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Blue Velvet

Blue Velvet

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A CLASSIC MASTERPIECE
Review: David Lynch is without a doubt the most brilliant talent in the movie business. His movies are always crafted with intelligence and bizarre creativity. "Blue Velvet" is one of the most original and fascinating movies I've ever seen. It is dark, funny, and very disturbing. The seemingly perfect town has an eerie sense of similarity to small towns everywhere. Nothing out of the ordinary on the surface of this littlle place, but underneath lies something far more sinister. A lounge singer's husband and son have been kidnapped by a lunatic and he wants this poor woman to perform sexual tasks for him. And in the middle of this is an innocent and curious college student who's life is altered forever when he discovers the secrets. He falls for this abused woman who is coming apart from the terrible tragedy that she has endured. Can he help? Will the madman have mercy and let her family go? This film is a fantastic look at the suffers ordinary people have to survive when unordianry circumstances are thrown their way. David Lynch is a master of modern art. He shatters molds and boundries and has become the most creative and talented director in film.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Lynch's Masterpiece.
Review: Cleancut college boy-Jeffery (Kyle MacLachlan) finds a human ear in a field from his mayberry-like hometown. But then he get involved with a beautiful night club singer (Isabella Rossellini) and then it's gets deeper, when Jeffery meets a [chemical substance]-addicted sadist (Dennis Hopper) into his depraved existence. Jeffery tries to get out in this dark, enigmatic underworld, where it seems to be no point of return of this ordinary young man.

Written and Directed by David Lynch (Dune, Elephant Man, Erasherhead) made a beautiful, disturbing unique exploration of the dark-side of America Suburbia. Excellent Performances by MacLachlan, Rossellini and especially-Hopper. Laura Dern is also Good as Jeffery`s friend. This is Lynch's most unique film. Rossellini recieve a Best Actress award at the Independent Spirit Awards. Lynch recieve an Oscar Nomination for Best Director. DVD's has an fine anamorphic Widescreen (2.35:1) transfer and an good Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround Sound. The Latest DVD from MGM has an terrific digital anamorphic widescreen (2.35:1) transfer supervised by the Director. For the First Time:Digitally Remastered in Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound. DVD has an 73 Minute Documentary, Deleted Scenes Montage (Which Lynch`s Original Cut of the Film was about 4 Hours!, but the footage is now lost forever), Photo Gallery & More. This is a extremely well done film. Not for all tastes. Joe Dunton Camera Scope (J-D-C Scope). Grade:A+.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: This movie gets a love letter from me
Review: BLUE VELVET, at its core, states a simple case: all things that appear good are only good in appearance; all things evil are evil through and through. You start with the over-Kodachromed shots of Anytown, USA, with its wildflowers, fire engines, and spotless sidewalks. You conclude with a chirping robin which is a puppet, and David Lynch makes no attempt to make it seem like it's anything but a puppet. In between these elements is evil: a severed ear, shootings, bloodied and battered people, and Frank Booth. This dark world seems much more real than the sunlit Anytown, and this is David Lynch's starting point.

BLUE VELVET is going to be unwatchable for many people: it's violent, it's graphic, it's "weird", etc. But if you get beyond some of the stylization, you will find this film to be a powerful indictment of American society gone mad. And as far as movie-making goes, this movie is a magnet for the eyes. This is a visual dans-macabre: stark settings and brash lighting amid the darkness; the contrasting colors; the sweeping camera movements just keep your eyes glued to the screen. Combine this with the brilliant performances of Kyle MacLachlan, Isabella Rossellini, and, of course, Dennis Hopper, and you'll find out why this film endures, even as it nears its third decade.

If you don't get this film, you will get a love letter from me. And you don't want a love letter from me. Do you know what a love letter from me is?

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A dark and stunning masterpiece on a good DVD
Review: Love it or despise it, director David Lynch's 1986 trip into the dark side "Blue Velvet" is one of those films that's hard to get out of your system. Clean-cut Jeffrey (Kyle MacLachlan) returns to his home of small-town Lumberton to visit his hospitalized father. While traveling to and from the hospital, he discovers a severed ear in a empty field. From there, he starts looking into the seedy side of a world he thought he knew and discovers many unusual and terrifying characters, such as a mentally destroyed singer (Isabella Rossellini) and a sadistic, drug-sniffing madman (Dennis Hopper). Unlike Lynch's latter movies (Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive), the use of dreamlike imagery doesn't drown out the basic story, but amplifies the drama. Boasting terrific performances from the main cast, including Laura Dern and Dean Stockwell, this one of Lynch's best movies ever and among his most polarizing. This release of "Blue Velvet" includes a terrific 70-minute documentary featuring interviews with the cast, which reveals surprising details about the making of the film (such as Dennis Hopper's "non"-audition, Isabella Rossellini's actual singing ability) and details about director Lynch (this movie comes from the mind of a Eagle Scout?). There is also a montage of deleted scenes (in this case, scenes pieced together with photos taken, due to the fact that the actual scenes are currently missing) and a quick clip of the movie being reviewed by "Siskel and Ebert" (a surprising little bonus), and a photo gallery. Being one of the great films of the 1980's, and among one of the most shocking of it's time, "Blue Velvet" is definitely a unforgettable trip into the dark underbelly under the white picket fences covering the house of your dreams.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Woo Hoo!
Review: I just thought that I would take the time to boast that us English folk who tend to never get anything right when it comes to packaging and what not, have recently had a special edition of Blue Velvet released, and hard as this is to believe, It's better than yours. Not only is it two discs, but the really cool outer design is made out of Velvet. HOW COOL IS THAT!
Anyway, just thought some of you might be interested to know that.

"You're so F*****G suave"

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A CLASSIC MASTERPIECE
Review: David Lynch is without a doubt the most brilliant talent in the movie business. His movies are always crafted with intelligence and bizarre creativity. "Blue Velvet" is one of the most original and fascinating movies I've ever seen. It is dark, funny, and very disturbing. The seemingly perfect town has an eerie sense of similarity to small towns everywhere. Nothing out of the ordinary on the surface of this littlle place, but underneath lies something far more sinister. A lounge singer's husband and son have been kidnapped by a lunatic and he wants this poor woman to perform sexual tasks for him. And in the middle of this is an innocent and curious college student who's life is altered forever when he discovers the secrets. He falls for this abused woman who is coming apart from the terrible tragedy that she has endured. Can he help? Will the madman have mercy and let her family go? This film is a fantastic look at the suffers ordinary people have to survive when unordianry circumstances are thrown their way. David Lynch is a master of modern art. He shatters molds and boundries and has become the most creative and talented director in film.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: There's just something - off
Review: In many respects - well, almost every respect - this is a brilliant film. The contrast between the violence and seaminess of Frank's world and the laughable banality of Jeffery's world comes across perfectly. Dennis Hopper's performance as Frank really cannot be praised enough. Sure, he's impressive when he's huffing nitrous oxide and hitting Jeffrey across the face, but his expression while listening to the old lounge songs - melancholy, regretful - is equally convincing, and he's almost sympathetic. Also classic is the moment when another character proposes to toast his health, and he mutters: 'Aw, let's drink to something else.' Jeffrey's Reeve-like blankness is a good foil for him.

That said, there's just something - something about the random imagery inserted, like subliminal shots but held for longer, images of a snuffed candle and insects - something about the pacing, the long silences and occasional anticlimax - and something about the surprising semi-happy ending - that doesn't work. I feel like I'm missing something, and maybe I just am, but I don't feel like Lynch accomplished everything he set out to do. Just when it could be frightening, it lapses into comedy. This vagueness may be part of the message - life isn't black-and-white, or clean - but still. The movie is effective, but it doesn't resonate.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Interesting and Disturbing Film.
Review: I just recently saw this film but there have been years where people have talked about it, referenced it in conversation but I haven't seen until recently and I can say that it's a film that's had me focusing on Lynch's style of directing. This is the second Lynch film that I've seen. I saw DUNE which he wouldn't even lend his name too. In comparing both films, I would say that both seem to have a dark taint to them. Well this film had an overthetop performance by Dennis Hopper as Frank Booth, the film actually became more interesting with his performance. The surreal scene at the bordello was the highlight of the movie.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: And kiss forever. In a darkness.
Review: How many movies are you going to see that use a bird eating a bug as an illustration that a young man should be afraid of acting on sexual feelings, because those desires are seen as disdainful and shameful to a good-minded society? The bird appears to be a robin. The very type of bird used to analogize goodness and pure love in the movie. Classic. "Sometimes a wind blows and the mysteries of love come clear". Tweet, tweet.

For this movie we live inside a strange world. For Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me we live inside a dream. For Mulholland Dr. we live inside one person's dream. I doubt that Lynch will be making any action/adventure or romantic comedies anytime soon.

A good boy's bad-boy libido fantasy compared against idealistic pure love, with 1950's America mentality. The movie deals mostly with a young man moralizing sexual desires. Contrasting, and in the end somewhat reconciling, moral extremes is a staple in Lynch movies. The evil side has some legitimate allurement, the viewer always gets a very generous taste of it. Also pervasive, always there lurking behind the doors. But ultimately however that side should be dismissed out of fear, fear of physical and emotional repercussions. And also dismissed out of love, respect of the morally acceptable. The larger point is probably that human beings are a mix of good and evil, or that human beings are indelibly flawed. Accentuating the good side more strongly might have made for more emotional buildup in Blue Velvet, as in Mulholland Dr. and Fire Walk With Me [the two grandiose behemoths]. Though those two have tragic endings that work better in contrasting dramatically against the good. Also in those two there is more focus on the female characters, characters easily perceived as more vulnerable, needing protection, especially after you have seen them naked numerous times [I know, sexist white male propaganda to keep the white female down]. In Blue Velvet, the "Why are there people like Frank..." and the "robins...love", "Mommy loves you", the caring family, the loving slow dance [creative audio, have to like the original music and the sound of a candle flame being blown out for example] are somewhat muted examples of moral conscientiousness. Somewhat muted, given you have people dancing on car tops, singing into shop lights, lewd mommy/daddy/baby Oedipal references, and toasts made to f...... [All very entertaining]. A "goodness" point will be made. And after you mull that for two seconds, there is a heap of weirdness, and that is followed by some more disorderedness. Always some consternation caused by seeing the evil in the world. Also troubling when one sees some of that evil in one's own thoughts. This recognition and repulsion however may qualify you as somewhat moral, having some goodness. This is seemingly the key moral point, as well as, implicitly, the message that morality has importance on a personal, individual basis. But that isn't quite it. Yes, the moral person, say a moral hormone-filled young man trying to reconcile his biology, has some significant awareness that there is some wrongness about himself (has at the least a keen knowledge that one's sexuality is socially problematic) and is cognizant that there is wrongness in the world around him. But to some degree that is done out of pragmatism, to save one's self in a larger society. Not really all that noble, perhaps only marginally moral. So the conclusion is more that people are perverts, including one's self. It's a strange world, isn't it?

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Brilliant, if you can stomach it.
Review: "Blue Velvet" is a shocking, disturbing and highly artistic piece of cinema that is NOT to everyone's tastes.

It has divided critics and audiences alike since its first showings in 1986, and I would urge people who do not wish to be challenged by movies not to watch.

The famous British film critic Mark Kermode (Who has a doctorate in, and a deep interest in horror movies) walked out of "Blue Velvet" the first time he saw it. He wrote a rather sniffy review. On re-watching the film, he admitted he had been very, very wrong and was honest enough to admit that "Blue Velvet" had scared the hell out of him to such a degree that he had justified his fear to himself by rubbishing the film. This from a man who rates "The Exorcist" as the best film ever made.

That little anecdote gives you some idea of the power of "Blue Velvet," a power that nearly two decades has not diminished.

The cinematography is beautiful, making the whole thing look dream-like and sumptuous, but the subject matter is the stuff of nightmares. This dichotomy only adds to the film's impact; the question is: if it is a dream, whose dream is it?

"Blue Velvet" attempts to lift the lid on white-picket-fence America, showing that underneath all manner of depravity and evil lurk. Dennis Hopper gives an unforgettable performance and his screen presence, which is pure wickedness, is one of the most alarming in cinema history. He is brilliant, he is devastating.

"Blue Velvet" begins with Kyle McLaughlin's (Agent Dale Cooper in "Twin Peaks") young innocent discovering a severed human ear on the ground, and then descends into a world of madness like no other.

It is brilliant, it is beautiful and it is hideously ugly. It is the best American film of the 1980s, but it is not the most easily watchable.


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