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Lost Highway

Lost Highway

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: An eerie cycle of mystery and murder
Review: A director as individualistic and bizarre as David Lynch could probably use better publicity to attract a general audience to his work ("Elephant Man", "Wild At Heart", "Blue Velvet"), but he's far more interesting to watch than other movie makers whose sole aim is to create a blockbuster. In "Lost Highway" Lynch has gone completely off the map, and you have to watch this film repeatedly to absorb all the nuances, the menace and the mystery of two persons (or is it one?) trapped in supernatural circumstances. It's not a film for the faint-hearted. The violence is not necessarily more graphic than a dozen Hollywood blockbusters - it just jars you with its intensity and suddeness. Yet in Lynch's world, violence and mayhem exist just below the surface of the everyday, be it the small town cocoon of "Twin Peaks" or the cool decay of Los Angeles in "Lost Highway". In the best filmed scene of road rage, Robert Loggia (as Mr. Eddy) unleashes a fury that brings home the proximity of madness in our Post-Modern time. Characters are introduced in an intimate, sketchy fashion. There's Bill Pullman, a seemingly straight-arrow saxophonist whose low-key demeanor hides a torment. Patricia Arquette plays his somnolent, sultry wife with mysterious connections to Mr. Eddy. Best of all is Robert Blake, who plays an apparition that menaces and seduces Pullman. What connections these characters all have ultimately is secondary to the strange "unlogic" that Lynch uses to tell the story. When we see Pullman somehow transformed into Balthazar Getty's teenager hoodlum, it's part of the cycle of mystery and murder. Life is a series of pre-ordained moves in "Lost Highway", only some of the characters don't know it. Lynch has vowed never to take the Hollywood route to making films, a lesson he learned with the heavy-handed "Dune". It's just as well: Hollywood could never contain his unique talent. "Lost Highway" is a dark gem worth acquiring.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: What's the Point ?
Review: This whole thing about Lost Highway as something to watch over and over again is ludicrous. I can't understand why a movie goer is supposed to watch it 14 times before enlightenment comes. Okay its not for everybody - but neither is Star Wars or Last Tango in Paris. What's your point? I think this movie is plugged into some art genre but not the average movie goer looking for entertainment. I liked Blue Velvet from David Linch and I liked Twin Peaks. I thought this movie was strange - that's all.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: a current & relevant film now and always mysterious
Review: the laymans review. the lost hiway is not a movie for those who have to "figure out" every mystery in life. the lost hiway is not a movie for those who need explosions and a constant soundtrack barrage. the lost hiway is for the movie viewer who enjoys submitting to the unknown. it is for the viewer who enjoys crafty films that keep you wondering and "subtlely force" one to think. the lost hiway is for a viewer that will watch a movie more than once and get more ideas from a number of subconscious clues(or are they?) the movie is mainly for those who care enough to let a movie go where it will and love it like an errant child. watch and watch it again. it can only grow on you.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Treasure Your Copy of Blue Velvet
Review: I watched Lost Highway 3 times in an attempt to give Lynch a chance, since I am a fan of his previous work, particularly Blue Velvet. I liked the atmosphere Lynch created, the music, the initial tension between the characters played by Arquette and Pullman, the very scary man in the Mercedes played by Loggia. There was some beautiful imagery in the film, particularly in the first few scenes that took place in the couple's stark apartment. People who profess to be intellectuals insist that if you didn't like the film because you didn't understand it, you are simply stupid. People who didn't understand the film claim Lynch was attempting to "cheat" his audience by giving them nonsense disguised as art. I will not address either of these points, I will simply say that in a great film, the viewer must like or identify with or find fascinating something about the characters. Like any good story, this becomes the pull for the viewer, the reason he is interested in watching it to it's conclusion. David Lynch does not give us a chance to form an interest in any of the characters in Lost Highway. His preoccupation is elsewhere. I can only guess that he is attempting to convince us that our visceral reaction to the film is enough to sustain our interest. For me it simply isn't. As an example, Blue Velvet works as a film because we identify with so many of its characters, both good and evil. It may sound simplistic, yet every film needs this element to be successful. We care about the people in Blue Velvet and wonder what they will do next, and our interest in them pulls us along through this incredible and at times beautiful journey. I tried desparately to allow Lost Highway to pull me along in a similar way, but with each viewing I became disinterested after the first few scenes. What's worse is the film's predictability. When the young garage mechanic meets the beautiful blonde, we know already he is going to be lured into a world of violence, confusion and death. He knows it too, yet he follows her along to the point of tedium. I completely lost interest in the film at this point, and when I saw a sign above a hotel reading Lost Highway Hotel, I had to rewind the film to make sure I wasn't hallucinating. I wasn't, and it was indeed pathetic that Lynch found the need to include a visual reference to the films title. This detail alone should have warned any "intellectuals" that Lynch abandoned his artistic vision somewhere along the "Lost Highway". Several reviewers found the film frightening. The only frightening aspect is that Lynch could have so completely lost touch with the elements that made so many of his other films successful. In Lost Highway the point is not whether the plot makes sense, but that the film completely fails to tell us a story. Lost Highway does succeed marvelously in one way: it makes me treasure my copy of Blue Velvet all the more. I realize now that nothing approaching the visual beauty and artistic perfection of Blue Velvet will ever again come out of David Lynch.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Wonderful Trip
Review: This is an amazing film. I watched it. I thought about it. It didn't make sense, but I didn't care. It's all about atmosphere. I've never seen such a moody piece of cinema. One of the highlights for me was the incredible use of sound in the film. It used tracks from Rammstein, and they actually felt in place as opposed to lots of movie that use pop songs just to justify a soundtrack. If you're looking for a dark film that will keep you thinking for weeks to come, buy this movie. It's not for everyone, but if you're open-minded, it'll really pay off big time!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Lynch and ONLY Lynch
Review: This is the movie that actually BRINGS YOU INTO THE MIND OF A KILLER! What you are watching is what Bill Pullman is thinking. It shows too because you will sit there and go "What?" because it works like your mind works, jumping around and giving you what you want. It's A True Masterpiece.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Dumb and Dumber
Review: Dumb movie and dumber than his others - so it is. I like the R Crumb movie but I didn't like this trash. If the movie is based on Lynch's attempt to play with his audience than I find that to be totally arrogant on his part - to think he has the reputation or chararcter to "play" with his audience assumes he has the artistic licence and the artistic skill to carry it off. I don't think he does - I think Lynch has lost his artistic creativity. Blue Velvet and Elephant Man are his epitome of artistic creation. Everything after those two movies stink - witness the failed TV show Twin Peaks -it lost its grab after the murder was solved and languished on the tube for over 10 episodes before the producers pulled it. Witness the prequel Fire Walk - sloppy and inane. Wild at Heart - geez who even reviewed that embarrassment. Lost Highway is lost for sure in the trash bin of creative film - it should have been cut right to the bone on the editors desk and released as some kind of artsy perfume commercial.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: One scary movie
Review: I must confess that it was a long time that I was actually frightened to death whilst watching a movie. Blair witch did not do it but Lost Highway was truly demented. Blakes character is so evil and sinister that you feel like your out of breath after one of Pullmans encounters. The movie is not a gore fest but an inteligent and manipulative . I was terrified at several occasions and kept vishing that it would all just end.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: I never get tired of it
Review: I never get tired of this film. I saw it three times in a row when it was in theaters (which it was for about 5 minutes). Seeing it on video isn't anywhere close to ideal, but it'll have to do. I watch this film over and over because its mood -- which I can't put into words -- is something I love to feel. Lynch really doesn't want to tell stories of the ordinary kinds, and he doesn't want to "make a point", political or otherwise. What his films do -- superlatively, matchlessly, peerlessly -- is to create and sustain a mood or internal state so detailed and minutely imagined that we have the odd experience of being in some other guy's dream. This is such a trippy experience I almost don't care what kind of dream that other guy is having. I just like being there.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A thinking man's movie...
Review: I truly think that ignorance can be summed up by the review entitled "TAKE THE NEXT LEFT AND AVOID LOST HIGHWAY". The reviewer claims that most people like it because they are merely pretentious art school folk. Not so. The movie makes sense. But (and get this), only if you think about it!

I personally go with the Mr. Showbiz review. Lynch has come as close to making a movie like a dream that one can possibly get. There's one piece of dialogue that's very telling: Fred Madison says that he doesn't like video cameras because he likes to remember things the way he remembers them, not necessarily the way they actually happened. In a sense, this sums up the whole film: this is how Fred remembers things.

Or perhaps you subscribe to a different explanation. As one of the stars of the film said, "Think OJ." A man kills his wife, then convinces himself he didn't do it.

To refer to the Mr. Showbiz review once more, you're always right where Lynch wants you to be. The film is about nothing but itself. That's the dividing factor. If a person can open his mind, and immerse himself in Lynch's nightmarish (and yet all too realistic) realm, then that person will enjoy the film. If a person it too narrow-minded to do so, and needs to have the plot spoon-fed to them, instead of drawing their own conclusions, then they will hate the film. It's as simple as that.


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