Twin Peaks Season 3, Episode 8: "Got a light?"

Ignition

(WARNING story discussed in explicit detail--though how comprehensible details may be is a matter of debate, with both discussion and debate an exercise in futility)

The episode's putative title-- "Got a light?" sounds odd on first reading (online you see it under the episode's thumbnail pic) gains significance later on. 

Starts off plottily enough: Evil Mr. C (Kyle MacLachlan) and less evil Ray (George Griffith) have blackmailed their way out of prison, shaken away any electronic tracers*, turned off into a small side road (how can Lynch fill interminable shots of cars nosing down dirt roads with such dread?). They confront each other, demanding money demanding information, with C pointing the 'friend' he pulled from the glove compartment (a special request planted there by the prison warden) at Ray.

Only C's gun somehow fails to fire. Only Ray in a clever twist produces his own gun shooting C twice in the gut. Only when C drops the lights start flickering and shadowy figures emerge from the woods, dancing around C's body, pulling apart his belly, smearing his own gore on his face, squeezing out an egg sac larva with BOB visibly floating inside (Ray: "I saw something in Cooper. It might be the key to what this is all about.").

Dune: Part Two (Denis Villeneuve, 2024)

Done again

(Warning: details of both '84, '21, '24 films and '65 book discussed in freewheelingly explicit detail)

Denis Villeneuve finishing his two-part adaptation of Frank Herbert's classic science fiction novel and you want to ask: was it worth the wait? Was it worth the hype? Was it worth sitting through the first movie?

Dune (Denis Villeneuve 2021; David Lynch 1984; Frank Herbert 1965)

Done

(Warning: plot details for the 2021 remake the 1984 adaptation and the 1965 original discussed in explicit detail)

Denis Villeneuve's long-delayed Dune (initiated 2016; shot in 2019; released 2021) does this much right: it tells Frank Herbert's story-- the societal complexity (Great Houses and Guilds), the skullduggery (plans within plans within plans within plans), Paul Atreides' meteoric ascent-- coherently. Villeneuve carefully hands over with both hands what Lynch in his 1984 version threw at us wholesale, not so much an info dump as explosive diarrhea. With Villeneuve you feel a touch overwhelmed; with Lynch it swirls past your eyebrows, climbing. 

Best films of the 2010s

The best of the past ten 

A grim decade, grimmer now in its passing. Not a lot of comedies on my list, and what laughs are available often die strangled in the throat. Do the films reflect that grimness?  

In ascending order:

Best of 2017

Best of 2017

What I've seen of 2017 with maybe three exceptions was good not great--which possibly reflects more on me and my viewing efforts  than on the year--but who can refrain from making year-end lists? I can't. I didn't.

Twin Peaks Season 3 Finale (David Lynch, 2017)

Cherchez la femme

(Warning: plot outline and narrative twists discussed in close detail)

In the first part of The Return finale co-writers Lynch and Frost assembles most of the series' characters (those left alive I mean) at the Peaks sheriff's station, lashes every (well most) storylines together in a single great gift-wrapped all-encompassing Christmas package of a resolution. In the second half Lynch takes that package stuffs it under the belly of the Trinity bomb and fires the device, sending everything up in a mushroom cloud spinning slowly against the dark New Mexico sky.

Twin Peaks (David Lynch, 2017)

A stranger's dream

A little over a quarter century later.

The gum you thought would never come back.

It is happening again.

There's no berry pies served, no coffee until the fourth episode where a cup--maybe--plays a crucial role. There's donuts--boxed and labeled (apparently from a wellknown franchise) not spread out in sumptuous display--and at one point a beautifully pointless pun involving the little crullers. Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) does appear but she's older now ("I'm dead yet I live") having somehow aged in the confines of the Black Lodge. Most of the characters have visibly aged, reflecting the physical condition of much of the audience ardently watching.

Ladies and gentlemen welcome--back--to Twin Peaks.

Twin Peaks (David Lynch and Mark Frost, creators)

That gum you like 

David Lynch and Mark Frost's murder mystery/spiritual horrorshow/police procedural/goofball soap opera Twin Peaks debuted on ABC Network April 8, 1990 and television hasn't been quite the same.  

Inland Empire (David Lynch, 2006)

Sub terrain

Maybe the most surprising thing about Inland Empire wasn't that it was complex (intercutting, repeating, transmuting plotlines, images, characters), ambitious (at almost three hours one of the longest works the director has ever attempted (outside of his massive adaptation of Dune)) or incomprehensible (Lynch?), but that it was actually satisfying--and all the more memorable for being so, despite (or even because of) the former three qualities.