THE DANMAN CAN

"The sky is sure full of stars tonight." David Lynch Ranked Top 20 Directors

Tragic, traumatic, terrifying, terrific. "Faster and faster." David Lynch Ranked Top 20 Directors My Criterion Top 10 [Vol. 4]

R.I.P. to a wild and weird one David Lynch Ranked Top 20 Directors

Mysterious, disturbing, and darkly funny,  Blue Velvet  (1986)— David Lynch 's story of the dangerous goings-on beneath the surface of white picket fence life—is gorgeously shot, pitch perfectly performed, and exquisitely captures the beauty that can exist in ugliness. To quote from the film, it's a strange world, and ours is a better one for having Lynch's films in it. David Lynch Ranked Top 20 Directors My Criterion Top 10 [Vol. 5]

I first saw Inland Empire (2006) in its original limited theatrical run at the Brattle Theatre . I was very excited to see it—a new  David Lynch  film in the cinema! While I appreciated aspects of it, unfortunately, I didn’t love it. I bought the DVD in 2007, watched it a second time, and still didn’t love it. Now I’ve seen the film a third time, via The Criterion Collection ’s Blu-ray …and I still don’t love it.  Most of all, I hated the cheap SD Mini DV look (the first time Lynch shot a feature film digitally). Criterion claims that Lynch made “visionary” use of the format, but I don't totally agree. There's a film called Black Night , released one year before IE , which was also shot on video and which is very Lynchian (and Kafka esque) that I think made better use of the video format (I hope that film receives a Blu-ray release some day; I remember really enjoying it). Despite the weird but interesting remastering process  for the Criterion BD—which does ma...

It was my pleasure to once again be asked to guest on the  Moving The Needle Podcast  for an episode covering  David Lynch ’s  Lost Highway  (1997) on its 25th anniversary! In lieu of a review, please listen to  MTN   Episode 63  as Sean, Henno, and I discuss the film. Follow  MTN  to enjoy all of their episodes! David Lynch Ranked Top 20 Directors

I’ve never tried too hard (or cared too much) to figure out David Lynch ’s Mulholland Drive (2001). I just love it. The imagery, the mystery, the music (undoubtedly some of  Angelo Badalamenti 's most gorgeous themes), the sound, and the mood all work to perfection.  I’ve always found it best to approach Lynch’s work via this quote from the man himself: “If you appreciate slipping into another world, like a dream, and if you can withhold many intellectual judgements, and just float in the world and let it talk to you, you could have a very interesting experience.” As with much of Lynch’s work, MD has the power to fill me with joy, dread, make me laugh, and move me to tears every time. Twenty years on it remains a melancholic and magical masterpiece with a wonderfully diverse central performance by Naomi Watts . David Lynch Ranked Top 20 Directors

David Lynch 's The Elephant Man  (1980), in many ways one of his most accessible films, could be accused of sentimentality. It certainly tugs at the heartstrings in a way that the majority of his work doesn't (I literally cannot watch this film without tearing up). That isn't to say that there aren't plenty of emotional and sad moments throughout his filmography, but The Elephant Man presents itself in a much more straightforward manner than most of Lynch's work. There are few traces of the surreal that were so prevalent in his debut feature Eraserhead (1977) (my review here ) and would continue to be so throughout his career. But I've never seen any of this as a weakness when it comes to his sophomore film. No, in fact, despite being more humanistic than the typical Lynch film, I think TEM  proves that at heart Lynch is  a humanist. Even when weird (sometimes inexplicable), excessively violent or disturbing events occur in his film and television work, ther...

I'm not in the habit of writing TV show reviews (as I mentioned in my review  of the 2017 return of Twin Peaks ), but I decided to revisit the international version of the pilot episode of Twin Peaks  (1990–1991) to celebrate the 30th anniversary today of the first airing of the pilot. The international version, made for the European market and released on VHS and laserdisc, acts as a standalone TV movie with a closed ending. It's basically identical to the US pilot but adds approximately 20 minutes at the end, revealing Laura Palmer 's killer (though not their human identity) and features footage from the Red Room , which David Lynch repurposed in later episodes of the series. While I certainly prefer the US version (my favorite pilot episode of my favorite TV show) because, well, of course it leads you into the rest of the series (and the entire first season is close to perfect), the international "movie" works quite well on its own (though the thought that...

Wild At Heart  (1990) features my favorite on-screen rebel couple, Sailor and Lula, two young lovers who cope with all the shit dealt their way from the wild weird world the only ways they know how—through sex, cigarettes, heavy metal, and their undying and true love for each other.  WAH  is a film about passion, crime, dancing, individuality, freedom, good and bad witches, temptation, menacing baddies, oddball families, and much more—all filtered through the strange and wonderful mind of  David Lynch . David Lynch Ranked

Thirty-three years since its release,  Blue Velvet  (1986) is as mysterious, disturbing and darkly funny as it ever was. David Lynch 's story of the dangerous goings-on beneath the surface of white picket fence life is gorgeously shot, pitch perfectly performed, and exquisitely captures the beauty that can exist in ugliness. While BV  didn't make it on the 2019 Edition of my Top 100 Films  list (only because I didn't own a version at the time), it was on the 2014 Edition  and you can be sure that it has a placeholder on the 2024 Edition. To quote from the film, it's a strange world, and ours is a better one for having Lynch's films in it. David Lynch Ranked Screencaps courtesy of Filmgrab