Anton Chigurh Got a Haircut

I haven't really kept up with Woody Allen's recent output. Out of the last ten (twelve? fifteen?) years or so, I've seen maybe three of his movies. Match Point: check (loved it). Scoop: check (hated it). Cassandra's Dream: still haven't gotten around to it. And now? Vicky Cristina Barcelona: check. I don't think I can really place this movie in the context of any "recent Woody Allen" trend without feeling like a hypocrite, so I won't. But judging from my meager personal experience, along with everything I've heard about the last decade of his work, Vicky Cristina Barcelona was a bit surprising. I went to see it with no reviews under my belt (I've made it clear elsewhere how I feel about reading reviews before seeing a movie), and to be honest I was almost going in with a chip on my shoulder, ready to hate it. Woody Allen is certainly past his prime, over the hill and so on, right? Shows what I know. While I wouldn't go so far as to add it to the Woody Allen "masterpiece" canon (along with Annie Hall, &c.), this isn't one to be dismissed as a minor work either, despite how it may initially appear.

The setup is pretty standard: two friends go to Barcelona for the summer. One's an uptight grad student (Rebecca Hall), the other's a free spirited not-quite-artist type (Scarlett Johansson). They meet dashing local painter Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem). These are the ingredients for a good ol' fashioned love triangle, and things unfold just the way you'd expect. The lustful Cristina gets sick on the trio's first night together, and Vicky is "forced" to spend a glorious weekend alone with Juan Antonio. Despite her engagement to a safe, boring, businessman back home, she loses her shit due to wine and acoustic guitar (who wouldn't?), and ends up having sex with him. She regrets it and goes back to her research, cutting herself off from further hijinks. Cristina and Juan Antonio end up together as planned. All of this happens in an enjoyable, if predictable, manner. It's nothing you wouldn't expect from any European-inspired piece of sexual dramedy, in other words. Then, just about when you start to wonder if maybe you didn't imagine seeing her name in the credits, Penelope Cruz makes her entrance. And she is crazy.

Also: crazy awesome. More than a few reviews have already bandied about Oscar talk, and it isn't hard to see why. She goes all out as Juan Antonio's fucked up ex-wife Maria Elena, and basically steals the show. It's also amazing that, in a movie that had so far featured three of the most beautiful people on Earth, she blows them all right out of the goddam water, apparently without a shred of effort. She has this strange, alluring, manic-depressive, something that just fits perfectly. She goes from bouncing off the walls, spitting Spanish curses, and threatening physical harm, to being a perfect specimen of tender, understanding affection. And back again! There are points where it's obvious that the other actors are just as surprised as the audience at the fury of her outbursts, which is always entertaining. I actually started to feel sorry for Javier Bardem--I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that he was covered with real-life bruises after some of those on-screen assaults. Does she steal the show too much? Possibly. Perhaps after a second viewing I can judge more objectively, since I'll be a little more prepared for the onslaught.

In any case, Cruz's character fucks up the comfortable stability of Cristina and Juan Antonio's relationship in the way you'd expect. At first. Then things go in strange, wonderful new directions. And then Vicky comes back in the picture! It's a bit of a clusterfuck, and over the course of the film the love triangle transforms into multiple triangles, then a rectangle, back into a triangle, and finally into some sort of incomprehensible love dodecahedron. It's funny, it's emotional... in short, it works. I'm always pleased when a film presents a love triangle that doesn't neatly solve itself somehow (e.g. killing and/or vilifying one of the members). Allen doesn't give us any cop-outs, and I respect that.

A couple of things stood out for me after this first viewing. For one, Woody Allen himself isn't in it (this is a good thing). Yet through most of the movie, you can undoubtedly feel him speaking through the mouths of his characters. I don't know if it's just a matter of his "voice" being so strong in his writing or what... but the end result for me was that I couldn't help but imagine a bonus audio track on the DVD where Woody Allen dubs himself over every actor. I honestly don't know if I'd be able to tell the difference. At certain points it seemed like each character was little more than a physical manifestation of a different part of Allen's psyche, and I was just sitting in the theater watching him argue with himself. This isn't a deal-breaker or anything... one certainly expects plenty of Woody Allen dialogue in a Woody Allen movie. But it was a little distracting.

Another thing: it takes a little while for the characters to break away from their little stereotypes and become anything close to "real" people. Lusty artist, uptight grad student, European sexpot... these are all obvious character molds to inhabit this kind of story. Allen clearly realizes this, and he spends plenty of time delivering exactly the foibles we expect (want?) to see in these types of characters. Whether it's Cristina's bad poetry or Vicky's constant overthinking, we're not exactly surprised by any of these people until the film starts to wind down. But in the end they do end up becoming something more, despite our expectations. Shit, even Vicky's polo-wearing, golf-playing, clueless husband-to-be ends up as a sympathetic three-dimensional human being. So why the wait? Was this kind of delayed characterization intentional? Again, I think maybe a second viewing will help shed some light.

One last thing stood out: the voice over narration. It's interesting... the voice doesn't belong to anyone in the film, nor even to Allen himself (except in spirit, of course). Honestly, I can't decide how I feel about it one way or another (yet). The knee-jerk critical reaction to voice over is negative, of course. Bad writing! Unnecessary! And so on. But Woody Allen knows what he's doing, right? I can't help but think that he was using the narration to some end other than simple narrative clarity. And it didn't even seem that vital. I imagine it would be fairly easy to edit it out entirely and not lose much. So what's the deal? Just another item to pay closer attention to during round two, I suppose...

Oh and finally: if any of the above didn't interest you in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, perhaps this will: Penelope Cruz and Scarlett Johansson make out in it. Assuming the clip hasn't already made it to youtube, it certainly will soon. So we can all look forward to millions of teenage boys thanking Woody Allen as they nervously lock their bedroom doors. Hooray!

Neither Fast Nor Furious

I feel as if I should apologize for my lack of posts lately, especially considering I've just been welcomed into the LAMB. But here's the thing: Netflix has been sending me disc after disc of Mr. Show and The Office, which has caused my cinematic intake to dip pretty drastically. You may remember I mentioned something earlier about summer being a time of media binges? Well summer rages on. Mr. Show is of course an old favorite I haven't watched in a while, and The Office is something I've only recently begun to enjoy. (It fucking rules, by the way. Can't wait to check out the British version.) Anyway, I finally pried my eyeballs away from television long enough to watch Satoshi Miki's newest film, Adrift in Tokyo. It's been doing its thing at festivals for a little while now (NYAFF, for one), and it came out on DVD in Japan sort of recently. I've been hearing nothing but good things, so I checked it out. Not for everyone, I'd say, but I enjoyed the hell out of it.

Actually, I liked it so much that I'm planning on writing something real about it in the near future, though for now I think I'll just throw up (which is to say vomit) the (stilted/semi-shitty) review I wrote for Midnight Eye. Prepare yourself for a disturbing lack of expletives.

And I quote (myself):

Satoshi Miki’s Adrift in Tokyo is a difficult film to categorize. Is it a road movie? A city film? A buddy movie? A comedy? A drama? The short answer is: yes. It’s each of these things, and when put together, it becomes something substantially greater than the sum of its parts. Miki has managed to craft something touching, hilarious, informative, and brimming with a subdued sense of adventure that one can only get from exploring a seemingly familiar city with a fresh perspective.

Joe Odagiri: best hair in the history of time.

The film (more or less) follows the perpetually blank-faced Fumiya (Joe Odagiri), an eighth year law student who has managed to rack up over 800,000 yen in debt, and naturally has no way to pay it back. While sitting in his apartment contemplating the finer points of three-color toothpaste, Fumiya is assaulted by ruthless-looking debt collector Fukuhara (a mullet-wielding Tomokazu Miura), who gives him three days to pay back the cash. The days pass and Fumiya makes a series of characteristically half-assed attempts to raise the money, but gets nowhere. Ready to give up, he’s approached once more by Fukuhara, who surprisingly says he will pay a total of one million yen if Fumiya accompanies him on a walk around Tokyo. It might take days, weeks, or months, he says, but after they’re finished his debt will disappear. Having no choice, Fumiya accepts the offer and the film kicks into gear.

As we follow the two through the streets of the city, their lives unfold by way of conversations, squabbles, confessions, and the occasional shouting match. We discover that Fumiya was abandoned by his parents as a young child, leaving him without a soul to depend on. With this revelation Miki subtly transforms Fumiya’s attitude of blank detachment from a comic device into something deeper, while still keeping the atmosphere light. And we learn that Fukuhara, the strangely sensitive thug, has killed his wife. He plans to wander the streets of his city, rediscovering old memories and creating new ones, before turning himself in to the police and resigning himself to prison. This kind of multi-layered emotional content is typical for the film, and it’s not unusual for any given scene to first lift, then break your spirits as each of the characters unfurls into an actual multidimensional human being. It takes a delicate hand to strike such a perfect balance of humor and (I hesitate to even call it this) drama, but Miki has succeeded brilliantly. It’s completely possible to see Adrift in Tokyo as nothing more than a breezy comedy, full of first-rate performances and hilarious gags, but the viewer who digs past the surface will be rewarded with something surprisingly touching, and undeniably beautiful.

Speaking of gags, Miki’s particular brand of out-of-left-field humor runs steadily throughout the film, and there are plenty of moments that might confuse a viewer searching for clear-cut linearity beneath the lingering narrative. But if it starts to seem like he’s losing track of his characters, try to remember that the city itself is being developed just as much as Fumiya or Fukuhara. For example, consider the seemingly unnecessary B story involving Fukuhara’s wife’s coworkers, and their trek across the city. Whenever these characters take center stage, every ounce of a typical viewer’s narrative training suggests that Miki is building toward some concrete connection--a bridge with the central characters that is just never going to form. It’s normal for loose ends such as these to cause frustration, but perhaps things aren’t quite as open ended as they initially appear. As these characters run around the city, gossiping and laughing and finding excuses to go from one place to the next, it’s simply one more slice of Tokyo that Miki is baring before his spectators. Any connection these people might have to the two "main" characters is incidental. The only truly important link they share is one that should be obvious from the story’s opening moments: they are, along with those watching the film, adrift in Tokyo.

End quote!
(Expletives motherfucking resumed.)

This is another flick that might be a bit tough to get ahold of (surprise surprise), but if it sounds at all up your alley then it probably is. Have you ever seen somebody smell their own head? You will. And it's just as great as it sounds. Possibly even greater.

It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad Detective

Everyone loves Johnnie To. Everyone. You may not even know who the hell he is, but trust me--you love him. You just don't know it yet. He's Hong Kong's baby right now, and everything he touches seems to turn to gold. In short, Johnnie To has it. Fairly prolific by today's standards, he turns out around two films a year. And unlike certain other prolific Asian directors, his work is mostly highly regarded, even in "regular" critical circles (i.e. not Asian film fanatics).

(One major exception I can think of: Roger Ebert. He isn't really picking up what To's putting down. But--and I mean no offense to Ebert when I say this--Roger Ebert is a worthless old cunt who needs to pass the ubiquitous film critic torch to somebody who doesn't remember when a bowl of soup cost a nickel. He is a confused, bedraggled, unattractive old man who is given to pawing at the screen and trying to grab the images he likes. But like I said, no offense. All due respect and all that.)

As a self-proclaimed Asian film fan, I have to bow my head in shame and reveal that I've only seen four Johnnie To films. I've seen Election and Election 2, of course. Everybody's seen those, and for a good reason. Then there's Exiled, which was the best western I've watched in quite some time. (This is especially impressive when you consider that technically it's not even a western. If Exiled sounds familiar and you don't know why, you may be remembering it from an earlier post of mine. If you like Sergio Leone, please please please watch this movie. I can't emphasize that enough.) The fourth film was one that I just watched a few nights ago, and one that may even be coming to DVD in the US sometime in the near future: Mad Detective. Was it as great as the rest of 'em? Read on to find out! (Hint: it was.)

The titular mad detective is Bun, a strange, seemingly clairvoyant Hong Kong cop who just happens to be a little psychotic. He claims to be able to see people's "inner personalities," and this naturally gets him into no end of shenanigans. The film opens with a few scenes from his heyday, solving crimes no one else could even get a lead on using his "unconventional" methods of re-enactment and divination. Then, at his boss's retirement party, Bun cuts off his own ear and offers it to the old man as a present. The department takes this as a sign that Bun should probably retire himself, and they kick him off the force.

Present day. Up and coming detective Ho is trying to solve a case of a missing cop. Ho, who is mildly obsessed with Bun, ends up enlisting his help on the case. Lacking any real evidence, all they've got to go on are Bun's visions, which seem to point to the missing cop's partner. Against all logic, they pursue their suspect throughout the film. Bun continues to unravel psychologically, and it isn't long before Ho is falling apart right alongside him. Long story short: some serious shit goes down, and it all comes together in a climax that rivals... well, most climaxes.

What's really surprising about Mad Detective is how well all of this "divination" and "inner personality" stuff plays out onscreen. When I first read what the movie was about, I naturally assumed it was going to be cheesy. How could it not be? Multiple actors crowding around playing different aspects of one character's personality? Come on! Even Johnnie To couldn't pull that off without losing dramatic tension, right? But it works. And it works really well. Imagine one character pointing a gun, with seven different sets of hands pulling and pushing, seven different voices telling him whether or not he should shoot. Seven different variations of his thought process, all fighting to get their way. With Johnnie To at the helm, what could very well be a ridiculous scene turns out brilliant. If you're new to To's films, this is probably something you should just go ahead and get used to.

A few reviews I've read mention that Mad Detective often leaves the viewer confused as to what's real and what's only taking place in Bun's mind. This is totally accurate. The strange thing is, these reviews pass this off as a negative aspect of the film. As with just about any film (or novel, or whatever) with an insane protagonist, Bun's unreliability plays a huge part in Mad Detective's tension and development. I guess these critics haven't read One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest? I don't know. I can't really explain it. If anything other than perfectly obvious linearity bothers you, maybe this movie ain't your bag. I'm not really going to force the issue.

I was pleased that someone else picked up on the obvious reference to Orson Welles's Lady from Shanghai in the amazing climactic shootout. This actually wasn't the only point in the film that I felt Welles's influence, but it was certainly the most clear. Actually, in every To film I've seen so far I get the sense that it's the work of somebody who has watched Touch of Evil about a million times. (I mean that as a compliment, by the way...) And there are plenty of other influences, obviously. Kurosawa, for one. Elements of both Rashomon and Stray Dog were peppered throughout, and arguably some of his noir work as well. During any stylized shootout one can't help but feel the pull of John Woo, naturally. And the final Mexican standoff could very well be a nod to Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs, though I'd be more likely to draw the connection to Ringo Lam's City on Fire (which was of course the "inspiration" for Tarantino's film). Actually, now that I think of it... that particular brand of gunfight goes back even more obviously to Sergio Leone, whose work To is clearly quite familiar with (once again: see Exiled). Shit, it's practically straight out of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

All in all, I really enjoyed this supposedly "minor" work from Hong Kong badass Johnnie To. I don't think it quite upended Election 2 as my favorite (of what I've seen, anyway), but it's definitely worth checking out. Hopefully it'll get a little more recognition once it's released in the US.

No, I Won't Shut Up About Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Here's a rarity for you: a short post. Well I've struck some blog gold and wanted to share. Michael Guillen of The Evening Class is hosting a Kiyoshi Kurosawa blogathon. There's more great reading about a great filmmaker there than I can even begin to talk about. (You may even find a reference to my own humble Kurosawa post from months past.) If you don't know shit about Kurosawa, here's your chance to learn. If you do know shit about Kurosawa, then write a damn blog post!

So go to Le Video (or your local equivalent), get a stack of Kurosawa flicks, put on your Face Eyes, and sit in your Body Chair dammit.

12 Reasons Not to End Your Life (Just Yet)

It would seem I've been chosen by Scott of He Shot Cyrus to blow your fucking minds. I hope that's cool. Specifically, Lazy Eye Theatre is hosting the 12 Movies Meme, in which some of us internet jerks pretend we have some place to show great movies besides our stupid apartments. The idea is that if Diablo Cody can do it, then actual, real human beings who know things about movies can probably do it even better.

So the rules are basically:
1) Pick 12 movies
2) Explain yo' damn self
3) Pick 5 more people to carry on your wretched torch

By now pretty much every non-famous person's blog that I read has already been nominated, so I'm just going to skip that last part. Or how about this: if you're reading this, have a blog, and haven't been nominated, I nominate YOU. Get to work!

On to my selections. You'll notice that only 7 of the 12 are Asian (and one set in Asia, I guess). I feel that I've shown considerable restraint here. You, collectively, should be proud of me.

Night 1: Consumerism Is Kind of Rad?

Dawn of the Dead / Chopping Mall
Do you like consumerism? Well you probably shouldn't! But don't take my word for it. Just watch these two horrifying cautionary tales.

Night 2: Lock and Loll!

Linda Linda Linda / Wild Zero
In Japan, Rock and Roll still means something.

Night 3: Eastern Westerns

Exiled / Sukiyaki Western Django
What happens when people from Asia make westerns? Let's find out together! Hugs!

Night 4: Everyone Loves... Homoeroticism!

Dead Ringers / Gozu
Do you think that it is bad for a man to give another man kisses, or do you agree that it is okay?

Night 5: Remember When Exploitation Didn't Have Anything to Do With Tarantino? Neither Do I!

Lady Snowblood / Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS
Ironically (not really), Tarantino is actually mentioned on that Lady Snowblood poster. Fuck that! What this world needs is a real grindhouse double feature.

Night 6: Girls I Am Pretend-Married To

Chungking Express / Lost in Translation
In case you're confused, the girls I'm referring to are Faye Wong and Scarlett Johansson. I'm actually pretend-married to Tony Leung as well, although he did recently get married for real (not to me).

So... what do you guys think? Would this be a successful near-week of movie watching glory? I'm inclined to think so. If anyone has a spare theater lying around, let me know and we'll find out for sure.

Dark Meat

(Note: this post will probably be full of spoilers, but judging by the box office numbers everyone on the goddam planet has seen this movie at least once by now, so I guess it doesn't matter.)

I just got out of The Dark Knight, and I wanted to get something written down while I'm still floating in a haze of big budget wonder. I have a bad habit of convincing myself I didn't actually like a movie if given enough time to think about it, so I figure the sooner the better. But don't be surprised if I end up hating it by the end of this post. But right now? Totally don't hate it. Think it's pretty rad, in fact. Most people seem to agree. I haven't read any reviews or anything yet (reading reviews before seeing movies is totally lame, and I will stand by that until I die), but right now Dark Knight is #1 on IMDB by a fairly substantial margin. These numbers are early, and will clearly dip once more people actually see the damn thing, but even still: that is crazy. You people love this movie more than any other movie. And by "you people" of course I mean people who actually go to IMDB and rate a movie after watching it. But I guess your opinion matters? I mean, I'm typing this into a text box on a screen so it will be posted to a fake internet idea called a "blog," so I guess I'm not really one to talk.

Some initial thoughts, in the form of a numbered list:

1) I heard two things about this movie before seeing it. (a) That it's a more "realistic" Batman movie, and (b) that it's "very dark." Neither of these things are accurate. Realistic? Certainly, there are a number of different ideas of what might constitute realism--De Sica this is not, I get that. But dammit people, when I see the batmobile (a largish vehicle, keep in mind) leap into the air like a goddam animal to intercept a bazooka shot, "realism" isn't the term that comes to mind. Not that I'm complaining--let me make that clear. These types of ridiculous feats are, in my mind, totally acceptable and necessary in the realm of Gotham. I feed on them, if you must know. But realism? The only explanation I can come up with is that people accidentally wandered into Up the Yangtze or something by mistake, and thought it was Dark Knight. ("Man, Christian Bale really is a master of accents! His mandarin is terrific!")

As for the darkness? Well, I guess it was. But I wanted dark dark. I wanted nightmares. I wanted (more) disturbing imagery. I wanted death and decay and unstoppable moral corruption. Here's my real dilemma: I wanted something that, these days, no major studio is going to give me. I wanted an R rating! Box office suicide, I know. I don't care. Just imagine what could have been...

(While I'm thinking about it, has everybody seen Batman Dead End? Back before Nolan took the helm, it was the closest we had to a good Batman movie for several years. If you haven't seen it, DON'T read the description. Just watch it. And turn the lights out.)

2) Maggie Gyllenhaal is one-thousand percent better than Katie Holmes. Katie Holmes is bullshit.

3) I almost tried to convince myself that I didn't like Heath Ledger as the Joker, just to be able to argue with people--but I really did. He was great. I was, I'll admit, a little worried the first time he gave his "how I got these scars" speech. My vision clouded with rage at the notion of the Joker having such a cliché origin story. But thankfully it was a fakeout, and the Nolans left him exactly how he should be: a rootless agent of pure chaos. I mean, he's still no Cesar Romero... but I can't fault him for that.

4) Much better than the earlier film (which I still liked). I tend to get bored with Batman Begins about an hour in, but with Dark Knight it was exactly the opposite: an hour in is when it really started to get good. Actually, let me be more specific. (Also, spoiler alert.) I really started to enjoy it the second Maggie Gyllenhaal exploded. Not because I didn't like her, obviously. It was just a total surprise. Not the fact that she was going to explode, but how she exploded. Mid-fucking-word! Right in the middle of her teary goodbye! Needless to say, I was the only one in the (totally sold-out) theater laughing uproariously at that point. And from there everything just got better. The Joker dressing like a nurse and blowing up hospitals, civilians at each other's throats, Batman beating up cops, and so on. Oh, and also...

5) Two-Face actually looks kind of creepy, instead of just dumb. And they did away with the whole "disfigured by acid" story, which is hell of passé nowadays. Straight up gasoline and fire. That's realism for you!

6) Am I the only person on Earth who is tired of Morgan Freeman? I don't care about him anymore. I will surely go to hell for saying this, but is there not one other non-threatening african-american actor out there that can be cast in these kinds of roles?

7) The politics of the movie are a little shady, which I guess comes with the territory. We get a lot of double-talk about the cost of justice and freedom and all that, but basically Bruce Wayne is a rich white man who tells everybody what to believe, and we are (more or less) supposed to consider this is a good thing. It's no 300 or anything mind you--there are dashes of ambiguity here and there. But still.

8) Speaking of Zack Snyder: the Watchmen trailer played before the movie. Naturally I had already seen it about 400,000 times online, but it was interesting to see the audience's reaction. Will this movie be worthwhile? Probably not. It basically just looks like they gave Snyder a green screen and a camera with the "slow motion" button taped down again. (I'm pretty sure that's how cameras work.) But surprisingly, the trailer was actually kind of... cool? I guess we'll find out next year.

(Now that I've finished writing this I don't feel like reading it over, so kindly ignore any crazy spelling mistakes or endless rambling sentences. I've just opened a bottle of wine and I don't really feel up to proof reading.)

Fire Walk With Me

I realize I'm a little late to the party for this one, but I recently finished watching the entire Twin Peaks series for the first time. I know! Inexcusable! Where have I been? In my defense, when the show originally aired I was a scant 6 years old, living TV-less and ignorant in the mountains of Northern California. The closest I had were my weekly excursions to the neighbor's house to watch The Simpsons, at my mother's insistence. And all I knew about David Lynch was that I thought Elephant Man was scary and Dune was boring. (My feelings haven't changed drastically in either case.) Yet here was this incredible television phenomenon, exploding right under my one-track pre-pubescent nose. In the following years I heard a lot about it, naturally, though I never went any further than just making a mental note to watch it at some point in the future.

So it pretty much just stagnated on my "to-watch" list, perpetually getting bumped down in favor of something more immediately rewarding. What a fool I was! Oh Past-Keith, you great slippery twat! What the hell were you thinking? Didn't you know that Twin Peaks is amazing?!

Luckily, (this) summer happened. Summer is the perfect time of year for my own personal brand of escapist hedonism. It's a time for media binges of every variety. It's a time to watch an entire television series in one sitting. Curtains drawn. Unwashed fists shoving dry Kix into grinning mouths. Demented, bleary-eyed glee. Let summer never end!

Uh... anyway. The premise, in case you're not familiar, is this: Laura Palmer, typical popular high school girl, is found dead in the sleepy northwestern town of Twin Peaks. The crime must be solved! And that's it. What most shows would base a single episode on, Lynch and co-creator Mark Frost construct an entire series around. You had better believe that these guys have wicked sack.

With the murder as its starting point the show expands outward, and soon it's clear that this wholesome little town is festering with various ancient evils, as well as plenty of regular ol' sex and drugs. It brings to mind Blue Velvet for obvious reasons, and not just because of Kyle MacLachlan's presence as Special Agent Dale Cooper. It must be said though: MacLachlan ties everything together brilliantly. When I was watching the first episode I was consumed with doubt, ready to turn it off and dismiss Twin Peaks as "one of those things." Then about 20 minutes in, "Coop" was introduced, and the show transformed into something ten times what it was. It's hard to explain, but Lynch's direction combined with MacLachlan's acting just... well, you've seen Blue Velvet. It's a very, very good thing.

And speaking of Lynch's direction, it's raging at full force here. You get the definite sense you are taking part in a David Lynch product through a good portion of the series. It's actually kind of uncanny--almost immediately, within the first shot, it's 100% clear whether or not Lynch directed the episode you're watching. Long before his credit ever pops up on the screen you can feel him behind the camera. Or not. Unfortunately, once the second season rolled around, it was usually "not." Lynch took off after completing its premiere, and was absent for most of the show's remaining life. And this is where the Twin Peaks universe takes a sharp nose dive. For most of the over-long second season, the show loses any momentum it had built up. The writing becomes ridiculous even by Lynch standards, the acting turns rancid, and the direction eeks by as just short of mediocre.

A lot of this had to do with the fact that the writers were suddenly pressured by the network jerk-offs to solve the murder of Laura Palmer. Idiots aren't fond of open-endedness, as we all know, and the fact that a mystery could begin without being neatly solved 44 minutes later was a terrible strain on their struggling attention spans. So the writers (the poor dogs) solved it. Right in the middle of the second season, they shit all over what made the show so goddam compelling in the first place. Suddenly and without warning, Twin Peaks had no premise, no direction. Each episode was more laughable than the last, and they struggled to find a reason for their core characters to even appear on screen. For the second time in my marathon run, I considered simply turning it off and forgetting the whole damn thing.

Apparently TV viewers of the time felt the same way, because ratings fell sharply and the show was canceled in the middle of the second season.

But wait! Didn't I just say something about the "over-long" second season? Yes, oh yes! Thanks to the overwhelming power of pre-internet nerd-enforced petitions, the show was revived, and David Lynch returned to hoist it out of the sickening rut it had dug for itself. Of course I didn't know any of this while I was watching it, so I was thoroughly confused when the final 6 or so episodes suddenly got good again. But they did! Oh, how they did!

Then it was really canceled. Shortly after, there was one last desperate kick of activity as a feature-length prequel was released (to much hissing and booing), and then the Twin Peaks franchise finally died for good.

I wonder how David Lynch feels about cops...

My main goal here is to stress the following point: if you haven't watched this show before, my god, do yourself a favor and queue that shit up. The influence Twin Peaks had on television, and popular media in general, is un-fucking-believable. It's impossible to imagine something like, say, The X-Files existing without Twin Peaks paving the way.

The Simpsons' (perfectly accurate) take on Twin Peaks

Speaking of which, one of David Duchovny's ealiest roles was on Twin Peaks, as Dennis "Denise" Bryson, the cross-dressing DEA agent. Without this show spotlighting his ability to play a slightly abnormal federal agent, who knows what The X-Files might have turned into. And countless other familiar faces will pop up as well: pre-SNL Molly Shannon, Billy Zane, Heather Graham, David Lynch himself, that one guy from RoboCop, Henry from Eraserhead, David Motherfucking Bowie (!?)... the list continues. Oh yeah, and one of my personal favorites: David Patrick Kelly, a.k.a. that asshole from The Warriors. You know the one--the finger pointer with the annoying voice who really shot Cyrus.

Okay, I'm gonna stop. I don't really want to go into any more detail here anyway, because even the slightest clue could totally ruin the show for one who hasn't seen it. So see it! Then we'll discuss.