Rating: 
Summary: Lynch fans only - I Lost 2hr22 minutes of my time
Review: This film is just plain disappointing. I believe Lynch try to
create some kind of Art Nouveau cinema but he just does not
have the genius to back it. The film has no conclusion
whatsoever and left me with the feeling of having lost 2h30 hrs
For Lynch fans only.
Rating: 
Summary: Lynch in Top Form
Review: The two halves come together only briefly in the middle of the film. She is torn, split right down the middle: the wannabe starlet too naive for Hollywood; and the spurned lover whose anger and resentment may (or might have led) lead to murder. But why are they played by the same actress, and why do they diverge at the point in the film that they do? The answer is not so simple, but I think it lies in the fact that "dreams are not only made, but shattered in Hollywood." I know I'm getting in deep here, but can we substitute the naive one's drive/passion to "make it" as an actress with the spurned one's drive/passion for revenge? Is Hollywood the sexy lover who uses you only when it needs you and for its own purposes and then dumps you when it's through with you? Something like that is happening in the film, but you know what? Lynch's movie is more enjoyable to watch than any attempt on my part to explain it. No matter how elusive it may seem at times, Mullholland Drive is a great viewing experince. And the lesbian scene is excellent, too.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing Oscar-Calibur Performances!
Review: This is hands down David Lynch's best film and one of the best films ever to come out of independent cinema. I ended up watching this film five times in the theater because it was that addicting. The story was so intriguing and the casting was just perfect. I'm amazed at how well the two unknown actresses had acted in this. They gave amazing oscar-like performances, very much like the acting seen in earlier hollywood films. You can find everything in this film including suspense, horror, mystery, comedy, art, drama, and erotica.The whole 1950's vibe in this film really brought back a sense of nostalgia back into Hollywood cinema. It makes movies feel alive again. You feel like the movie takes place during the 50's when it actually takes place during the present day. We actually don't know that for sure, Lynch doesn't tell us, it could have taken place during the 50's, who knows? The entire film is actually this freakin twisted. Anyways, the film in itself is great. The film is beautifully shot and the cinematography, especially the lighting and color, is extraordinary. David Lynch's unconventional way of shooting things and telling stories is very much like that of Alfred Hitchcock and Orsen Welles. Like their films, Mulholland Drive is a very visual film with a lot of vivid imagery. This shows during the climactic scene in the story when the whole story changes after a mysterious blue box is unlocked. We find that the main character, Betty, has disappeared and her friend Rita has become unconscious. After the pandoras box is opened, we are brought back to reality and we are introduced to two new characters, Diane and Camilla. The whole dream sequence ends when Diane is awaken by the cowboy and starts rolling out of bed. We come to realize that Betty/Diane's reality is not as happy as we depicted it to be. We learn that she is an actress who exploits Camilla in helping her get her big break in movies, but she instead ends up falling in love with Camilla along the way. Camilla then dumps her for the director, Adam Kesher, and takes the role that's supposed to be Diane's big break. This leads to Diane's jealousy and frustration in a gut-wrenching masturbating scene. Feeling that she lost everything, she seeks revenge and hires a hitman to kill Camilla. When she finds out that the hit has been made with the presence of the blue key, she kills herself. The acting in this film is superb especially by Naomi Watts. Naomi Watts' true life story of struggling to get roles and finding her big break in films helped her a lot in portraying this character. This ended up being her big break and she has thrived ever since with 'The Ring' and other upcoming films. She shines onscreen especially in a lesbian love scene with actress Laura Harring. It's one of the most erotic love scenes I have ever seen captured on film. Laura Harring and Naomi Watts are stunningly beautiful and the reason alone to watch this. The music composer, Angelo Badalementi, even makes a cameo appearance in this. He is the man who drinks the coffee and spits it out in the scene when Adam Kesher and the casting agents argue about which girl to cast in their film. Other cameo appearances include the great Ann Miller, Robert Forster, Dan Hedaya and Billy Ray Cyrus. The only flaws I can possibly think of this film having is in the DVD. There is no chapter search and no special features other than the theatrical trailer and the cast bio's. David Lynch intended it to be only one long chapter which was a mistake on his part. Another flaw I noticed was an edit in a nude scene. It's the scene when Rita takes off her robe. A part of her body is blurred for about a second. A terrible decision to make since it was unedited on the big screen. David Lynch fans will be disappointed about all this. Hopefully, a new special edition DVD will come out to replace this one with deleted scenes, commentary, interviews and a chapter search. It's unfair that about ten other countries have already released this as a special edition and the U.S. and Canada has not. Two foreign editions even have double discs full of special features. Why is this? Where is our special edition? Well, someday it will be released. If you want more info go to davidlynch.de, you could probably be lucky and find it on import.
Rating:
Summary: kill me now, before I try to figure this out...
Review: Just a wonderful, mesmerizing film from the brilliant mind of David Lynch, with little reference toi his prior work save its intensity and carity of vision. Don't get hung up on trying to make sense of this, just enjoy it for what it is, which is purely a delight for the mind and senses.
Rating: 
Summary: !?
Review: It is typical David Lynch film. Beautiful cinema photography
and unique, interisting charcters, and plot sucks audience
into movies. At the ending, everyone get lost and we have
to come up with own conclusions. Naomi Watts was great discoverly in this film. Mr Collins, you are not alone!
DVD, I rented was messed up as well. It is shame that
going through defective DVD's totally spoil the movie
until you find the right one. It happned me when I bought
Something about Marry and Me, Myself, and Irene.
Rating:
Summary: The most complex and intricate of Lynch's films...
Review: ...and the best. My favorite film.
David Lynch's latest masterpiece, as well as my favorite film, is one that you definitely have to think about for a while to figure it out, if you figure it out at all. Although it is confusing, I have managed to figure it out for the most part. Mulholland Drive is the story of Diane,a young woman who has just moved to Hollywood. Soon after moving, she meets Camilla, another young actress, and falls in love with her. Meanwhile a director making a movie is told he has to hire Camilla Rhodes or he will be fired. Diane, who has gone out for the same part, is overcome with rage and jealousy and murders Camilla. She is overcome with grief. This all happens before the movie has even started. The movie starts in Diane's dream. Her name is now Betty and she has just moved to Hollywood to become an actress. She moves into the apartment her aunt gives her. After waking the first morning, she finds a woman with amnesia, calling herself Rita, in her shower. She came in in the middle of the night after a car accident. Soon before drunken teenagers hit Rita's car with theirs, Rita is threatened by her driver, who dies when they are hit. This resembles the guilt/denial that Diane feels, since Rita survives. Diane creates Rita as an alter-ego of Camilla. They soon fall in love. While trying to find out what Rita's real name is, they find her apartment with a dead girl inside. This resembles the dead Camilla Rhodes. Rita has a blue key and thousands of dollars in cash in her pocketbook. The money could be either money she recieves for a movie or money for having her killed, it doesn't reall matter because part of Mulholland Drive is the examination of a dream, and dreams are vague.. Meanwhile, Betty is persuing an acting job. The director of the movie is told he must pick a specific girl by his boss and by a mysterious cowboy, who you see later, after Diane awakes, showing how random elements of real life often appear in dreams. Her name is Camilla Rhodes. Rita uses this key she has found to open a mysterious blue box that randomly appears on the coffee table. That's where the dream ends. That's the seperation point. Now you are in the world of Diane. She is slowly delving further and further down a spiral of insanity. Then, she finally cracks. Then she gets shot. That's more or less where the movie ends. This is an overall excellent film with outstanding directing, imagery, acting, and symbolism. The definitive thinking man's film. MULHOLLAND DRIVE(2001)
DIRECTED BY DAVID LYNCH
STARRING NAOMI WATTS, LAURA ELENA HARRING, AND JUSTIN THEROUX
RATED R FOR VIOLENCE, LANGUAGE, AND SOME STRONG SEXUALITY
Rating:
Summary: A Truly Great Film
Review: I have frankly found it somewhat surprising that so many people, including film critics, have had such difficulty with this film. This film is like a jigsaw puzzle. Lynch gives you all of the pieces, you just have to put them together. True, he may give you a few extra pieces that don't seem to fit but that is what makes this film so much fun.
Naomi Watts performance is nothing less than brilliant and the score by Angelo Badalamenti perfectly complements the film. Avoid reading too much about this film before seeing it the first time. I viewed this film with no expectations and was completely blown away.
My only complaint is that Lynch is too stingy in giving some additional features to the DVD. If ever a film needed to be on DVD, this one does because it invites repeated viewings. But this is the first DVD I have ever owned that didn't even have an index of scenes to jump to. There is a small trailer for the film and short bios of the stars and Lynch. Nothing else. Still, I won't complain too much. This is a stunning, tragic and beautiful film.
Rating:
Summary: The Dreamscape
Review: From the slow,foreboding opening as we wind lazily along a dark Mulholland Drive, the atmosphere of mystery and dread is established, and maintained, for the entirety of Lynch's noir vision of transient reality and the reliability of nightmares. Part tragic love story, part commentary on Hollywood, Mulholland Drive will have you bewitched through the eyes of our blond heroine (played by the movingly talented Naomi Watts). This film awards multiple viewings for the beautiful cinematography and highly conceptual storyline- an epiphany for one of the most stylish directors around.
Rating:
Summary: A puzzle worth solving.
Review: David Lynch: screenwriter, director, composer of the wildly eccentric and master of the unfathomable. Although not a devoted member of the Lynch mob, I do admire his unconventional style. In particular I admire his talent for creating freakishly inscrutable characters. "Mulholland Drive" - saturated with bizarre themes, paradoxical ideas, strange philosophies, enigmatic characters and questionable identities - is true to form for Lynch. In the beginning of the film, several characters are introduced. Some become familiar, while others reappear only once more or never again. In fact, my favorite scene (the coffee shop nightmare) involves two characters with no real significance to the rest of the film. Wait, no real significance? In a Lynch film, tossing aside the seemingly insignificant is foolish, foolish, foolish! Sure he may pull a bluff or two, but in the end almost everything sums up. Miss something and you're lost. Like in the beginning. Note the nonchalant scene - it's brief - after the sock hop but before the limo drive. I missed it the first time, I brushed it aside, but it's the KEY to the entire film. Like everyone, I found the last half hour of "Mulholland Drive" to be downright baffling the first time I saw it. You gotta hand it to Lynch - not many directors have the bravado to leave audiences in such puzzled frustration.
My initial take on the film was that it was mildly bizarre, but comprehensible, up until those last 30 minutes. That's when all hell breaks loose. Two hours of characterization and plot building get tossed into the air like pieces from an upset chessboard. Relationships are reconnected, personalities flip 180 degrees, settings are repopulated in variant ways and the film unravels like a torn sweater in spin cycle. Or so it would seem. If only I'd paid attention... The second time, after noting the KEY scene, things became clearer. Believe me, it's not impossible to figure out what's going on in this movie. Even tentative souls should watch the film if only for Naomi Watts. Not only is she beautiful, she's an amazing, resonant actress as well. It astounds me that Hollywood has overlooked her for the last 15 years. In the beginning of the film she's bright, cheery and naïve, then about halfway through she begins to offer glimpses into the depth of her character. When the film hits the paradigm shift in the last half hour, Watts delivers one of the most captivating performances of the year. Don't take my word for it: she was nominated three times for her performance, winning twice.
"Mulholland Drive" is undoubtedly a movie to see again and again. I've seen it twice and, though I get the general structure, there are still plenty of unsolved mysteries. If that doesn't convince you to purchase it I don't know what will.
Rating:
Summary: Movie is great -- DVD has flaws
Review: This was a complex movie requiring several viewings to unravel the clues and solve the puzzle. The movie is more along the line of Blue Velvet rather than The Straight Story (both directed by David Lynch). However, I found the DVD rather disappointing. There was no way to access individual Chapters to go to exact sections of the movie. It ran just like a VHS tape. To return to a spot, you must actually put the DVD on rewind. Further the DVD has a bad flaw. It stops suddenly after about 90 minutes. Since there are no Chapters, it's not possible to simply jump to the next Chapter. After much trial and error, we figured out we start the DVD from the beginning at fast speed until it fast forwarded past the stopped area. I returned the DVD twice for a new copy; all 3 copies have this flaw, so it must have been manufactured that way. The DVD is pricey and has no extras except for Cast bios.
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