Mulholland Drive

Rating:
Summary: Twin Peaks + girl-on-girl = disturbing
Review: Taken as an allegory, Mulholland Drive works well. It's wonderfully scripted and acted when you consider how demanding it is to make "camp" palatable, and somewhat eerie at the same time. Mr.Lynch is talented, there's no denying that, but his contempt for his audience is unsettling. Maybe it's just me, but I honestly felt that the last 1/3 of the movie was there to "break it down" for those of us that couldn't make the connections. If he had reservations about the plot so much that "spoon feeding" the viewer was necessary then here's an idea...don't be so (insert expletive) cryptic!

Rating:
Summary: uM...WOW
Review: it is haunting, atmospheric , dark and brooding, It can be best explained as Edgar Allen Poe's dream life mixed with Post Modenism. This is not a film for everyone. David Lynch excites as well as divides film viewers. it is not worth reading what this movie is about, its aim is for you to refigure,configure,conjure,make sense of things. Everything does make sense miraculously as only someone can. No doubt Lynch is an absolute genius. Anyone who got this movie can explain in a review what this is about but there are nights when you dream. there are certain smells you sniff and have a sense of deja vu, there are certain feelings you have at moments when things are unexplainable in their simplest ways, this film is that and more and is a mental sensory overload, and if like some (including proud old me! )you get this on the first try, Bravo Bravo! Either you will hate this movie or either you will feel ecstatic. I found it eerie but its like a drug that I need to have. I have seen this once and will not see it again for reasons that ultimately the movie has set out what it aimed to do to me. you have not seen anything like this at all. it makes absolute sense just like when you put togther a jigsaw puzzle. Naomi Watts and Laura Harring are eerily beautiful to look at and gorgeous, as well as helping the movie along....sometimes on trainer wheels, and sometimes on one wheel but never on normal standards. I cannot stop raving about this Film, This is so much more beyond cinema. Rest Assured i can tell you that im not a raving lunatic if you didnt like this film. :)
You wont like it if:
you dont like to think watching films
you dont like heavy films
you dont like solving puzzles
You like your popcorn action and a standard story
You can bond well with Formulaic movies

If to one of those your answer is different, Give this one a try but be ready to use your brain. And if you are still unclear, Salon.com has a very good article explaining everything about this film BUT BE WARNED..go there only if you have totally given up solving this :) and either feel a sense of accomplishment or dissapointment. The key is in your Box .

Rating:
Summary: Don't blink during this film!!!!!!
Review: WOW! What can I say? This is one whacked out movie. But at the same time you can't take your eyes off it. It's so good once you start to piece things together on your own. This is one movie that you'll relive in your head over and over and still not be able to make sense of it all.

Rating:
Summary: Different people have different tastes
Review: I personally like the movie. The acting is good. However, the DVD itself doesn't contain much extras.

Rating:
Summary: The worst movie that I've seen this year....
Review: Choppy, confusing, exposition problems, and unexplained plot turns. I hope that whoever funded this movie got what they wanted, since I don't think that any member of the viewing public will. I don't think that I've ever seen such a waste of celluloid. I totally agree with reviewer above who states that this is just a self-indulgent mess on the part of Lynch. Don't walk, run from this DVD!

Rating:
Summary: beautiful, difficult, disturbing
Review: Remember when Hollywood still made pictures for thinking adults? Me neither!

I've now seen all two and a half hours of this beautiful, difficult, and disturbing film three times. I still don't know what it "means," and I still don't care. Once you accept certain givens in a Lynch film--disjointed narrative, intentionally cheesy dialogue, demonic dwarves--and allow his imagery to guide you, you're in for a truly spooky ride. There are scenes in Muholland Drive (and in Eraserhead and Blue Velvet) that no other director could have even imagined much less caught on film. Of course, it helps that the film's darker elements are balanced by liberal doses of eroticism and campy good humor. Ultimately, though, Lynch's portrait of a talented innocent swallowed whole by the corporate studio system constitutes no less than a hate letter to Hollywood, albeit one that was nominated for several Academy awards!

Finally, I'm docking this DVD a notch not because of the film's quality but because of a poor video transfer and an inexplicable and very obvious bit of censorship in the film's one love scene.

Rating:
Summary: Judge it my its own standards
Review: David Lynch is not a genius (well, he might be...I haven't a clue what his IQ is), but he is undeniably an artist, and a good one. The trouble is, most American moviegoers do not have a frame of reference in which to place him. He's a committed expressionist, and we prefer-you might even say demand--realism in our dramas (see the critic below who hated the film because the characters don't talk like people do in real life). Expressionism has always been much more prevalent in European films, from the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Nosferatu onward through Fellini and Godard and even Bergman. It doesn't mean Americans are in any way inferior to Europeans; it just means that we have a different conception of strange.

That said, I'm still a little baffled by those who say that MD doesn't make sense. I admit that after I saw it the first time, I walked out feeling happily disoriented, but the second time left me a little disappointed--turns out the film was much more streamlined that I'd thought. It's all a fantasy except for the very first scene, in which we see Diane's rumpled bed sheets, until the Cowboy tells Diane to wake up. After that we see, in disjointed chronology, the events in Diane's life that manifested themselves in the fantasy. The haggard, bitter Diane invents the impossibly fresh-faced, impossibly hopeful Betty. The failed actress invents a Hollywood where mysterious men in suits wield power in absurd, capricious ways. The rejected lover invents a helpless amnesiac who depends on her completely. It's a Jungian smorgasbord, so what better key holder than the Jungian monster behind the diner?

Sure, there are surreal touches here and there, and a few rough edges that are no doubt the result of the film's haphazard production history. But for the overwhelming majority of the time, MD barely strays from the rudiments of film noir. It's a grander, giddier Blue Velvet.

David Lynch is an artist with his own expressionistic/surrealistic style, and you just can't judge his work by the standards of realism. So what if people don't talk this way in real life? The film isn't about real life. Of course, if the film just flat out bored you, then so be it. We have different taste. I can only speak for myself, and I was engrossed, enchanted, and thoroughly entertained.

Rating:
Summary: Mulholland Drive
Review: I'd like to shake Mr Lynch......by the neck! This film is a series of totally unconnected vignetts that really start to irritate you towards the second half of the film. You can see that he is losing his grip as the film staggers on towards the last quarter. The only thing that holds it together is the lovely use of colour throughout the film. All the shots are 50% too long. Dreams and fantasies don't make good films unless you are Andrey Tarkovsky. Disapointing.

Rating:
Summary: It is not supposed to have chapter stops
Review: Regarding the comments by another reviewer, Roger Ebert says that David Lynch stated that there are no chapter stops on the DVD because the movie has to be seen from beginning to end. Since it is like a dream, you are supposed to see it unfold like a dream, from the start to the end.

Rating:
Summary: This is the movie...
Review: Hollywood doesn't release many films that can't possibly be fully comprehended in one viewing, but if you DO enjoy a good multi-layered departure from straight narrative and sequential storytelling, David Lynch's MULHOLLAND DRIVE is the most rewarding vehicle you'll likely see since Howard Hawks helmed THE BIG SLEEP in 1946.

Yes, this IS a complex story whose plot cannot be explained in a single sentence. Yes, it DOES require two or three viewings before the intricacies of the puzzle begin to fall into place, and yes, it DEFINITELY IS a puzzle worth the effort and patience to solve, for once you do, you'll discover there is much method to director Lynch's madness. It's a rare film I can honestly say the more I watch, the more I want to experience it again, and again.

The most interesting revelation I've come to realize while watching this film is the way Lynch turns the tables on his audience. You begin this cinematic Mobius strip by watching a long, dream-like fantasy as a starry-eyed ingenue named Betty from Palookaville arrives in Tinseltown and accidentally becomes involved with a helpless amnesiac (who calls herself Rita). Nancy Drew-style, Betty decides to help her friend regain her memory and put her life back in order.
"It would be just like in the movies!" she beams with excitement.
However, Rita gradually reveals herself to be someone who is not as she appears as the film skews off on a nightmarish tangent, leaving the VIEWER to solve the puzzle of the two women and how the events surrounding them relate to each other. As the mystery unfolds, you become immersed in a tragic story of unrequited love and dreams gone sour in a land where dreams are often made, or in this case, shattered.

No matter how you feel about the film afterwards, it stays with you for a while. I have to wonder (since he refuses to discuss the plot in interviews) if Lynch ever undergoes a moment of blissful schadenfreude when he hears about the anger and spiteful feelings his movie arouses in those who can't cope with it's complexity. In fact, you have to wonder if those are the ones he wrote the story for in the first place.

Oh, well... whatever. I'm sure there will be many more re-hashings of old TV shows and remakes of antiquated blockbusters released in the theatres to appease the most undiscriminating of tastes. Meanwhile, some of us would like David Lynch to know that if MULHOLLAND DRIVE is the caliber of work that can be expected from him in the future, he'll always have a faithful audience.