OK, so I sat down in the very comfortable theater to watch the latest David Lynch film, Mulholland Drive.
Lights down, curtain up, film begins.
Uhm...
David Lynch is a really, really strange man. It's safe to say that, aside from the aberration The Straight Story released a couple years ago, the most mainstream thing Lynch ever gave us was Twin Peaks, which was certainly a bit left of freaky itself.
Mulholland Drive is ever-so-whacked.
The story is...well...it's kinda...well...that's a good question.
Basically, you have this blond chick from the Midwest who comes to LA with dreams of stardom. And you have this brunette who is in a limo accident, loses her memory and ends up in blond chick's shower. And there's a director who's being threatened into casting a certain actress in his movie against his wishes. And there's the cowboy, can't forget the cowboy.
This is style, baby, style. Your first thought upon seeing the film is that everyone in it is a very bad actor. You're wrong. Trust me on this. You may think the plot makes no sense. You're wrong. You may tell yourself, this is not my beautiful house, you may tell yourself, this is not my beautiful wife.
If you see this movie and like it, you'll want to see it again. Because the more you see it, the more you understand it. This is not a movie for the weak or timid. But it has a secret. There's a certain hint that if you know beforehand, will allow the movie to make sense. But I'm not going to tell you what that hint is. Perhaps, if you ask nicely, I'll email it to you. Maybe. But you have to ask nicely.
David Lynch has a habit of making movies that taunt the everyday moviegoer. "You're not cool enough to understand my genius!" "You wish you understood me!" This film is no exception- the guy's a freak, and he makes freaky movies.
What's even more incredible is that this movie was put together from footage shot for a television pilot. Mulholland Drive was going to be a TV show. That would have been really, really, really odd. Networks like cohesive plots, characters that make sense, things like that. I really don't know how Lynch expected to get all of this madness inside of a television show. And I really want to know how he expected to get the hot lesbian sex scenes past the censors.
Did I mention the lesbian sex? There are a couple of really, really wonderfully explicit lesbian sex scenes. They are hot, hot, hot, steamy hot, hot, hot. Makes everything else in movie completely unimportant. It's amazing what you can put up with in a flick if it has incredibly blisteringly hot lesbian sex scenes.
I am giving Mulholland Drive 4 1/4 Babylons. It is a movie that honestly gets better the more I sit around and think about it. I probably would have given the film 3 1/2 or so right after seeing it, but it grows on you, becomes a conversation piece, sticks in the bowels of your mind. And of course, there are the lesbian sex scenes.
I was impressed that the SMC opened up his mind to enjoy this amazing movie. I was especially worried when a) it was 2 1/2 hours long, b) the SMC ordered a 72 oz. Mr. Pibb to last the whole movie and c) the men's room toilet at the Vista was out of service.
Mulholland Drive
Rated: R
Directed By: David Lynch
Starring: Naomi Watts, Laura Harring, Justin Theroux, Ann Miller, Robert Forster, Dan Hedaya, Rebekah Del Rio, Chad Everett and, in his long awaited
return to the big screen, Billy Ray Cyrus. I kid you not.