Rating: 
Summary: Hardy Boy in Hell
Review: ...Here Lynch's characters, though outrageous, mildly believeable and at times monsters, are more real than in his later efforts, WILD AT HEART, TWIN PEAKS and LOST HIGHWAY, and his plot, which was called Hitchcockian in early reviews, makes much more sense than in anything he has done since (with the exception of the self-consciously normal STRAIGHT STORY). The performances are world class. The movie ressurrected the career of Dennis Hopper and allowed him to go on to make millions in WATERWORLD and SPEED playing a watered-down version of his Frank character. It also made stars out of Laura Dern and Kyle MacLachlan -- and sank the career of Isabella Rossellini, who was dating Lynch at the time. Though the shocking plot which centers around the sexual abuse of the Rossellini character and an innocent young man (played by MacLachlan) who tries to save her comes with the "not for everyone" warning, at least there is an emotional depth to the horrors that I found missing in the gothic WILD AT HEART and the tedious TWIN PEAKS.
Rating: 
Summary: Overdressed.
Review: Moralistic -- NOT depraved -- mystery movie that takes place in a rather tiresomely typical American small town. I say "tiresomely" because Lynch beats us over the head with the bucolic aspects, then beats us again with the obligatory "revealing" of the sordidness underneath. This is the attitude of an outraged, finger-waggling moralist rather than of a kinky libertine. (Disagree? Consider Lynch's more recent *The Straight Story*, with its rather self-righteous tractor-driving hero played by Richard Farnsworth. That movie was as homey as apple pie. Lynch really BELIEVES in the small-town ideal; the corruption he "exposes" in *Blue Velvet* seems to agonize him.) As far as the detective-story plot goes, it would've been more engrossing if the settings, characters, and incidents had any basis in reality. Who can care about a murder mystery when one is drowning in surrealistic syrup? The stupefyingly baroque sets, lighting, color scheme (mostly dim crimsons, damask, sticky violets, pudding-browns), to say nothing of the weird-for-the-sake-of-weird incidents and characters, make one forget that there's a story under there, someplace. For praise, I single out Dennis Hopper for a very funny performance.
Rating:
Summary: Lynch excels with small town horror!
Review: "Blue Velvet" is one of the most intense flicks from our generation. Director David Lynch takes the pathetically naive and innocent and blends it with the completely demented and bizarre to create, in my opinion, the ultimate in modern-day film noir. Check this out: Frank Booth (Hopper) is a demented, drug-dealing, gender-confused kidnapper (with an oedipus complex) that has good connections. He takes Rosselini's husband and son and kidnaps them in exchange for .... favours...His bizarro posse includes Jack Nance (R.I.P.) as Bob, and Dean Stockwell as the ultra-suave Ben. MacLachlan is the curious & naive "young adult" that becomes curious on what gives when he finds an ear in the grass (sounds strange?). He manages to hook up with the investigating cop's daughter (Laura Dern) and begins a psychological menage a trois balancing good & evil! Lynch peaked with this film. Everyone who has a taste for the strange should own this!
Rating:
Summary: Sorry... not very good at all
Review: Beautifully filmed, but utterly stupid in its meandering and dumb plot. I'd love to smack Kyle MacLachlan's character over the head about fifty times with a rubber mallet. He may well be the single most stupid and naive dolt in all of cinema and I'm not sure that Lynch meant to make him quite that stupid. Movie tries to be cool and creepy and weird ("Hey, small towns have strange people in them, too!") Whoopee-stinkin'-doo, I say. I had an acquaintance who used to say "I hate weirdness that exists for weirdness' sake only." Now I know what he meant. Pass.
Rating: 
Summary: Whoa!
Review: This film has to be see to be believed! Right off the bat the image of Rossllini in her underwear after being sodmized by Hopper is simply an eye-opener. Lynch plays on this "can't look away", voyeristic quality through the whole film just when you think the film has run it's course of shock value it grows in terms of plot and depth! The script is very minimal and due to the fact that the flick is a visual treat is understandable. Lynch uses human emotions and instincts to even turn the viewer into a member of Hopper's gang at one point. The plot revolves around the missing family of Rossellini and the length she goes through to save her child. MacLachlan's gives the role of the hero an every man feel; his unsual face and akwardness is heightend by the overall nightmarish quality of the film. No one is hamming it up in this film and that is what makes it work if just one actor were to reinvent a character this film would fail but due to the top notch acting and the break neck plot turns this film is a winner-and the scene at the end is worth the price of the film!
Rating: 
Summary: is everyone crazy?
Review: This is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Don't get me wrong: it tries really hard. It strives to be so deep and dark; it tries to show how twisted people can be behind the guise of normality. But it fails miserably. The dialogue was so corny that I spent most of the movie snickering, Hopper was just plain annoying, and the entire plot was a joke. The one saving grace was the acting skills of the protagonist (I forget his name), whose emotional range would have been quite moving had he not been confronted with such terrible dialogue from the other characters and such ridiculous scenarios. I just don't understand how this movie got even one good review, not to mention all of the ones I've seen. Wake up, people--just because a movie pretends to have meaning doesn't mean it actually does. I could spend all day pointing out flaws but why bother? It's not even worth the time it would take to explain.
Rating:
Summary: One of the finest horror films ever made.
Review: BLUE VELVET is one of the greatest horror films. As a portrait of madness, it ranks above something like SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, for its principal madman is far more mundane and far less easy to understand than any clinically-described serial killer. David Lynch proved, with this film, that he is one of the world's best movie makers. I never fail to be amazed by this movie. The performances are excellent, each and every one, especially those by Laura Dern, Isabella Rosselini, Kyle Maclachlan, and the unbelievably frightening personna of Frank Booth as portrayed by Dennis Hopper, in what is likely his best film performance. Jack Nance and Brad Dourif have creepy roles as Hopper's side-kicks. If you've never seen this one, I heartily recommend it.
Rating: 
Summary: Will I change my mind?
Review: I saw this movie in April and I didn't get it, so I wrote an overall negative review. But then in May I started watched the entire series of Twin Peaks and I had a better understanding og Lynch's work. I am going to see it again before I comment!
Rating:
Summary: The world is brutal, but who knows it?
Review: David Lynch in this film is typically himself : initiation of young people to the dark side of society, the rotten apples in the police institution, the artistic cult of darkness in the pictures, suffering as a lifestyle for some women who accept it and long for it essentially, but also for some social bullies who are criminals and traffickers and who enjoy inflicting that suffering on anyone at hand. And you add a love affair between two of these young people and the pipcture is nearly complete. The last element is the liaison between the young man and the woman-victim of the violence and it introduces us to the impulse that pushes aside the refusal to be violent in sex and that engulfs the young man into being violent against his own rational will. This is the best element in the film : violence comes from a deeply-rooted impulse and cannot be evaded in some situations produced by society. The last touch of David Lynch's art is the slow motion of the film. And there you are with a cataclysmic denouement that brings both liberation and the pains of growth and the pains of the recollection after growing of these first pains. The butterfly remembers the chrysalid that remembers the larva that maybe ven remembers the egg. No escape from this truth : the child is the father of the man. The minutiae of the work of David Lynch, in this film or others, is a real pleasure in the moonshining process of distilling human emotions. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, Paris Universities II and IX.
Rating:
Summary: Definitely an ear-full.
Review: This film is just plain amazing. Dennis Hopper's performance as Frank Booth is wonderful, along with Isabella Rossellini and Kyle MacLachlan who also star in this sick, twisted story viewed through the artistic eye of director, David Lynch...the story progresses into one of the strangest endings ever on film. Frank Booth is probably the greatest and coolest "bad guy" in any crime-drama film. Definitely worth every cent to buy this DVD.
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