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Mulholland Drive

Mulholland Drive

List Price: $14.98
Your Price: $11.24
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Either I'm dumber than I thought, or...
Review: I don't know if I'm just naive about what he was trying to do when he directed this film. He would know more than I would what he wanted the viewer to come away with. I wanted to rent it again right after I returned it. It stimulated my brain thats why, and my libido. I thought that the lez-curious scene was very real and sensitive. My heart was beating so fast. Then people started disappearing, little Lilliputan characters were walking under doors, people were swithching identities... You will need a notepad to keep up with the names and who switched with whom. It was just like an episode of Twin Peaks, or even CSI. If you want to be stimulated in the brain and body watch it. Don't buy anything that cuts out scenes, (even the nude ones) because they really help to pull you into the characterizations. I will re-rent it just to break it down like a Shakespearean sonnet. I hope I can still enjoy it.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: A tour de force of incoherence and confusion.
Review: For all its attempts at being one of the most immersive and mesmerizing mood pieces to come along in eons, David Lynch's "Mulholland Drive" does little to to bring its viewers into its delusional world of chaotic bewilderment. The film feels flat when it should feel restless, it moves with the pace of a corpse, it supplies us with characters we can only go so far with, and it ends on a note of surprisingly moronic uncertainty that Lynch tries to pass off as brilliance.

I give the director credit for two things: his ability to intrigue us with enough subplots in the film's beginning, and for supplying us with two characters we are willing to get to know. It opens with ominous, graceful shots of a luxurious car making its way along Mulholland Drive, set to an eerie, unsettling score that sets the tone for dread. Inside the car is a woman; all we know about her is what we see, from her brown hair and accentuated lips, to her wandering eyes, which speak volumes with a simple glance.

There is an accident soon after, leaving the two men in the car with her dead. She stumbles out of the car, meanders down the hillside to the city streets below, and makes her way to a Sunset Boulevard apartment complex, where she takes refuge in an apartment whose owner has just departed for places unknown to us.

Who is this woman? What secrets does she withhold in her now-absent memory? The mystery becomes all-the-more engrossing when Betty (Naomi Watts), an aspiring actress making her way to Hollywood, arrives, setting up home in her aunt's apartment, where she discovers Rita (Laura Harring), the amnesiac who cannot remember who she is or where she was going before the accident. The more Betty questions Rita about the incident, the more she, as well as the audience, becomes involved in wanting to know more about this woman's agenda.

Lynch does a commendable job in setting up the film with enough mystery and low-key suspense that the audience has no choice but to become hooked. But then the road begins to get rocky: the story introduces three separate subplots, one of which carries a small amount of intrigue. There's the director, played by Justin Theroux, whose film is in jeopardy of being shut down due to his unwillingness to hire a certain actress; we meet two men in a diner, one of whom describes a nightmarish vision, only to relive it as he leaves; then we bear witness to a multiple killing, before which two men discuss a car accident, possibly the same accident that took Rita's memory.

The introduction of these nagging story lines tends to take away the focus from the two central characters, though all of them, supposedly, have a place in Lynch's master plan of weaving things together in the final third of the film. As the movie ambles along at an alarmingly dreary pace, we watch as Rita begins remembering fragments of her past, leading the two women on a journey to discovering the truth. Along the way, we are supplied with a barrage of scenes and sequences that carry no substantial weight in terms of story, from Betty's audition for a movie role, a scene whose interest level resembles that of driftwood, and a lesbian love scene, which does nothing for characterization or plot.

Of course, such no-holds-barred scenes are Lynch's stock in trade, and he shows no mercy in pumping the film full of such dream-like instances, leading up to his third act, a tour de force of incoherence and confusion that leaves its viewers with more questions than answers. The film takes its characters, those we have gone the distance with and have come to care for on a small level, and throws them into a ludicrous mix of reversed identity, jealousy, layering itself until it becomes too much to care about.

One would think that a movie that keeps you guessing until its finale is worthy of praise, but "Mulholland Drive" is that unique dead-end of a movie that only keeps one's interest in the hopes that things will improve. The dark imagery, the sense of the unknown, the creepiness of what lies ahead, all becomes squandered once the big psychological showdown crowns the film in a blaze of murkiness and banality. Overall, Lynch does prove that there's a difference between being skillful and intelligent, and being skillful and manipulative; you be the judge.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: No bonus features, and censored nudity
Review: You can't forward to a scene which would be helpful for a movie like this. The insert has 10 "clues" to help fans figure out this movies complex layers but they create more questions than they answer.
I can't stand that it is a beautiful widescreen print which they censor during the lesbian love scene. No commentary, no documentary, only a trailor and filmography for 4 people in the movie. Blue Velvet is being rereleased with some bonus stuff, perhaps they are planning to do the same for this DVD. Come on David Lynch, give us something besides a "clue" to look for coffee cups.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Hello, Chapter Selection?
Review: Loved the movie, but the features (or lack thereof) are the worst that I've seen for any DVD to date. Rent the VHS copy so that you have the ability to skip around, and save the remaining [amount] for something more practical--like an updated (Criterion Collection) release of this DVD.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Almost there
Review: First off, right or wrong David Lynch considers himself an aritst and has made some very specific requests about the release of some of his films on DVD (Straight Story, Fire Walk with Me, and Mulholland Drive): basically to let the films speak for themselves. In Honoring this request, the DVD producers have left off much supplemental material than consumers have goten used to, and briefly censored one shot (Again directly at Lynch's Request). This DVD as released BEST represents the vision of the director in releasing it in this medium.

As to whether or not the film makes sense, It Does. Once the film is over there is a clear narrative line that informs every moment of the film and brings all the chaos into sharp focus. What is it well that is for the viewer to figure out, Art has ALWAYS been about the viewer. Is what finally turns out to be the story worth what David has done here? yes and no. Of David's surreal films (Eraserhead, Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive) this is the simplest and in many ways least interesting, with reality bending in relatively few ways. Of his accessable films (Elephant Man, Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, Straight Story) this ranks as the least involving. Soo what do we have here? A mixed attempt to bridge the gap perhaps. In many respects the film is a mutant, it started as a TV project and evolved into a film in post production, it is largely told in a linear straightforward fashion, only really pulling lynchisms in the final act. While explicit sexuality is shown, it is in many respects the most "normal" sort of any in his films while simultaneously being, in the "real" world very fetishized and poorly understood.

The film likely has legs in that it will probably be better appreciated in time, much like Fire Walk With Me has gained appreciation with the passage of time, but the fact remains that while the film is a good one and succeeds at most of what it is trying to attempt, if only in retrospect, it shares, with lost highway, a tendency to be modest in its ambitions. Eraserhead, Elephant Man, Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, Fire Walk With Me, and Straight Story all had some significant and deeply felt things to say about the human condition and said them with a force not usually felt in Hollywood. Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive have some things to say about Lynch's LA and share some ideas about the craft of narrative and film, and similar dream physics, but there the impact of the film largely ends. The kinds of depth in mindscape that Lynch wants to play with here, and is trying to develop with his surrealist lens, is akin to Cronenberg's but for now lacks Cronenberg's precision, and scope. In short while the potential exists for Lynch's surreal films to ultimately be mindshatteing and world changing, right now they are merely important artistic constructs.

The film IS a good one and David is doing a great job, but what this film is hinting at and is promising to eventually deliver makes this effort seem thin and pale, like Motzart composing a TV commercial jingle, yeah the genius and skill and brilliance is there, but what they really should be working on is the epic concerto and opera.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: A non-sensical picture that you will nonetheless seduce you
Review: Do not be fooled by the one star rating. That is just the rating for the lackluster packaging of the dvd. The film itself is an engrossing, atmospheric movie that will seduce and absorb you inside the world Hollywood's resident provocateur, David Lynch, has created. As much as the film doesn't make sense with it's narrative, it is the moody atmospherics and pacing of the film that will consistently garner your attention. I never even realized the film was a 140 minute film until I bought the DVD. In the theaters, the movie seemed to zip right past by without me noticing. No matter what your taste in movies, I assure you this is most definitely a movie for everyone (albeit the under 15 demographic) One thing that is for sure is that the movie is a roaming dream within a nightmare. Although I'm still not sure which character is dreaming about his/her nightmare, but the dream within a dream concept is clearly established with the opening shot of the extreme close-ups of the bedsheets and a medium shot of Rita, falling asleep under the dining table in Betty's Aunt's apartment. This is followed by a zoom in shot of the camera going inside the mysterious blue box towards the middle of the film, begining a new storyline.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Great Movie.. DVD [stink]s..
Review: Movie is really great.. But DVD [stink]s.. There are no Chapters, no special features. if you want to go to a scene in the dvd you have to rewind/FF, just like as you do in VHS. Don't waste your money in buying this dvd, buy VHS instead.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: DVD has no *scene selections* feature
Review: it plays like a straight VHS video, which is unforgivable (worse, it takes longer to get to a middle scene than a videotape). Had I known, I wouldn't have bought it.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: The worst
Review: probably the very worst film I have ever viewed. I am 67, have over 200 DVDs in my collection. And have seen many more at the theater. SO THE VERY WORST SAY A LOT.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: We don't stop here......
Review: There's no other movie like MULHOLLAND DRIVE. That's the first time I can say that and really mean it. I was totally baffled seeing it in the theater and now with the DVD I'll be able to watch it again and again and maybe one day I'll understand every detail of the plot. Everything's there, but it's up to the audience to figure it all out.

As for all the pathetic complaints about something so mundane as chapter stops, I have to ask the question, why does anyone feel they really need them for this film? Is it merely just because other DVDs have them? Well, on a ton of other DVDs it makes sense, but I can't imagine trying to break down MULHOLLAND DRIVE into separate chapters. I really don't consider the whole movie a bunch of scenes put together. I only see the movie as a complete whole. David Lynch was right on the money when he backed up his work by saying that. How do you jump to a random scene in MULHOLLAND DRIVE anyway? How could you start watching this movie from any other place besides the beginning? It just doesn't work like that. If you don't like the movie just for the single reason that the DVD has no chapter stops, then don't buy it. Simple as that.

My only complaint about the DVD might have been the high retail price, but now is the time to buy it while it's still new and cheap! I did not miss chapter stops at all watching my DVD for the first time and I didn't feel like the DVD was "lacking" any extras. Do you really think Lynch would do a commentary track on this movie? Come on......

Extras are sometimes thrown onto DVDs because the idea is that they will make a bad movie look good. As you can see in this case it is totally unnecessary. The movie is just all you need.


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