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Mulholland Drive

Mulholland Drive

List Price: $14.98
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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: One More Word on M.D.
Review: Lynch's film has two main story lines, the second of which "cancels" out the first. The first one concerns events in and around the quest to unravel the mystery of the amnesiac's identity; the second concerns a love triangle between a disappointed actress, her ex-lover and the director she has taken up with. The second story line "solves" the mystery of the first by telling us that it wasn't a real mystery, but was only a dream fantasy. The first storyline is a compelling one; the second is extremely mundane. By the time Lynch brings in the second story line, the viewer already has a lot of emotional energy invested in the first, and the "solution" of the mystery, therefore, comes as a severe disappointment.

Lynch here seems to be making the point that our dreams are more interesting than our lives, but it's an unwelcome lesson, because it releases the emotional energy the viewer has invested in the first part of the film, yet puts nothing in its place. It's been a long ride to nowhere and, in my opinion, a fatal miscalculation on Lynch's part. His subversive cleverness has ruined the picture.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Intense psychological thriller!
Review: In my opinion, Mulholland Drive was by far the best movie of 2001. I think that in some of his other films, David Lynch just gave up at some point and released his grip on reality and even coherence. What sometimes resulted (and I'm thinking here of movies like Lost Highway) were some fascinating mind trips that didn't really hold up to intense critical scrunity. Mulholland Drive is different. There's no way to explicate the mysteries of the movie in this short review, but I think that persistent and thoughtful viewers will find Mulholland Drive to be a brilliant exploration of a troubled mind as well as a blistering criticism of Hollywood and the movie industry. The movie is by no means simple or easily accessible, but it is definitely worth repeated viewings and long discussions with good friends--I don't think that a single, solitary viewing will do it justice.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Waiting for a DVD release with chapters? I wouldn't.
Review: Half the fun of this movie is NOT being able to play the scenes in their "correct" chronological order. (Of course if a chaptered DVD is ever released, that won't stop me from trying just that!) HOWEVER...if you're among those waiting for such a release, know that you can be ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that the current unchaptered version will become the valued collector's item which will be traded on EBAY for decades to come!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Wow! This is quality movie manna for the starving masses!
Review: My wife and I saw it last night, and twice more today...that's 3 times in less than 24 hours - and this is a 2 1/2-hour film! We're absolutely hooked! It's pretty easy to see why Lynch didn't (and probably never will) allow chapter headings on this DVD, because people like me would by now have all the different scenes written down in CORRECT order and would be playing the movie from it's "real" beginning to it's conclusion, just to see if we "got the sequence right"! Heck, I'd probably be moving a few of them around for days. This movie makes "Mementos" seem like a walk in the park. (Without giving TOO much away, it's helpful to know the party scene shown near the end is NEARLY the beginning of the story.) There is absolutely NO way you can watch this movie once if you enjoy your first viewing of it, so Lynch fans (and Twin Peak fans in particular) better plan to set aside at least 5 hours! (Thank God for rainy weekends!) This film is an absolute treasure and yes, IF Lynch someday allows a chaptered DVD I'll get that one too!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: One of Lynch's finest
Review: This film is absolutely brilliant. Days later, I was still thinking about the movie. My favorite part was the Spanish version of Crying in the club Silencio. It reminded of Laura Palmer crying in TP:FWWM in the club. There are still things about the movie I totally do not understand--who was the monster--Diane? or the devil?, were they ever even in the apartment, if so why does the aunt come back to see what the noise was? The score is absolutely breathtaking. Laura Herring is beautiful and Naomi Watts performance exceptional.
Let's face it, Lynch is a guy you either love or hate, get or don't get, etc. He makes movies that make you think; ie this is not for someone who just can't get enough of those Rush Hour movies. He is the absolute art film director and in tune to the surrealist movement.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Mulholland Drive
Review: I thought it would bo difficult to find a worse movie than "Crash" and "Natural Born Killer". Yes, I found that "Mulholland Drive" is comparably bad.

I cannot believe that I just wasted my time and my money to be confused by a movie such as this (I have my husband to confuse me already!). I truly believe that the movie stars who gave great review for this movie were just being so sarcastic and full of revenge. They wanted as many people as possible to suffer the way they did.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Eagle Scout Makes Good!
Review: The only biographical data on David Lynch, if you look him up in the Cast and Crew section of this DVD, is "Eagle Scout". This cryptic bio is relevant precisely because of its terse irony and apparent irrelevance.

The film itself is (on the surface, at least) about another Eagle Scout-type -- a chirpy, aw-shucks young Canadian woman who comes to Hollywood with stars in her eyes -- only to find a dingy underbelly of ... studio executives, scary homeless people, and seedy lowlifes. The girl (whose very name is suspect), beautifully played by Naomi Watts, floats in the rippling California sunshine like Lynch's Jungian Anima in a lucid fever-dream. Everything seems just a little too scrubbed-clean and cheerful. The happier the first parts of the film got, the greater the dread that developed in the pit of my stomach.

True to form, Lynch pulls the rug out in a bravura third-act that calls everything that has come before it into question. This goes beyond some funky narrative sleight-of-hand trick (as pulled by such recent films as The Sixth Sense and The Usual Suspects); it forces us to confront the sad, desperate acts of self-deception necessary for a young actress to survive mentally, once she has become ... used by the Hollywood Beast.

There are many plot strands that seem, at first, to go nowhere. There is the amnesiac actress (the amazing Laura Elana Harring) who was saved from an apparent mob hit by a fortuitous car accident. The mystery of her identity and circumstance is the springboard for most of the film. Then there is the disillusioned film director Adam Kesher (Justin Theroux) - apparently a caricature of Lynch himself - who is forced by mob-types to cast a certain actress in the lead part of his film. There is a bumbling hit-man whose body-count rises alarmingly because of his darkly hilarious ineptitude. Oh, and we mustn't forget the young man who is haunted by dreams of a hideous man-beast behind a local chain-diner's dumpster.

After seeing this film four times, I am convinced that every piece does, indeed, fit -- although less according to logic than the rules of dreams, where pieces of metaphor, memory, and emotion come together in seemingly readable, yet elusive patterns.

Don't be put off by claims that Mulholland Drive makes no sense - the plot DOES make sense, but more in the manner of a painting or symphony, rather than a stereo manual.

The DVD is skimpy on extras and has no chapter stops (per Lynch's desires, as I understand), but the picture and sound quality are quite good.

With Mulholland Drive, David Lynch has succeeded in demolishing the structure of typical narrative films while still maintaining a potentially comprehensible narrative. He has also created a modest hit and was nominated for an Academy Award.

Not bad for an Eagle Scout.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: David Lynch's great folly
Review: Isn't it possible that all the "mysterious" and unexplainable plot twists in Mulholland Drive really are just a result of having to slap together a feature film ending on a tv series pilot? Lynch sets in motion many intriguing sub-plots and characters in the first half of the film, which is very watchable, in my opinion. But then the film unravels, and in effect forgets itself, which is very unsatisfying. The care with which these characters, even the minor ones, are introduced, makes the finale seem unfair. I wanted more...as in a whole season of episodic television, which is obviously what Lynch had in mind. I've read a lot of intricate analyses of this film, and I keep thinking it is all one huge case of "The Emperor's New Clothes", with David Lynch having a laugh at all the film "experts" who see brilliant symbolism and metaphor instead of a naked failed tv pilot.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Review: Okay, now how do I describe this film? Um, no that's not right. Perhaps? no not quite right, Oh I know, IT'S DAVID LYNCH!! Just see it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: David Lynch is brilliant
Review: Mulholland Drive is an amazing film. David Lynch's latest masterpiece is about a woman named Diane Selwyn whose girlfriend, Camilla, has just dumped her for a man. Diane goes to sleep and has a dream. In the dream, Diane has control over everything she doesn't in real life, e.g her girlfriend, her acting career. In her dream, her girlfriend Camilla is about to be murdered by two hitman when the limo she's driving is hit by a speeding car. Camilla survives, but she suffers from amnesia. Meanwhile, Diane has pictured herself as an aspiring actress named Betty who is coming to Hollywood to become a movie star. Betty takes Camilla in, who calls herself Rita, and takes care of her. Later, Betty has a stunning audition and becomes sexually involved with Rita. After Diane (Betty) wakes up, we see events unfold that explain why Betty had that dream and the motivations behind why certain characters acted the way they did. The movie ends with Betty meeting with a hitman to set up a hit on her now ex-girlfriend Camilla.

This film took me two viewings to understand. The film's narrative style is very unconventional. This film reminded me of Christopher Nolan's films like Following and Memento in the way the story was told. The story was hard to follow, but since most of the movie is a dream, this style was appropriate. There were a few great scenes in this film. They are the kind of scenes that stay with you, with characters that jump out of the screen at you.

What amazed me about this film was the distinctive personality traits that made each character unique. The Cowboy was stoic and sarcastic. Adam comes home and sees his wife in bed with another man. He takes her jewelry box and pours paint in it. The man who drinks the expresso, which is considered one of the "finest expressos in the world", spits it out on his napkin. The hitman (in Betty's dream) is portrayed as inept and clumsy. This was an excellent recipe for good comic relief and it worked.

There was another thing I noticed in this film that was very well done. When Adam pours the paint on his wife's jewelry box, he mixes it in with his hands and gets the paint all over his shirt. This was a way to carry over that color to subsequent scenes, and hence, added color to them. Adam's paint covered shirt gave him a personality. It added life to a scene that would have been ordinary with him just wearing a black shirt. I know this wasn't an accident.
"Mulholland Drive" was terrific.


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