Rating: Summary: Precursor to Mulholland Drive Review: I hated this movie the first time I saw it. Hated it! It was so bad, that I rented it again to see if maybe I missed something. And I still hated. A year passes, I rented again. I loved it. I loved ever moment of it. I cannot explain why, I just changed my opinion. Is it as good as Mulholland Drive? No. But it works well as a build-up...some have even theorized that Mulholland is just a remake of Lost Highway. I don't buy into that, but you can get a sense that Lynch was testing the waters with Dream-logic. See it more than once.
Rating: Summary: Stop! Do Not Continue! Review: If you have not seen LOST HIGHWAY, do not read these reviews, as they will spoil it. My advice is to go and rent the film, and then read online reviews after you've seen it, if nessesary.
Rating: Summary: Borges and Bioy Casares meet Vertigo in Blue Velvet's land Review: Like the impossible situations in many Borges' short stories, Lost Highway presents an astonishing and uncanny tale in which David Lynch mixes his own obsessions with Hitchcock's Vertigo, Freud's Uncanny, and Bioy Casares' plays with time and space. Close to Borges, Bioy Casares short stories and novels deal with impossible plots where time and space are more related to the character's mind than reality. What is unbereable for Bill Pullman's personage, generates a mad trip to no place. Like in Bioy Casares' El Atajo (the Short cut), the character has to invent a complex net in order to accept his wife is not faithfull to him. Later, he has to accept more difficult things, so the plot responds to that. What makes this film extraordinaty (besides the usual Lightning and Sound excellencies)is the "mirror" structure, derived from the mirror images of Bill Pullman. At the beginning, he is in front of a mirror; later, before a transformation in someone else, he is at the mirror again; but this time, he takes the dark path by the side of the mirror. As a paranoid husband, he wants to be the husband and the lover at the same time. And the plot will pleased him in a strange way. As a mirror of this, Patricia Arquette's character will be doubled, being the wife and the lover of a mobster (Robert Loggia). The question the film tries to answer is: What do you have to do when you can't stand your wife betrayal? In which way you can control the woman you love? Is it really possible to set free the person you obsessively love? At last, like in Vertigo, there is no double (Madelaine and Judy are only one person). In Lost Highway, Lynch doubles the risk and he doubles both characters, the man and the woman. And this sort of Double Vertigo occurs in the placid yet sordid suburban paradise that Lynch has shown in Blue Velvet. Regarding Sight and Sound, the DVD version is surely able to catch the atmosphere that VHS is not capable of. With some scenes almost completely dark, and with lots of whispers and strange sounds, DVD will show the intensity of this underrated film for those who did not see it at the theaters.
Rating: Summary: A cyclical masterpiece !!! Review: The movie begins as it ends. IF you have not seen this one, this is truly one of the best movies made in the last ten years. It is dark, evil, mysterious, and full of vices. Sound interesting ? Characters in the movie represent a man's conscience and weaknesses. The man whispering into the intercom in the beginning is the same man listening on the other end. Evil never goes where he is not invited. There are multiple websites devoted to this movie. Check them out, but see the movie first and get hooked !!!
Rating: Summary: One of Lynch's best Review: I found this to be one of Lynch's best movies, and also one of his easiest to understand. Does that mean I'm more intelligent? No. The problem with this movie is people either praise it as an abstract puzzle that makes you think but can never be fully understood, or they hate it because it makes no sense. This is not an art film, or some abstract jumble of images. Don't let Amazon's review fool you; there is a plot here, and it's a very intriguing crime/thriller/mystery plot. You don't need to be an artsy wannabe or a scholar to watch this movie, you just have to pay attention. One line in this movie explains everything (it's near the beginning). It doesn't hurt to know what a psychogenic fugue is, though (go look it up). Anyhoo, this is Lynch at his BLUE VELVET best. The first part of the movie is creepy enough to make anyone pull their blinds and lock their doors. The second part of the movie is a great crime/thriller story. This movie is for people who loved BLUE VELVET, MEMENTO, and even SNATCH, and who also saw what WILD AT HEART could have been. This movie also has one of the best soundtracks ever made. It's got its share of slightly confusing scenes and a metaphor or three thrown in, but even if you ignore those elements, this is still a great movie...just pay attention.
Rating: Summary: too strange... too much david lynch... too elitist Review: I like David Lynch. He’s one of my top-five all time favourite directors. BLUE VELVET – possibly his highpoint - was a great film that hit the mark on American suburbia. ERASERHEAD was strange, but comprehensible and fascinating. THE ELEPHANT MAN is a masterpiece. DUNE was, well, let’s leave that one alone. WILD AT HEART won best picture in Cannes and deserved it too. TWIN PEAKS is just about the best television show there has ever been. But LOST HIGHWAY is just David Lynch trying to be too much David Lynch. It’s too strange. It’s too weird. It’s, dare I say it, too elitist? But LOST HIGHWAY is a fascinating film. This is mostly due to a wonderful score. Angelo Badalamenti deserves as much credit for any David Lynch film as Lynch himself. It seems that the one can not be without the other. Lynch has also managed to get an impressive amount of highly talented musicians to contribute on the soundtrack. Artists such as Lou Reed, Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails, David Bowie, and The Smashing Pumpkins are all here. Goth rocker Marilyn Manson and the German industrial heavy-metal band Ramms+ein both made their fame on this film (whatch out for a cameo by Marilyn Manson and Twiggy Ramirez in the film). LOST HIGHWAY also fronts great visuals. The film opens with a shot of a lonely stretch of road, in the dead of night, being lit up by the headlights of a car driving into the dark, with the Bowie song “I’m Deranged” playing in the background. And this sort of sets the tone for the film. Everything unfolds like a dream. The story telling is non-linear. It’s fragmented. And it’s, well, “dreamy”. It may seem that everything about this film appears to be “just right”. Strong visuals. Great music. But everything sort of falls through because there’s really no way of “getting” the film. I’ve heard about a ducin or so different intepretations and, well, they all seem plausible. Some people seem to think that Bill Pullmann’s character made some sort of deal with the devil (the mystery man being the devil) to escape from prison, and that is why the later mechanic as a lump on his forhead. Perhaps? I sort of lean to theory that Bill Pullmann, the mechanic, and the mystery man is the same person, and what we’re really watching is Pullmann’s desire to escape from his life and so he conjures up this mechanic to escape into; escapism does seem to be a favourable theme of David Lynch (as in ERASERHEAD). LOST HIGHWAY is a film strictly for fans of David Lynch (or for people who in general like weird films). I like those types of film so I liked LOST HIGHWAY (albeit not as much as BLUE VELVET or WILD AD HEART). (...)
Rating: Summary: Linear Lynch Review: This is an excellent movie. For many months I had posted a review here that got it totally wrong. I thought that the first character (played by Pullman) was a fantasy, and the second was real. (And I wrote it before Mulholland Drive came out.) Well, I saw Lost Highway again recently, and now I'm of a different opinion. Here's a few hints, but I'll try not to spoil anything. The movie is chronologically linear, with one exception (the very first scene). It doesn't jump around in time like Mulholland Drive does. It is a subjective movie, telling a story from one character's perspective; and when that character becomes delusional, the movie consists of his delusions. In the very last scene, however, you can see what is happening to the character in the real world: he acts it out while he's driving. Pay attention to these lines: "Sleep now," and "We sentence him to death by electric chair." And of course the one about Fred wanting to remember things his own way. The underlying story will be pretty clear to you. This movie is eerie, the characters are mostly hostile toward one another, and you're left with an unsettled feeling when it's over. Some people don't like that, but if you enjoy The Twilight Zone you'll understand how a movie like this can be great.
Rating: Summary: An aweful movie Review: One thing that really bothers me is when people claim to get something more 'abstract' and then are seen or see themselves as more intellectual. Lost Highway is one of those films where that happens. The movie is nothing more than a noirish episode of The Twilight Zone with a bunch of nudity and no explanations. It makes absolutely no sense unless you read about the movie beforehand to see an 'explanation' of the film. Yet, people still go on and on about how great it was. Despite the fact the already bad movie is filled with horrible, scarce dialogue. Horrible acting, general inaccuracies (huge archaic, gothic prison in LA, cops who can match prints while at the crime scene, false 'tidbits' used as fact to aid the story, etc.)and really obvious, obnoxious image systems. I've seen reviews that have said "if you're into being spoonfed your story, don't watch this". Well that's fine, but this isn't a matter of being spoonfed, it's a matter of someone trying to be so abstract that people feel dumb just because they don't get it. If you wanna look at something to find meaning in, go look at some abstract paintings, not a work of near unrelated sequential events that's filled with holes and is constucted rather poorly. If anybody besides the 'artistic' director known for being 'out there' did this film, it would be considered complete (...). But it's David Lynch, he's weird and therefor, this is great. At least that's how many see this (imagine if a plumber previously flawlessly fixed three broken toilets and then actually broke a toilet in half the fourth time he tried fixing one? Would you blindly praise his work because he did a great job the first three times). Don't buy this film unless you've seen it. And if you want to rent it, rent it at the library where it's only a buck. If you're looking for a great noirish thriller that actually makes sense and is told in an unconventional, intriguing way, go buy/rent Memento.
Rating: Summary: Wow, I really hated this movie. Review: It's not the nonlinear narrative, either. God knows I've enjoyed weirder movies. I used to think of Lynch as one of our best filmmakers. Of his first four features, three are unqualified masterpieces. Then, with the surprise mainstream success of "Blue Velvet," something changed. Suddenly his range narrowed dramatically. "Twin Peaks" was an unnecessary retread of thematic ground already well covered - watered down enough for mass consumption. About half of "Wild at Heart" was good, and the other half blew mightily. More and more of the same, and finally we get to this stinking bore - an atmospheric feature-length music video completely bereft of wit, suspense or originality. It looks good - and I'm not above enjoying empty exercises in style. It's offensively pleasureless, though. Attempts at dark humor, like that tailgating business, fall resoundingly flat. Those trademark moments of eerie beauty all look like they were swiped from TV commercials. For the length of this self-indulgent ... I felt nothing but impatience for it to be over with. That was in the theatre. I (god help me) watched it again when it came out on video, because friends who know my taste swore I should give it another chance. It STILL bit. "The Straight Story" looks like a welcome departure from the now all-too-familiar typical Lynchian landscape - but I'm still a bit too put off to know when I'll be able to give one of my former favorites another chance. I'm sick of his crummy leftovers.
Rating: Summary: Spooky...... Review: A ghost tale from the amazing Lynch!! A spooky, overwhelming and deranged story about ghostly sexuality, loss, darkness, betrayl and a lurid and erotic ride down David Lynch's "LOST HIGHWAY." His most extraordinary, I believe, a dark thriller/drama. Quiet and spooky, sleek and sexy and with a Trent Reznor driven soundtrack, you can decide if this film is a little too on the dark side or not. Lynch marvels!!
|