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User
Reviews 50
Approval 95%
Soundoffs 130
News Articles 6
Band Edits + Tags 277
Album Edits 518
Album Ratings 4752
Objectivity 78%
Last Active 12-16-22 8:35 pm
Joined 10-03-13
Review Comments 8,124
| Jas Does Lynch
We're all ranking David Lynch at the moment, so it's my turn to join in, because he's one of my favourite directors. I will admit, off the bat, I completely understand that I'm going to get called a shithead for some of these placements, but like I have a shrek soundtrack 5'd so honestly none of y'all can touch me at the end of the day. | | 13 |  | Panacea (USA)
Ink Is My Drink
Dune
It's creative, but it's literally impossible to follow. It's honestly baffling how incoherent this movie is, even after having read the novel. I rewatched this with my flatmates (cause we were going to see Villeneuve's the next day) and I asked them at the midway point if they could tell what was going on… they could not. Though tbf that's reasonably par the course for a response to a David Lynch film. | | 12 |  | James Ferraro
Night Dolls With Hairspray
Wild At Heart
I wanted to like this movie, since it's kinda an underdog amongst Lynch's filmography (people seem to rank it near the bottom fairly consistently) but I honestly do not like this movie at all. I loved the performances in this movie, especially Nic Cage tbh, I like the energy Laura Dern brings to the dynamic as well. But in the end, I don't find the story particularly compelling, and it also (in my opinion) is one of the most egregious examples of one of Lynch's biggest sins for me as a film maker: gratuitous, stylised sexual violence. Even FWWM falls into this trap (which I'll talk about later), but this movie especially uses it completely for style, with absolutely no substance, and I personally cannot stomach that shit and don't stand for it in general; I hate the thought of the reality of making the scene, where the actors are actually having to enact the scene. Yeah, I just think it's a terrible movie trope. | | 11 |  | Caroline Loveglow
Strawberry
Blue Velvet
Kinda the same as Wild At Heart tbh, though there are two things Wild At Heart kinda lacks that puts this movie well above it for me: the cinematography, and Dennis Hopper. I completely get that Lynch juxtaposing white pickett fence suburbia with the violence happening within it is his thing, but to be quite honest I generally don't find that a particularly compelling aspect of his film making. I do kinda like this movie in a way though, I certainly enjoy the acting and the way this film looks and feels, but I honestly can't be assed with this film otherwise, and probably wouldn't watch it again by myself. | | 10 |  | Dean Blunt
Black Metal
Lost Highway
For me this movie sits in a weird limbo where Lynch is finally starting to fully realise the general crux of all his themes and techniques as a director, but none of the ideas coalesce and in the end, Lost Highway is generally unsatisfying, albeit enjoyable nonetheless. I like the first half, and the final third-ish (like, from about where Pete kills Andy onwards). Lynch brilliantly captures that sense-nonsense logic that dreaming follows, and it's this I find most compelling in his movies. I think Lynch has great "instinct" for how something should look and feel, and he starts coming into that a lot with this movie. | | 9 | | Dean Blunt
Black Metal
Also soundtrack + tailgating scene = cool and good. I also think Lynch maybe accidently (I honestly can never tell with this dude, and I generally refuse to give him very much credit on progressive topics, because of how he comes off in interviews) says something interesting about men's relationship with porn and the reality of the girls who make them---this would be part of that dual identity thing Lynch becomes obsessed with from here on out---but yeah, dunno if he meant to do that or not. | | 8 |  | Cities Aviv
MAN PLAYS THE HORN
The Straight Story
I really like this movie lol. It feels a lot like moments in Twin Peaks: The Return, a very early version of those themes. Lynch seems to have a lot of respect for the life experience of the elderly, and this film seems like a sort of love letter to the kind of "grace" they possess (it's a shame this generally is not true in real life). It's an emotionally poignant film in a very direct way which one normally wouldn't expect from Lynch (who as I said earlier, I feel is usually "instinctive" in the way he portrays emotional impact). I love the way this movie lingers in place a lot with scenes, gives the characters plenty of space to breathe. It's also literally a movie about a dude driving across state on a ride-on John Deere lawnmower which is the fucking dopest thing I've ever heard of (and it's even better because it's based on a true story). | | 7 |  | Coil
Musick To Play In The Dark 2
Eraserhead
This was my first Lynch movie. I actually first saw this when I was like, 13/14, because there used to be a fan video on YouTube where they set Tool's "H." to scenes from this, so I ended up seeking it out. I love the oppressive anxiousness this whole film has, that general fear of responsibility and exhaustion at having it, backdropped against a world which so evocatively paints the hellishness of industrial society. Shooting it in black and white also does wonders for making all the animatronics and other weird aspects feel much more real than they otherwise would in colour, so you can suspend disbelief pretty much entirely. The only excuse I really have for having this so low is just that I like these other movies more, and would generally prefer to watch them. | | 6 |  | Wold
Screech Owl
The Elephant Man
I've long been obsessed with Joseph Merrick (who Lynch calls John Merrick in this, but we move), so college age Jas was super excited when he discovered that one of his favourite directors actually cut his teeth on a biography about him, starring one of my favourite actors, Anthony Hopkins. This does a lot of the things visually (not so much thematically) that Eraserhead does, and is in general a very human story about one of the most very human historical figures. I also love the parts where Hopkins's character becomes conflicted about his own role in inadvertently perpetuating Merrick's life as a specticle to be pointed at, and his feelings of guilt about this, despite doing the best he can to help him have a normal life. Yeah, love this movie. Also the blu-ray/4k remaster of this actually looks fucking stunning, idk how they did it. | | 5 |  | Gustav Mahler
Symphony No. 2 in C minor, "Resurrection"
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
This movie has grown on me a lot. I liked it, but didn't "love" it when I first watched it, but the more time I spend with Twin Peaks in general, the more I appreciate it. I think one of the most revelatory moments for me was watching Twin Peaks with my flatmates over lockdown (them watching it for the first time, me rewatching it) and my best mate goes "I didn't like the way Leland wasn't what we're used to in this movie" and I thought about that for a few seconds and said "well, yeah, this is Laura's perspective." Because while to us as the viewer, Leland is this kooky excentric personality grieving over the loss of his daughter and doing battle with an evil spirit within him, to Laura, he was a fucking monster, he was her domineering father, and also her rapist. Lynch does a fantastic job of upsetting how we thought of Laura, not as the residents of Twin Peaks remember her, as the american beauty, prom queen who did the meals on wheels in her spare time | | 4 | | Gustav Mahler
Symphony No. 2 in C minor, "Resurrection"
when she wasn't acing her schoolwork and going out with her football captain boyfriend, but as… well, to be honest, a normal teenager, going through hell, and portraying this in an excrutiatingly human way. But, it must be said, last time I promise, I do not like the way Lynch uses stylisted sexual violence, even if this is otherwise a generally very considered and respectful movie about rape. (yeah sorry y'all that haven't gotten this far into Twin Peaks yet, this movie's dark) | | 3 |  | Nina Simone
Pastel Blues
Inland Empire
This movie is like watching Mulholland Drive on hard mode. I fucking adore this movie, it's everything I want when I watch David Lynch. The way these early digital cameras capture everything in such an approximated way (in comparison to the cleaner look film has) gives the movie this unholy uncanniness, which I think compliments the dream-logic instinctualness of the "story" (such as it is) in an otherworldly way. Every turn this movie takes feels like falling deeper and deeper into a rabbit hole with no bottom, and I love that sense of disorientation that happens in your head when you realise you can no longer tell whether you're watching the character's real experiences, or if she's shooting for the movie (an orientation which the character doesn't have either) | | 2 | | Nina Simone
Pastel Blues
and the way the movie compounds this even further as the credits role and the extras start dancing to "Sinnerman" as if it were an "it's a wrap" behind the scenes bonus feature (also the fact that the movie doesn't exactly stop, and the credits are still a part of the movie and not a separate thing). Fuck i could honestly go on and on about this movie, call it wank all you want, I'm about those cummies. | | 1 |  | Pink Floyd
Meddle
Mulholland Drive
So yeah obviously that leaves this for the number one spot. I think it might actually just generally be my favourite movie, not even just favourite Lynch. I have seen this movie countless times, and every single time I still find myself tearing up at the scene in the auditorium when Rebecca Del Rio starts singing, fuck me. This movie is all of Lynch's best ideas at their most fully realised. It's a tour-de-force of dual identity, the border between reality and fiction, hollywood predation, astonishingly breathtaking cinematography (that cross fade of the palm trees into Naomi Watts lying on the couch lives rent free in my head), and it also somehow manages to be a decent LGBTQ+ movie too (again, I don't know how much credit I can actually give Lynch for this). Will happily watch this movie hundreds more times. | |
Jasdevi087
04.27.22 | please do not hurt me because of the blue velvet thing | Trebor.
04.27.22 | I love them all except Lost Highway is merely very good, Straight Story is OK, and Dune sucks | madrigal30
04.27.22 | i cannot understand the blue velvet thing but i really like this ranking aside from that, and i agree with almost every one of your points | Ryus
04.27.22 | i will hurt you because of the blue velvet thing
nice ranking tho otherwise i can dig it. eraserhead will always be my number one (well unless FWWM dethrones it when i get around to it in the next week or so!)
mulholland drive has like four of my favorite scenes ever though. what a fucking film | z00sh
04.27.22 | well, at least mulholland drive is #1 (: | Lord(e)Po)))ts
04.27.22 | “ call it wank all you want, I'm about those cummies.”
Lmao | Ryus
04.27.22 | i was really high the first time i watched inland empire and honestly i think that was ideal
i retained about 2% of what happened on screen but holy hell i had a good time
the fucking jump scare almost made me have a heart attack though | Jasdevi087
04.27.22 | i will happily concede that Blue Velvet is just something i don't "get", rather than anything indicitive of its quality
@ryus FWWM goes hard, feel free to screenshot. imagine if twin peaks just generally had that blue velvet/mulholland drive look to it, and that's fwwm | Jasdevi087
04.27.22 | i knew the Inland Empire jumpscare was coming and I still didn't survive it lol | rabidfish
04.27.22 | on my 2nd Re-watch of The Return. God it's so fucking amazing. The Dougie stuff is comedy gold, once you can enjoy it for what it is instead of being anxious about the whole Cooper and Mr. C stuff. I've also been noticing a lot of small details i missed on original and 1st re-watch.
Shit's ART. | Winesburgohio
04.27.22 | one of those directors. happy to see mulholland drive take #1 but i'd be equally happy seeing Eraserhead (probably my favourite), FWWM (which has worked it's way inexorably into my heart and into the personal canon of favourites, a volte-face from my former dislike) or Inland Empire take the gong. i think that you're quite correct in observing that his work has tremendous emotional effect beyond cryptic re-routed symbols of american excess and decay. just brilliant | Ryus
04.27.22 | the dude is a genius. easily my favorite modern filmmaker | Ryus
04.27.22 | also i am very mad that that dude tweeted that we were getting a new lynch at cannes and now apparently we are not
...unless? | Jasdevi087
04.27.22 | He's finna just drop a two hour weather report | Lord(e)Po)))ts
04.27.22 | " I've also been noticing a lot of small details i missed on original and 1st re-watch.
Shit's ART."
I've watched it 4 times and I'm still learning new shit every time | madrigal30
04.27.22 | i think blue velvet truly honest to god doesn't need to be interrogated as much as the rest of lynch's films | Lord(e)Po)))ts
04.27.22 | Yeah the last few days of hyper criticality towards blue velvet has been alarming, especially in the context of all his other work being enjoyed | InFiction
04.27.22 | I must be in the minority that thinks Lost Highway is top-tier Lynch. | Lord(e)Po)))ts
04.27.22 | It is | Jasdevi087
04.27.22 | plenty of people have Lost Highway in their top 3 | madrigal30
04.27.22 | lost highway is a bit undersold here, i really think it's wonderful | Jasdevi087
04.27.22 | i just think it's a less good attempt at stuff he's done better personally | Lord(e)Po)))ts
04.27.22 | The whole trilogy is perfection. | Rowan5215
04.27.22 | good list and yeah Lost Highway is top 3 for me. genuinely think WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU is probably the best thing he's directed
hated Inland Empire when I watched it but that was years ago. prolly due a revisit | JeetJeet
04.27.22 | Mulholland is unfuckwittable. Great list | bgillesp
04.27.22 | Ray Lynch >> | beefshoes
04.27.22 | Don't know shit about film honestly, but FWWM, Eraserhead, and Blue Velvet are some of the most brilliant and unsettling movies ever made. I love Twin Peaks to death, but I don't think that I could ever force myself through the film or revival again because of that. haha |
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