Rating: 
Summary: What is the point of the sex scenes?
Review: This is a film that I am almost sorry I watched. It is disjointed and confusing, which by itself would be okay because it does make some sense when you realize it is a dream until the last part of the movie. What is disturbing to me is that this film has unnecessary scenes, which, as far as I am concerned, are pornographic and don't add anything to the movie. In fact they take away from it. They seem to be included for sensationalism and to satisfy some sick fantasy. Otherwise the dream symbolism, the way Lynch has used stiff seemingly bad acting on the part of the characters in the beginning, and the way he has used the lighting and affects makes for an interesting study in the genre of fantasy.
Rating: 
Summary: Admirable... but too long for a mind-bender!
Review: First of all, I admire this movie for having a subtle yet intelligently and creatively done plot. This is a one-of-a-kind movie to see and I would like to recommend this to people who gains pleasure in viewing such weird movies. Don't wonder if after viewing the film for the first time, you'll be in awe and say, "What's this movie I've just seen?" I think that's what everyone have in mind after viewing the movie for the first time. Thanks to one reviewer below I was able to fully comprehend what David Lynch was trying to detail in this movie. Just then I realized how fantastic and delusional must be having a mind like David Lynch. I've seen the movie twice now and my second reaction is that viewers may get tired looking for clues for 2 1/2 hours. The only lapse in this movie is that it is too long and sometimes too tiring. If only some scenes were deleted or shortened, this piece could be a masterpiece to play with.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't Fear the Cowboy!
Review: There's already an abundance of praise and befuddlement over this film, but I just had to thrown in my vote. I won't go as far as to say it's a masterpiece, but it is an unforgetable and extremely watchable film. Some of the acting in the first half (the made-for-TV part) is a bit rigid, but it's appropriate given the overall "campiness" element. Naomi Watts is incredible throughout, and all the curveballs and comic relief characters are absolutely classic! This is a David Lynch film after all, so if you don't enjoy the absurd, and have no interest in dream logic, then of course you'll be disappointed. The review by srklemow below, has a pretty good explaination of the "real story" but you can probably figure it out on your own. As FBI Agent Dale Cooper said long ago: "My dream is a code; break the code- and solve the mystery" Well said, Coop!
Rating: 
Summary: david lynch is only fellini in his own mind.
Review: there are no adulterants in the garbage that is the movie "mulholland drive". but there is some adultery. the director throws modern developments like "characters," "plot devices," "pleasant imagery" and "any logic whatsoever" directly to the wolves, in favor of the useless and uninteresting montage of faux-hollywood cliches that appear in this film. can I get the hours back that I spent watching this movie? nah, at least I got to see naomi watts strut around aimlessly for a while. that's worth one star. if you make your living analyzing films like this, then go ahead, because I guess even you need to eat.
Rating:
Summary: Send us a Special Edition Mr. Lynch!
Review: I love this movie. I had the chance to see Mulholland Drive at the theater, where I was completely swept away for 2 hours and 30 minutes. Then I bought the dvd, and have watched the film through numerous times by myself, and showed it to friends. (Most were baffled and just gave up, *sigh*) However, what the heck is up with this DVD? Excellent picture? Check. Excellent sound? Check. Special Features....ummm...well... I don't really mind that there are no chapter stops, because Lynch insists that "films are not books, they do not need chapters". Thats fine by me. But, some regions in Europe have a 2 disc special edition! The dvd includes full length press conference intreviews from the Cannes (or is it Sundance?) Film Festival, among making of features and more. Lynch's website ... sells his "Short films" and "Eraserhead" dvds exclusively in lavish special editions that come in 8x8 boxes with booklets. On both, Lynch contributes interviews. (Eraserhead is the brilliant first film from Lynch) Maybe he can treat Mulholland Drive with the same respect and release an 8x8 box with a two dvd set? Espically because there is such an amazing history to the film, being that it was supposed to be a TV show! I would love to hear what Lynch was planning to do with that idea! I believe that some time in the future, Lynch will give us a special edition, even more so now that there are ones of Blue Velvet and Ereaserhead. I just hope Mulholland Drive is next in line!
Rating: 
Summary: OK
Review: Not great; not awful. Glad I didn't pay to see it in the theater. Frankly, I expected better from Lynch.
Rating:
Summary: GREAT MOVIE, AWFUL DVD
Review: This was easily one of the best films of 2001, if not the best. It is beautiful to look at, filled with great performances, and contains excellent music. It is also one of the most compelling puzzle-movies that I have ever seen. SO WHY DID I GIVE IT 2 STARS? ANSWER: THE DVD IS ABSOLUTELY AWFUL! Why, I'm sure you ask? Well, as a puzzle-movie, you come out of the film wishing to go back through it and check different scenes for clues. You are deeply compelled to know how everything fits together and to investigate your own theories. This is made nearly impossible by the fact that the disc DOES NOT HAVE CHAPTER SELECTION. I asked someone, "What is the absolute most basic feature of DVDs that you expect to see on every single disc?" They didn't say chapter selection. They didn't even think of it. It is so integral to the very concept of a DVD that we all take it for granted. Well don't take it for granted here. You'll be very disappointed. I have been unable to go back over the movie and enjoy the puzzle of it, and am therefor very unhappy with my purchase. I would strongly discourage you from buying this DVD. It will add nothing to your experience, and may actually take a little something away. Also, just so you know, there aren't any other features, either. It's not like they ran out of room on the disc and couldn't fit in chapter selection. It is a completely bare disc.
Rating:
Summary: Follow the 10 clues on the DVD sleeve
Review: I won't bother to add to the already monolithic body of glowing reviews of this film; I think it is a mssterful work, equivalent to and perhaps surpassing "Blue Velvet" in artistic merit. I am writing mostly because many of those who claim that they hated the film because it "doesn't make sense," or loved it even though it is "open to interpretation" may not have taken heed of the clues David Lynch included in the DVD sleeve. They clearly reveal the logic of the film to those who take the requisite time to think them through. My review is essentially one giant "spoiler," so if you haven't seen the film, take heed. The film most certainly does "make sense" and follows a completely rational and logistically valid plot structure. The film begins with a stylized jitterbug contest behind the opening credits, showing Naomi Watt's character (Diane Selwyn) winning a trip to LA from her native Canada to tryout for a Hollywood production. We then see the suggestion of a sleeping figure (Diane again) in red sheets prior to the start of her dream, which opens with the hypnotic figure of a limosine traveling down a dark road, containing Diane's idealization of her real-life paramour, Camilla Rhodes. In reality, Camilla is Diane's former lesbian lover, who betrayed her by stealing the coveted role in the film Diane unsuccessfully tried out for, and spurned her affections for the director of the film. Diane is so jealous and infuriated that she hires a hitman to kill Camilla; when the two meet to discuss the deal, the hitman says he will leave a blue key on her coffee table to signify that Camilla has been successfully dispatched. Diane film's dream sequence begins after Diane has received the key, and Diane's fantasies of a happier outcome are manifest in what we see. In her dream, she is her idealized self, free of insecurities, more innocent and charismatic--nailing her tryout for the film, but explaining "Camilla's" victory by the influence of the mafia ("Camilla" in the dream is replaced by a woman whom the real-life Camilla tauntingly kisses at a party to infuriate Diane). Other characters who represent real-life counterparts also resurface in the dream, in various roles: "Coco," played by Ann Miller, is actually the film director's mother, the man terrified of the ghoul behind Winkie's is an accomplice of Diane's hired hitman, and the mafiosos played by Dan Hedaya and Angelo Badalamenti were other attendees of the humiliating party where Camilla taunts Diane with news of her engagement to the director. In the dream, Diane refashions her hitman as a bungling idiot who botches Camilla's murder, subsequently leaving Camilla helpless with amnesia for who she is or where she came from so that "Betty," Diane's counterpart in the dream, can become her heroine, and have a utopian, romantic love affair with her. Throughout the dream, omens occur that suggest the truth behind Diane's fantasy; the forboding man behind Winkie's, Lee Grant's wacko Cassandra-character with her warnings of trouble, the Cowboy, and the MC at the late-night Cabaret who insists that all is not as it seems. The blue key becomes expressionistically rendered in the dream, and opens the proverbial Pandora's Box, at which time Diane mysteriously disappears from her own dream, leaving Camilla alone to open the box--and then Lynch imposes a couple of his haunting frame shifts, here done with lighting effects, before the Cowboy enters Diane's bedroom, telling her "it's time to wake up, pretty girl." Now we see Diane's reality when she awakens, and evidence of her crushing guilt (notice her initial relief when she hallucinates that Camilla has returned from the dead, and her subsequent breakdown when she realizes the truth). Eventually, the gravity of what she has done overwhelms her when she realizes that the police want her for questioning, and the old couple from her dream, whom I presume represent her conscience, are released by the demon behind Winkie's (that is, she loses her sanity). Her demons chase her to her bedroom, where she hysterically grabs a gun from her nightstand, and takes her own life. Check out Lynch's clues--there's much more to them than what I've included here. He's a master--I don't think he produces a frame of film without agonizing over it for weeks, and I highly doubt someone who produced something as lovingly detailed as this film let any inconsistencies or gaffes slip past him. What a movie this is--I'll never forget it.
Rating:
Summary: Strange, hypnotic, and actually fun.
Review: While cleverness for its own sake easily becomes self indulgent, I did enjoy this movie for reasons that may have been quite beyond Lynch's intentions. I think both Naomi Watts and the ironic sunny L.A. setting helped to lighten up and, in effect, add new dimensions to Lynch's tendency toward heavy monotonous moodmaking. As opposed to the groaner Lost Highway, which never lets up on the grotesque nightmare trip, this film carries its unknowns and its foreboding in perfect tension with the glossy, superficial aura of Hollywood. The "real movie" moments of humor, romance, and a seemingly innocent adventure spirit make the compounding threats of the unconcious all the more juicy and wicked in their place. Lynch also uses some unusually subtle methods of mystification--unexpected slowing, quiet moments, and visual symbols that can be absorbed as consciously or unconsciously as you prefer. The climactic and infamous "silent theater scene", in which the main idea of the plot is signified, was genuinely mesmerizing. (I also have to disagree, based on this scene, with the verdict by some that the plot boils down to a dream in the traditional sense of the word. It is a little more complicated than that.) The end for me--which means the solution to the puzzle as well as the fate of the characters--is a mixed product, and the reason I've witholded the last star. It's like one of those gag gifts, where you keep opening smaller and smaller boxes and when you get to the center it's a piece of coal or something. You have to appreciate the trouble and out-of-the-box thinking that went into it, but you can't help but think that that same creativity could have gone one step further. I think it often happens that what is most meaningful to the artist turns out to be the least meaningful to his audience, because its meaning for him comes from the fact that it is part of his shadow, not clearly seen in his own head. Lynch gets his juice out of an aura of the grotesque, and in this case he creates it by gleefully deconstructing his characters. This much is fine, even expected; but the way he deconstructs them insults the sophistication of the rest of the movie, reconstructing all the worst cliches of unfaithful women and evil lesbians. The momentum of the film is essentially redeemed by the fact that Lynch's shadow is revealing itself simultaneously with the genius of his plot. But still, I can't help but feel that his overwrought mysogeny smothers this a bit.
Rating:
Summary: Great flick, USELESS DVD!!!
Review: how they could release a movie this long without chapter search/track selection totally baffles me.
This is one of the best films of the new millenium, but i can't justify owning it without the ability to access it without 8x fastforwarding through the whole thing -- especially with a movie as complex and interesting as this one. Buy it, but wait til it comes out on a different edition
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