Wild At Heart

Rating:
Summary: Take a wild ride on the David Lynch express
Review: "Wild at Heart" is probably the last of David Lynch's truly great films. With a career that has since plummeted with "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me" and "Lost Highway," Lynch's "Wild at Heart" is a great ride on the dirty road of the human soul. For Lynch fans like myself, it's those bizarre, quirky characters who perform odd and unusual acts which have causde repeated viewings over the years. A few examples include a contractor-mafia type who does business over the phone while on the toilet with two nude girls at his side and Crispen Glover's brief appearance as a man obsessed with Christmas and Martians who vanishes after developing strange habitats for cockroaches. "Wild at Heart" has superb casting with Nicholas Cage, Laura Dern, Harry Dean Stanton, Isabella Rosselini and Oscar-nominated Diane Ladd. The most convincing performance, however, is Willem DeFoe as the haunting Bobby Peru. His presence is upsetting, grotesque and at the same time hilarious. Lynch proves, as he did with "Blue Velvet," that his stories are character driven. "Wild at Heart" is a wild ride, but not intended for the lighthearted. It's got everything to merit a hard-R rating which makes it such an unforgettable David Lynch film.

Rating:
Summary: PLEASE RELEASE IT ON DVD!!
Review: David Lynch's Wild At Heart is a masterpiece, it won Palme D'Or at Cannes Film Festival for Best Picture. It has an outstanding cast, featuring Nicolas Cage, Laura Dern, Isabela Rosselini, Sheryl Lee,
Diane Ladd, Harry Dean Stanton, Willem Dafoe and so many other great actors! Why wasn't yet released on DVD in North America? Everywhere else in the world was. David Lynch is one of the best American directors and "Wild At Heart" is one of his masterpieces.
My favorite line from this film is: CENSORED.

Rating:
Summary: WHAT? 1990 Cannes Festival Best Film... not on DVD?
Review: I really can't believe this. This is the uncontestable proof that in America, the so-called 'professionals' of cinema don't really know very much about what good cinema means. Of course the movie was a public failure when it was released in theaters in the early 90s, but this movie won the best Prize in Cannes International Film Festival in 1990 and this should be enough for a DVD release... it's now over ten years old and there's still nothing coming. This is very surprising when you know that Lynch's last movies, "The Straight Story" and "Mulholland Drive", soon exist in this format...

Of course the story is not very original: a couple of lovers unceasingly pursuited by a bunch of hired, trained, crazy killers. Even if here, the tone and way of storytelling are totally different; we're in a David Lynch movie, filled with bizarre, sordid characters, swimming in a very special, chilling atmosphere, and the soundtrack is everything but heavy and unsurprising. Of course the whole contains a lot of sex and violence, and many uncomfortable scenes, especially the one showing Bobby Peru (great Willem Dafoe) psychologically raping Lula. Of course, there is a happy ending: Sailor is leaving Lula and their son but the Good Witch (played by Sheryl Lee) appears in front of him and advises him to not stay away from love and to return to her, what Sailor does. This happy ending was not in Barry Gifford's novel, finishing with Sailor walking away from Lula. Story told several times before, romance, sex, violence, added happy ending... these are the criterions for an average Hollywood feature film, and "Wild at Heart" contains those criterions, even if the treatment is, of course, different. So what's the reason of so much hate? This is 'the' question. Is this movie 'too much'? Does it go too far? I don't think so.

Rating:
Summary: Not Lynch's Best, But Not Bad
Review: It seemed that during the mid-90's, movies about outlaw lovers on the run was becomming a cliche. There was TRUE ROMANCE, then came NATURAL BORN KILLERS(both written by Quentin Tarantino!) But before those came David Lynch's WILD AT HEART, perhaps the most bizarre of any of these films.

It is the tale of Sailor and Lula, two star-crossed lovers who hit the road for sunny California in search of a new life. But all is not well, for Lula's witchlike mother does not take much to Sailor, and sends several hitman after them.

Filled with beautfully shot set pieces and several oddball characters(A pair of Voodoo assassins, Willem Dafoe as a brown toothed thug, and Crispin Glover as the weirdo cousin) this uncharacteristically rambunctious effort by Lynch is a wild ride that will leave you breathless. The big problem is that it takes a little while to get going, but once it does, it never lets up.

I can't wait for them to release this diddy on DVD. I know Lynch isn't big on "extra features"(he'll never do a commentary and he doesn't believe in chapter stops), I just want to see this baby in all its widescreen glory!

Rating:
Summary: Film of the Future
Review: Lynch uses cinema the way it should be used. It's a naturally surreal medium, something only Lynch has truly understood, ever since Salvador Dali made Un Chien Andalou, all those years ago. Wild at Heart is totally coherent, as many reviewers have realised, even if only partly and subconsciously. All I would like to know is this: is the American South really the raw and mindless hell on earth that it seems to be in almost every film I've seen located there?

Rating:
Summary: David Lynch's greatest masterpiece
Review: One of the most interesting and original films I have ever seen, Wild at Heart is an example of how even the most controversial themes can work brilliantly in a movie when they are used with good taste. Unlike Blue Velvet, this film is heavy on story and allusions, yet nothing seems out of place, and there are no unfortunate occasions of overly pretentious or hard-to-follow plotlines (Eraserhead, Twin Peaks). Brilliant performances by everyone, an incredible art direction and excellent soundtrack make this by far the most fascinating and moving film of David Lynch.

Rating:
Summary: Almost as underrated as Lost Highway
Review: There are two kinds of people in this world: those who love David Lynch's films, and those who hate them. Throughout just about all of Lynch's films, there has been a dreamlike feel to them that makes his films darkly hypnotic, and Wild at Heart is no exception. Nicolas Cage and a post Blue Velvet Laura Dern play Sailor and Lula; two star crossed lovers on the run from some dangerous whackos hired by Lula's mother (Diane Ladd) to rub out Sailor. Along the way they come across an even more dangerous whacko named Bobby Peru (played to absolute perfection by Willem Dafoe, seeing him in this role makes it hard to believe that this guy played Jesus Christ), and in between we are given a near sensory overload of explicit sex scenes between Cage and Dern to go with some horrifying violence. The dreamlike quality of the film makes Wild at Heart watchable, but as with just about all of Lynch's other films, this is not for all tastes. Cage seems to be having a lot of fun in his role and the chemistry between him and Dern is more than believeable, while Dafoe chews up all the screentime he can, and the rest of the cast (most of which are Lynch film regulars) include Harry Dean Stanton, Crispin Glover, Isabella Rossellini, Sheryl Lee, and Jack Nance. All in all, while I don't find this as great as Blue Velvet or Mulholland Drive, Wild at Heart is still a great film, but as I said before, it is not for all tastes.

Rating:
Summary: Direct, disturbing access to the mind of David Lynch.
Review: Wild at Heart is less a movie and more a psychological journey. It's hard for me to judge it the way I judge other movies; it simply can't be put under the same standards. Most movies are about entertainment and telling a story; this movie (like Blue Velvet before it) is about intense emotions, the darker side of the soul, and the warped mind of director David Lynch. David Lynch is one of the few directors left who still expresses himself through his work; he is one of the last true film artists. He indulges himself here, perhaps to an extreme. I'm not even sure I can say that this movie "entertained" me in the usual sense; but I relished the experience. His obsessions with Elvis, (impersonated or channeled by Nicholas Cage in an inspired performance) The Wizard of Oz, (the movie repeatedly references the classic both concretely and in symbolism) his desire to opress/victimize women, and the evil inside us all take center stage here; the story becomes secondary. The story itself is about a couple whose love borders on an unhealthy obsession, and seems to be founded in pleasure more than spirit. It is a "road picture" if you boil it down superficially. But this movie is about Lynch's twisted desires and his desire to twist us as well. The scene where Willem Dafoe's evil, animalistic character seduces Laura Dern verbally is one of the most powerful scenes in film. In my mind the release of this movie and the premiere of "Twin Peaks" on television were the events that started the 90's, at least in an artistic sense. Watch this movie; it is an intense roller coaster, a visual dream, and an unfiltered look into Lynch's mind and the American psyche.