks Fire Walk with me. It's fine. So that's what we're doing for this episode here is going to be again, I'm going to I already brought up Twin Peaks. Like I'll bring it up as we as we go. I have some things to say about it, but next episode is going to be friend of the pod. Dan and I solely talking about Twin Peaks. We're going to talk about, oh my God, we're going to talk about season one and season two that we have not recorded this yet, but my my emphasis is going to be on fire walk with me because this is a movie pod. But then also The Return because Dan and I like we have a fun history of that together. We watched it together and Covid like, you know, we were living on opposite sides of the country, but letting each other know what we thought of the episodes. We'd both seen it. He just rewatched it. So stay tuned for that episode. But this is not going to be a Twin Peaks heavy pod. If that upsets and people. I'm sorry. We do our best and it's coming. It's coming, yeah, it's coming, it's coming. And that too is not going to be. Here's what everything means in Twin Peaks, as explained to you by Alex and Dan. No, that's not what it is. We're just going to talk about why we like the show. So yeah, that's what there's so many other videos like that on YouTube that break it down. It's like some six hour ones. It's nuts. But to get going here with these, you made ten feature films. Were primarily going to talk about nine today. But he starts with 1970 Seven's Eraserhead. This movie is five years in the making. They filmed it at the AFI in Los Angeles. I am convinced that everything you need to know about David Lynch is in this movie. I'm also convinced that it's very difficult to like and appreciate this movie if you've only seen it once, which I know is your case, so just try to sell it a little bit. He has said this movie is Philadelphia to him. I don't think that's necessarily the kindest thing to say about the film, but he's like that is the mood of when I was living there. Like, that's what it was. It was loud, it was dirty. It was that. That's what it is. Lynch would never admit this, but ultimately, to summarize the movie, I think this film is about Lynch's fear of becoming a father. He was married a handful of times. He actually went through a divorce while making Eraserhead. His daughter, Jennifer, who is now a director, Jennifer Lynch, she was on the set and became close with the child thing, who she called spike, and she said she had a very fun relationship with spike, and she said it was interesting because spike, I think, is supposed to be me and my father's fear of having me. So that is what I think the movie is about. Very crude set up. But what did you think of Eraserhead? I honestly is no, no, I am, I, I, I there's, I'm just going to read some of my notes okay. And this is, I think this is a very common thing to say. But a David Lynch movie. First note I wrote no idea what to make of this. There you go. Yes, absolutely. During the dinner scene, I think I'm finally settling in. How about that, dad? And. Oh, I love you, dad. Oh, it's so good. That's my favorite part of the movie. I thought I heard a stranger. We've got chicken tonight. Strangest damn thing. The man made the whole damn thing smaller than my fist. But they knew. I dealt. Hello? I'm Henry Henry Z lapels factory. Well, your business, Man, it's mine. 30 years. I actually just never had change from pasture to the hell hole it is now. I put every damn pipe in this neighborhood until that people think pipes grow in their home. I sure as hell don't look at me. And then the next snow. I don't think I like this movie. And then, I'll say this. He knows how to disturb and gross me out like God. Yeah. What is this guy's deal? I do not like this movie. Fair, fair. So, I mean, that was kind of my thought the first time I saw it. Yeah, it. Now, here's the thing, though. I remember when it was over, because let me see, when I when I see that I didn't like the movie, I am not at all saying that this was a bad sure, sure, I what I'm seeing is, is that what was coming at me were things that were making me unsettled. Oh yeah, oh yeah. And I could not find reasoning there. And I was getting anxious. Oh yeah. Now, now I'm seeing all this because this is a testament to the movie, because it's making me feel things. And by the time the movie was over, I just go, that wasn't for me. Yeah, I but but I, I so desperately wanted to text you, but I didn't want to come at it from like a negative standpoint. That's not how I felt. Right. So I had I sat for five minutes thinking about how to choose my words carefully to text you. And so what I came up with, why is Eraserhead regarded the way that it is? Right? And then I kind of replied back, I try to be, you know, I didn't even know if you had seen it yet. I thought, yeah, middle of it. And like it was losing you, which is totally understandable. And yeah, I just said, I really think it's about his fear of being a father, being a husband. And I think everything you want to know about him is in there. Like his style, his themes. And it is I think it's very, very rare for first movie that they made over five years because they never had any money. Yeah, that for a directors themes to be so cemented in it. And then he's going to spend the rest of his career doing things that are in Eraserhead is that's what makes people appreciate it. I first saw this movie in college, and I was told, you're you have to watch this, you're going to like it. But it's the midnight movie. It's the arthouse movie. And I didn't like it. I didn't fucking understand any of it. I like to lynch, but I was like, Yeah, but. And I've caught up with it. I think I tried since we've had the pod, but like a few years ago, because it, a lot of his movies are on criterion and Max, so which is great. And I'm like, oh, okay, I kind of get it. And then when I knew we were doing this, I but I he's one of the few directors I own. Every movie that he has made and a lot of them are really good. Criterion's and stuff. The Eraserhead criterion is magnificent. And I kind of sat down one day because it's only like an hour and 28 minutes. And I said, why don't you watch this movie until, like, you get it or appreciate it or like it? Yeah. And I watched it twice in like two days. It's going, okay. I see what he's doing. So I definitely and it's because of this podcast, like researching it, reading his book Lynch on Lynch, reading, you know, the making of it and everything. So I have a very newfound appreciation for it, but I totally get that it doesn't work for you on first viewing. Well, in what I also want to talk about too is because that was my first viewing. Yeah. And it did kind of rub me in a bit of the wrong way. When I watched the special features. Yes, because I knew that this was an independent movie, and especially from 1977 being a time where this was really hard. Oh, yeah. And, knowing that this was really a labor of love, I absolutely respected it. But it wasn't until the special features where you meet all of the people. Yeah, that were actors, that were crew members, that were a part of this and how all of them talk about that, the whole. And even though it was hard, the filming was everyone loved it, loved it, loved they there was joy in making this project, and and even like the one main actress she was on little House on the Prairie. Yeah, yeah. And she would shoot all day and then shoot all night on Eraserhead when they could. Yeah. Yeah. And and she didn't mind it. All right. The weird part of the conversation goes, well, just because, you know, all these things. Does that make the movie good? Right? Sure. Fair point. But at the same time, when you do look at a movie like this and you have the reaction that I had upon first watch for, I was like, I don't really like what I'm seeing here. But then you find out all these things an appreciation, respect, wash over it that I guarantee you the next time I watch this, because I know all this, I'm probably going to enjoy it on a lot more. That happened to me. That's what I did. I watched all those special features and it's like you get to see them going back to AFI and they're like, no, that's where it was. That's where we shot that. And yeah, just they have so much reverence. Like when you hear someone talk about acting in a Lynch movie, there's no bad comments. Like, everyone loves it. Again, you may not know what the hell the movie is about, okay? But you like working with him. You like the precision. It's. Yeah, because what's funny about it? We'll all attempt to describe what it's about. Oh, yeah. There's a fella, Jeff. Fella who meets a lady. He gets her pregnant, which we don't see. And the mother in law, his soon to be mother in law, isn't even sure if it's a baby. So we'll see about that soon. He meets her family and that goes very strangely. It's a great scene. Great scene. The child is born and it is. Doesn't look like a child at all. It cries all the time. It spits, it won't eat. The mom essentially loses it. She can't hang. She leaves and the man falls is falls for his beautiful neighbor. There's a tiny woman in his radiator that sings to him in his dreams. Yeah, that's. That's about the plant that's growing. The plant that's growing. Yeah. There's always dirt in the corner. You got Jack Fisk like the man in the planet. He's a guy pulling all the levers, and he has all this stuff on his face. Why? Okay, I don't know. It all makes sense to at least one person. Yeah, but, yes, I do like sitting there kind of picking it apart. But his first movie feature films, first feature film in his last feature feature film were made entirely by him. With no rules, he was allowed to do whatever he wanted because he was funding them themselves. I like that it's bookended like that, but I'm saying that Eraserhead, to me is the most Lynchian movie that he made. That's what I love. There's this confidence in it because he was shooting it very confidently. He everyone knew, like, you don't touch props on the set of Eraserhead, like, everything's very precise, but they would have to take long gaps of filming. They didn't have any money. The fucking DP of Eraserhead in one of these gaps goes off and helps shoot The Killing of a Chinese Bookie. Yeah, John Cassavetes, and he's, like, totally opposite experiences. I'm trying to film Chinese Bookie and Cassavetes would just, like, elbow me in the shoulder to make the camera move because he wanted it to be dirty. And then Lynch is, like, very precise. And you can see that, yes, it may not feel like his movies are made with that much precision, but they are. Oh, no they are. Yeah. Yeah, there's there's there's, there's no sloppy work. An indie Lynch movie, right? Yeah. Even if it feels sloppy. Yeah, yeah, that's by design. Yeah. For sure that, he's really into hallways and that. Oh, my God, that shot of the woman in the hallway. Like, walking into into the light. Yeah, slowly. He does that so much. I love that that is Judith Roberts, who played the mother. And you were never really here, which is just. Oh, that's cool. That's so cool. Yeah. So you can the mother in law, the wife's mom, you know, when they go to dinner that her name is Mrs. X in Eraserhead, her real name is Jeannie Bates. That's the old woman at the airport with Naomi Watts and Mulholland Drive. So it's like he's doing this all the time and keeping these same actors. Jack Nance popped up, although he passed and stuff all the time. Yeah, I, I love it, but yeah, this movie is a mood. It's an unsettling, dangerous, surreal mood. The, the one of my favorite details of the movie are the chicken. Yeah. Like like that for that dinner. Right. And then when he. When he cuts it open, it's like that. And the alien, everything that has to do with the effects, right, are really, really great. Yeah. Because they look real. They really do. And it's disgusting. Yes. You know, when you talk about like that, that dream thing, like you have dreams where, like, these types of things happen, like food is here or you're eating something and something goes wrong, right? That's not normal. Like whenever you're eating gushes something out. Sure. Like, these are the things that are part of those dream nightmare things that he just puts in that you're like, what the fuck? But at the same time, you you relate because, like, it makes you think about a dream, like because it's only something this off would only happen here. Yeah. They said one of the hardest parts about making the movie was to continuity of Jack and his hair and keeping it up like that, and because there are some scenes like he could be in his, I don't know, like bedroom and then walking into the hallway, that's like two years apart until me. Yeah. Because, yeah, they just literally had no money. It's just friends making a movie. I love that. And then of course, it's released. Completely panned. Yeah. No one gets it. It's not in a lot of theaters, but but someone decided in a few theaters in the country, let's play this at midnight and let's just keep it going to theaters in New York and LA. So by 1978, you, you know, you can imagine people like getting all loaded, going to the new art in LA and going to a midnight screening of Eraserhead. It's 89 minutes far out, and they would keep the movie in the theaters for years. This thing was in theaters for years. Not every showtime, but a midnight movie. And it caught on. And it is today. I mean, you go from like midnight screenings only, and then in 2004, it's part of the National Film Registry for the Library of Congress, and you're like, wow, that what an achievement like that is. Wild. Completely panned when it was released. And it has had this whole life like since 1977. That's just really impressive. And a lot of these movies have done that. But yeah, the I would say Eraserhead is probably like the biggest midnight movie ever made, I think. Which is crazy, because I would never go see the movie. I mean, I would, I would I've seen a lot of his movies in the theater. Definitely never any at midnight. I can't, I can't make it. Eraserhead is not what I've seen. I would love to see this in the theater, because that sound, oh my God, it would just be so, the, the wrenching and oh, the. Oh, God, oh, God, that was so. Oh, I just did nod my soul. He's never admitted what that thing was. He will not say how they did it, how they made it. He's never, ever has. And it's one of the things he's asked about the most. It is so effective, whatever the hell that is. All the reasons that I'm uncomfortable with the movie, I'm hoping that he would love. Yeah, because it clearly like this is what affected me. Oh, yeah. It's just like those sounds where I'm like, I can't take this anymore. Yeah, yeah. And the woman in the radiator with that damn face, she starts singing the song. I was like, what the hell is this? I think he's dreaming. Then I do like when he gets literally turned into a racer's it, you know, it's a little unclear. And like, is he an alien? I yeah, there's, I think the man in the planet pulling all the levers is controlling that and deciding that. Yeah, he maybe he is an alien, like, come. I don't fucking know, man. I know the things. I have no idea. Yeah, these are things that I think makes sense to just one person, and he's never going to talk about it. And so. Exactly. Because I wouldn't want to know. No, you know what? He's not interested in these definitive answers. Yeah, yeah. Not at all. He'll talk. A lot of his movies have a lot of special features, like Eraserhead. A lot of his movies have a feature length amount of deleted scenes he has put together and assembled himself. He's not afraid of showing, like, what else the movie could have been. It's not afraid of talking about how he directed someone, or where an idea necessarily came from, from his childhood, but he's not going to tell you how it all adds up and what it all means. That's up to you. Yeah, you go do that, people. And they have a lot. People study these movies like crazy. Eraserhead. What a film. Can't see where it ranks for you. If you, you know, you'll you'll find out. But, I mean, get this shit. Little known producer named Mel Brooks might have heard of him. Gets this. I don't know if he owned the property for John Merrick. I don't know if he owned the Elephant Man, but it. He must have, because it was on him to. He didn't want to direct it, but he wanted to find a director to make the movie. And he hears about this David Lynch guy. He sees Eraserhead and he goes, bring him into my office. I want to meet him in, in walks the exact opposite of what he thought. In walks this guy with his buttons all the way button. He's wearing these goofy clothes and he has this high pitched Midwestern accent. And on the spot, Brooks went, you're hired. Like, yes, I, I thought you were going to walk in and be like a character from Eraserhead, and to see that he was the exact opposite. He goes, yeah, you can make this movie. But Mel Brooks of all people, sees Eraserhead and gives him that shot, and he goes off and makes a movie for a studio. And this movie, I love this movie. I think this is the saddest movie he made, and it is one of the saddest films I've ever seen in my life. It this may sound weird, but this movie I it might be my most difficult Lynch film to watch with the view that when that when they fucking when that asshole night porter bangs everyone in in that fucking carnival music starts up again. That it is so sad. It's like there is no humanity here. It's so. Oh my God. But, Yeah, I mean, this is a comic sentence. You're going to hear me say, I love this movie. I love all David Lynch movies. But, yeah, we've never talked about this. Never talked about this films. So interested to hear. I first saw this one when I was a kid, a few of these I saw young, and I remember, I remember my dad showing me this and being like, what the hell? And I don't remember what I seen John hurt in, but I had seen something when I put it together that that was him. I just couldn't believe it, couldn't believe it. It's really something. And especially because this is like the one movie that, like, he probably had the least amount of, I suppose, Lynchian. Yeah, things that I even know, because that's true. But then you still get these crazy elephants in the woman's, like, screaming. And that's just him. That's that's the opening of the movie. I'm like, oh, okay. But you're right. It's it's a relatively like, straightforward British movie, like the British actors and yeah, based off of a play based off a play. Yeah. And so, you know, so this really is like a because no one knew what David Lynch was going to become. So you're basically, yeah, this guy did this one weird movie weirder than hell. And then the here's a studio project. So it was almost like, it's very cool because I was going to ask how he got this, that no direct story is cool, but you really are essentially a director for hire. He was on this. Yes, yes. And to see that he had the capacity and because I feel like you appreciate him so much more now when you see what his legacy is, that's what makes you appreciate Eraserhead more when you go back. Yes. Yeah, I totally agree. And then for this one to be like, wow. So he did not really write this. He you just had a writing credit. But there was like four writers. Yeah. It's not a David Lynch original film. No, no. And and he makes something that is so, so unbelievably moving in so many different ways, whether it's sad, whether it's powerful, whether it's the you go through the gamut of emotions that this thing or should, we should probably explain what this movie is. Yeah, I can explain it. So John Merrick was a real guy who was very badly deformed. And this is like around what, like 1890s. So I have that right. Yeah. London, Britain and very badly deformed. And by the time this doctor, played by Anthony Hopkins, finds him literally as a carnival sideshow, he's like the premiere for sideshow freak of the of this guy. This Freddy Jones is Mr. Bites. Oh my God, this fucking guy who's just enslaving Merrick and using him for financial gain. And that's when he treats him like shit. He's basically like sleeping in a cage and he's treated like an animals treat because you're so deformed, you must be an animal. This doctor comes and through some very slick convincing. Because you know this Mr. Bites like beating him and shit. It's it's this terrible, terrible stuff. He's like, no, let me bring him to the hospital. And just work with him. And then he realizes, oh, this is a human being who's actually smart. Like, this is a smart man. This isn't an animal. But what happens when the fancy, highfalutin doctor who's very well-intentioned, brings Merrick to the hospital? He is simply put on display again. Yeah, but now, in front of high London society. Yeah. So he's still a circus freak. And there's a few people Anthony Hopkins doesn't even realize. It's his wife has to tell him that Anne Bancroft, who plays that actress. Beautiful scene that she's in. Every time she's in it, you're like, oh, so heartwarming. But that's what it's about. It's about this guy. Like trying to become a human being. He's the first chance he's been given to be a human being in his life. And that's that's where we meet him. And that's, in the play. It's actually a fairly good version of the play. Okay, there's a little bit more with the Anne Bancroft character. Oh, actually, he's really cool because he develops in the play a like a crush on her. Yeah. You kind of get a little you get in the movie. Yeah. They do a great job of like summing up what the play is of that in that scene. But in the movie she visits, in the play she visits quite, quite a lot. Oh, okay. So there's a bit of like, is, is, is she coming today type thing. And when they see each other, it's just nothing but joy for him. Yeah. And you know and he she knows that he has a crush on her and she, she, you know, she becomes very generous, say in what? She, she doesn't sleep with him or anything like that. So she gets in some favors. She, she shows herself. Okay, okay. And and you know, in that context, though, you know, you realize that's actually very sweet because he's never seen never that anything like that. And, and so it's very cool. And, and seeing the I've seen a couple versions of the play, the play is very, very specific in terms for the actor playing John Merrick, because there no one really does a prosthetic. Yeah, I know Bradley Cooper. Didn't he just like contorted his body. And, you know, you didn't see that. You saw other versions because he didn't play it. Every actor kind of does like that contortion where it's like one half of your body slopes down and then the voices, the voice and things like that. A corkscrew is John Hurt said it. His body. That's how I played it. Like a corkscrew. Young in terms of the posture. Yeah, exactly. So so that's what a stage performance of it would be. But essentially the movie is that like this what you get and man, there is probably no more like scene that just it both like makes my heart skip a beat and gives me so much hope is when he breaks out in that, it's what is it? It's it's a it's a prayer. Yeah, yeah. Oh, Jesus. Is it a prayer? And he's only been taught a certain amount of it. Yeah. And then he keeps going. Keeps going. It's Anthony Hopkins because he's trying to, you know, he's like hard ass balls. Yeah, I think it's John Gielgud. I'm sorry. Names wrong. But yeah, he's trying to convince him like no, no, no we need to be studying him. And then he is memorized to play like on his own or whatever it is. The monologue. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a great moment. It's. It's such a good moment. Oh. I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. I fear no evil. For thou art with me. I long I know God, Mr. cargo. You just want to know why is that? Why? I didn't teach him that, uncle. I know for you I love you with all the things I. Oh, I clearly not. Oh. The other really big moment for me is, when Anthony Hopkins first sees him on the street. Yeah, there's this beautiful zoom in, close up that Anthony Hopkins has where it's just, you know, it's the classic one single tier. It's British actors are so fucking good at this. It's so you're like, it's the one tier just falls. Ali actually walked into the room at that moment and she's like, oh my God. He's you know, Hannibal Lecter. Wow. It's so young. Yeah, yeah. And then yeah, it just goes right into him and you can almost hear like tear and yeah, just boom falling down. But it's so humane what he's telling that's that. Yeah. Exactly. Because that's what I mean. It's like there's a lot of actors, God bless him, that can do like the cry on command. Sure. But in this moment, like, his eyes were, whatever he was seeing. Yeah. Was coming through his heart. Yes. And that tear that comes out like, yes, there's a lot of technique involved and things like that. But Anthony Hopkins was just there. That is one of the best visual cues of acting I've ever fucking see. Oh, it's so good because we'd, it's a, it's a little like jaws. Like they delay showing us what he looks like for a while until that poor nurse just walks in on him and screams that he screams and you're like, oh, wow, this is okay. Okay. And I remember, yeah. Like the first I'm trying to think of the first time I saw this is my dad showed it to me. He showed me this in blue velvet, young at early ages. But I remember him. He would do this with me. Sometimes. He would sit down and be like, no, the same person made these like you. And then I remember him showing me something. I don't remember what it was with John Hurt and be like, that's him. And oh, wow. And watching Elephant Man and then Blue Velvet back to back, which is what I did as a kid. It's just it's you can't believe that the same person did this with two different subjects. It's like fascinating. It's so fascinating. And it really rocked me to my core. Just all this emotion we're talking about. I think it's a very emotionally violent movie. I think from from the person, quote unquote, that just the asshole is going to a caretaker, that asshole who has him in the circus to the night porter, who I hate like, you know, Anthony Hopkins wants to do good by him. And, you know, people are meeting him there. He's going to tea with, like, fancy people, but it's all. He's still just a freak to everyone except a few people in the movie. Anthony Hopkins wife. Yeah. Bancroft. Yeah. He's not a freak to Anthony Hopkins, but he's not aware that he's parading him that way. And but but that friendship is so genuine for John. Man. Oh my God. It's like, oh, it's so beautiful. It's like he I mean, and I mean, it's such a, you know, this is like the moral compass of it is like, yes, Anthony Hopkins, this character treats does end up like displaying him in the same way, but he's also given him a life. Yes. That, and that's I think all the John Merrick's character cares about is the life. I mean, it's like you, you have treated me with respect, with kindness, with care, with tenderness. Even though Merrick was still being displayed. I think he appreciated those conversations with that high society. I do too, and I think he's it's even kind of I don't know if Anthony Hopkins outright apologizes, but Merrick is almost like, oh, no, no, no, this has been great. You've shown me, like, a whole life. Like, yeah, no, no, this is this is fine. If this is what it had to be, then okay. But yeah, I don't think he's mad about it, you know, at all. And I think there is also for Merrick, like, there is like. Or at least the way that John Hurt plays it like an acceptance that he understands, like how he is, how he is, how we look. And that people may be seeing him because they're evilly curious and but then, you know, he when he talks with them, very rarely do people come out of a sophisticated conversation with him. Being disturbed. Yeah. They're not like, oh my God, that they feel. I think they're probably like, oh wow. Okay. Yeah. An intelligent young fellow again. Fellow. Yeah. Great. And yeah, but then I mean, like, when you get to that end, it's just terrible. Like, it's, I mean, being chased and then, you know, I'm a man. I'm a man. But then it's been set up for us. I don't it's a little risky to get into spoilers for movies as we go, but I won't say what it is, but it it has been set up to. You know what? Like when he does something, in the end, we know what that means for him and we know what's going to happen because that's been set up for us. But it's so gentle and you got that. It's a dojo to strings. I saw platoon before I saw The Elephant Man, so I was like, oh, that's the platoon music. But they end with that, and it's just so, it's it's a very sad movie. It really, really guts me. This was when I was rewatching. I'm like, man, I got to do okay. I got to do the Elephant Man. Fuck. It's just, there's so mean to him. Everyone. Just so there's so cool. I think. I think the first time I saw this movie was, this was a movie that was shown to me in school. Yeah, yeah, I think it's a popular school movie. Yeah. For some of these reasons. Yeah. I mean, yeah, because, you know, like you're, you're dealing with essentially bullying at its absolute worst. Yes, yes. For someone who does not deserve it in any way, shape or form. Yeah. Being bullied for his looks. That's it. That's basically it. Yeah. John Hurt tells a funny story. Who's making Heaven's Gate with Michael Cimino? And he didn't even get sent off on a break. He just realized, like, in the shooting schedule, I don't have anything to film. He was still going to be on set, but he's like, I don't think I don't have much to film for, like the next few months. So he just went off and made Elephant Man and then went back and finished Heaven's Gate. So they were still going with Heaven's Gate, so it was fine. I just went on, I think that's hysterical. Let's switch because like, yeah, taking, taking on that movie for John Hurt isn't exactly just like, oh, I'm just going to go shoot this movie. I'm going to go get a prosthetic head put on, I'm going to do this crazy body thing. And like, that could not have been comfortable. Oh no way, no way. And there's a great story about the makeup because Elephant Man nominated for eight Oscars total, from Eraserhead to best director for The Elephant Man, he really who was nominated for best director and best Writing? He was nominated for it. Yeah. So this is nominated for best picture. Best actor. Big deal. Wow. I didn't know that. Yeah. One thing, it was not nominated for was Best makeup because the best makeup award did not exist. And in 1981, they created the best Makeup award to honor the Elephant Man, essentially because so many people were like, how the fuck can you not honor the makeup in this movie? There has to be some weight, like give it a special award or something. So you're like, oh, we need to make a whole category for this. And that's what they did. So that category is essentially in the honor of the elf. Wow. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. Really cool I love that I really like this movie. I really like it. So this is one you like kind of had a relationship with. You had seen it. It was one where I knew I had a relationship with the movie as a kid, seeing it in school. Okay. And I remember talking about it a lot with my uncle, because my uncle really liked this movie, because he was unfortunately bullied a lot as a kid in his generation. And he, I think really resonated with this movie, because of that. But then I became more familiar with the play as like, life went on. So my time, I think rewatching it for the podcast, this is my second time seeing the movie. Oh yeah. Okay, okay. Yeah, I've seen it, seen a few more times now, but that's that's all right. That's cool though. That's cool. I mean, I've never seen the play, so it's cool to see the play in a few versions. Oh the Elephant Man. Now this is strange because we go to the movie that everyone seemingly writes off nowadays. I know people who love David Lynch, who have never even to their words, bothered to see Dune because they know it's going to be his least effective movie in the least Lynch movie, and not a good movie. And I hear all that, and I'm going to call myself out here because I did a profile for Lynch on my blog 2013. I never seen this movie. I no interest in it. Everyone who likes Lynch was telling me exactly what I just said. You can skip it, it doesn't matter. And I watch it. And I think I was a little dismissive of it just because of that lens. I rewatched it for this, hadn't seen it years. This is not a bad movie, I like it, I like it a lot. Actually. I think it's fucking fun. I don't think it takes itself 1/100 as seriously as the Villeneuve movie do. It is. Yeah, very clearly flawed. He they were, but it was supposed to be three movies. That's how it was designed. That's how it was set up, three movies. And in return, the producer, Dino De Laurentiis agreed to fund Blue Velvet and Ronnie Rocket, which is the white whale of David Lynch's career. I always wanted to make this movie Ronnie Rocket never got to and Kyle McLaughlin. This was he was going to be in all of them. Dune 1984 is Kyle McLaughlin's first film role. That's he was a brand new guy. Yeah, he was brand new. This movie debut. We see the influence he's had on Lynch over the years. They worked together a bunch. But yeah, this isn't like the best David Lynch movie. It's the probably the least Lynchian. But there's still some Lynch stuff in here. The sound effects, the visual effects look like something's from Eraserhead sometimes, and the cast is he's working for some with some people like Dean Stockwell for the first time. So you're seeing him? He's going to reuse a lot of these people. Everett McGill, he's going to reuse them down the line. And I don't think Dune 1984 is remotely as bad as people make it out to be. I had a fun time watching it. Love to hear your thoughts. So I was under the same impression as you is to where the only thing I had ever heard about this movie was that this was absolute trash. Yeah, like and not even being kind like that is like I my understanding of this movie was that this was David Lynch's the worst movie a director could ever have under their belt. Right, right. He's not happy of it. He's kind of written it off. That's like the way a lot of people do. But yeah, it's just written off. It's like this pariah film. Exactly. So that was I never saw it. Yeah. And I go and see the Denis Villeneuve movies, and I championed pretty hard the first one, because I dug it for what it was because. But it does take itself very seriously. Yes. I think it is very much, very, trying to be true to the book and telling that story. And to be honest, when I put it on, I was not in the mood at all for this story because I'm familiar with the other ones. Oh yeah, I know, I know, I'm going to be getting a retelling of this whole entire thing, and I don't know what happened, but the opening credits start and it's that woman who looks like she's reading off of, like, a fucking cue card. Yeah. She can. I like one point. She looks like she's reading and she's saying the most ridiculous things. But they're all exposition days. They fade her out, bring her back. She's like, oh, I forgot something. Yeah, exactly. And I go, I go, I don't. Okay, all right, all right, all right. I have a big smile on my face. Yeah. Because I'm like, okay, okay. Without moving. Oh yes. I forgot to tell you. The spice exists on only one planet in the entire universe. A desolate, dry planet with vast deserts hidden away within the rocks of these deserts are a people known as the Fremen, who have long held a prophecy that a man would come, a messiah who would lead them to true freedom. The planet is Iraqis, also known as Dune. And then we get to like this other thing where all this weird shit starts happening. And it's not like when we're seeing that it's Lynch. It's not sloppy. Like none of it makes sense, I know. And then all of a sudden a dog runs across the screen and I just go, okay, I think I'm going to like this. And I just, I settled into it for what my take of it was, not thinking that it was a bad movie. Right, but that this was a really, really well done B-movie. Yeah. Like that's sort of what it became in my mind. And then from that point, every scene to me was like, what are we going to see next. Yeah. And and that's what you got though. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Like by the time like there's only one part of the movie that I actually was like, okay, this, this is kind of bad. And that's the, the fight with Patrick Stewart's hilarious and the visual effects of how blocky the shield. Yes. Very bloody, very early effects. Yeah. Like, okay. That. Yeah. Not so great. You couldn't even tell what the fighting was. And then when we finally meet the bad guy and he's like this punk grotesque growth. Yes. Like he is not this sinister blob. He's just like in, in the other the villainy of movies, he's this like, yeah, this is like the greens and the reds in like, this cyberpunk type like 80s thing. I go, what is this? Is that sting? Yeah, exactly. Like, what is sting doing your sting doing here? And I'm like, oh, this movie fucking rocks. And then from then on, I had the best time of the movie. And you know, it's crazy when they in the very beginning where they, they tell you what all four planets are. I understood the whole entire story of Dune better in this version's exposition of it than I did in all of the Disney one. This is my note that I have that Lynch's Dune is much it's so much clearer. It's so much like when I saw Dune one, Villeneuve's first Dune. I even said I did a solo episode and I'm like, I've seen it twice now. The first time I did not understand what was going on. Like I didn't know who these people were, like, who were the bad guys? Like, yeah, who is what? Seriously? Like, I didn't know. I had no clue at all. And then Lynch just like literally has a woman just reading it to you and I'm like, oh, okay, I get this. And we should say Lynch's Dune is kind of Dune one and two from film is was part of the second movie too. But yeah, I mean, I've talked about the second movie in passing. It's not, we're going to see, I don't know what Villeneuve is doing. I don't know if this is like going to be his thing. It's going to be in Dune World all the time. But I know people like those movies a lot. And I'm not sitting here saying that this one is better. It's very, very they're very different. It's fun. And yeah, it was not made as a B-movie, but if you watch it as a B-movie, it's enjoyable. It's very enjoyable. And that was in and I don't know if that's offensive to, to Mr. Lynch to refer to it as a B-movie, but that, that that was absolutely my take from it. And but watching under that level, I had like, that's a movie I would go see at midnight. Right, right. Oh, sure. And yet and there are things where I like, I remember I was like, you know, if you even if you kind of piecemeal a little bit of like the way that Lynch explains it. But you know, then you have things that are in Danny's like version of the movie that like Rebecca Ferguson, for example, like that is just like, she's awesome. Yes. And, I think I yeah, I did breakout. We're just blowing right through the story. Yeah. I mean, they cruise by. Yeah, yeah. One part there's like multiple years pass and she tells us she's like years past this. You're like oh okay. Yeah. Yeah. Like the way that the way. That's why it's kind of like a B movie in that way where it's fun because like, if you don't really take it seriously and you're like, oh, okay. So that just happened, right? Oh, wait, we're just going here. Let's go. What else? What else is going to happen now? But I can see how diehard fans of the book it was, oh, I can get all that I get. I can't be great for that. Yeah, but we've got. Yeah, but you know, we've got like 40 years distance on this thing now. So it I just don't think it should be judged as harshly as it is sometimes. No, not even remotely as bad as a lot of people still make it out to be. It's not like it's higher on my list than Eraserhead, is it? Oh, my God, I love it, I love it, dude. Beats Eraserhead. Fucking cretin. One final note about Dune. He said he did it because he wanted to play with toys and play in a big sandbox and see, you know, like he's being given all these things, big budget. So he just wanted to see what he could do. And it didn't really go well for him because he hated having studio interference. That was it that a lot of people ask, why the hell did he even make this? That's why. Yeah, I get it, I get it. Blue velvet, 1986. Really? The first studio pure David Lynch. Yes. Elephant man does. You know, it's limited because it's based on something. Dune obviously also based on something so limited. Yeah. Blue velvet this was actually the first David Lynch film I saw and I, I really did get it. I was young, I didn't get like everything right away. But as I described when that I, you know, showing us all the beautiful Americana and then going under to the lava, the maggots to Jeffrey finding the ear, I got what he was doing. I got the oh, shucks ness of Kyle McLaughlin's Jeffrey paired with the absolute destructive nihilism of Frank Booth. Yeah, and I found that remarkable. That's what I'm talking about, about this narrative juxtaposition, like character juxtaposition, where Jeffrey just has to walk 2 or 3 streets down this way, and he's at this haunting like apartment complex of Dorothy Valens in her apartment, and you're like, what is going on in it? Yeah, all of that. The whole world it creates. I love rewatching this movie. Yeah, I'll say more thoughts, but I have like kind of a hot take about the movie at the end, a positive one, but holy shit too, I love this. Had did you have a relationship with this before? No. You never seen it? Never saw it? Oh, Christ, I didn't know that. I had no idea. And holy fuck. And I had heard about this movie, I didn't know I don't know how I kind of remained, like, spoiler free. I knew Dennis Hopper was in it, and I knew Dennis Hopper was crazy. Frank Booth baby. But at the same time, I'm like, it's just Dennis Hopper being Dennis Hopper to get the role, he said. I David, I have to play Frank Booth. I am Frank. It's literally what he said. And keep in mind, he had gotten sober earlier like he was. He plays a, full blown all the way gone alcoholic and Hoosiers the same year, which he was actually nominated for. It should have been nominated for this. But he's sober at the time, so he has cleaned himself up for Blue Velvet, cleaned himself up for Hoosiers, and is playing these, the oldest of their characters in Blue Velvet. Yeah, he's just a drunk. And and so that was all that I knew about the movie. I had no other context for why he was so out there or whatnot. But I remember there was something that, you know, this is a cool thing about, this movie in particular, I fell in love with the second this movie started with that Americana. Yeah. Like, there is something about the 1950s that Lynch has an esthetic for. He has a great affection for it all, while knowing that all the stuff on the surface could be beautiful, but go inside of each individual house and you could potentially find chaos. And there's just something about the colors, the brightness that he, that he uses where I'm just like my eyes and heart, just like I'm like, yes, I love just looking at this. Oh yeah. So I'm really kind of just starting out a little bit about the look of this movie. Anything. The, he has a way. So about nighttime. Oh my God. God damn it. Like when fucking Laura Dern, which is what, that's like an old Hollywood movie star entrance. It gives me chills just talking about it because I'm like, in the fucking music. Yeah, but he did that in Eraserhead without the music. But this is what I'm saying. And she just like the girl next door. This our introduction to Laura Dern walks into frame. It is stunning. It is. It's stunning. Nighttime. I love it so much I love it. And and there's just like the way that they both walk where they have, like, the halos on their head, but it doesn't look over-the-top. It doesn't look fake it, but it looks so magical at the same time. And then, you know, when you're in, you're kind of watching like two young people. Yeah, you know, dance around each other in a very sweet sort of way. There's just so many looks to this movie that I really think Lynch tapped into what would become his style. Really? Yeah. Like this was the movie that just put it all out there. Hell yeah. Did, hell yeah. That apartment, her apartment is like. That is a lynch apartment right there. As soon as. Yes. It's that droning, droning noise, and it's so, like, absent of life in your life. What is this? Yeah. Oh, my God. I mean, that first sequence of him hiding in the closet is. That's just an all time scene. I feel like I don't want to, because if you haven't seen it like that is a scene that should not be ruined for you. Because it. I didn't know what I was about to see. And then you can't predict it. There's no way to predict it. Like she sees him. And then you have to hide because this. You think it's bad because he's been caught spying on her? That's bad. Yeah, she's going to, you know, she has a knife to him. You. Oh, you like that? Like. Oh, fuck. How is he going to get out of this? He goes in the closet. And in typical David Lynch fashion, you thought you were in a nightmare. Yeah. No walks, Frank Booth. And then from what happens. Yeah. Shit. It. Jesus. The. And, you know, the thing is, is like, in this and this is one of those things where you're either kind of like, like you either vibe with Lynch or you don't feel the scene. You have to surrender. It's you have to surrender when that fucking gas mask comes out. But you have to surrender. Like, that's the thing. Like like I remember I saw that and I just burst out laughing. Oh yeah. It's because it's so fucking ridiculous. You're like, it's what is this? What is going. Yeah. And then and then it gets real real quick and you're like, okay, I'm not going to laugh at this. Yeah, but, but but, well the way he's huffing it. So I mean, it's just like, yes, he's you hear that first and you're like and I just, I yeah, I just, I just wrote this is fucking bananas. Yeah. But and then so the gas comes on and then you're like, who the fuck is mommy? Now she's mommy, give me your robe. And he's putting it in his mouth and you're like, oh, this is. Yeah. And what's so cool is you know, sometimes in Lynch movies, we just have to accept it. Like, he's like, Eraserhead is a good one. We're just in there. We're already in that world, at least in Blue Velvet. Kyle McLaughlin is Jeffrey is the audience proxy. Yeah. So we're fighting it out with him. Yeah. So we see it on his face, like, what the hell is this? Like, who is this guy? Oh my God, this is so much worse than anything I could have thought. And you know, there's a really cool thing because, like, basically the way that that whole entire scene happens is because he and Laura Dern are kind of like playing detective. He's he goes in really kind of like to spy on her. He's following up leads. Yes. He's found a human ear. Yep. He's found. He's told like the sheriff into or like a detective in town who happens to be the father of Laura Dern. And instead of, like, letting the cops handle it, he's like, well, I'm kind of, you know, he's home from college, his dad's sick. I'm just going to take this upon myself and I'll be a little adventure. And it starts with, I think, somewhat innocently enough, innocently. I mean, it is it isn't here. But yeah. And I love what he collects that year, which, like you, absolutely shouldn't do for for forensics, that he just shows it to the cop and he opens a bag and he's like a ten year old, right? Yeah, sure. He found in there. Yeah. It's an earlier. It's a deer. Yeah. When he then tells Laura Dern the next day, like what happened? Like it's like just because of what we had just seen when she. When she just goes, what could have happened last night? And you're like, well, I mean, Jesus Christ, he doesn't because he just basically. But I never thought and you'd said it so well like that juxtaposition of Carl McLaughlin Dennis Hopper. Yeah. Like that makes so much sense because in that scene, I thought this was a really cheesy line. When he goes, why does it? Why does there have to be people like Frank Booth in the world? Yeah, but now that you mentioned like that, really like this is the contrast of what we're seeing. It's because there's people like Jeffrey Beaumont in the. Yeah. Yeah. And and now like I think that that line is beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. And then you get Laura Dern's monologue about the, the Robbins. Yeah, yeah. And, I, I just, I just, I kept falling in love with this movie over and over for everything that it was. Even this. If I wasn't supposed to fall in love. Sure. Because there was something going on in there that sparks just like this element of, like, you can't do this exactly. Like a lot of critics and audiences thought that at the time, too, like a lot and, and but I'm like, but it's art. There's no rules. Like, you can do whatever you want. And I'm just so appreciating that he's doing all of this. And but I'm also entertained. It's an entertaining movie. It's fun to watch and rewatch. I've seen this in the theater twice, but it's time that we get to when when Jeffrey is with everybody and they go to that one house. Well, first man when they're walking out of her apartment and then, hey, yeah, you go, oh, shit. Like there was no build up for them. You sure? Hey. No, baby. Who is this fuck friend? He's from the neighborhood. We were just talking. Oh. You're from the neighborhood? Yeah. Your neighbor. But what's your name? Neighbor? Jeffrey. He's a good kid, Frank. Shut the fuck up. Hey, you wanna go for a ride? Oh, thanks. No, thanks. What does it mean? I don't want to go. Go for a ride. Well, that's a good idea. Okay. Let's go. You want a ride? Yeah. You take a ride? No, no. You know what? You know what? Yeah. All right. Great idea. Oh, boy. Here we go. Yeah. And in the car. It's terrifying. You gotta imagine. It's like pissing his pants. Shitting his pants. My God, what kind of beer? You like Heineken? Because it's blue. Jesus. It's like the best commercial for PBR that's ever been made. He fucking loves it. Oh, yeah, they go to bend the bend. See it? It's fan tastic. So this is this is hilarious. Dean Stockwell tells the story on, some special feature. I saw that he said I got the script. I read the script, and I loved the scripts. I loved literally everything about it except the character he wanted me to play. Yeah, because he was written as very kind of straight in my argument. Did I went up to Dave and I said, David, Ben and Frank Booth are genuinely friends, right? Yeah, they're their friends. Okay. In order for Frank Booth to have a friend, he's this close with, I have to be stranger than Frank. Yeah, yeah, not more violent, but I have to be stranger. We have to do that. So that's why we get what we get. You know, the candy colored clown they call the Sandman? Yup. And then it's just so bizarre, like you, as soon as you walk in and and it's stage like theater, it looks it is a lot of his stuff. Even, in, Naomi Watts. Is she Diane? Yeah. Diane's apartment. And. Yeah, just like a black box. Yeah, he does that a lot. He I love that. Yeah. And it works. And, Yeah. And then this is the dialog that we hear throughout the whole set. He's a little fuckboy. Yeah. And you're like and then at some point he's like let her see the kid. And yeah. Oh that's why we're here. Because if can have their kid and she can go see him okay. Now we're going to get a little song which David Lynch loves to do. People lip syncing and into a microphone. Curtains in the back of the curtains. Yeah. You know and then thinking of that, that whole comparison of the two. Because when you, when you get when you get Kyle McLaughlin, who's clearly in love with Laura Dern and Laura Dern is like the epitome of pure. Yeah, the girl is still innocent. Yeah. And everything. But even though he is so light, he is the complete opposite of Dennis Hopper. Yet he finds love with Isabella Rossellini. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And, when, without spoiling. When, when, when when those two women to him clash in his life. Yeah, I believe both of them like, I like I believe why he has this feeling for Isabella. Oh, and what Laura Dern means. And I love Laura Dern. Like. Like, you know, because she's just broken hearted and she just says it was really hard seeing you with her. Yeah. Like that. Yeah. And, and but the way that he's taking care of Isabella is so real that it's sort of like he's dabbled into a level of darkness that he is actually found some kind of value in. Yeah. And and not for the wrong reasons. Right, right. And so it's sort of like if you're talking about good versus evil, light versus dark, that melding of those two worlds and how it's okay, maybe like that's with like Lynch is trying to get after. I think this what you're saying is epitomized in one scene, and that's when you know, Laura Dern's jock asshole boyfriend comes over to beat up Jeffrey. Oh, yeah. And in the background is Dorothy Isabella Rossellini, just naked and abused and really out of it. And it's kind of like help and everyone there, even the jock, is like, whoa, okay, what is this? What's going on? Yeah, he helps her. And yeah, I do think it's that there it is. Worlds clashing. Yeah. Here we are. Yeah. Not in my creepy apartment anymore. I'm like, on her, you know? Porch. Yeah. Here we are. Yeah, there is good, there is evil. And the two can lend. But hopefully out of that blend, good prevails. I love that his investigation doesn't stop even after, you know, he gets the shit kicked out of him by Frank and everything is still persisting. Keep going. And I don't want to say where it goes. And you know, in the end, this would be a really weird movie to do a deep dive. It down and now it. Who's the guy in the suit? Like what? Yeah. So but to the Robin point about the monologue, how that comes back up and then. Yeah, it's just great. Yeah. It's great. Very rewatchable movie. I really, really I mean, this has always been one of my favorite movies of the 80s. Well, my favorite Lynch's. I love this movie, but to think in like little old 1986, when I'm not saying every movie that came out was like soft Platoon is in a soft film, but this people in not seen this. Roger Ebert. It's a good time to bring this up in, I think, the history of his film reviewing. I don't know if he ever hated a director's movies more. He really hated David Lynch's films. Why? There's one that won him over. He hated Eraserhead. Now things like The Elephant Man and certainly the Straight Story. I don't think his hate was really in there, but the Lynchian stuff, I don't know his review for The Elephant Man, but Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, the next one we're going to talk about, scale. Absolutely, yeah. Lost highway. Oh my God. Like, just I don't get this. What I get when I read it is I don't understand this. I don't get what any of this means. And I shouldn't have to, like, force myself to learn it. And that was a very common criticism for the time. But this movie went on to be nominee. He was nominee for Best director for this. Really, Oscar? David Lynch would have never thought this movie would have been an Oscar movie. There was that was it. I think it was just one. But there's one nominee like that's a big name in Mulholland Drive is the same thing. Yeah, one nomination, Best director. It's a statement. Usually when you get like movies like this, even to this day, like these like kind of real out of pocket ones, the the most you'll get is like an original writing one just because they want to just recognize, hey, here's a nomination for doing something kind of crazy and kind of cool, right? But rarely do they even win that. Oh yeah. It's just never almost. The nomination is the award. Nomination for the award. Yeah. And or if it's like one of those movies where it's like, okay, the movie wasn't so great, but this actor's performance was just out of the park. So here's your nomination. But like to for director. Yeah, that's it's the same. And like we we the academy the directors branch, the academy. Like what this guy's doing. Yeah. And of course he wasn't going to win, but no, no, we it was a really big deal. And I love it for that. One of my favorite lines in this whole entire movie because, well, because we're pretty much done with it. Yeah, yeah. But, it's I think her names aren't Ruth. Like his and like. Yeah, it was with his. And so it's like, right after he just got, like, beat up by everybody and he comes down for breakfast and the mother's like, oh, my God, like, what happened to you? And he's like, everything's fine, everything's everything's fine. And his aunt starts talking. She goes, well, sometimes, you know, in life. And he just goes and Ruth, I love you, but you're going to get it. You're going to get it. And Barbara and Barbara, who is played by Frances Bay. Yes. Very well known in David Lynch world, who might be best known to our listeners as Happy Gilmore. Grandma. Grandma. So nice. Yeah. Go watch her and some David Lynch movies, folks. She she's actually nice and blue velvet, but she can take she can be evil ish. Oh, yeah, she gets there and some of his stuff. Yeah, but she's so great. You're like, well, Happy Gilmore's grandma. And in David Lynch's world, I love that. Yeah. And Barbara are you're going to get it. Yeah. Just not cuts. Yeah, yeah. This was for the first time. I've never watched these, damn near feature length version, versions of his deleted scenes. And he's got them for a few movies. This is one I watched them, you know, he assembled them. But basically, the long and short of it is, I get why your first cut was four hours, because now I've seen everything. These were good cuts like these. But yeah, I get you. You took it down. Most shockingly, the thing that's crazy is that Kyle McLaughlin's Kyle college girlfriend is played by Megan Mullally. Is that like. Yeah. You know. Yeah. Yes. And she. I didn't recognize her at first. And I was like, oh yeah that's funny. There she is. Wow. So they're adding in stuff like that. But there's no what you have the movie you edited down to is it's great. It's great. You didn't need any of that fat stuff. That's how I think about all of his deleted scenes. There's some that I'm like, oh, I can see that in there. But then, okay, I'm cool with it being gone. So this is a question I had because I know his director, Mary Sweeney or editor Mary Sweeney. How many movies has she done? Because that's like his Thelma. Yes. So. Well, Mary Sweeney, editor, producer, she was an assistant editor of Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart, official editor of Twin Peaks, the show fire Walk with me, last Highway, Straight Story, Mulholland Drive. She also produced and wrote yeah, and the straights. No, the straight story. Straight story. Yeah. And she also produced Just Produce, Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire, and they were married briefly in 2006 for less than a year. So they had known each other while I guess they tried it out. But yeah, she is critical to the David Lynch world. The fact that she's written some produce, some the editing, you cannot overstate that enough. You like, you just can't. How important that is. I, I think that let's just give a little moment here because especially as we get on some of these movies where like, he really like he gets more in touch with his artistry. It's all in the edit. Oh yeah. That's what I'm saying about the Mulholland Drive pilot. It. Yes. It's it's it's because even like when you hear the cast and crew during production talk about the movie, like they're like, we don't know what's going on. We know what he wants. We like he's very David Lynch's like everyone loves working for him. It's very precise, very precise. It's just that no one really understands. No one can connect the dots. Yeah, that's what they just they don't. They are in. Some actors are uncomfortable with it. But but most of them seem to still have a great time. But you I guess like in order for these movies to turn out the way that they do, when you have all your cast and crew for all your movies, talking like this, is that it's all in the edit. Yeah, because that is the only way that if no one knows what the dots are. And but Lynch is the only one, then Sweeney is the only other person that even remotely speaks his language. Because I can't even imagine what it would be like to try to communicate. If you're David Lynch with any other person that if like, hear me out. Yeah, Jimmy out here. Yeah. Yeah. Like and you you there are special features where you can see him like editing in real time and giving and it doesn't work. Go back to this, go back to that. And yeah, it really is. It's critically important. You have to have someone that understands the story you're trying to tell. I can also see for the actors how confusing the shooting can be, especially in these movies where he's included all these deleted scenes because some of the stuff is just like as an actor, I'd be like, why the fuck do I need to do this or have anything to do with this story? Yeah. And so you can see why it's cut, but filming it must be a very different experience of like, all right, man, I put my trust in you. You're David Lynch, but wow. Yeah. Okay. And what I love is like, you know, when actors talk about him, like, he's not given line readings. No. Like these probably like shout outs, like, right. Like happier a little bit of this, a little bit of that. Like you don't question you okay. Okay. And but they all say he never he'll push you to go a little bit over the top. But it'll never be without truth. Right. Right. That's displayed well in blue velvet. And then he takes the criticism from that. But he also has like the Best Director Oscar nomination. And he basically, in my opinion, goes, yeah, fuck you all. Who thought Blue Velvet was wild and intense? Yeah. And crazy. And here is 1990s Wild at Heart, baby. Oh my God, sorry, Nicolas Cage starring Laura Dern. It is absolutely wild to watch Laura Dern and Blue Velvet and then this and Blue Velvet where she's buttoned up girl next door and now she's hypersexual and just, you know, I want to go dance. She's. Oh, my God, she's just absolutely crazy. Wow, what a film. I'll start by saying this one. The con Palme d'Or, which is, like, insane. And I can't believe that. But you didn't text me about, really in-depth about Eraserhead. You didn't text me at all about Blue Velvet, but you texted me and said wild at Heart. Yes, yes. You like? Yes. So what did you think? I love this movie. This was everything that I could possibly want in a movie. Oh, yeah. The opening credits alone. I was like, okay, I like this. We're big fans of Nicolas Cage here. Are you watching? And I had never seen this. And so when you're talking about some of, like, Cage's, like, most cage like performances like this is in there in minute three, he's bashing a man's head, to, like, marble stairs until the back of his head open and with blood everywhere. This, like metal music. Metal music. It's minute fucking three. You're going insane. Wait a long. I got some for you. Marietta tells me you've been trying to fucking attorneys for the past ten minutes. Man. Crazy fucking bad boy. Trying to fuck you girls. Mama, tell me how the cute little Lula feel about that. You know, Maria just gave me this. Kill you? That's what she said. Lose 19 oh oh. Mama. Like. I don't know what like, I, I, I didn't care where this movie went after that scene. When he points up to, to Lula's mom. Yeah. And it's the iconic point of the movie, like, once. If you've ever seen any kind of Nicolas Cage meme or gif or gif, however, they you say it right. There's one of these and it's from this movie. And when that happened, I go, oh, I don't care where this movie goes, I'm in love. Yes. And then from there, everything about it was just amazing. I loved the mother. Oh my God. Like who? You know who that is? You know, her name is Diane Ladd. Oh, okay. Diane Ladd. Yeah. And so decades ago, her and a guy named Bruce Dern had a kid, and her name is Laura Dern. That that's that's actually mother. I didn't know who the mother was. Diane Ladd was nominated for this. Yes. Oh, my God, it's like the best they were in a movie Ramblin Rose together a few years earlier. Yeah. This is her mom, and they are great. She's fucking nutty. Is I love Mary the Unhinged. And Harry is is terrified. Oh, Marietta. Come on. Yeah, I think Saylor's in the right here, like, oh, my God. And and Harry Dean Stanton is just so, like, dopey and like. Yeah. And gullible. And he. But he's so sweet because he just loves her. He really does. He just fucking like is. I know there is a great cut, though. I know we're probably skipping a half. That's okay. There's a cut. Where? What's her character's name? Diane. It's like Marietta. Marietta. So Marietta talk. Marietta or Marietta? It might be Marietta. Okay, I think it's Mary. I'll say Diane Ladd. Okay. When Diane Ladd's talking to the other, the other hit man guy. Yeah. Oh, he's. Oh, my God, he's great. What the hell? Yeah, I'll find it. Keep going. He's asking if Harry Dean Stanton character is involved. Right. And she's just she's lying through her teeth to everybody because she's just crazy. And and then she just starts badmouthing him and, like, calling him, like. Like he's like, oh, that fool that, like this, that. And the other guy, he is a fool. And it cuts to Harry Dean Stanton driving in his car on his way. Yeah. To try to help this whole situation. And he just it's like this really pathetic cop. Yeah. Like you. In the song he's listening to, it's funny too. I can't remember this song. And it's like, cut that just last like a couple seconds, but it's just one of those things where I'm like. And it cuts right back to there conversation, right? So they didn't need to throw that cut in. Like, you could have that conversation and be like, he's a fool. Yes, he is a fool without that cut. Right? But just cutting to it just makes you feel for him even more. Yeah. Because this guy's trying to help. He's. And he's out and he's doing. Yeah, he's doing you worlds. Santo Santo. Crazy ass. Yeah. Freeman place. Yeah. Who just doesn't. He's like, you know, if you hire me for this, it's a done deal. Yeah. Back. If you want these people dead. And that's basically the movie. Like Taylor and Lula are in love because of the crime I described. It takes place very early in the movie. Sailor goes to Prison and she waits for him, comes out, and they're going to hit the road. And Marietta is like, no, absolutely. Yeah. Like, you're my girl. This guy's bad for you. We don't really. And he doesn't even know why the mom doesn't like her. But that opening is so crazy. It's at, like, some banquet. Yeah. And then this is what, the first time or what? However many times I watch it when I went. This has to be based on a book because it keeps like, yeah, I can get to see it even from their perspective. And we're like, oh, this is what led him to doing that. What happened right before he did that in the bathroom with Diane Ladd? All this stuff matters in it. Barry Gifford is the guy, the name who wrote the book, Who's Going to come up later in this episode. And it's just so great that Lynch took this novel and made it into a movie, but it really plays like a novel, like characters. You get these crazy ass characters, you know, Bobby Peru or, yeah, they go to these different hotels and we're just meeting them for a scene or two. And, and you know that that's my style. Oh, yeah. Yeah, just, I mean, it's it's a road movie. Yeah. You're just picking up, hitting the road. There's, and you throw in, like, the metal and music component of it, like, everything about this movie is like me. It's I'm just like, oh, well, he's like a slight leap. And the car, just like I see the dance, they pull over, they start fucking to do the karate kicks and stuff. It's jacking. It's the signal individuality, you know. And he has another, like, too much individuality. My personal belief. But yeah. Yeah. Freedom or something. Yeah. Something like that. He throws like snakes and Jack. Oh my God, that's so, so good. There's one line that made me laugh so hard and I know it had to make you laugh, but it's like when they're talking in bed, you say some real weird shit. Yeah, yeah, whatever. She goes, they're talking about smoke. And she goes, when did you start smoking nicotine? So start smoking it for I. You're like, wow, he's so serious. Dead serious. Yeah. Yeah. Like for he's like you said, she starts just having like casual conversation about like consensual sex. And he's like, well, honey, I thought the first I thought you lost your virginity when your uncle. Right? Do you think you were 13? You're like, what the fuck? Like, oh, okay. And then you get the flashback of like, Pastor meth up and you're like, whoa. I mean, that's Lynch. And then Lynch is not going to hide away. No shit. And then it cuts back to her and she, you know, what's kind of like like great about that scene is like the way that she like her character buries it. Yeah. She's like, you actually wasn't even my uncle. Yeah. So it's like detach. It's so detached and distorted. But she's obviously so hypersexual and like they both are. And sex scenes are great. We have to talk about it. Oh yeah. The metal, the light, the neon light, the neon lights so good. And the metal music like it really kind of like it. This movie lets you know that these are two young people that are on the fucking edge. Yeah, they totally are wild at heart. And they're living literally on the edge. Yep. Yeah. This they they live hard and they, they don't necessarily know a lot because like that, that youth thing is like they're these people are not exactly smart. Well she's like a baby. Yeah. She's like supposedly 19, 18, 19. Yeah. They're not they know no one. Yeah. These aren't intellectuals. Yeah. They're living just like one day to the next. Every dancer like. Yeah, but but it's truthful though. Yeah. Like that's the thing. It's sort of like you care for them even if she's sort of like, oh, you're just not really going to kind of like you're going to very blasé. Yeah. Kind of that flashback and wasn't really my uncle. And I'm like, you're like, oh okay. All right. Well, you know, see Diane Ladd flipping out in those flashbacks at quote unquote uncle. And that's just so Lynch the way that shithead guy is handling it. Like, yeah, cleaning up his, oh. And then we got to talk about who? Crispin Glover. Oh, my. I was going to say there's a murderer's row of Lynch character actors. Crispin Glover wasn't like a Lynch guy, but, I mean, you know, we talked about Harry Dean, and of course, Isabella Rossellini shows up. Grayson. Risky. Who's so important to Lynch? I love her, but yeah. Crispin Glover, the flashback, the story about poor Dell. Yeah. Although it's clearly schizophrenic, had some things wrong. And how he utilized cockroaches is something that I've never seen or heard of before, but, like. And that fucking clip there, that shot of him, just like doing that big step and you're like, oh my God. But that's what that's the book. That's the novelization stuff. But I feel like a book can go on this little like few paragraph tangent about this guy Dell. Oh yeah. I mean, that can be an entire chapter, you know? And that's the thing. He's like, I'm making my lunch. Kids stayed up all night making sandwiches. I'm making my lunch. Oh, he's so good. Just coming in for, like three, four minutes. This was actually the David Lynch college movie for me. My college friends and I, we watch this all the time because the beginning is so batshit and you're like, what in the whole movie is batshit? The Crispin Glover thing makes you laugh your ass off. What ends up happening to the great Bobby Peru? Like, you know, his the last time we see him is hysterical and all the lynch ways, you're like, oh my God. But I mean, yeah, even meeting that guy and he comes in now we're in this other little, you know, 30 minute world. It's just it's great. It's priceless. It really is. So lynch it. So fucking lynch, man. It really is. And and I mean, I think I wrote down like, this is Lynch at his most unhinged. Yeah. I thought, in the best possible way. Sheryl Lee from Twin Peaks, she shows up as the Good witch. A lot of Wizard of Oz stuff in this lot of Wizard of Oz. Oh, man, we gotta talk about this isn't spoil anything because it's not. There's nothing really to it. But this has to be. I mean, I'm sure is probably in the book, but the way that he handles it, that the scene where they're on the road and then they encountered the car accident, this hurt. This is that's. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Yes, exactly. It's perfect that she's like, I got the sticky stuff in my hair. Such good. Shock. It's a genuine shock. And in that scene does not need to be in the movie. Right? Right. Like, we always talk about these types of scenes in movies is sort of like, all right, this doesn't really forward anything because, like, it would have if she survived and they took her to the hospital because I'm okay now we're going here. Right. But this was one where they literally were on the road, encountered this. It happened. Get in the car. Nothing more we can do. We're moving on. Never once is this ever brought up again. Yeah, yeah. And encountering that in reality, that's a crazy thing to happen in it. Oh it's like, oh my God. Like you, you set, you watch some. Someone died in there with them. Right. And there's nothing you can do for everything else. And you're sort of like, all right, we got it. Yeah. And and it's just like, I remember watching that scene and I was like, this is, I love this shit. I love these types of scenes where it's just like, you bring in such a reality to something that there's really no reason why this should be here. Right? Again, the books, it really feels like a little chapter, half a chapter from the book point of correction for me. Apologies. I know that's going to happen so much. My Twin Peaks episode. Yeah, Sherilyn Fenn plays the girl in the accident. But later we see Sheryl Lee. They're both from Twin Peaks as like the Good Witch, literally like flying next to Laura Dern. Yeah, that's. But yes, the girl that accident is such a good because it it's so sad to me. And so when someone is dying on screen when they don't know it yet. Yeah. You know, I got the sticky stuff in my hair and I one of them says at one point, like, I think she's already gone. Yeah. Or something. Like she's going to go like, we don't need a hospital. Like it's not, it's not going to matter. Uncaged fucking. It's trying to get there. And she's like, hey girl. Yeah, yeah. Oh my God, I'm so glad you liked it. So yeah, I was actually surprised you hadn't seen this because the Gage thing. But yeah, it's a wild at heart. Not an easy movie to find. Why? I have no idea. Not available on any streaming service. You can't even rent this on you. You can't. You can't read 99. I was like, what? When you told because I have the DVD. And when you told me I can't find it anywhere, I went, what the fuck? Like that's okay. That's weird. A lot of his movies are Inland Empire. It's very easy to find Eraserhead, very easy to find. So it has to be a right thing. Whenever this happens, it has to be like a rights issue that someone has. I don't know what it is, but it's a shame that it's so hard to find because it's such a pure Lynchian movie. It's nuts. Don't get me. Oh yeah, this movie's fucking nuts. But it's just so good. It's. I can't believe it's so hidden. I yeah, I the criterion needs to do something. They need to. They have so many of his movies. It has to be right things. Someone must own it and they don't want to, I don't know, give it up for the criterion I don't know. Oh, I don't know. Yeah. To make money if they did I know, I know. Yeah. And then it clearly it's got like, you know, even with that Willem Dafoe, Laura Dern seem like that is such a like like, you know, you go to the Blue Velvet scene earlier even though there's there's actual like violence there. But there's something that happens in this scene that is just so, like, I shouldn't be watching this. Yeah, but yet there's truth behind it, and it's like. And it's so weird and fucked up, and yet you can't turn away from it. And. And then when it's over, it's just over and you're like, oh, like, what did we just see? Right, exactly. And, Oh, God. And I, I feel so bad for Nicolas Cage, his character, because he's just somewhere along the line right after that card scene. Like, he just makes a rash of bad decisions. Oh, yeah. Oh, it's just like he like the. Up until then, I'm like, I wouldn't really say this guy is leading them astray. Yeah, but then he that both of them just deteriorate. They do. And they do a lot on the influence of other people on the other just. Yeah, it's getting too much. But there's, there's a moment when you're like, is this you don't know how it's going to go, you don't know how it's going to end up. Yeah, yeah. And then when we get to that end, I, I love the way this resolves. Oh yeah. Like, with him coming back. Yes. Leaving. And then the reason for him coming back again, it's this. All those people like all this collection of people being like, are you done with this shit? Yeah. And it's like, literally hitting him over the head with, stop living life the way you are. Yeah. Go be with the woman you love. I love, but that doesn't. That too does not make sense. Who the fuck are these people? Yeah, where they come from. And it's great. And then you talk about, like, how his themes, like how we said earlier, like some of them are kind of like secretly interwoven for you to find. But the one, this is one where it smacks you in the face, where like that, like, I don't know, Angel comes down and she just is like, don't turn away from love. Yeah, that's what this movie's about, right? Exactly. At the end of the day, like, you go through all of this craziness for all of this stuff just for the message to be, don't turn away from love. Love me tender. And then it's fucking beautiful. Yes, exactly. And beautiful. Oh, God, I love this movie so much. Oh, I'm so glad you liked it. I would love to see it in 4K. Yeah. I don't think it exists and no 4K. I've seen it in the theater, which was a lot of fun, but, yeah, someone needs to remaster this, give us a 4K. Like, it's it's kind of silly that it doesn't. It's ridiculous. Ridiculous. All right. I got a boner with a capital. Oh, Jesus. All right, I'll just go, on my own for a little bit here. 1992. He's made, you know, in the background, like he started. He developed Twin Peaks in the first season. He left to go make Wild at Heart, which was planned. But it's him and Mark Frost. Creation. And then the show. Season one is like eight episodes. Season two is much longer. The end of season two. This doesn't go well. They take a lot on. Lynch removed himself from it, then he like tried to come back for the last few episodes. So he's really wants to do a prequel film to all this to explain, because there's a lot going on in Twin Peaks a lot. But the essential narrative of the show is who killed Laura Palmer, this high school student. And we see her like in, you know, the first scene she's discovered on a beach, she's wrapped in plastic, all this stuff. Beautiful girl. And we never really get to know her as Laura Palmer in the show because she's dead. So this we get to go back and see and meet her and see how Laura Palmer died, which the show did reveal. But this is in much more exacting detail. And simply put, I cannot imagine what it was like watching this in 1992. If you are a fan of the TV show, this is a network TV show. There's no cursing, there's no drug use. Fire walk With Me is one of, if not the hardest horror film that David Lynch has made, like the last half hour. This goes to such dark places and you're like, Jesus Christ, and I'm not going to say what it is. Maybe Dan and I will get a little bit more into it, but I'll be I'll be honest, like the first time I watched Twin Peaks season one and two with my dad when I was young, and then at some point, Sound Fire walked me and just wasn't really into it cause I didn't really get it. And then this movie, I think more so than any other David Lynch movie, has had a cultural about face that people love this. Now, a lot of people say it's his forgotten masterpiece, smooth. It's panned. When it came out, absolutely panned. I love it, I love it. It's, you know, I love all these movies, but this is one that I really had to like, watch and rewatch. And yes, it is incredibly good. And Sheryl Lee has Laura Palmer. She is the star and she is remarkable. And where it goes toward the end, you're like, oh wow. And it's just a great prequel. So I challenged you not for this, but eventually I want you to watch this first and like and then report to me and tell me what you think. Like before the show. I think it would be a really interesting way to, I don't know, to kind of take it on because it's good, like it goes there. This movie absolutely goes there. You're not going to necessarily get everything. I mean, I don't get everyone, you know. You know who's Bob. Yeah. It's there's a lot of things. But yeah there's never a bad time to watch the show, the movie, catch up with it. So that's fire walk with me. More to come on that in the next episode. Until you brought me up into that whole entire, tirade you had on it wasn't tirade. No, it wasn't a tirade, but it was a it was a it was a winded thing. Yeah. Until you brought me up, I blacked out completely. Great, great. We're doing great. But you're looking at me dead in the eye the entire fucking time. Yep. That's the effect I have people just fucking drowning. So five years goes by Twin Peaks fire walk with me. And in this five years, this is. I mean, we're going to call it a lost highway here. I think this may be, in my opinion, the hardest David Lynch film to, quote unquote, get me. I mean, Eraserhead and Inland Empire, their own things. But this one, this one's tough. I mean, you know, Mulholland Drive, I don't to me is not that confusing. I can see like, it confused people, but it lost highways confounding. I mean, there are things that happen in it when you're like, every character in the movie is going, how the fuck did that happen? And we in the audience are going, how the fuck did that happen? Yeah, it's not really like explained clearly, but in the exploration of watching and rewatching and rewatching, I have grown so fond of this movie. I love this thing. I've seen it so many times. I've the 4K, it's crazy. Oh that's that 4K is awesome. Lynch became obsessed with the OJ Simpson murder. I knew this, knew that. Okay, so and he goes how? What is the split that he could like do this murder his wife and then just go, you know allegedly and then go back to normal society and pretend like it didn't happen. Like how can you lead a life after murdering your wife like that? And in his brain then comes Lost Highway. He hires Barry Gifford, the author of Wild at Heart, to write this script with him. Had you seen this? Had you seen it before? Lost highway? Oh, yeah. Oh, I did, yeah. No, I this one I've seen this was one of the ones I've seen a lot. Oh okay. Yeah. So tell me about it. What do you think. Well I the, the very first time I saw it, because the very first David Lynch movie I ever saw was Mulholland Drive. Yeah. And, I saw Lost Highway. I can't even remember when, but I remember I wrote this movie off pretty fast. A lot of people do. Yeah, because 50 minute mark, there is a very noticeable change. And you go, oh, okay, here we go. I'm like, I don't know what the hell's going on here. Because when I first saw Mulholland Drive, I was a little confused. I was sort of like, oh, this movie's a puzzle. This is. And it isn't. It isn't. But but this one was like, no way. Then I don't know what happened. I saw it a second time and I still didn't get it, but I loved it. Like, I just like, well, it's very lynch. It's it's they're they're in probably in so many ways like there are some like just visuals that I can just sit and live in with him where I don't need to. No one passages were just watching Bill Pullman, like, walk down his hallway and then back in and then out and you're like, what is? Yeah, I can just live in this world. You do. And like, oh my God, that like that. The those flashing strobe lights of him when he's playing the saxophone, crazy. Just like beautiful stuff. And, so I just was like, I don't know what this movie is, but I, I like being in this world. Yeah. And then I think I've seen it. And that weirdly seemed like six times. Yeah. It was around the third time where I actually started, like, putting things together. And even now, I still can't even really concretely say that. I know, like, what this movie is fully, but I would I've come to find that I love about it is that when you talk about how David Lynch, he takes these ideas that he has, this is probably the best example of it because like you said, it start from an O.J. Simpson thing. Yeah. He was fascinated by how someone could do that. And then he finds out that there's actually like a mental illness. Something there's a technical term for it, but it's some when someone suffers a traumatic event they can like disassociate. They can disassociate from it. Yeah. And like Vogue or something like psyche, Vogue, psychic Vogue I don't know. Anyways. So he's like so that was with this psychic fugue state. That's like yeah. Yes yes yes. Yeah. And so that is what he wanted to explore as well. And then you find out I'm sure you know this too, but I'll say this one. Yes. Is that, you know, the movie starts with Bill Pullman going to his intercom because someone's knocking on the door and it says, Dave Lawrence is dead. Dick. Dick Lawrence is dead. And that actually happened to David Lynch. Yeah, someone came up. Yeah, yeah. And so so Lynch is like, if you like if you kind of are in his head, he's like, well, this is a really weird thing that happened to me in real life. I'm really fascinated by OJ Simpson and how someone could do that. I like the psychic fugue thing. Well, I bet you if I just come up with a bunch of other ideas. He got tailgated really badly. Yes, Hills and flipped out exactly like all this shit is just like it's all from him. It's. It's fucking brain. It's his fucking brain. And the way that these strings them together, and he puts the characters in these situations is. And and then by the time, like, the movie is over, like, I'm just sort of like, I still don't know who bosses are. Getty is like, yeah, I had theories. We would spoil the movie if we went down. Yeah. But the the way at the end, the character driving the car is burning a lot. I think he's being electrocuted. So I think he's. Oh, that's a great take in the electric chair. Oh really? Yeah. He's not he's getting taken. You know, he were still in his fugue state. Yeah. But that's what I think because he's like, you know, screaming and I think he's being electric. Oh he's being put to death. That is awesome. Yeah, I love that. I never once thought about that. But yeah, that that and again we don't know. Of course. Yeah. No, but there's just, I should say what it's about. Let me. Yeah. Good luck. All right. A guy named Fred Guy, a guy named Bill walks a Bill Pullman. Yeah. Kind of suspects this is never explicitly stated, but he kind of suspects that his wife, Rene Patricia Arquette, who has black hair, is cheating on him. Fred apparently kills her in a sort of psychotic fugue state. He doesn't remember doing this. He sent to death row, and one day, inexplicably, one morning, Fred is no longer in his death row jail cell. He has been replaced by this kid, Pete Dayton, played by Eleazar Getty, who's now in the cell. The guards don't know he got there. The warden doesn't know how he got there. He doesn't know how he got there. Where the hell is Fred? No one. No one knows this. And now, at the 50 minute mark, we completely change course and go off with this guy. And we don't know any connection for a while. How fucking cool is that? No, no introduction of Gary Busey, which walks into that fucking room with his wife, the leather jacket biker couple. Like what? Oh, God. Yeah. Oh my God, I love that so much. But as we get to meet Pete a little bit, we learn that he's a good mechanic, this charismatic mob guy, Mr. Eddie really likes him. He works Robert Lowe's, Robert Loggia and then name Robert Loggia. One day, Mr. Eddie brings his girlfriend, who looks exactly like Rene, to the garage, but she's blond and named Alice and played by Patricia Arquette as the audience. We're like, what's going on? What is this? Because the, you know, this, this guy, this Pete guy doesn't know who Fred is. Like, he doesn't know who Rene is. So are these the same worlds? What's happening? And you just kind of have to go with it. You just have to go. And, you know, I've watched so many explainer episodes on YouTube and this and that, and I could again, if this was a deep dive, I could sit here and like, break it down. But moreover, so Robert goes, you're right. I love him so much as an actor. He heard about Blue Velvet, Frank Booth, and I don't know if he auditioned for it, but something happened to where he lost his shit that he didn't get the role. And I think David like in front of David Lynch, and he even says, Lugosi says it's like I just lost it. And like, I should be frank. Booth this. Who the fuck is Dennis Hopper? This hippie dude, this is bullshit. And then he doesn't hear from Lynch for, like, ten years and then brings him back and he goes, you. That anger that you had at me, I want to do that in this tailgating scene for you to see it come out. So, yeah, it's all these things. But yeah, Mr. Eddie, the way it comes over and when he's asking stuff like sitting around, oh my God, that tailgating scene is the funny thing is like, how did you grab a driver's manual and study that motherfucker? The car takes to stop at 35 miles an hour for. Beating the shit out of him with a gun. Like, it's just. I love the, the heavies in the back buckle their seat belts. And this is what fine engineering does. Do you get nails? Him and. Yeah. You know, before Peter showed up, we've met Robert Blake, who's just so effectively creepy at the party. Like, I'm in your house right now and then. Yeah, you know, all these different characters. Michael Maceo, he's got to give a shout out to him. He shows up as Andy. Jack Nance is there in the garage. Richard. Prior to both of their last credited screen performances, Jack Nance died short. He died in 96. So before the movie even came out. I love that this all started with O.J. Simpson of like, how do you kill your wife? And then could you, like, literally try to become another person and still fall in love with the idea of the same woman, and then it still doesn't work out? Yeah, it still doesn't work. And you're and then you end up dead anyway. Yeah, but it's so it's just such a trip and it's so of course Lynchian and yeah, I love it. They're like yeah, they're, they're, they're really is like, you know, especially because once you know that this is how David Lynch kind of formulates a lot of his stuff, like I just love that he has that freedom. Yeah, that he's just like, even if it doesn't make sense because, like, there's too much to chew on here. Yeah. Like like how that mystery man is involved. Yeah. Because like, what's his. Yeah. Like, I like, I like, like at what point did Bill Pullman make this deal with this guy to where they're they're working together. Something some people think that is Bill Pullman. Some people think that's like part of his psyche. It's part of his psyche. And like, you know. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. But there there is one line and I, I think this is one of the greatest lines ever said about somebody like, like number one, it's what Bill Pullman says about himself. But it's also, I think, what the movie is, okay. It's when the detectives are coming over and and they're like, they're like, do you have a video camera? No, I hate video cameras. It's like, why do you hate video cameras? And he's like, he goes, I like to remember things my way. And they're like, what do you mean by that? And he goes, I like to remember things the way I remember them, not necessarily how they really happened. There it is. That's a movie. That's the absolute movie. Yes. And and no. And the way that Bill Pullman says that it is as can like there's so much conviction behind that. That's like someone saying that I believe in this religion with all my heart. It's like cage talking about his jacket and yelling at heart like, it's serious. I wear this like expression of individuality. Yes, I choose to live my life remembering things. Yeah, how I want them to and I don't care how they really are. And David Lynch, talks about, how he thinks that the majority of us really all of us, that's actually how we do remember things. I think it's true. And I think it all of us do. Yep. Yeah. Got to talk about the music real quick. Very David Lynch soundtrack. David Bowie, Marilyn Manson, Smashing Pumpkins, Rammstein, the holy fuck is this my favorite use of David Lynch music ever? Patricia Arquette as Alice blond hair gets to the garage, gets out of Mr. Eddie's car, and this magic moment by Lou Reed starts yelling this magic moment. So diff French and so new was like any other. Until I met you. Slow motion. The fluorescent lights above her are blinking harshly because the frame rate can't, like, catch up with it. Cinematographers and directors work tirelessly to take that blinking out, and Lynch is like, fuck it. It stays beautiful. And I. I get chills thinking about that. But that scene of her getting out of the car and Pete seeing her perfect is perfect. Yeah, that's that, that is a perfect that that is a perfect moment. Yeah. Like and and there's another at the very end where they get to the cabin and it's Baltasar and blond. Patricia. Yeah. And, and they kiss. Yeah, but it's the it's it's this kiss with their faces are completely in black. There's just like this silhouette of their chins. We see a lot like phone calls. Yeah. Just their lips. Yeah. And it's all because there's a car in front of them at night, and it's just this electric kiss. Yeah, that was the way I described it. I was like, I've never seen a movie kiss look like this. And I was like, this is just because all it was because, like, the very thin outline of light around their chins was so thin. Right? But it was like, is electricity? And I was like, this is just gorgeous looking. And then she has that great line you will never have me. And you're like what, what he did though. Well not permanently I think it's what she. Yeah. No no no. Yeah. But then that's then he stands up. It's Bill Pullman. You're like what the hell. Yeah. What the Huck. I mean, I always that that was always my take was like because I remember I my last question on this wrote the note that I wrote was what do I think this movie is or is about? And which is great because there there's no wrong answer here, especially for a movie like this. Right. There was always that Bill Pullman like, link to this, and, no matter how you kind of want to define for yourself what that transference was, but there's a significance there. Yeah. And I think that's where you can let yourself run with it. I love that idea of him. That's him being electrocuted. There's no other really place for this movie to go other than in complete like implosion or explosion. Right. And so it's sort of like yep, there it is. There it is. He's cooking. He's. Yep. But I love this one. Oh yeah I love this movie. Here we go. This is for you. This is 1999 after one of his most insane films, and before probably his most well-regarded movie. Both very hard are films. He goes off and his friend Mary Sweeney has written a script, and he falls in love with this real story. It turns into the straight story. This is a well, okay, here's I want to say, this is the only film he didn't write. Yeah. Which is very interesting. And I think regard this of where this ends up in my David Lynch rankings. When I was rewatching it for this, at some point, it just clicked in and I went, you know what? Actually, this is a perfect film. It's actually perfect. You can show it to anyone. Yeah, it's rated G. It was made by Disney, but it doesn't have like a G rated sentiment. There's some quiet emotional revelations in this that resonate so deeply, even especially as you get older. And it's just real quick. It's a true story about a fellow named Alvin Street who, after finding out that his estranged brother has had a stroke, he buys a 30 year old John Deere lawn tractor, which tops out at a blazing five miles an hour, and he slowly hauls 124 miles from Laurens, Iowa, to Mount Zion, Wisconsin. And they actually filmed along that route along the route that he went. And that's the movie. It's a road film. Yeah, it's an old guy going out there and, reaching his brother. He's taking the tractor because he's too old to drive. He doesn't see that. Well. Everyone, his daughter, everyone he encounters thinks this is stupider than hell. Yeah. You're never going to make it. But he is persistent. And that's the movie. And this thing is really just beautiful. The movie itself is just one of the most simple, straightforward things I've ever seen. Yeah, like it's literally A to B. Yeah, yeah. To get here and not a lot happens. He just meets people. He just meets people along the way. But what I you know, it's funny because the first time when I saw this movie, I had a very emotional reaction to it, in a different this time when I rewatched it, I did not have that same reaction to it, which is fascinating to me, but I had a different take with the movie where the first time I saw it, I think I was really, I think I was just in a place where I was really feeling like the the weight of life, like a full life lived, and that was making me feel both sentimental and sad. And I see all of that. And Richard Farnsworth. Yeah. I'm sure it's his eyes. Yeah. In this movie are just, there is not a single thought that you do not get from his eyes then. And they come and go like he he looks down the road and sees somebody, and there's like a moment of like he's thinking, like in my mind, he's like, that's like a memory he has. And then it's off to another one. And that's a sad one. And like, his life is really he puts it all in here. But I didn't have that sentimentality towards a full life in this version of in this rewatch. But what mattered to me more were these, and I think it sounds like for you to like the way that he talks about, his daughter in that one scene, that she's so smart, that she's so smart, but that she lost her kids due to this. A lot of kids, a lot of kids, and she can't see them. And, that is about one of the heaviest things a woman can go. And it just cuts to her looking out the window. It just cuts to her looking out the window. And and then like, there's that scene where him and that guy, that older gentleman, go for a drink. He doesn't drink, but his friend does. And they end up just talking about war. Well, he goes, I haven't had a drink in many years and I'm going to have me a cold beer. You now and then. Yeah, he's just sitting next to an old timer and war stories come up. I have a note about this too. It's tremendously moving. And it really is because they didn't know that they were going to talk about that. Of course not. And I don't know if he ever has it. Exactly. And that is a common thing you hear from veterans is like they don't talk about that stuff. And even if they do, the only person they would is the person who's also been through it. The veteran. Yeah, yeah. And and even then they might still not. And, and I love that scene because my take on it is like this guy, the scene partner, he really needed to talk about it. Yeah. And Farnsworth, I don't think was gonna. Oh, I don't think so. I, I think he just started talking and then it just started spilling out. Yeah. And I was like, this is just. And there's nothing gruesome in the storytelling in the dialog. They're G-rated movie. It's a G-rated movie. But yet you get what he's saying. You get what you did. You get his shame, his regret. Yeah, yeah. And in it's so simple, man, it just cuts to a far away shot from like, as if the camera was across the other end of the bar. And we don't really hear the dialog as I recall as much anymore because the conversation's wrapped up. Two old men in the middle of America that went through something that only the two of them can share. Yeah. And then like they're both going to leave here like the moments in this movie are just are, you can't really put a price tag. They're just so simple, but they're so honest. Like, I think almost any other movie would have these guys, like, breaking down, putting their arms around it. Yeah. Crying. It's okay buddy. Yeah. That doesn't need to be said that. Yeah. That that time is gone. And I hadn't seen this movie. I hadn't rewatched it since I started working very extensively with veterans in 2018. So, I mean, I've heard stories like that. I've filmed stories I, I yeah, record veterans a lot, you know, doing videos and they tell stories like this and you're like, wow, damn, these are people who probably more a little bit in touch with what they went through. But yeah, the people I also talk with a lot who are closed off about this stuff, they don't want to talk. And one of my favorite lines has in his monologue is he goes, a pastor, help me put some distance between me and the bottle. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, a drinking problem. But it wasn't like, you know, I went to meetings and I was an addict and all that. It's much simpler than that. Much simpler. And yet the way that he reveals his past is like, it's like he's got kids, too. Yeah, yeah. And it's sort of like, you know, he's got wives. Yeah. And this is where he's at in life. And so much is unanswered. But you can you put together for yourself this life lived. Yeah. But I wanted to tell you this because I had this, like, the scene where he's talking to the priest towards the end. Yeah. I thought of your dad. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, because I don't know why. Yeah, I think it's. I know you because your dad, like, works in, like, Like he volunteers. Yeah, yeah. And for the church and, big time. I just pictured your dad walking out, seeing a campfire being made on his property. Right? Church is property. And this old timer just there, and your dad just sitting down and having the exact same conversation. Yeah. Let's just talk like I'm not here to get the hell out of here. Yeah, yeah. It's fine with me here. It's all good. Yep. And then, you know, and he tells him, like, you know, like my my brother and I like through and again like this, this dialog of, like the bottle and Cain and Abel and like, you know, you mix these things together. Jealousy like to me, like I took it as, like there has to be a woman involved. Most likely, you know, and, and and but yet I got to go make these amends or I need to do well. And he says something really important, like this journey is about me swallowing my pride because that lovely guy, when he, like, crashes out, and the guy helps him, you know, rebuild it. Yeah. And their last scene. I love that guy oh, so much. The way he just stands and takes off his head. Yeah. It's like, I want to thank you so much for your kindness. It's meant so much to me. And. Yeah, that. Yes, exactly. Exactly. There is. And this is a very, very middle America story. Oh yeah. Like that. Oh yeah. Like that. That is one thing. You can find this type of hospitality in this country. You can like it's there, find neighbors who just want to help out. You care of and you know, they offer like he and his wife are talking. And it's like, you know what? I'm going to offer to drive him. It'll be a day trip. It be nice. Yeah. And not even considering that, like, no, this is my journey. This is my quest. I have to go on this because I'm swallowing my pride for every single one of these 240 miles. Like, I have to do this my own way. Yeah. And that he accepts it and understands it. Oh, it's beautiful. Yeah, it really is. It is just it's just a beautiful, beautiful movie that, I think will probably if I had such a very different kind of rewatch with it, but not in a bad way. Yeah, yeah. So just sort of like, oh, what mattered to me two years ago, a lot that I got from this movie wasn't as prevalent, but this was. But yet it's still means something a lot. I'm like, you know, this is just it's it. This movie has a magic to it. Yes. That, you movies don't get for that reason. And to me, it might be the most important film David Lynch ever made. And what some is. Yeah. Is it no one, no one thought he could do this. Yeah. No. No. What? Why are you just my mom? So attempt. Yeah. A Disney produced G rated movie written and directed by or directed by David Lynch. Angelo's doing the score like, okay. And scores. Great. I love the score. And it just. Yeah, everything works and there's no better fuck you in a lot of ways to like all the naysayers. Exactly, Lynch said. Because literally his name is Alvin Straight. Yeah, but the movie is called The Straight Story. This is just as straight and simple as you could possibly get. I'm not going to throw any Lynchian shit at you, and it's still really good because I wrote that dear monologue was awesome. Oh man, so good. That was. I can't believe I didn't even remember that right from the first time. And I was just like, this is this monologue is just this woman. This actor is just here. Yeah, like like, I mean, in what a ridiculous thing like to be like, I have to drive from here to here because this is my job, and I. This is the 13th. There's something, dear that I've heard. They come out of nowhere, and she's so distraught and he's just listening to her and then it and she's like. And I love dear. Yeah. Because there's nothing he can do for her. Like she like she's fine. Like she's safe. Right? She can drive her car even though it's fucking busted. So there's no like there's nothing that he can serve here other than to just listen to her in that, like, you know, that's what's great about that monologue is like that so easily could have been written from a sense of just watching some person just get angry, right? Right. The fact that it ends with, and I love dear is just like, I know it's such a like, real thing. Okay. But, and then the last thing I'll say is, that line of when he's talking to the young people and they go, what's the worst part about getting old? And he's like, the worst part about getting old is remembering when you were young. Must be something good about getting old. Well, I can't imagine anything good about being blind and lame at the same time, but still, at my age, I've seen about all that life has to dish out. I know, to separate the wheat from the chaff, let the small stuff fall away. That's cool man. So, what's the worst part about being old Alvin? Yeah, the worst part of being old is remembering when you was young. They don't have anything to say to that now. Nothing you can say. Rice. Yeah, I think about that now. And that's still bothers me. But let's do it, baby. This is the girl, this 2001 Mulholland Drive, David Lynch's masterpiece. Which isn't to say he hasn't made more than one, but I think this is, I think his under the uncontested David Lynch masterpiece. This was the movie that finally won Roger Ebert over four stars. Loved it, got it, loved it. He even admits he's like, I finally get the David Lynch ness. And I. It would've been interesting to see him go back and rewatch and re review everything, but wow, my dad took me to see this movie opening weekend. Great man. This is I will never forget it. I think coming, I think I'm kind of spoiled. I'm jumping ahead here, but I think, I do think this is David Lynch's masterpiece. I think this is the best film he will ever make, and I think it's one of my absolute favorites of the century. So far. Wow. Yeah. I mean, what to say God to just open it up like I. This encapsulates so much about what he loves about this city because he does love the city. Yes, he does. It's so like just all the nods like Sunset Boulevard and just, oh, anytime I watch this, I fall in love. I do get it all. It's it's really not that hard for I don't think to understand when you kind of like, pick it apart. And really what you need to be doing is studying like that, those last 30 minutes. And that is kind of the key to everything I have to say. I don't know how many I've seen this movie a lot same. I, I this was like when I first saw this movie and feeling like how I was like, you know what? I don't really get what I just saw. Right. But it it had it was a spell. Like, it cast a spell on me where I rewatch this over and over and over. And I remember there was one point where I was really, like, trying to kind of figure it out, but this is one of those things where you don't actually have to, like, you should let go more than try to for. Yeah, yeah. Like exactly. The first few times I watch this movie, I was not cinema savvy. So a lot of what's the understanding of to this movie actually lies in the art form, not in the script, the storytelling, the performance. And when you kind of learn a little bit of like that film language, the movie opens up in a different way where it all of a sudden you're like, oh, okay, I'm hung up on too many different structures and like things that I was told from whatever age that this is the way to understand a movie. And when you kind of learn that, that's not necessarily the way to do it. So my biggest compliment that I can give this movie, you know, what time it is. Yes, it is the nick dose of what are you watching approved. No. Perfect. Perfect. Goddamn right it is. It is fucking perfect. Oh, yeah. So there's that. Get that out of the way. Number two, you know, we've had many listeners on our show, write to us and tell us that, like, graciously, that we have helped them with their film education, which is honestly, like the biggest compliment that I could ever receive. Yeah. If you're listening to this episode and you're kind of just starting to engage with that next level of filmmaking and this language that we're talking about, this art form and like, actually like how the art form helps inform your storytelling. This is the perfect movie. Yes. This is a movie where if you really are curious about what that means, just pay attention to what the filmmaking is doing along the way. Yeah, and this movie will open up in a brand new way for you. That you would never, ever. And it changes everything. Yeah, it truly does. Man. Yeah, it's a really good it's a great movie to watch for aspiring filmmakers, people who are making movies. Yeah. For because it's just so expertly put together. Yes. Structure of it is so perfect. And yeah, I get that it loses people. But I mean, one of the first scenes is, you know, a camera collapsing like into a pillow. So kind of take that. For what it's worth, it. You know, what we're seeing is for the beginning, maybe not, real. And it might be in someone's imagination to dream. Yeah, that will that is. But I think I think it's a dream and it plays really well as a dream because we see in reality like that, that cowboy way she saw at a party walk by in the distance, you know, like Coco, this person that she now imagines is like a landlord is her lover's new fiancé, his mom. So it's like it's all this stuff is connected. And, but I will never forget seeing it at an the first time, like I saw. And then you're you're going what? Like she jumps over that damn couch and now there she's on it naked and you're like, What? Oh my God. So yeah, you do have to catch up a lot. But I think this just it says everything that he wants to say about the city, about the industry. Yeah, about all that stuff in the warts and all. Like all of it. Yeah. What I love so much about the movie, because it is her dream. Because sometimes you are in your own dreams, sometimes you're like watching other people that don't just go off and do these things like that. The long haired guy with the black book and then the hitman, you know, kills him. Oh, yeah. That whole scene is, like, hysterical. Oh, yeah. Me bad. Yeah. Thank you. And then, you know, she's her real bad man. Oh, man. And you're like, well, That's just such that the lynch humor, like, all of it. And this movie understands Los Angeles as an Anthony and so. Well, maybe better than any other movie about just like the dreams of like or the visions of like, Naomi Watts is on the couch with their hands behind her head, and then we, like, slowly fade in the, like palm trees. Yeah. It's just oh, it's so good. It is like a dream. Like a fantasy. And then a nightmare. It is. Yeah. And yeah, there was a really cool moment that I had with this is like. So I moved to LA in 2008. I don't know why, but watching this movie, it brought up these like visual memories. Of things that I have just not thought about about my early time in LA. Yeah. I that I like, like places that I had been there, I'm like oh my God I forgot all about like this one party that I went to, this one. My point of all this is to say that your comment and this movie gets LA in a way where because it's not showy about L.A. exactly. It's not. But no, there's places that they go and streets that they mention and visuals that are there that are deep in the bones of that because we're not in like, the big, like, landmarks. Yeah. No, none at all. We're in neighborhoods, right? Neighborhoods. And I mean, a perfect example. That is when I moved out here in 2013, I was going for a run one day, and I like to change up my roots. And I was running and stopped, almost fell over, stopped dead in my tracks. And I went, that is Diane's real apartment. Like that. So the first time you see it is when they go and then they go in the room. Those knocking on doors are so loud and they go in, they discover that the woman's, you know, dead in the bed. But then the later scenes of Naomi Watts living there, it was just there. And I went, oh my God, that's it. I live right next to this. I walked in because it's like an open air apartment complex. My ass was about to go to apartment 17 and knock on the door, and I went, what are you doing? People live here, like, leave. Yeah, but it was so cool to see, like, oh, there it is. Yeah, I love that. So good, so good. The cast, David Lynch get such good cast for this. There's so many heavy hitters in this. Louise. That psychic Louise. Oh, this Lee Grant from shampoo won the Oscar for shampoo. Lovely. Grant and Miller, the great icon in Miller is Coco, a 50s icon who I never seen in a movie before. I will never forget seeing this with my dad. And then the first time she showed up, he just kept saying, oh my God, that's an miller. Like, I don't think he had seen her in like 40 years on a screen or something. That's so great. Angelo shows up, is the guy that spits the espresso. It's such a good. It's so good. It's dead hideous. Like shaking up this is a girl. This is I love. It just throws like, what are you talking about? Like, that's the scene in the pilot that's so much longer. It doesn't work. It doesn't work, doesn't work. Oh, interesting. Yeah, it really doesn't. You can see where they edited it. Made it a lot tighter. I'm not saying it doesn't work, but the music's different. It it doesn't work as good as it does in the movie. I'll put it that way. Monty Montgomery is a cowboy, not an actor. He produced some Lynch movies, I love that. Yeah, I love him. Couldn't remember any of his lines. Yeah. No, they were all written on just a chest. Yeah, they're right there. But I love, a man, you know, he gives an example and he's like, do you, do you believe like, do you believe what I said? Yeah, what I say, I love that because I could never remember what he said. The throw. Like that's the way that gets it. Yeah. You know man how he views himself. But like I just really got to say about that scene that's that's a great thing to say. Oh yeah. And yeah that's like a great thing to believe. Oh for sure. And I don't remember exactly words it, but it's very strong. Yeah. This is a really good writer. Yeah. He really is like it's basically like, do you believe that like a man's attitude is the, like the way that he believes he should live his life is how he should live his life. Basic, right? Right. And yeah. And then throw believes like he agrees with it and he's like, what did I just say. Yeah. It says it back. Busy being smart Alec. Yeah, yeah I love the cowboy. Then says if you've made the right decision, you'll see me once. If you've made the wrong decision, you'll see me twice more times. Now, the cool thing is, and I never track this many more times do we see him? We see him twice when he's walking by the party. Yep. Time to wake up, girl. Yeah, yeah. And but but the thing is, is like, what I love about it is that we see him twice. Thoreau does not in either of those. He. Right? Correct. We don't see him ever. Yeah. We just so we think that he's telling Thoreau this and because Thoreau's like, okay, all right. And which is probably the appropriate response and but you can help this. What I mean by the filmmaking language is like, yes, he told Thoreau's character that. But we, the audience, see that cowboy once more. Yep. Twice. And you're immediately like, Sam. Yep. And then we just see him walk by. So like, you just need to have a scene, right? And it's sort of like, I saw him again. Oh, oh. So it's like one of those things where this is not specific to the literal sense of that cowboy talking to Thoreau. That cowboy is talking to us, of course, of course. And that's just like, cool. Oh, yeah, I love it, I love it, I mean, yeah, the cowboy Betty, Rita, Camilla, Coco, Luigi, Wally, cookie, gene the pool guy. I love these character dudes. I love this guy. I love that he just has that relationship with cookies. Like, I pay you cash, cookie. He goes, whoever is looking for you, they know what you are, I love that. Yeah, yeah. And then, I cannot put into words how I had, most people had virtually no relationship with Naomi Watts, like, just. Oh, yeah, she walks out of that airport all it's again, that all shocks ness, that all shocks. David Lynch prototype. Like, it's where you're like, is this, like, is this actress for real? Like, what is this? I remember that distinctly going, this is really okay. And then the turn, she has to turn into this like evil, murderous, you know, jilted lover is so believable, oh, so believable when she's alone in that apartment, losing her mind and just, you know, going there and that that part is like what she inhabits in all of 21g just two years later. That's why I love that movie so much. But yeah, her like this is an announcement of a new star. And here she is. She has a career because of this film. She's great. She should have been nominated stupid. The and David Lynch talked about that. Like him and Naomi have an interview. Yeah. And, you know, David Lynch, we haven't even talked about this. It's the important thing to bring up. So David Lynch, design addition his actor. Right. I'll just meet with him. Just leads them. Yeah. And essentially he meets this person, sees what they look like and finds their essence. And that's how we cast. Yeah. Is the essence. I don't think that there's ever been in any of his movies. Miscasting. No, I don't think there's like a, a bad, noticeably bad performance. I don't think anyone's miscast. I think everyone from the big stars to the small to this guy cookie is amazing. And it's just so good to that, that actor that she's doing the scene with, he's great. Like everyone's great. Yeah, his casting is always on point. That's what. That's what makes Twin Peaks The Return, which I know you haven't seen so fun because there's so many people in it and you're like, Tom Sizemore is in this now, okay? Like Tim Roth and Jennifer Jason Leigh are assassins who are addicted to fast food. Like, okay, this is great. But yeah, he always does that in his in his movies. And I really love that. And this is honestly one that's like hard to keep talking about because it's just fucking perfect. And I just love it. I mean, it's the whole like the way it is shot when they go to Silencio, like in the alley, the cameras all the way the hell back there, and then the car pulls up and it just rushes up with that rumble going on. And there in the club, when she is in her apartment alone, essentially, I believe she's already had her lover killed because she has the blue key. You know, it's like when you get this key, all that stuff, and it's just focusing on the ceiling and that harshly out of focus, and then boom, it goes in focus and she's sobbing and doing her thing. It's like it's just so effective. It's so great. And her the spin out that she has is it leads to it's so believable. Oh man. It really is. Yeah. And, by the way, we should really we should really mention that there's a one of the best trolls ever is on the original DVD of Mulholland Drive. There was an insert flap that clues with clues to the movie. Where's the ashtray? Yeah, that have nothing to do with anything. No, they do do this. What he's doing with those clues. He's not saying it outright, but he's basically saying the first two thirds are a dream. That's what he's saying. I was like, why is the ashtray there in the apartment in the not? It's because that was like a dream. What does the key mean when she gets the blue key back? Yeah. That means the hitman has done his job. Yes, yes, he's killed her lover. Essentially. We don't see that go down. But then we see the blue key just sitting there and she's crying and all this. Yeah, I had to mention that flap because that was like a big deal for me. It was really funny. Famously, his movie's still to this day. A lot of them do not have scene selections. Yeah. DVD exact for case. It's a one shot deal we haven't even talked about. You know, when guys and. Oh, we're a scene and how he basically she's just in the diner in quote unquote real life and sees that guy to check out, and then somehow she's put this all together in the dream and creates this really, like, brilliant kind of 4.5 minute short film is what that is. Like the guy just telling this monologue to his shrink in the way the camera's just kind of floating and, yeah, that is brilliant. And he, he spells out exactly what's about to happen, that it happens that way. It's still terrifying, dude. It's terrifying. I was going to say, if that is not the best startling moment, I'm like, to this day, I've seen it so many times in the build up to it in even when it is delivered. I am like, oh yeah, it's still hits. Has a heart attack right there. The first time I saw that, I did, it was the most scared I ever got in a movie because it wasn't the complete, like, jump out scare. You get to the horrors. It was a collapse. It was like him. I was like, oh, well, because what happens is it's supposed to be man. But it was a female actress. She cut. I studied this very carefully. She comes out from that wall and it takes not a second, but almost half a second for the sound effect to start. Any other movie does that at the same time to scare us. Yeah. And it's like she comes out and then boom, and then talk to him falling over. Yeah. And that's why it does. It's not like this. You know scare jump scare. Yeah. Yeah yeah. It's just crazy. It he explains it. And then we see that it's like exactly what he said was going to happen happens. And it's terrifying. And and you got to also think to like even though that that that scene does have a bit of a purpose because when we see that his name tag. Yeah. Betty Diamond. Yeah. And you know. Oh yeah. Yeah. You know, like there's some callbacks later to that, like just being the restaurant. Yeah. Yeah. There. And that's when she kind of orders the hit essentially like from her got. Yeah. Don't show me this here. But you gotta believe that that idea was one of Lynch's like little like meditation wells. Oh yeah. Like it's going to be a, crazy, dirty man in an alley. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's getting really scary. Yeah, yeah, it's really good. Yeah. She can scare us too. Yeah, yeah, that's. And then his job is to, like, make and connect all these things. Yeah. Even if he's only connecting in his head and not telling us. But this one, I think, I don't know, I think whole in drive is kind of clear. I don't think it's that confusing. No it's not. But when we jump to reality, then he's jumping all around in time. That's what it's confusing because the dream part is not logical. It's. And then yeah, now it's like I believe even when that sequence starts, she's already ordered the hit. Or maybe she's even dead. The girlfriend is. So now it's just this person who's ordered her lover to be killed dealing with it. And in that she's remembering this dinner party. She's remembering when we hooked up, when she came over here. She's remembering all this stuff. Yeah, I think there is, like, it's best just not to track it because just like, let it wash. Wash over you because those realizations are going to come and but if you've been paying attention. Yeah, like this movie does require you to watch it. It does like it does. This is not like you look at your phone for a second. It's you're done. Yeah, yeah. Like you're you're going to miss a very important even in dialog, even a look even as everything is just exactly what it needs to be. Yep. Laura Herring got to give it up to her, too. She's amazing as Rita slash Camilla. She's great. Love her. I never seen her before. So good. Just great casting all around. So this is like, we got talk. We brushed on a little bit, but we gotta talk about Club Silencio a little bit. Oh my God. Like, oh my God. Like, no, I banned, it even though they announced that none of this is real. By the time that that actress starts going up there and singing and then when she collapses, I completely fell for the devastation of that not being real. Oh yeah. Even though like he tells you. Yeah. No this there is no band. Yeah. This is all over. He says it like three times. Yes, it's the Lynch thing. It's lip syncing and but but then when you watch that though it feels so lives you. It absolutely does. And and and you're so taken by its beauty and then the power of like the cuts between Naomi and Laura hearing that when she does collapse, I was like, oh my God, it fools you. You're like, oh, completely fooled. Cookie just told us that this is a recording. But yeah, I forgot. Wow. Yeah, yeah. No, I banned, there is no band in the pod do orchestra. This is all a tape recording? No, I banned that. And yet we hear a band if we want to hear a clarinet. Listen. Trombone. I call this. On top. Bone cancer. That's directing perfection. Yeah. And a great fuck you callback. Very end. Silencio. Just as well. But it's like saying it and you're like, That's. Yeah. That's the that is the, the PTA. There will be blood. Oh yeah. That's the Quentin Tarantino I think I'm in my misery. Fucking Tarantino must be my masterpiece. I know literally talking. I mean he's so huge. That's what it is. It's what it is. I'm partially convinced that's why that movie didn't win the Oscar for original screenplay. Yeah. It's a little too old. No, it's. Yeah, it's a good movie. Quit. But Jesus Christ, I mean that it's just. This might just be my Miss Beast. Oh my God. Like to at least the had a little bit of, like, finesse. But then like, I'm done now. Like and then but this was that this was the 100% that but there was do you know, the story of that, that, singer who recorded that. What I know is that often in Twin Peaks The Return, there is a bar that has musical performances, and occasionally they will cut to then they'll end episodes like that. And it's the music. It's like, here is Trent Reznor for Nine Inch Nails. So it's like the real people. And she her name's like Rebecca, Rebecca Del Rio, and she does this song, so that's cool. That's all I know. Oh, okay. Yeah. Great. You might not know this. Okay, I might not. All right. So I forgot what the scenario was, but it wasn't like she was in a car accident. But something kind of like dramatic, not traumatic, but dramatic happened to her along the way. And so she burst into the studio, got into the recording booth. One take. That's the recording that they used. Amen. So I go again. It's like like it's actually perfect. But to imagine that someone had to, like, frazzled. Just frazzled. Do it. Yeah. Just walks right? Yeah. I did not know that and just was like and lays out that beautiful I mean turns it on like I need a fucking voice man. What a fucking voice. And like, that's like one of those types of things where it's like, that's the power of music. And again, we don't need that scene. No it doesn't, it doesn't, it doesn't add up to anything else. It's just a beautiful it's just a setup. Yeah. He's a lot of his musical moments. Woman in the radiator candy colored cloud they call the Sandman. All that stuff it doesn't like need to be. Yeah. It doesn't need further the quote unquote plot. Yeah, it's never really, primary. No. Yeah. And this was just the notion that I had about this movie about LA is that some people get their beautiful life and others die in their hell. Yes, they do. And Los Angeles, it's just a case by case basis in L.A. Yeah. Cheer you up, spit you out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's no rhyme or reason. Yeah. Man, it's just such a fucking perfect movie. It really is. It's an a perfect LA movie. I'm so glad he gave us this one Oscar nomination, best director, which I love. You probably wasn't going to win, but it's just, again, that's like a flex. That's the choice to be like, yeah, we really respect your movie. But this movie was critically adored. It confused people. Don't get me wrong, it definitely confused people. But I think like you said, this was your first Lynch. I think for a lot of people, particularly in our age, maybe it was or a little younger, like their first lynch. And then you go and explore everything else I had, I had seen a little bit more, definitely Blue Velvet and The Elephant Man before this, but it really it just opened up the Lynch world to me. I'm like, I have to watch it all. I have to do all of it. Yeah. I remember the first time I watched Lost Highway thinking, well, this can't be like more confounding than Mulholland Drive because it was like 97 and he probably worked his way up to Mulholland Drive and you put on Lost Highway. You're like, nope. Yeah, it's definitely a little bit more confusing. You lost highway is definitely much more. Yeah, yeah. I think it's frustrating because I think Mulholland Drive for a lot of people, as it was for me when I first watched it, was because there's enough there to hold the thread like you, like you're really on it for a long time and then there's like this, like, like curve that you're like, okay, I don't I lose it for a bit here. Right? I think I gained some of it back. So it's, it's a little bit more frustrating because it's sort of like I'm right at the precipice of it. But Lost Highway is more of like, all right. Yeah. And surrender. But here's someone coming up that I don't know if there is. Surrender is such surrender. I mean, it's an it's just a permanent surrender. A woman in trouble. 2006 Inland Empire. This film was this film was shot without a finished screenplay. It was instead being largely developed on a scene by scene basis by David Lynch, which I think, plays well. Film was shot entirely in low resolution digital video by Lynch himself, using a handheld Sandy cam Sony camcorder rather than gorgeous traditional film stock like his other movies. This movie is his longest film. It's over three hours. It's a series of, I guess, dreams and nightmares, mostly involving one woman played by Laura Dern. Playing two women dreaming for good luck. This is what I say. You told me you hadn't seen it, and I said, you know, good luck. Given surrender, I saw, I saw, I saw it once before this. Oh you did. Oh, I didn't know that. I didn't know that. And, Yeah. It's just that's what that's the only advice when because Dan is very, very into Twin Peaks and they released Inland Empire in 4K and we're doing some screenings. So he went to see it and I did too. And I told him I was like, dude, just good luck. Like it doesn't do not try to follow this. Do not try to follow along. Yeah. What do you think? I didn't know you've seen it before. Yeah, I saw this like a long time ago. The plot is basically like this. Actress La Laura Dern in LA is on the edge of getting this big new role. And the director of the new movies, Jeremy Irons. Justin Theroux is going to be her costar. And then she gets the role and starts filming it, and then it just gets nonsensical and crazy, and then suddenly there's just a bunch of prostitutes in Poland and you're like, how did we get here? And that will never, ever, ever be explained. See? Ever. Basically, there's a point where they're they're going about shooting the movie, and they learned that the movie is not what it originally was meant to be. It's a remake of a cursed, cursed production. Yes. Weird stuff starts happening. There's a lot of like, you know, Justin Thoreau is like this Playboy hot shot Playboy that's like, don't hook up, don't hook up with on this one. Yeah, it's dangerous. And there's no evidence of anything like that happening. And then Laura Dern's character walks through a door of a set. Yes. And basically from that point on, we go into a nightmarish, nonsensical. We're in Poland, we're we're everywhere. We're going here, we're going there. She's her character. She's not, she's not. It's it's very, very bizarre. Like her rich husband now he's like some like, poor guy. And they're living in Poland together. This part I can't I'm not going to sit here and be like, this is what it means. I'm not even going to sit here and say, I get it, because this is the the number one Lynch movie that I don't think a person can get. I don't know if there's any getting it. It kind of lands the plane like in its last 30 minutes, like it brings it back to things. But it didn't explain those previous 90 minutes. Now you're and you're like, what? It's very confusing. What you're supposed to be left with, what this all meant. That said, every time I watch it, I gain new appreciation for it. I think Laura Dern is incredible, but seriously, I think she doesn't even understand a lot of what she's doing. And you know, I love this. I took this straight from Wikipedia because if you read a Wikipedia plot breakdown, there's no like, emotion or adjectives. It's just like, this is what happens. And it says at this point, various plotlines and scenes begin to intertwine and complement each other with the chronological order and the distinction between characters. Unclear. Oh my gosh, yes, that is what happens. I mean, yes, there maybe there's like a, somewhat coherent two hour movie if you're a two hour movie in here of just her on the set and just her dealing with that and just the Laura Dern actress character, but she wanted to, I don't know, man. Just go crazy for like the middle 90 minutes. Just doesn't really make sense. It just doesn't. And it loses me every time. And I could feel people when I saw it in the theater because, you know. Oh, ask at Alamo how many people have seen this? Most hadn't. The guy was like, wow, good luck. And I'm looking around just laughing at people. Yeah, there's no figuring this out. There's a scenario I know I was going to ask you if there was a because I times stamped it for me because I'd seen this movie once before. And I remember specifically, there was a moment during the first time I watched it where I go, I officially give up, and it was, we've gotten to the prostitutes, but then it cuts back to the rabbits. Yes. And when that happened, I go, okay, I'm out. Yeah, I lasted a little bit longer this time. Yeah, I went to one hour, 54 minutes and 26 seconds. That's pretty far. It's pretty far. It bounces back. Yeah. I'm like, what? What is it? Yeah. One hour 54. I'm out, I'm out. I'm out. You made it a long time. Yeah. And then I finished it. Yeah, yeah. But okay. Yeah. Every time I watch it I just surrender when she goes into that room. And now we're with these Polish prostitutes. Yeah, I'm like, okay, I'm. I'm convinced that I won't get this and I never will like it. I don't get it now. And I don't think it is meant to be figured out and got. No, I think it's this TM stuff. We're talking about these dreams, these nightmares. And I think he knew the scope of it so that he knew I got to shoot this on this Sony like, cruddy looking Sony camcorder, which I know you're not a fan of. It's a choice that he's doing a very deliberate choice. Yeah. And the as is your want as is your right. Like if you don't agree with that he knew what he was doing. And it has a vision. It has a really cool like title card reveal in the beginning. Like there's some interesting stuff in it. The Bucky thing is really funny. There's some interesting stuff, but it's it's not all land. There's just no way. There's no way you can say that. Favorite scene in the whole entire movie is the what I think this is. I think this is honestly like a truly great scene. The homeless people seem Terry Crews, even though he does, they bounce back and like Terry Crews is there and you're like, well, that Terry Crews is a homeless dude in Hollywood Boulevard. What, like what's going on? No, I love that that that moment is such a well written scene about a certain reality. Oh, yeah. That, that it's just, it goes there. Yeah. And when, when warden starts puking up the. Oh my God, like. Yeah, that that scene is just like, I'm like, I know you've just thrown this scene in here. It's like a bunch of craziness, but this scene has got the stuff. There are some sequences and whole scenes in it that do have the stuff, and they seem relatively coherent. And then, yeah, he was just, I guess, interested in really being out there. Out there. Yeah. Harry Dean Stanton, he's had borrow a couple bucks. Yeah. Got like a couple bucks. It's like, what is it asking all these clubs set for money? Can I borrow? Well, hey, there's someone back there. Oh, he's just great. He's great. I love that. I forgot about that. Yeah. Can I borrow it? It's like terrible. That's an adequate word to describe it. Yeah. I mean, there's, like William H. Macy shows up for the Or man shows up, Diane Ladd is back. Like, there's Mary Steenburgen shows up, credited as visitor number two. Okay. Like what? It's just Terry Crews, like we said. Yeah, there's all this Natasha Kinski, like, it's it's wild. There's all. You know, I don't I don't know, I can't really explain it. It's a funny way to end his feature filmography discussion. We're not. I'm we're going to save Twin Peaks The Return for the next episode. But we know I do love that he got to do that. I do love that he did it. Directed every episode. It's. And that's, presumably the last thing he's going to direct because he has, as he just announced, really bad emphysema and he can't really go. He has bad emphysema from a lifetime of smoking. It's like the greatest. Like he goes, I loved cigarets so much, the tobacco, this and that. But I also realize at some point that they were, like, ruining me. Yeah. And as a result, now I have emphysema. He can't even leave his house because if he get sick with anything else, yeah, he's pretty much done. So like if he got Covid, he'd be done. So he can't, like, leave his house at all. And it's kind of like, yeah, I mean, if David Lynch can quit smoking, anyone can quit smoking. Is that dude? It's like cigarets were attached to him. They're like part of him. So. Yeah, that's that's a, I don't know, anti-smoking campaign. I guess it's like smoking again. So I don't know if he'll make anything. If he does, he'd have to make it direct it. Like from his house presumably, is what I hear. We'll see. I mean, the return is great. This is not like the David Lynch masterpiece feature film that maybe some would want him to and on, but it's so perfectly David Lynch. Yeah, if this is the last feature he makes, it's like, you know, Eraserhead, Inland Empire, it makes sense like a track. I'm not saying the movies make sense, but it makes sense that he did that. It's just great. Yeah. Is that enough on Inland Empire? You want to talk about it for another hour? I think I'm already done. One hour, 54 minutes, 26 seconds. Collaborators. That's the filmography. We're not done quite yet. We got some collaborators that we talked about along the way. Angelo. Of course. Frederic Elm, cinematographer did. Eraserhead, Dune, Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart. He was also the camera operator on killing of a Chinese Bookie, which is just like great Freddie Francis, cinematographer, The Elephant Man, also Dune and I loved it. It's Dune takes a long gap of not working with him, and then he shoots the straight story. I love that, I love that stuff. Peter Deming yeah. Cinematographer Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive those really feel like they were authored from the same cinematographer, and they feel at home with each other. Yep. Patricia Norris was his longtime costume and production designer, Mary Sweeney, who we mentioned Mary Sweeney. Too many actors to mention. Jack Nance is who I like to start with. Yeah, it's Eraserhead, Dune, Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, fire, walk with me, Lost Highway. That was his last role. Harry Dean, who we love. Yes, love is very brief work in the straight story, but I mean everything he he really gets the Lynch thing very well. Yeah, it's great. McLaughlin of course. Gordon Scott coffees in a lot of grace. The briskets in a lot. Yeah. Just I mean he there's so many actors to name that he worked with over and over and over and that says something for a director if you're able to keep recasting and people want are anxious and eager to come back to you, that means something I love that. All right. Question for you. Okay. So on the outline all right groaning that you hit me. Favorite performance in a Lynch movie. And then we watched Mulholland Drive Naomi Watts Mulholland Drive I think is one of the top ten acting performances I've ever seen. Honestly very good. I am so but I don't even know if maybe 21g I prefer, I don't know, but what the the juxtaposition of the before and after with her. The Betty to Diane is astounding to me. That's a personal pick because I love that movie. But yeah. What about you, Dennis Hopper? Okay, I can't argue cannot argue at all that it was like that, that that that thing is like a it is a thing. It's just fucking things. Yeah. And I just can't imagine any other person. Yeah. To do that in David Lynch's world. Yeah. Like there's, there's actors that would play that part. But only Dennis Hopper and his like eccentricity even when he walks in he's so fast he's like wow. So it's really commanding because he, because he absolutely serves with the material need. Yeah. But I feel like another actor won't make that entertaining. Right. Because that's a big part of that is like what he's doing is god awful monster risks and unforgiving and like and it gets weird with the gas mask and like, that's the thing too is like like if that gas mass adds to him. Yes of course. Where is I think any other actor where it's like, I don't know, like that actual addition might actually ruin it in a, in a way where and then just what he does from then I'm like, I, I just, I don't know of anyone else in that environment pulls that off that way. Frank Booth might be the most iconic character he ever created. Yeah. David Lynch yeah, Frank Booth is like a because I hear you and Naomi Watts thing. Yeah. Fully. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But no, I get it. I totally get you. I have been able to see a lot of these in the theater. Mulholland drive I saw when it was released, but album. I've seen all these. And Alamo Twin Peaks, Fire, walk with me, Great Blue Velvet, Inland Empire, Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, Wild at Heart, I just love that they Alamo shows these. I wanted to show them all. I love to see every Lynch film in theater. I already did Inland Empire. I can do anything. Yeah. No, no. Serious. Seriously. Like I'm good, I'm good. Yeah. We're going to rank. Here we go. We are going to have two wildly different ones. You think so? Yeah, I think, I think I think some of them are a lock. I think that they're we're going to be all over the place. Yeah. So I'm going to have ten. You're going to have nine because I am going to include for the listeners where I want fire walk with me to go and iron, I will I'll say it, you know, I'm not going to say what the movie is right now, but my number eight is a movie that I love wholeheartedly with my whole heart. Give it an A or an A+. That's my eight. I know, I know what it is. No, but you see what I'm saying? Like, that's my eight. So everything we're getting, it was very tough for me to like rank these. So you're saying that for my benefit? I already know what it is. I know I can feel it in my balls. Okay. And your balls. Well, that's different than your bones. Jesus. I'm trying to think of the best way to do this. I know what I think you should do. What I think we should do. Nine and then. And then you could tell you. Yeah. All right. Because otherwise, the ranking system is going to be very confusing to in real time. I've adjusted. So we're each going to do nine okay. We're each going to do nine. I will say at the end where I would put Twin Peaks Fire walk with me okay. You go first. Number nine, number nine, Inland Empire. Yeah I figured, I figured I can't argue. Yeah, it's. Yeah. Honestly, the only thing that would keep it from going up to one for me personally was the, the the video camera. Right. If it was on film, if that, if that movie looked like Mulholland Drive or. Yeah, sure. Lost highway and it had like all these different elements going on to it, that actually would be harmed by it wouldn't be the number nine. Right. My number nine Dune. Oh what? It's fine, it's fine. Oh all these are fine. My God, what do you mean? My God, it's my god. Wait, do you see where I am doing? Fucking God one you know. So. All right. Dune is my nine and land is your nine. Number eight from you, number eight. Eraserhead. Okay, okay, I figured, I figured so the most like Lynch has no rules movies. You're a little, Yeah. That's fair actually. Yeah. When he doesn't have any structure or any, he literally has no one to answer to. Yeah, it goes a little off the walls for you, I get it. Yeah. My number eight. And then Empire. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Dude. Oh, yeah, oh yeah. Oh, yeah, I am shocked. Okay, okay. You're number seven, the Elephant man. Okay okay. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. Fair. Yeah. Elephant man for you. Number seven. My number seven, which was my eight that I was referencing before the straights. Oh, and I love this movie. Now you got. Oh, no. Shut up, shut up. Great film. I think this is a perfect film. So straight story. Love straight story. My number seven. If we're just doing nine, I do. That's what I'm saying. Like my number seven is a movie I love. So what does that say about every movie that follows? Yeah I understand, all right. Your number six. You hate the straight story. I don't hate it. That, Number six, dude. Okay, I yeah. That's fine. Yeah. Dude. Dude, I mean, but that's that's that's a pretty high jump from your the ten. I don't think dude is a better film than Elephant Man, but that's okay. No no no, I agree, I agree. Let me just say this. You just had fun with it I did it I, I and again, I think it's very clear that whenever we do these lists, these really are speaking for the exact time. Yeah, yeah they can change. Of course. Let me specify. I do not think that Dune is a better movie than The Elephant Man I got you. That is 100% yes, I Eraserhead is a better movie, I think. Yeah, yeah they do, but I my experience with Dune was one of the funnest experiences I've had watching a movie this year. It's a fun movie, and I did not expect it. Right. So that surprise in that level of it was also kind of in the way of watching all of Lynch and taking in everything he was giving us. Yeah, with that movie, I'm like, I fucking really like this guy. So there is a bit of that. That's the reason why Dune is so high. Yeah. Okay. Okay, good. Good justification. My number were six. My six. Wild at heart. Oh wild at heart. People love it. Love it. Yeah. Number five. All right so here we go baby. Top five top five out of ten. Top five. But you made ten. But yes top top five. Lost highway okay. Yeah okay. Yep. We got that number five lost highway. Wow. Which is like weird because I really like I this is to me like, you are like straight story number eight. Sure. That's me being like, I can't believe lost highways number five. Yeah, I mean, yes, I get it. I totally get it. My number five, the Elephant Man, made the top five, though. It did. It did. I had to have it make top five for you. Me? Crazy writing. Yes, the straight story. I know you used to say that was your favorite. I know, yeah, it's a lot. Yeah. No, no, no, that's not a big drop. It's just you've explored number one and number four when you said it was number one, I think you'd only seen like three David Lynch movies. Genuinely, I think you would seen Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire and that. Thanks. So that okay. And then you rewatch because the rest of the rest of the two ones that superseded I've never seen. Okay. Okay. Exactly. So that your number four straight story. My number four. Oh, yeah. Eraserhead. Man, I just love it. Crazy that my four and five were tough. Elephant Man or Eraserhead. That was tough. I was negotiating a lot, and then I just went. I got to put Eraserhead above because it's just all him. It's just all his vision, all of his own money. So now where are we at now? We're at your number three. Oh, number three, wild at heart. Oh, okay. Okay. This. I knew you loved it. This is this was that. That was just. That is the most docile David Lynch movie. Oh, yeah. Like that was. Can't believe you haven't seen it. I was like this is amazing. Everything about this. All right, your number three, wild heart. My number three. She wore blue velvet. Yes, yes. Love it, love it. And I know this is going to rank highly for you because it's one of your two spots left. Number two. It's number two. Yes it is, yes it is. Yes. My number two. God, I love it. Fucking lost highway. Oh, yeah, I guess it would be. That would be the last one left for you. So we say. So we have the same last one. Of course it has to be. Well, there's just it just has to be. There's just no question. Yeah. Like I think like like it. It's it's a fucking masterpiece. It really is a masterpiece is a 21st century masterpiece that got even Roger Ebert, the biggest David Lynch hater of all the David Lynch haters on board. Like, okay, I can't deny this deserved its own deep dive episode. Record it. Yeah yeah oh yeah yeah I mean hey, so we gave it it we gave it its do we did we did still could at some point okay. So now I'll do mine with all ten movies. So I'll do ten. Dune nine, Inland Empire eight. The Straight Story seven is Twin Peaks fire walk with me six. Wild at heart five. The Elephant Man four. Eraserhead top three three. Blue velvet two. Lost highway one. Mulholland Drive Yeah, inland Empire coming in last. All right, but with heart number eight. Eraserhead. Probably our biggest difference in. Yeah. In our in our rankings. Number seven, the Elephant Man. Yes six. Dune five. Top five. Baby. You can't. Are you the top five? La highway another big difference in our rankings. Four. You killed me. You went and did it. The Straight story three. Oh sexy wild at heart two. Blue Velvet and number one Mulholland Drive. The masterpiece happened on Mulholland Drive. Good rankings. This is the girl. Great. This was great. This is amazing. I honestly didn't know we I didn't think we'd go this long, but it's, you know, we just go, let's go. But I thought it was going to be. Oh, did you. Okay, we just go. What are you watching? Here we are. All right. There's nothing I can really do here. I'm doubling down. That's fine. Hey, that's fine. In this situation like this, I feel like like, obviously we've talked about all the movies, but if there's one that I would want to recommend to everyone that everything you've just heard. Blue velvet. Yeah. Blue velvet. Yeah. I mean, that's that's like like we said, he's got he's with a studio now and that's his first kind of David Lynchian studio. It really was like in watching all these chronologically, this was the most David Lynch. Yeah. And and and I when I, when it washed over me, I was like, okay, I want to live inside this man's like crazy ass head. Yeah. And, and I know that's a popular one. So a lot of people have seen it. If you haven't seen anything from David Lynch or you're very kind of unfamiliar, start here. Yeah. Start here. Very fair and have a great time. Yeah. Blue velvet I love it, I love it. Mine is a little I went with I already mentioned it, but I have never watched every David Lynch movie in a row. And then the next day watch The Wizard of Oz. And if you do that, if you're a David Lynch fan and you've never heard of this connection, just go watch that movie. It's not long and you're going to see so much. There's also a great documentary, Lynch Oz, that you can find. It explains all of this better than I can, but I have never watched The Wizard of Oz under the lens of like, let me imagine David Lynch watching this and being obsessed with it as a kid and like, let me just see that. And yeah, it's so evident in all of his work, including Twin Peaks, maybe even especially Twin Peaks. So Wizard of Oz, also Lynch Oz, really good documentary. I did not think that was going to be good. I thought it was going to be stupid. Great, I loved it, I started it, yeah, it's really good. 15 minutes. Yeah, yeah, it's good, it's good. And you get a lot of explanations and they are not reaching like for, you know, David Lynch is interviewed but they're not reaching for like there's similarities here. The similarities are there. So cool. Good stuff. I don't like The Wizard of Oz. I figured because you weren't saying anything, but it's not like a movie that I would think you would like necessarily. But watching it through that lens, I love it. It's fun. It's great. I'm just letting you know it's an easy movie. I don't like it. Thank you. Great. You're welcome. All right. One of my dad's favorite movies say to his face, I love people. Love it. Yeah. They do. Rough. See the wizard? That's it. David Lynch will be back. I'll be back with friend of the pod Dan, next episode to talk about Twin Peaks. Lord knows how that's going to go. Jesus Christ, I have no idea. Please do not expect, like an episode by episode breakdown, that it's not what this is going to be. We're going to talk about it in general. I also have a job of reining him in. I need people to appreciate that. So we could go. We could be all over the place. We'll see you, but it's going to be fun. This was a lot of fun. David Lynch, love our directors pods. Let us know what you think of Lynch, all of his movies, any of his movies at W underscore podcast, Twitter, Instagram, Letterboxd. As always, thank you for listening and happy watching. Oh, cinnamon, we're gonna run to cinnamon. We gonna run to where you gonna run to? All on that day. Will I run to the rock, please? Hey, everyone. Thanks again for listening. You can watch my films and read my movie blog at Alex withrow.com. Nicholas Dose Holcombe is where you can find all of Nick's film work. Send us mailbag questions at What are you watching podcast@gmail.com, or find us on Twitter, Instagram and Letterboxd at AIW Underscore podcast. Next time it's friend of the pod Dan, joining me to step into the world of David Lynch's Twin Peaks. This is not an episode by episode breakdown, but Dan and I did have a lot of fun discussing the show. Seasons one and two. Fire walk With Me and of course, The Return. Stay tuned to see. It was bleeding hard on that day. Shorter until the river. It was boiling I around to the sea and it was boiling. And I'm to say it was boiling hard on that day. So I ran to the Lord. These hot men from don't you see me pray and don't just steam. Yeah, it's Bucky J. Are you there? Is he is he is there. I think we haven't still got the two K quite in the right place. I think I'd say up two feet. You'd know better than me, but it's still true. Okay, good. Great. Down you are. Down. Yeah. And I'd say about two foot down. Bucky. How far you want to go down. Yeah a bit more okay. How far. Another foot Bucky. Haven't even got it. Yes. Well then put it two foot from where it is now. A foot down from where it is now. Bucky, how much. What God about. Bucky, I Bucky just lower it two foot with you from there. Now Bucky it's going up I want it down. Bucky. Two foot lower first. God damn time I had a cramp. Just a minute. I'm dead on it. I got on issues with his wife. Yeah okay. Thank you. Bucky, can we have something else to talk to him?