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Blackmail, Murder & Mayhem

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Blue Velvet

Blue Velvet

List Price: $19.98
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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: a comment on the DVD (not the film - which is brilliant btw)
Review: I suppose that most of you who are contemplating on purchasing this DVD version of Lynch's BLUE VELVET will have already seen the film. This isn't exactly a window-shopper's item. Therefore this is just a comment on the DVD and not the film. You can read my thoughts on the film elsewhere on this page, if you're interested.

The film is presented in fullscreen (4 : 3 ratio). I must admit that I don't really know if the film was ever shot in widescreen (there's a good chance that it never was), but I know that a lot of eighties movies that are available in widescreen are popping up in fullscreen on DVD. The picture quality is not very good. It's fuzzy and it reminds you too much of VHS. The sound is presented in simple stereo. I've heard rumors that they've been planning to launch a 5.1 surround version on DVD. I would definitely try to check out that rumor before purchasing this DVD. When it come's to the extras, there's really not much too say. We're given a few photographs from the production, but most of these pictures seem to be taken straight out of the movie, so they're not really that interesting (I think David Lynch only appear on one photo). It would have been nice if they'd added a commentary by Lynch and the cast (I for one would really have loved that) or some behind-the-scenes documentary, but no such luck. But we are given a 'collectible making-of booklet', though it sounds much more exiting that what it really is. It's nothing more than a few pages that chronicles Lynch's career. There's nothing there that a Lynch fan don't already know.

So, in conclusion, if you already have this film on VHS there's no point in buying this DVD version, and if you don't have it on VHS you might as well buy the VHS version because it's cheaper and the two versions don't differ that much in quality. But keep in mind the rumor I mentioned about a 5.1 surround version of the film being launched on DVD.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Wait for the new edition
Review: This is a great movie, but with the new 5.1 surround mix on the new edition coming out soon, it would be a waste to get it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Best film out there
Review: This is the most masterfully crafted, written, directed, and acted film out there. It is film noir in rich color. Thank you, David lynch for making this work of art. Not everyone gets its beauty, but then the majority of the American film going audience is not very smart. Aside from Eraserhead, Blue Velvet is Lynch at his finest. If you get this film you are ready for everything else Lynch created.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Sinematic Nightmares
Review: I wonder how David Lynch's mother felt when she saw this story pour out of her darling son's mind. If she's anything like David himself, I'm sure she was extremely proud. Lynch made one of the best films of the 1980s when he completed Blue Velvet. This is one of those movies that is so powerful and visually stunning that you can't help but involve yourself with it's sick and strangely motivated characters. When watching this you will cringe, you will grind your teeth, and you will find yourself with a disturbed look on your face...and Lynch wouldn't want it any other way.

This film is a fusion of neo-noir style, art-house poetry, heart-stopping suspense, and sadistic erotica. It's not for all tastes, but should be viewed by anyone who's willing to give up two hours and think for a little while. What does Lynch have to say about society today? Not much that is positive, let me tell you. But he doesn't shove it in your face, he lets the viewer determine how he feels through examining the actions of the characters caught in the web of criminal activity and violent sexuality that the film offers. You may not be smiling after watching this movie, but I do promise you two things: 1) You will NEVER forget the movie 2) You will have nightmares in which Dennis Hopper stars as an antagonist. His role is so startling and demanding that you may find yourself staring at him in awe. To prepare yourself for Blue Velvet, try viewing the gentler Lynch opus The Elephant Man, or the original cult classic, Eraserhead. Small town America was never so terrifying...

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: By Far, Still One of the Creepiest Moovys Ever Made.....
Review: .....because, believe it or not, evvy small US town seems to have its underbelly. In fact, I'd venture to say, the more "perfectly white-picket fenced" a community is, the more bizarre its underbelly. In my opinion, this is Lynch at his best, being that "Twin Peaks" culminated in undecipherable and hard to watch absurdist cinema, and "The Lost Highway" is way too non-linear...fans of that film must find the current "Momento" simply fabulous. More power to them.

"Blue Velvet" is good because of the pacing....it does not try to pack in too many details and mental cul-de sacs for the viewer. It has straight ahead suspence that slowly builds from the severed ear found in the field to its scenes of MacLachlan peeking through the apartment closet shutters, and his confrontation with Hopper and Stockwell (in creepy roles essentially reprised by Loggia and Robert Blake in "The Lost Highway"...done better by Hopper and Stockwell) and to its final wild scene. Each moment of the story seems to get bleaker, moodier and creepier, but there are no wild skips in continuity. And there are no supernatural monsters here. Just the human kind of monster... It is very difficult to watch because we identify with MacLachlan's college Hardy Boy so much and our sense of what's so called normal and right makes what we see in this Lynchian Travel in Hyperreality so disturbing.

I've seen this thing several times and still, it gets to me...

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Candy Colored Clown
Review: The most controversial film of the 80's, David Lynch's "Blue Velvet" is a two hour long dark joke.

People either get it or they don't which accounts for the fact that people either love this film or completely despise it.

What more can anyone ask of a movie that has Dean Stockwell in drag, lip-synching Roy Orbison's "In Dreams," while a deranged Dennis Hopper mouths the words, his face contorted in pain, not mention Ketty Lester's record of "Love Letters" used as a backdrop to a viewing of two mutalated corpses.

Like Scorsese, Lynch knows the power of pop music and how it can be used in the most inverted ways to enchance the power of film.

Too bad Lynch doesn't like to re-visit his old work...we could use a new DVD edition of "Velvet" with director's commentary added.

To sum it all up; no one can ever confuse any frame of "Blue Velvet" with any other movie.

It's a complete original.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Unidimensionality
Review: David Lynch's "Blue Velvet" is almost impossible to describe because the actors are so great portraying their roles that reviewing this film might create an anti-climax. But we immediately recognize David Lynch's touch, his obsession for the bizarre and the cruel. The film has a pulp simplicity, but it's self-conscious in its satire. Isabella Rossellini portrays a woman whose husband and son have been kidnapped by Dennis Hopper, and Kyle McLaghlan and Laura Dern are the heroes who try to discover what's behind the small town facade. They whisper corny lines to each other and their characters are purely mechanical, but perhaps it's just an homage to classicism. Fortunately, there are times when the actors let themselves go and almost pull out from the unidimensional behavior that suffocates all their gestures and words. Dennis Hopper gives a very strong performance as an obsessed and dangerous man, with an homicidal tendency and a sexual crisis but Isabella Rossellini steals all the scenes she's in as we regognize her true suffering and anguish.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: NO RESOLUTION!
Review: those familiar with david lynch will be hardly persuaded by the the ironic beauty and tragedy presented here. Isabella Rossileni (I thought I had a cool name) sure does look great in cotton shorts and tiled with hickeys. Dream. When school boy "Jeffrey" finds severed human ear in lot, he takes it police. He is not a suspect (sure!). "Jeffrey" meets high school girl - her dad is the detective on the case - and they become fast lovers. Flinging into the mystery with an undignified zeal, "Jeffrey Beaumont", breaks into this [girl's] crib and hides in the closet. Peeping out the slides, he witnesses brutality and humiliation. He des nothing. She discovers im and gives him a lesson in sexual tortue. He acts like he doesn't care. All jaded, etc. Chase to the end>>>>> When someone gets shot in the head, usually they fall down. Right? Not in this movie they don't. They stand there for a bit and gurggle blood. There is no resolve. One cannot figure out who is the good guy, who is the bad guy. chason pour les petites enfants!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: audacious! provacative! nearly 20 years old, still acute
Review: David Lynch's films are truly unique in every possible way. Perhaps one of the most singular cinematic voices in the entire short history of films. I watched the movie, Blue Velvet, for the first time recently. The film was made in the eighties, but it didn't feel a day too old. The first time of watching Dennis Hopper's character ghastly screaming the words "Baby wants to fxxx" is a disturbing, moving, but nonetheless unforgettable experience. The audience is placed in the same shoes as the wide-eyed MacLachlan's character: we, the audience, are being exposed to a twisted and frightening world where everything is a subtle sexual-psychological clue points somewhere into the abyss of society's collective subconscious. The audience is shocked, perplexed, and repulsed, not necessarily by the movie per se, but by the discomfort of our id being forced to come in contact with our middle-class American, post-war optimistic, morally weakened, and fragile ego. There are too many symbolisms in the movie that a huge volume can be entirely devoted to uncover them. But as the old cliche says "a picture is worth a thousand words". It's especially true in the case of Lynch's audacious and visionary master work, Blue Velvet. I would urge all film lovers and anyone who's looking for the meaning in arts to watch this film.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Hypnotic in it's erotic/ lovely horrific nature
Review: I've always loved David Lynch (ever since i first laid eyes on Twin Peaks). Kyle Maclachlan is a great on screen presence,and every character(in true Lynchian style) is superb. If you are one for strange and ground breaking, you will instanly fall into this with wide eyes and wide mouth.


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