list http://www.spout.com/ Recent community activity around Lost Highway on Spout Copyright 2005-9 Spout, LLC Spout RSS http://www.spout.com/images/SpoutLogoRSS.jpg http://www.spout.com/ 136 30 http://www.spout.com/films/Lost_Highway/110535/default.aspx Title: Lost Highway
Year: 1997
Director: David Lynch
Plot: Five years after the critical and commercial disappointment of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, director David Lynch returned to the big screen with this cryptic thriller about confused identities and erotic obsession. Fred (Bill Pullman) is an avant-garde jazz saxophonist who shares a luxurious but fashionably barren house with his wife Renee (Patricia Arquette). Fred suspects that Renee may be unfaithful to him, but realizes he has bigger things to worry about when a series of videotapes appear at his door that prove someone is watching his home from the outside and inside. When Renee is found murdered, Fred finds himself behind bars, but one morning Fred is no longer in his cell. He has seemingly been transformed into Pete Drayton (Balthazar Getty), a young auto mechanic who foolishly allowed himself to get involved with the wife of gangster Dick Laurent (Robert Loggia), a luscious blonde named Alice who looks exactly like Renee. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Times Tagged: 34
Number of Lists: 44
Number of blog posts: 5
Number of discussion threads: 9
SpoutRating: 3
]]>Mon, 06 Apr 2009 21:28:48 GMTLost Highway1997David LynchFive years after the critical and commercial disappointment of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, director <a href="/players/P___100454/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>David Lynch</a> returned to the big screen with this cryptic thriller about confused identities and erotic obsession. Fred (<a href="/players/P____58045/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Bill Pullman</a>) is an avant-garde jazz saxophonist who shares a luxurious but fashionably barren house with his wife Renee (<a href="/players/P_____2423/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Patricia Arquette</a>). Fred suspects that Renee may be unfaithful to him, but realizes he has bigger things to worry about when a series of videotapes appear at his door that prove someone is watching his home from the outside and inside. When Renee is found murdered, Fred finds himself behind bars, but one morning Fred is no longer in his cell. He has seemingly been transformed into Pete Drayton (<a href="/players/P____26632/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Balthazar Getty</a>), a young auto mechanic who foolishly allowed himself to get involved with the wife of gangster Dick Laurent (<a href="/players/P____42988/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Robert Loggia</a>), a luscious blonde named Alice who looks exactly like Renee. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide34Tag Target (>10)44593http://www.spout.com/ProductImages/t18507ge0au.jpghttp://www.spout.com/films/Lost_Highway/110535/default.aspxFilm http://www.spout.com/blogs/thomasjeffersongeronimo/archive/2008/11/30/37761.aspx Post By: ThomasJeffersonGeronimo
Post To: ThomasJeffersonGeronimo Blog
Post Date: 11/30/2008 1:34:24 PM
Body: I never cared much for Easy Rider . It always seemed so sloppy and self-indulgent: I think it's only inarguable innovation is it's use of "found" music; nothing against it's cast, but they're stoned or high to the point of being boring to watch. It's anti-authoritarian in a loud, drunk, high school kind of way. Electra Glide in Blue gives a direct hint or two that it might agree with this sentiment. It is a much neater and more thought out film, that at one point literally takes a shot at the aforementioned biker film. Robert Blake, who I'd really only known for his Lost Highway and wife-shooting creepiness, is a fairly appealing lead as eager-beaver motorcycle cop Jon Wintergreen; he's a spunky little dude. Unlike the grimy whiny hippies of Easy Rider he seems to know what he wants, a promotion to detective. Thus begins Electra Glide's more reasoned attack on authority via motorcycle picture. That position of authority and system itself don't turn out to be what Wintergreen hoped, but the movie doesn't steep to fuzz-bashing. The hippies are dirty and sinister too. If you only caught ten or fifteen minutes of this one, you might even think it some kind of right-wing corrective to Easy Rider. In it's slow, measured 70s way, the film seems to make an argument that only the individual is true in a not evil, but sadly corrupt world. The pace and style of Electra Glide in Blue are very 70s New Hollywood, and it is recommended for fans of that style or the "dark indy drama" of the 90s through present. While there is some action, including a clumsy and unnecessary but kind of awesome slow-mo chase, there may not be enough cheap thrills for the biker or exploitation flick fan.
]]>Sun, 30 Nov 2008 18:34:24 GMTThomasJeffersonGeronimoThomasJeffersonGeronimo Blog11/30/2008 1:34:24 PMI never cared much for Easy Rider . It always seemed so sloppy and self-indulgent: I think it's only inarguable innovation is it's use of "found" music; nothing against it's cast, but they're stoned or high to the point of being boring to watch. It's anti-authoritarian in a loud, drunk, high school kind of way. Electra Glide in Blue gives a direct hint or two that it might agree with this sentiment. It is a much neater and more thought out film, that at one point literally takes a shot at the aforementioned biker film. Robert Blake, who I'd really only known for his Lost Highway and wife-shooting creepiness, is a fairly appealing lead as eager-beaver motorcycle cop Jon Wintergreen; he's a spunky little dude. Unlike the grimy whiny hippies of Easy Rider he seems to know what he wants, a promotion to detective. Thus begins Electra Glide's more reasoned attack on authority via motorcycle picture. That position of authority and system itself don't turn out to be what Wintergreen hoped, but the movie doesn't steep to fuzz-bashing. The hippies are dirty and sinister too. If you only caught ten or fifteen minutes of this one, you might even think it some kind of right-wing corrective to Easy Rider. In it's slow, measured 70s way, the film seems to make an argument that only the individual is true in a not evil, but sadly corrupt world. The pace and style of Electra Glide in Blue are very 70s New Hollywood, and it is recommended for fans of that style or the "dark indy drama" of the 90s through present. While there is some action, including a clumsy and unnecessary but kind of awesome slow-mo chase, there may not be enough cheap thrills for the biker or exploitation flick fan. http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/9/5/34799.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 9/5/2008 2:00:30 PM
Body: This is the year that print film criticism went on life support, online film critics drafted sober eulogies and the rest of the world yawned distractedly while poised over the plug. Into the ill-attended open grave my colleague Lauren Wissot just tossed a meditation on film culture titled, “The Movie-Going Public.” I dig it because it dares to take filmgoers as seriously as it does cinema itself. Further, it manages, mostly by way of example, to pee all over the very notion of a professional film critic. I use don’t use the term “pee” lightly but with great care, thinking of readers like Anonymous, who responded to Lauren’s post with, “You’re not an elitist. But you are crass, vulgar and unprofessional… Manny Farber is rolling in his grave.” I want Anonymous, if he or she is reading this, to imagine Mr. Farber howling in pain from the beyond at my using such a crude bathroom word as “pee” in reference to the profession he devoted his life to. But another dead 20th Century critic is probably grinning in his grave. James Agee: “I suspect I am, far more than not, in your own situation: deeply interested in moving pictures, considerably experienced from childhood on in watching them and thinking and talking about them, and totally, or almost totally without experience or even much second-hand knowledge of how they are made. It is my business to conduct one end of a conversation, as an amateur critic among amateur critics. And I will be of use and of interest only in so far as my amateur judgment is sound, stimulating, or illuminating.” (Props to Ryland Walker Knight.) This here’s a meritocracy, in other words. In Farber’s and Agee’s day, when middle aged white men in bow ties manned the helm at the big city arts pages, Agee’s “amateur critic” demurral was like a feudal lord calling out to the serfs, “I’m with ya, brother!” Nowadays, despite its enduring status as “that most bourgeois profession” (to quote Armond White’s recent review of a David Lean retro, film criticism is now anybody’s game, an unruly mob rather than a collegial/catty private club. Good. Okay, back to Lauren’s main subject: the audience. Lord, how I miss the Cineplex Odeon Worldwide Theater on Manhattan’s Midtown West. It was a lovely second-run theater that, in the mid-to-late ’90s, showed movies for $3 a few months after their initial release. It was a beautiful experiment because arthouse, foreign, mainstream Ho’wood and indie films all screened there for the ridiculous sum of $3 per flick. Because of this Big Mac price, people would see whatever flick happened to be starting when they wandered in, and on any given afternoon, the place was packed with wanderers of every description: high schoolers, Wall Streeters, working stiffs, B-boys, bluebloods, film geeks, off-duty cops, cabbies, dopefiends. I remember watching David Lynch’s Lost Highway with just such a mixed crowd, 200 people spellbound for over 120 minutes and later shrugging, cursing, arguing and giddily dream-analyzing the movie in the lobby. (”What the FUCK did we just watch?”) I remember a similar packed house taking in Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures. What a thrill to watch a group of rowdy homeboys simply silenced by that film’s elegantly tragic, sun-dappled final moments. This is the moviegoing public. They are not all stupes or feebs and they don’t need any professionals telling them (us) what’s appropriate viewing for their respective castes. We, the crazies who still love to write about film, should focus on talking back to the filmmakers as audience members, not culture cops, in a dialogue as intimate and unashamed as pillow talk. Lay it all on the table. The only people who should be excluded from this discourse have already excluded themselves– the ones who think movies are just something to pass the time, petty distraction, kid’s stuff. The fucking professionals. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Fri, 05 Sep 2008 18:00:30 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com9/5/2008 2:00:30 PMThis is the year that print film criticism went on life support, online film critics drafted sober eulogies and the rest of the world yawned distractedly while poised over the plug. Into the ill-attended open grave my colleague Lauren Wissot just tossed a meditation on film culture titled, “The Movie-Going Public.” I dig it because it dares to take filmgoers as seriously as it does cinema itself. Further, it manages, mostly by way of example, to pee all over the very notion of a professional film critic. I use don’t use the term “pee” lightly but with great care, thinking of readers like Anonymous, who responded to Lauren’s post with, “You’re not an elitist. But you are crass, vulgar and unprofessional… Manny Farber is rolling in his grave.” I want Anonymous, if he or she is reading this, to imagine Mr. Farber howling in pain from the beyond at my using such a crude bathroom word as “pee” in reference to the profession he devoted his life to. But another dead 20th Century critic is probably grinning in his grave. James Agee: “I suspect I am, far more than not, in your own situation: deeply interested in moving pictures, considerably experienced from childhood on in watching them and thinking and talking about them, and totally, or almost totally without experience or even much second-hand knowledge of how they are made. It is my business to conduct one end of a conversation, as an amateur critic among amateur critics. And I will be of use and of interest only in so far as my amateur judgment is sound, stimulating, or illuminating.” (Props to Ryland Walker Knight.) This here’s a meritocracy, in other words. In Farber’s and Agee’s day, when middle aged white men in bow ties manned the helm at the big city arts pages, Agee’s “amateur critic” demurral was like a feudal lord calling out to the serfs, “I’m with ya, brother!” Nowadays, despite its enduring status as “that most bourgeois profession” (to quote Armond White’s recent review of a David Lean retro, film criticism is now anybody’s game, an unruly mob rather than a collegial/catty private club. Good. Okay, back to Lauren’s main subject: the audience. Lord, how I miss the Cineplex Odeon Worldwide Theater on Manhattan’s Midtown West. It was a lovely second-run theater that, in the mid-to-late ’90s, showed movies for $3 a few months after their initial release. It was a beautiful experiment because arthouse, foreign, mainstream Ho’wood and indie films all screened there for the ridiculous sum of $3 per flick. Because of this Big Mac price, people would see whatever flick happened to be starting when they wandered in, and on any given afternoon, the place was packed with wanderers of every description: high schoolers, Wall Streeters, working stiffs, B-boys, bluebloods, film geeks, off-duty cops, cabbies, dopefiends. I remember watching David Lynch’s Lost Highway with just such a mixed crowd, 200 people spellbound for over 120 minutes and later shrugging, cursing, arguing and giddily dream-analyzing the movie in the lobby. (”What the FUCK did we just watch?”) I remember a similar packed house taking in Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures. What a thrill to watch a group of rowdy homeboys simply silenced by that film’s elegantly tragic, sun-dappled final moments. This is the moviegoing public. They are not all stupes or feebs and they don’t need any professionals telling them (us) what’s appropriate viewing for their respective castes. We, the crazies who still love to write about film, should focus on talking back to the filmmakers as audience members, not culture cops, in a dialogue as intimate and unashamed as pillow talk. Lay it all on the table. The only people who should be excluded from this discourse have already excluded themselves– the ones who think movies are just something to pass the time, petty distraction, kid’s stuff. The fucking professionals. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/theworkingdead/archive/2008/6/23/31533.aspx Post By: TheWorkingDead
Post To: TheWorkingDead Blog
Post Date: 6/23/2008 2:18:05 AM
Body: In the spring of 1997, my life was changed forever.In the spring of 1997 I was out of high school, and doing nothing but lounging around and hanging out with my friends, working the occasional odd job for a temp agency here and there for spending money. Larger and more verifiable changes would be coming in the fall and winter, after I started going to college and began to expand my horizons past my basement apartment in my mom's house. And yet the spring of 1997 marked an important shift in both my perception of the world and my habits within it. Most of the time revelations are seen in hindsight, people rarely recognize life changing moments as they happen. But this time I did.In the spring of 1997, Lost Highway came to town.Lost Highway may seem like an odd film to lionize as much as I'm about to, especially considering it's reception, which ranges from outright hatred to bored indifference. A hardcore David Lynch fan is unlikely to point out Lost Highway as a pinnacle of his career, but to me it was an honest to god life changing event. In 1997 I had seen nothing like it, and I was completely unprepared for the film's dark world of sex, crime, doppelgangers, time shifts, mysterious men and dangerous women and just pure weirdness. Lost Highway opened my eyes to a whole new world of film that I didn't even know existed, and it shaped the course of my cultural cravings for, well, just over a decade now.But let's back up for a minute.Like I said, in 1997 I was still living at home, and while I watched several movies almost daily for this year long period, my tastes had not yet been defined. I was devouring everything I saw, but not really processing it. I'd like to say I enjoyed foreign and arthouse films, but really I was a blockbuster fan. I liked spectacle, and that's what I went for at the video store. That was on it's way to changing in '97, but I was still pretty blind to the world of cinema past whatever was in the horror or new release section of the local video store. I came to Lost Highway because of the involvement of two people. Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails produced the soundtrack and contributed two songs, while Marilyn Manson had a brief, brief cameo late in the film. Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails carry with them some pretty negative and embarrassing connotations, but both bands were big in my personal high school life, so when I began reading about this new film both of them would be connected to, I became interested.At this point I know I'd seen an episode of Twin Peaks; I'd flipped over to it one night because you couldn't open a single publication in the first two years of the 90s without hearing how great the show was. But I was too young, and came to the show too late, so it made absolutely no sense to me and I never returned(I would later, and that obsession would grow and deepen to almost Star Trekian proportions). I'd also seen Dune, but I only had vague childhood memories. My point being that I had no real idea who this David Lynch guy was, but several people in bands I liked had cited him as an influence, and he was spoken of in terms that made me feel as if I were somehow depriving myself by not seeing his films.When Lost Highway was released, it took a few months to reach Alaska, because at the time there was only one theatre that ran arthouse films; the Capri. I miss the Capri immensely, even though I only saw a handful of films there. It was a tiny, tiny place with a postage stamp screen and some pretty dilapidated chairs. But what it lacked in luxury it made up for in style. There was a cafe attached, with some chairs and magazines, and a collection of old lobby cards and posters for sale. The place exuded a love for cinema, be it underground, foreign, old-time Hollywood, or unapologetic junk(Hitchcock posters shared the same space as DC Cab advertisements). Also it was the only place in Anchorage you could see movies not put out by one of the major studios unless you wanted to wait for video. When the Capri got Lost Highway, I made sure I was there on opening night. And then every other night of the one week that it played. Each night I went with another friend, and each night we spent a few hours discussing the film and each night we had another theory as to what it all meant, and what had actually happened.I can cite some specifics, but I don't know how well it will describe the film. Fred Madison(Bill Pullman) is a man apparently unable to express any emotion in his daily life, as he lives in a large home with his beautiful, distant wife, Renee(Patricia Arquette). The only time he perks up is when he's on stage playing the saxophone at a smoky nightclub. He and his wife speak in monotone sentence fragments with each other, disconcertingly direct without actually saying anything of meaning, and they have passionless sex. The two begin receiving a series of unlabeled VHS tapes that contain footage of their house, each successive tape becoming more and more intrusive, finally showing footage of a distraught Fred lying amid the scattered body parts of Renee. Fred has no memory of this, but is still sentenced to death for her murder. One morning, when the guard checks on Fred, he finds instead Pete(Balthazar Getty), with a nasty bruise on his head. No one can explain how Pete ended up in the cell, or where Fred went, and the film never fully explains it either. The clues are there, but the answer isn't.Pete is released, because there's no real legal reason for him to be on death row, and he goes home. His parents and girlfriend make some cryptic statements about 'that night', but they won't speak about it, they only say that he was with a man they've never seen before. Pete works at a garage, where he's become the favorite of over the top crime boss Mr. Eddie. Mr Eddie's girlfriend Alice is also played by Patricia Arquette, and she and Pete begin a very dangerous and very passionate relationship. I'm going to stop my description there, because to go further will not really explain anything, and will ruin some of the bizarre happenings still to come. And really, if you haven't seen the film I haven't done it justice. It's like a fever dream version of Vertigo(the film has more than a few allusions to the Hitchcock classic).The film is full of mysteries, and piles enigma on top of enigma. Is the man in white face(Robert Blake) that exudes such creepy menace with Fred at a party the same man who was seen with Pete the night he ended up in jail? Are Alice and Renee the same woman, or are they two separate women that both men see as one? Did Fred switch places with Pete, or did Fred become Pete? You can come up with any number of theories, but none of them will be completely satisfying. Some reviewers have stated the movie is going for style over substance by not clearly defining it's world, which I don't see at all. Lynch's films have repeatedly put the focus on the mystery, not the answer. His original plan for Twin Peaks was to never solve the Laura Palmer mystery, but instead focus the show gradually on the town's other residents. I think this is key, in that decoding Lost Highway isn't the point. The point is to get lost on the journey.After watching the movie several times with several groups of people, I eventually happened upon a theory that made the entire movie make sense, in a loose, figurative sort of way. I began to believe that the entire film was Fred/Pete in a fugue state, along the lines of Incident at Owl Creek Bridge. The idea was that the night where Fred became Pete was actually the night Fred was executed, and that the entire next part of the film was him trying to escape into a fantasy life where he's young, passionate, and desired by women. That fits, mostly. There's a few glitches in there, most notably the actual end of the film, but it could all be explained away. And that stuck with me for a few years. And I actually began to enjoy the movie less when I thought I had figured it out. Luckily that didn't last.I recently rewatched the film, as it had finally come out on an acceptable North American DVD(the previous Canadian disc was pan and scan), and I tried to ignore my old theory and watch it again with fresh eyes. And I loved it. I saw that the fugue state theory doesn't really hold up. For one it makes everything in the movie- all of the clues- meaningless. The characters who repeatedly pop up in key scenes are now suddenly merely coincidence, and all of the doom-infused foreshadowing really doesn't matter at all. Some cynics may think that's the joke, that Lynch was merely pranking his audience, but I think otherwise. David Lynch is so specific in every little thing he does(although making room for some happy mistakes, like the inclusion of Bob in Twin Peaks), from building many of the props himself, to set design, framing, delivery and dialogue, that I think it all really must add up to something. But I also think he's removed a few clues, or obscured them deliberately. Like I said, the point isn't to know, but to wonder.David Lynch is a director I've always felt I understood emotionally more than I've understood him intellectually. I can't dissect his films with a clinical eye and speak about them completely critically, but I always feel like I'm on their wavelength. His movies speak to some part of me that I haven't yet fully discovered, but that still affects me. I may laugh, cry, or become absolutely terrified of his films, but I may not be able to pinpoint exactly why.As a film, Lost Highway may have it's faults(though you'll have a hard time convincing me of that), but in my life it's grown to something more. It symbolises the turning point where I stopped passively consuming entertainment, and began to hunt down the hidden gems. David Lynch was actually the first director where I began to understand what a director really does. I began to seek out films by certain directors, and I began to notice their individual techniques. I began to study films, notice things like writer or director or even director of photography. I began to ask what it means, or maybe just what it means to me.
]]>Mon, 23 Jun 2008 06:18:05 GMTTheWorkingDeadTheWorkingDead Blog6/23/2008 2:18:05 AMIn the spring of 1997, my life was changed forever.In the spring of 1997 I was out of high school, and doing nothing but lounging around and hanging out with my friends, working the occasional odd job for a temp agency here and there for spending money. Larger and more verifiable changes would be coming in the fall and winter, after I started going to college and began to expand my horizons past my basement apartment in my mom's house. And yet the spring of 1997 marked an important shift in both my perception of the world and my habits within it. Most of the time revelations are seen in hindsight, people rarely recognize life changing moments as they happen. But this time I did.In the spring of 1997, Lost Highway came to town.Lost Highway may seem like an odd film to lionize as much as I'm about to, especially considering it's reception, which ranges from outright hatred to bored indifference. A hardcore David Lynch fan is unlikely to point out Lost Highway as a pinnacle of his career, but to me it was an honest to god life changing event. In 1997 I had seen nothing like it, and I was completely unprepared for the film's dark world of sex, crime, doppelgangers, time shifts, mysterious men and dangerous women and just pure weirdness. Lost Highway opened my eyes to a whole new world of film that I didn't even know existed, and it shaped the course of my cultural cravings for, well, just over a decade now.But let's back up for a minute.Like I said, in 1997 I was still living at home, and while I watched several movies almost daily for this year long period, my tastes had not yet been defined. I was devouring everything I saw, but not really processing it. I'd like to say I enjoyed foreign and arthouse films, but really I was a blockbuster fan. I liked spectacle, and that's what I went for at the video store. That was on it's way to changing in '97, but I was still pretty blind to the world of cinema past whatever was in the horror or new release section of the local video store. I came to Lost Highway because of the involvement of two people. Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails produced the soundtrack and contributed two songs, while Marilyn Manson had a brief, brief cameo late in the film. Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails carry with them some pretty negative and embarrassing connotations, but both bands were big in my personal high school life, so when I began reading about this new film both of them would be connected to, I became interested.At this point I know I'd seen an episode of Twin Peaks; I'd flipped over to it one night because you couldn't open a single publication in the first two years of the 90s without hearing how great the show was. But I was too young, and came to the show too late, so it made absolutely no sense to me and I never returned(I would later, and that obsession would grow and deepen to almost Star Trekian proportions). I'd also seen Dune, but I only had vague childhood memories. My point being that I had no real idea who this David Lynch guy was, but several people in bands I liked had cited him as an influence, and he was spoken of in terms that made me feel as if I were somehow depriving myself by not seeing his films.When Lost Highway was released, it took a few months to reach Alaska, because at the time there was only one theatre that ran arthouse films; the Capri. I miss the Capri immensely, even though I only saw a handful of films there. It was a tiny, tiny place with a postage stamp screen and some pretty dilapidated chairs. But what it lacked in luxury it made up for in style. There was a cafe attached, with some chairs and magazines, and a collection of old lobby cards and posters for sale. The place exuded a love for cinema, be it underground, foreign, old-time Hollywood, or unapologetic junk(Hitchcock posters shared the same space as DC Cab advertisements). Also it was the only place in Anchorage you could see movies not put out by one of the major studios unless you wanted to wait for video. When the Capri got Lost Highway, I made sure I was there on opening night. And then every other night of the one week that it played. Each night I went with another friend, and each night we spent a few hours discussing the film and each night we had another theory as to what it all meant, and what had actually happened.I can cite some specifics, but I don't know how well it will describe the film. Fred Madison(Bill Pullman) is a man apparently unable to express any emotion in his daily life, as he lives in a large home with his beautiful, distant wife, Renee(Patricia Arquette). The only time he perks up is when he's on stage playing the saxophone at a smoky nightclub. He and his wife speak in monotone sentence fragments with each other, disconcertingly direct without actually saying anything of meaning, and they have passionless sex. The two begin receiving a series of unlabeled VHS tapes that contain footage of their house, each successive tape becoming more and more intrusive, finally showing footage of a distraught Fred lying amid the scattered body parts of Renee. Fred has no memory of this, but is still sentenced to death for her murder. One morning, when the guard checks on Fred, he finds instead Pete(Balthazar Getty), with a nasty bruise on his head. No one can explain how Pete ended up in the cell, or where Fred went, and the film never fully explains it either. The clues are there, but the answer isn't.Pete is released, because there's no real legal reason for him to be on death row, and he goes home. His parents and girlfriend make some cryptic statements about 'that night', but they won't speak about it, they only say that he was with a man they've never seen before. Pete works at a garage, where he's become the favorite of over the top crime boss Mr. Eddie. Mr Eddie's girlfriend Alice is also played by Patricia Arquette, and she and Pete begin a very dangerous and very passionate relationship. I'm going to stop my description there, because to go further will not really explain anything, and will ruin some of the bizarre happenings still to come. And really, if you haven't seen the film I haven't done it justice. It's like a fever dream version of Vertigo(the film has more than a few allusions to the Hitchcock classic).The film is full of mysteries, and piles enigma on top of enigma. Is the man in white face(Robert Blake) that exudes such creepy menace with Fred at a party the same man who was seen with Pete the night he ended up in jail? Are Alice and Renee the same woman, or are they two separate women that both men see as one? Did Fred switch places with Pete, or did Fred become Pete? You can come up with any number of theories, but none of them will be completely satisfying. Some reviewers have stated the movie is going for style over substance by not clearly defining it's world, which I don't see at all. Lynch's films have repeatedly put the focus on the mystery, not the answer. His original plan for Twin Peaks was to never solve the Laura Palmer mystery, but instead focus the show gradually on the town's other residents. I think this is key, in that decoding Lost Highway isn't the point. The point is to get lost on the journey.After watching the movie several times with several groups of people, I eventually happened upon a theory that made the entire movie make sense, in a loose, figurative sort of way. I began to believe that the entire film was Fred/Pete in a fugue state, along the lines of Incident at Owl Creek Bridge. The idea was that the night where Fred became Pete was actually the night Fred was executed, and that the entire next part of the film was him trying to escape into a fantasy life where he's young, passionate, and desired by women. That fits, mostly. There's a few glitches in there, most notably the actual end of the film, but it could all be explained away. And that stuck with me for a few years. And I actually began to enjoy the movie less when I thought I had figured it out. Luckily that didn't last.I recently rewatched the film, as it had finally come out on an acceptable North American DVD(the previous Canadian disc was pan and scan), and I tried to ignore my old theory and watch it again with fresh eyes. And I loved it. I saw that the fugue state theory doesn't really hold up. For one it makes everything in the movie- all of the clues- meaningless. The characters who repeatedly pop up in key scenes are now suddenly merely coincidence, and all of the doom-infused foreshadowing really doesn't matter at all. Some cynics may think that's the joke, that Lynch was merely pranking his audience, but I think otherwise. David Lynch is so specific in every little thing he does(although making room for some happy mistakes, like the inclusion of Bob in Twin Peaks), from building many of the props himself, to set design, framing, delivery and dialogue, that I think it all really must add up to something. But I also think he's removed a few clues, or obscured them deliberately. Like I said, the point isn't to know, but to wonder.David Lynch is a director I've always felt I understood emotionally more than I've understood him intellectually. I can't dissect his films with a clinical eye and speak about them completely critically, but I always feel like I'm on their wavelength. His movies speak to some part of me that I haven't yet fully discovered, but that still affects me. I may laugh, cry, or become absolutely terrified of his films, but I may not be able to pinpoint exactly why.As a film, Lost Highway may have it's faults(though you'll have a hard time convincing me of that), but in my life it's grown to something more. It symbolises the turning point where I stopped passively consuming entertainment, and began to hunt down the hidden gems. David Lynch was actually the first director where I began to understand what a director really does. I began to seek out films by certain directors, and I began to notice their individual techniques. I began to study films, notice things like writer or director or even director of photography. I began to ask what it means, or maybe just what it means to me. http://www.spout.com/groups/Movie_Games/Re_Desert_Island/598/30583/1/ShowPost.aspx Post By: TheWorkingDead
Post To: Movie Games
Post Date: 6/5/2008 9:31:25 PM
Body: You know, I really hate these things, but I can't help putting these lists together myself. How do I pick only 3 movies? Do I go with dense and brainy, hoping that they will provide the longest intellectual stimulation? Do I go with the movies that I just find fun and enjoyable, hoping that they'll always pick up my spirits when rescue doesn't arrive and I'm forced to eat my own fingers one by one? Ah, the hell with it, here's 3 top of my head picks, and a short reason why. Brazil. The Criterion edition(I'm assuming this 3-disc set is allowable). For one, I love the movie, but it also seems like the most bang for my buck in terms of length. 3 discs, 2 movies, documentaries, commentaries. Lost Highway. The first Lynch movie I saw in a theatre, and I can understand the criticisms it gets from some, but it was such a monumental experience in my high school life. It was like the scales fell from my eyes, and it really put me down the path to true film afficianado. Also, I saw this every night it played in our local arthouse theatre(one week), and every night had a different theory about what it all meant and what actually happened. The Big Lebowski. If nothing else than to be the first to pick this sure to be popular pick. I know it has a pretty big cult, but I think it actually gets a bit underrated by 'serious' critics. This movie proves that silly comedy can still be intelligent.
]]>Fri, 06 Jun 2008 01:31:25 GMTTheWorkingDeadMovie Games6/5/2008 9:31:25 PMYou know, I really hate these things, but I can't help putting these lists together myself. How do I pick only 3 movies? Do I go with dense and brainy, hoping that they will provide the longest intellectual stimulation? Do I go with the movies that I just find fun and enjoyable, hoping that they'll always pick up my spirits when rescue doesn't arrive and I'm forced to eat my own fingers one by one? Ah, the hell with it, here's 3 top of my head picks, and a short reason why. Brazil. The Criterion edition(I'm assuming this 3-disc set is allowable). For one, I love the movie, but it also seems like the most bang for my buck in terms of length. 3 discs, 2 movies, documentaries, commentaries. Lost Highway. The first Lynch movie I saw in a theatre, and I can understand the criticisms it gets from some, but it was such a monumental experience in my high school life. It was like the scales fell from my eyes, and it really put me down the path to true film afficianado. Also, I saw this every night it played in our local arthouse theatre(one week), and every night had a different theory about what it all meant and what actually happened. The Big Lebowski. If nothing else than to be the first to pick this sure to be popular pick. I know it has a pretty big cult, but I think it actually gets a bit underrated by 'serious' critics. This movie proves that silly comedy can still be intelligent. http://www.spout.com/groups/HORROR_MOVIES_101/Re_Top_31_Horror_films_of_the_past_31_years_on_The/222/25045/1/ShowPost.aspx Post By: Puhnner
Post To: HORROR MOVIES 101
Post Date: 2/12/2008 2:22:34 PM
Body: Revised List of 31 from 76 through07Mommie Dearest and Red Dawn co-winners of No. 1and wished I could have included:1988 Blood Orgy of the Leather Girls ( have not seen it, but the title is terrific and I cannot find it here ) 1976 Man on the Roof1976 The Sentinel1977 Suspiria 1978 I spit on your Grave 1987 Near Dark 1988 Rabid Grannies ( have not seen )1988 Brain Damage 31. 1988 The Blob 30. 1978 Halloween 29. 1986 Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer 28. 1986 Vamp 27. 1976 The Omen 26. 1979 The Brood 25. 1985 Lifeforce 24. 2001 Frailty 23. 2002 28 Days Later 22. 1990 Jacob’s Ladder 21. 1995 Se7en 20. 1986 Manhunter 19. 1987 Angel Heart 18. 1995 The Addiction17. 1997 Office Killer 16. 1986 Nomads 15. 1981 The Howling 14. 1979 Nosferatu 13. 2007 Bug 12. 1987 Street Trash 11. 1987 Evil Dead II 10. 1987 The Hidden 9. 1989 Shocker 8. 1987 Hellraiser 7. 1985 Re-Animator 6. 1986 The Hitcher 5. 1991 The Silence of the Lambs 4. 1982 The Thing 3. 1992 Twin Peaks Fire Walk with Me 2. 1997 Lost Highway 1. 1999 Audition
]]>Tue, 12 Feb 2008 19:22:34 GMTPuhnnerHORROR MOVIES 1012/12/2008 2:22:34 PMRevised List of 31 from 76 through07Mommie Dearest and Red Dawn co-winners of No. 1and wished I could have included:1988 Blood Orgy of the Leather Girls ( have not seen it, but the title is terrific and I cannot find it here ) 1976 Man on the Roof1976 The Sentinel1977 Suspiria 1978 I spit on your Grave 1987 Near Dark 1988 Rabid Grannies ( have not seen )1988 Brain Damage 31. 1988 The Blob 30. 1978 Halloween 29. 1986 Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer 28. 1986 Vamp 27. 1976 The Omen 26. 1979 The Brood 25. 1985 Lifeforce 24. 2001 Frailty 23. 2002 28 Days Later 22. 1990 Jacob&rsquo;s Ladder 21. 1995 Se7en 20. 1986 Manhunter 19. 1987 Angel Heart 18. 1995 The Addiction17. 1997 Office Killer 16. 1986 Nomads 15. 1981 The Howling 14. 1979 Nosferatu 13. 2007 Bug 12. 1987 Street Trash 11. 1987 Evil Dead II 10. 1987 The Hidden 9. 1989 Shocker 8. 1987 Hellraiser 7. 1985 Re-Animator 6. 1986 The Hitcher 5. 1991 The Silence of the Lambs 4. 1982 The Thing 3. 1992 Twin Peaks Fire Walk with Me 2. 1997 Lost Highway 1. 1999 Audition http://www.spout.com/groups/HORROR_MOVIES_101/Re_Top_31_Horror_films_of_the_past_31_years_on_The/222/24986/1/ShowPost.aspx Post By: Puhnner
Post To: HORROR MOVIES 101
Post Date: 2/11/2008 2:34:19 PM
Body: Here is my list, although it is a bit different in that the list allows only one Film from each of the 31 years, which believe me, limits the choices; for instance 1986: The FlyFrom BeyondHenry: Portrait of a Serial KillerThe HitcherInvaders from MarsManhunterNomadsVamp1987 is just as hardI am working on another one, which is just my 31 favorites regardless of how many a year. These choices listed, fit my definition of horror. They are horrifying and extremely unsettling, but may not be, in the strictest sense, horror. but well, here it is. Oh, I also did not not include the Alien films which although 'monster goes boo!', even though I love every one of them, fall somewhere in the realm of Science Fiction to me...enough gibberish, here it is:By the way, I want 'Mommie Dearest' to be No. 1, but that is another story.Years 1976 through 2007 ( the Spout year listings are a bit different than Wikipedia's which I used ) 31. 1984 A Nightmare on Elm Street 30. 1994 Natural Born Killers 29. 2004 Dawn of the Dead 28. 2003 Texas Chainsaw Massacre 27. 2005 Sin City 26. 1993 Army of Darkness 25. 1998 Fallen 24. 1983 Videodrome 23. 2006 Fido 22. 1996 The Frighteners 21. 2007 Zodiac 20. 2000 Crimson Rivers 19. 2001 Frailty 18. 2002 28 Days Later 17. 1990 Jacob’s Ladder 16. 1988 The Vanishing 15. 1995 Se7en 14. 1989 Shocker 13. 1976 The Tenant 12. 1977 Rabid 11. 1987 Hellraiser 10. 1985 Re-Animator 9. 1981 The Howling 8. 1979 Nosferatu 7. 1978 Halloween 6. 1986 The Hitcher 5. 1991 The Silence of the Lambs 4. 1982 The Thing 3. 1992 Twin Peaks Fire Walk with Me 2. 1997 Lost Highway 1. 1999 Audition
]]>Mon, 11 Feb 2008 19:34:19 GMTPuhnnerHORROR MOVIES 1012/11/2008 2:34:19 PMHere is my list, although it is a bit different in that the list allows only one Film from each of the 31 years, which believe me, limits the choices; for instance 1986: The FlyFrom BeyondHenry: Portrait of a Serial KillerThe HitcherInvaders from MarsManhunterNomadsVamp1987 is just as hardI am working on another one, which is just my 31 favorites regardless of how many a year. These choices listed, fit my definition of horror. They are horrifying and extremely unsettling, but may not be, in the strictest sense, horror. but well, here it is. Oh, I also did not not include the Alien films which although &#39;monster goes boo!&#39;, even though I love every one of them, fall somewhere in the realm of Science Fiction to me...enough gibberish, here it is:By the way, I want &#39;Mommie Dearest&#39; to be No. 1, but that is another story.Years 1976 through 2007 ( the Spout year listings are a bit different than Wikipedia&#39;s which I used ) 31. 1984 A Nightmare on Elm Street 30. 1994 Natural Born Killers 29. 2004 Dawn of the Dead 28. 2003 Texas Chainsaw Massacre 27. 2005 Sin City 26. 1993 Army of Darkness 25. 1998 Fallen 24. 1983 Videodrome 23. 2006 Fido 22. 1996 The Frighteners 21. 2007 Zodiac 20. 2000 Crimson Rivers 19. 2001 Frailty 18. 2002 28 Days Later 17. 1990 Jacob&rsquo;s Ladder 16. 1988 The Vanishing 15. 1995 Se7en 14. 1989 Shocker 13. 1976 The Tenant 12. 1977 Rabid 11. 1987 Hellraiser 10. 1985 Re-Animator 9. 1981 The Howling 8. 1979 Nosferatu 7. 1978 Halloween 6. 1986 The Hitcher 5. 1991 The Silence of the Lambs 4. 1982 The Thing 3. 1992 Twin Peaks Fire Walk with Me 2. 1997 Lost Highway 1. 1999 Audition http://www.spout.com/groups/HORROR_MOVIES_101/Re_The_Differentiation_Of_Horror_Films/222/18505/1/ShowPost.aspx Post By: TheWorkingDead
Post To: HORROR MOVIES 101
Post Date: 8/21/2007 8:20:23 PM
Body: [quote user="Dr_Gor"] I would have to agree with 'sonofkinski' on one thing... every David Lynch movie I've ever seen is most certainly a Horror movie. These would be "Blue Velvet" , "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me" and "Lost Highway" . I don't think I've seen any others of his. And, yes, I think every Cronenberg movie I've ever seen would be a horror movie as well... Including "Dead Ringers" ... (appearently there was something very interesting about Genvieve Bujold's nether regions!) ... Anyhow, thanks for reviving this discussion, guys! It was (and IS) an interesting one! [/quote] Well, David Lynch did one explicitly non-horrific movie, The Straight Story. And of course Dune is sci-fi, not really horror. Elephant Man, that's stretching it, unless you want to argue that it shows the horrific cruelty man is capable of inflicting on other men.I wouldn't call Crash, by Cronenberg, a horror film. Nor would I call eXistenZ. But yes, both David's usually find a way to inject horrific scenarios into all their work. They're the best horror directors not considered horror directors.
]]>Wed, 22 Aug 2007 00:20:23 GMTTheWorkingDeadHORROR MOVIES 1018/21/2007 8:20:23 PM[quote user="Dr_Gor"] I would have to agree with &#39;sonofkinski&#39; on one thing... every David Lynch movie I&#39;ve ever seen is most certainly a Horror movie. These would be "Blue Velvet" , "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me" and "Lost Highway" . I don&#39;t think I&#39;ve seen any others of his. And, yes, I think every Cronenberg movie I&#39;ve ever seen would be a horror movie as well... Including "Dead Ringers" ... (appearently there was something very interesting about Genvieve Bujold&#39;s nether regions!) ... Anyhow, thanks for reviving this discussion, guys! It was (and IS) an interesting one! [/quote] Well, David Lynch did one explicitly non-horrific movie, The Straight Story. And of course Dune is sci-fi, not really horror. Elephant Man, that&#39;s stretching it, unless you want to argue that it shows the horrific cruelty man is capable of inflicting on other men.I wouldn&#39;t call Crash, by Cronenberg, a horror film. Nor would I call eXistenZ. But yes, both David&#39;s usually find a way to inject horrific scenarios into all their work. They&#39;re the best horror directors not considered horror directors. http://www.spout.com/groups/HORROR_MOVIES_101/Re_The_Differentiation_Of_Horror_Films/222/18501/1/ShowPost.aspx Post By: Dr_Gor
Post To: HORROR MOVIES 101
Post Date: 8/21/2007 6:53:55 PM
Body: I would have to agree with 'sonofkinski' on one thing... every David Lynch movie I've ever seen is most certainly a Horror movie. These would be "Blue Velvet" , "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me" and "Lost Highway" . I don't think I've seen any others of his. And, yes, I think every Cronenberg movie I've ever seen would be a horror movie as well... Including "Dead Ringers" ... (appearently there was something very interesting about Genvieve Bujold's nether regions!) ... Anyhow, thanks for reviving this discussion, guys! It was (and IS) an interesting one!
]]>Tue, 21 Aug 2007 22:53:55 GMTDr_GorHORROR MOVIES 1018/21/2007 6:53:55 PM I would have to agree with &#39;sonofkinski&#39; on one thing... every David Lynch movie I&#39;ve ever seen is most certainly a Horror movie. These would be "Blue Velvet" , "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me" and "Lost Highway" . I don&#39;t think I&#39;ve seen any others of his. And, yes, I think every Cronenberg movie I&#39;ve ever seen would be a horror movie as well... Including "Dead Ringers" ... (appearently there was something very interesting about Genvieve Bujold&#39;s nether regions!) ... Anyhow, thanks for reviving this discussion, guys! It was (and IS) an interesting one! http://www.spout.com/groups/Gorrible/Re_Videodrome/242/16946/1/ShowPost.aspx Post By: Risselada
Post To: Gorrible
Post Date: 7/31/2007 2:34:30 PM
Body: [quote user="Dr_Gor"] Oops! My bad. The one with Robert Blake I was thinking of was "Lost Highway" , a film by David Lynch! For some reason I always get those two confused.... perhaps because they both direct such 'strango-bizzarro' movies! VERY different styles, though... [/quote]Yeah they are pretty different styles, but both very cerebral and hard to discern sometimes. I thought they might both be Canadian for some reason but I looked it up and it's only Cronenberg.
]]>Tue, 31 Jul 2007 18:34:30 GMTRisseladaGorrible7/31/2007 2:34:30 PM[quote user="Dr_Gor"] Oops! My bad. The one with Robert Blake I was thinking of was "Lost Highway" , a film by David Lynch! For some reason I always get those two confused.... perhaps because they both direct such &#39;strango-bizzarro&#39; movies! VERY different styles, though... [/quote]Yeah they are pretty different styles, but both very cerebral and hard to discern sometimes. I thought they might both be Canadian for some reason but I looked it up and it&#39;s only Cronenberg. http://www.spout.com/groups/Gorrible/Re_Videodrome/242/16689/1/ShowPost.aspx Post By: Dr_Gor
Post To: Gorrible
Post Date: 7/27/2007 6:53:54 PM
Body: Oops! My bad. The one with Robert Blake I was thinking of was "Lost Highway" , a film by David Lynch! For some reason I always get those two confused.... perhaps because they both direct such 'strango-bizzarro' movies! VERY different styles, though...
]]>Fri, 27 Jul 2007 22:53:54 GMTDr_GorGorrible7/27/2007 6:53:54 PM Oops! My bad. The one with Robert Blake I was thinking of was "Lost Highway" , a film by David Lynch! For some reason I always get those two confused.... perhaps because they both direct such &#39;strango-bizzarro&#39; movies! VERY different styles, though... http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/murder/MemberTagFilms.aspxmurder
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