Wednesday, January 31, 2018

The Last Jedi: Second viewing.


Right here.

First viewing.

The big 2015-2017 recap.



7 comments:

B. D. said...

Re: "Twin Peaks"...

-You watched FORTY EIGHT EPISODES and a 134 minute movie in FIVE DAYS?!?!?!? I couldn't even hope to break that record at gunpoint!!!!

-I have the "Gold Box" which reunited the pilot with the 29-episode show on 10 discs, plus some bonus stuff (including the old SNL sketches, weirdly enough.) "Fire Walk With Me" got a recent Criterion. This includes "The Missing Pieces" which you may want to watch, which I haven't myself watched yet--90 minutes of stuff that didn't make it into FWWM. If you wanted more of David Bowie here's your chance because I KNOW there's more of him in there!!!

-Well, what's your opinion of the show's humor? Season 3 hit with the jokes a little better than the original series, which was mostly quirky stuff that I found myself getting disinterested in pretty quick. Here, here's all the jokes I like from seasons 1 & 2:
-Jerry Horne's "smoked cheese pig"
-Andy the dumb police officer muttering "Je suis un'homme solitaire" to himself over and over after Harold Smith hangs himself
-Shelly Johnson imitating a beauty pageant contestant
-Shelly Johnson's romantic encounter with Gordon Cole played by David Lynch himself (perv...okay, I'm kidding)
-Albert Rosenfeld telling Sheriff Truman he loved him and that he rejected violence. HILARIOUS takedown of one of the worst tropes in television/film.
That's six friggin' jokes.
See, this is why I liked "Fire Walk With Me" so much: it was all darkness and creepy surreal stuff and BOB and Black Lodge and Laura Palmer stuff. That's what I liked from the show. It's also part of the reason most people back in 1992 told FWWM to go fuck itself--they missed the humor and townsfolk characters. Well not me!!!!
Season 3, meanwhile, hardest I laughed at that was "bad, bad, bad binoculars!!!"

Grades:
Pilot: A+ (greatest episode of TV ever, IMO)
Episodes 1-7 (season 1): B
Episode 8 (season 2 premiere): B+
Episodes 9-13 & 15: B
Episodes 14 (killer reveal) & 16 (killer dies): B+
Episodes 17-28: C-
Episode 29 (old series finale): B+
"Fire Walk With Me": A-
Season 3 Episode 8 (this thing was like 2001 A Space Odyssey's evil twin): A-
Season 3 all other episodes: B

-So on that note, were you able to stand episodes 17-28? Windom Earle was basically a fail despite the actor who played him putting in a lot of effort. The woman who plays Lucy said she remembered tuning in and wondering "who were all these people?" (I could've done without Billy Zane.) And don't forget that with the Laura Palmer thread closed (for now), this was where everyone began leaving the show in droves, so that the pop culture phenomenon of 1990 ended up entering the dustbin of history in 1991. Then FWWM bombed like shit in 1992 (Tarantino said he thought Lynch had finally disappeared up his own ass, take what you will from that!) and Lynch wouldn't be acclaimed again for about seven years.

B. D. said...

-I didn't mention in that earlier post that if you don't want to purchase FWWM separately, there's a recent "The Complete Mystery" Blu-Ray box set that reunites the whole original show with FWWM. This does include "The Missing Pieces."

-If you didn't know this, FWWM flopping at the box office in 1992 prevented the release of further "Twin Peaks" movies; had it been a hit, some of what we saw in season 3 would have been included in, among other things, a film that would have taken place possibly in South America and further explained what was going on with "Judy." So there would've been more Bowie in there, probably. Lynch made FWWM to wrap up the Laura Palmer thing once and for all (and since Laura turned up in the last couple of season 3 episodes, he didn't do that, either), after that they were gonna move on and take TP other directions.

-...which brings up an interesting conundrum with Lynch: he and Frost never wanted to tell you in the first place who the killer was; everything was going to "spin off" from that. And yet that was by far the best plot thread on TP, so my sympathies were with the audience, actually--they were right to want to know who did it. Then after fighting with ABC over not wanting to reveal the killer, Lynch goes and makes an ENTIRE FREAKIN' MOVIE based around things that the show pretty much already told you! (Mark Frost had nothing to do with FWWM, just FYI.)

-With all the stuff Lynch & Frost brought back from the old show, it's a shame we weren't allowed to have this back....since it's been destroyed:
http://twinpeaksarchive.blogspot.com/2008/09/train-car-destroyed.html

-Trent Reznor is 52 now, Nine Inch Nails' heyday was over two decades ago. Here, have a laugh, I think Jim Carrey looked like this back in 1983 too:
https://consequenceofsound.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/screen-shot-2014-10-18-at-5-40-00-pm.png

-Eddie Vedder's pretty old now too. Someone commented that having him show up in the Audrey Horne episode was some sort of in-joke since if she's in a coma, it would have been since 1991, and that's when Pearl Jam were most famous...

-Did you think Lynch was trolling us by having James Hurley perform that crappy acoustic song of his at the end of that one episode? ALL of it? He must've been!

-About fan theories: I don't remember what they were, but the show was a huge water-cooler discussion thing back in the day, and I remember a goofy Donahue thing where people apparently thought Laura was still alive (and hey, if that woman at the end of S3 is Laura, they're ultimately right!)
This is what people had to do back in the 1990s...I used to read this thing back in between the show airing and the release of DVD sets and such, since it didn't re-air in syndication anywhere near me:
http://www.twinpeaks.org/faqgen.htm

-I don't know for sure but I think TP is in some race with "Babylon 5" to win the "most dead cast members" race, sort of like Lynyrd Skynyrd or the Allman Brothers having more dead band members. Cripes, just before this aired we lost Bowie, Miguel Ferrer, Catherine E. Coulson, Brent Briscoe...and look at all the dead people getting credits for season 3 anyway, like Frank Silva and Jack Nance.

Diacanu said...


-Re: 5 days.
Nah, it had to be longer than that.
I think I started the day after I said "I'll give it a whirl".
A week and some change.
Eh...I guess that's still a quick burn through, though, innit?
I really buckle in when I binge.

-Re: Boxed sets.
Yeah, my best bet is to get as much of the old show and FWWM together, then the new ones.
There's nothing yet that scoops the old and the new together.
Fuck, I can't get the new ones for under 50 yet.
I'll wait a bit.
I'll pay 50 for all of it, but not just the new half.

-Re: Folksy humor vs weird shit.
Oh, THAT'S why fans turned on FWWM??
I would've thought the darker tone, and the titties.
I had no problem with the Black Lodge shit.
I just looked at it the same way as either the non-linear realm from "Deep Space Nine", or Flatland. I followed that stuff just fine. The weirder the better.
I'd always been told it was metaphorical, and un-crack-able, but it was straight ahead Flatland stuff. The inhabitants are hyper-dimensional beings, and Twin Peaks is on a dimensional crossrip. Yeah...I guess that's my favorite stuff too.
and there was WAY more of it in season 3.

-Re: Episode 17-28.
Yeeaaah, there was a lot of filler in there.
But, it got us to the Black Lodge, so it's all good.
I just took it in like later seasons of "Archie Bunker's Place", the plot is long gone, but we're just wallowing in letting these characters be themselves.
If you've gotten to love the characters, you could watch them eat lunch, and I was hooked in enough for that to happen, and that's what they did.
I knew from you the Black Lodge comes back at the end, so I was ready.
Yeah, I rode it out fine.
The thread with Zombie/Retard Leo really wore thin though.

-Re: Lost TP movies.
I knew about that.
But I was't into it then, so I didn't care.
Past me was an asshole about this show.
I gotta write an apology review post.

-James Hurley song.
I took it as nostalgia for the song being in the first season, but yeah, I guess it could be trolling.
I mean "Falling", was live performed too.
Didja know Lynch wrote all those songs?

Oh, here's something season 4 needs to address.
Why is Audrey alive?!?!?!
She chained herself to the safe door, and then the safe blew up.
She should be liquid!
Although, she did vanish from the club, and appear in a dream realm looking ina mirror with a fucke dup face.
So...maybe she is a coma blob after all.

Oh, and yes, that middle episode of season 3 where it goes back to 1945 was great.
You're right, dark opposite of "2001:A Space Odysey".
Plus some "Ren & Stimpy".

Umm...all I can think of for now.
Your reply might jostle more loose in my head.



B. D. said...


My other thoughts on the final episode (#18) are here, plus a small list at the end:
http://mb.boardhost.com/busicmabble/msg/1517199887.html

-Best guesses at the reason for the poor response FWWM got in 1992:
1)Fans missed seeing the TP supporting characters (mostly ignored in the movie) and the folksy quirky humor
2)People going into the movie without being familiar with the show and not knowing what the hell was going on
3)People who *had* watched the show were annoyed to see a movie dealing with plot points and such that had already been explained on the show
4)TP generally being over with as a cultural phenomenon

Lynch sure has had his bizarre ups and downs....he *started* his career with one of the weirdest movies ever made, hell maybe the *quintessential* weird movie ("Eraserhead"), then made a crowd pleasing Best Picture nominee ("Elephant Man") then made the movie that made him a huge subversive critical fave ("Blue Velvet") as a BOUNCE BACK from the jillion-dollar sci-fi-superadaptation BOMB he'd made two years earlier ("Dune"). Then he makes a smash hit cultural phenomenon TV show that lands him on the cover of TIME magazine called a "genius." Then the show goes to pot the following year and his movie bombs so he ends up missing out most of the decade. Then after regaining his critical adulations he disappears for 10 freakin' years (er, except for his album and art installations and stuff.)

-The general implication is that Audrey is probably in a hospital or a coma dream or something, yes. Most likely: Lynch just wanted to work with Sherilyn Fenn again (I keep forgetting that Lynch's *daughter* was the one responsible for "Boxing Helena") and he also likes to do stuff with dreams all the time, so. He went out of his way to get ALL of the TP people (a number of whom have zilch on their resumes besides TP--ever see Wendy Robie in anything else?), like Everett McGill was totally retired from acting altogether and Lynch had to look him up, or Gary Hershberger who played Mike Nelson (you may not have even recognized him in season 3, he only had one scene), or Walter Olkewicz who played Jacques Renault and whose lone scene was totally pointless, but whom apparently has horrible medical bills in real life that needed paying.

-Since Eric Da Re, Joan Chen, Piper Laurie and the late Jack Nance appeared in flashback footage from the pilot and FWWM, the only two people who are missing from the original season are Lara Flynn Boyle (who was difficult to work with and turned her face into a baseball glove from plastic surgery, to the point where people were joking that she should play BOB when the new season was announced) and Michael J. Anderson the red-room dwarf, who is some crazy conspiracy theory lunatic now and spouted out some crap about Lynch being a child molester or something like that on Twitter, so Lynch replaced him with a potted tree with a paper mache brain on top of it. I am the arrrrm!!!!! (The girl who was Ronette Pulaski was visible in a room when Coop was trying to escape back into the real world.)

-For fun, go look up any interview with Julee Cruse talking. She sings in a dreamy voice but when she talks she sounds like an old Texas housewife. I did know Lynch wrote her songs.

-I just love how we go from a Nine Inch Nails performance to being in 1945 New Mexico out of nowhere. Burn baby burn.

Diacanu said...



Oh, shit! I haven't answered this!
I'll get to it, I promise!

Diacanu said...



Re: Message baord thoughts on last episode.

I'm probably wrong as fuck, but Mike is missing an arm, and the Dwarf/talking tree says "I am the arm", and they both eat the cream corn so....I assumed it's Mike's arm.
It's his mini-me.
If they can make a guy out of a gold Ball Bearing, then why not a limb?

Diane clone.
More time travel hijinks, obviously.
Season four will no doubt have a whole Diane episode to plug up these holes.

Not-Laura's murder victim.
I thought he looked like one of the hippie/hobo zombies.
Assuming that, I assumed that was the origin for at least one of them, that they're some kind of limbo-people that died in other timelines.
As with "the arm", I'm probably wrong.

Yes, I also assumed the Fireman's house was the white lodge.

Re: Poor FWWM response.
Agreed.
I initially gave FWWM a bad review cuz I hadn't seen the show.

Re: Lynch's weird winding career path.
Agreed.
But...it's fitting.
The only way you get a smooth career ride is if you make safe stuff for the stiffs, and he's just not that guy.

Re: Audrey.
Yep.

Re: Lara Fynn Boyle.
*Googles*
Oh, holy shit!!!!
Awww...that's sad.
I had a crush on her from her indie films in the 90's.
Damn.

Sorry for the lateness.
Ideas for the next book have been coming fast and furious, so I've been working on that.

B. D. said...

-The dwarf/tree is indeed Mike's cut-off arm; he cut it off so he wouldn't turn into a murderer like BOB. I've never quite been sure what Mike was doing running around in the woods at the end of FWWM (he tosses the ring into the train car, which is what Laura uses to prevent BOB from possessing her). I guess he's the good guy but I still feel like I've never gotten a line on him.

-Every time people want (INSERT AUTEUR HIP DIRECTOR HERE) to direct a blockbuster I always think of Lynch directing "Dune."

-Lara Flynn Boyle - Sort of a shame, I thought she gave a good performance in the original TP, or at least the pilot.


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