It's the inevitable and long-awaited DAVID LYNCH POLL

Trying to influence the vote with all caps?

They say it on every poll thread, but this really is hard.

This is a pretty tough poll, but I'm gonna go with The Elephant Man because it's really sadly underrated.

I will venture to predict that every film will get at least one vote.

TP:FWWM is easily the worst though, right?

I would vote for Twin Peaks if I could but of the films its either Mulholland Dr or Inland Empire.

Dune's pretty bad too.

Mulholland Drive, but I haven't seen Inland Empire yet

Dune's the only one I like.

Dune's bad in a great way.

For me it's between Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive.

I will vote for Dune if nobody else will

Fear is the mind killer!

THE SPICE EXTENDS ENERGY
THE SPICE EXPANDS CONSCIOUSNESS

Weird thing about Dune is, it pulls off some strange trick of being 100% exposition and still making no sense.

By happy chance, Eraserhead should be coming from Netflix tomorrow. Haven't seen it in nearly 20 years. I'll wait until I've seen it again to vote.

Which is FANTASTIC

xp

xpost to myself
I mean, unless you've read the book or seen the movie a dozen times, both of which I have done. :)

Ranked:

The Elephant Man
Twin Peaks Pilot/Twin Peaks Season 1
Blue Velvet
Mulholland Drive
The Straight Story
Lost Highway
Eraserhead
Twin Peaks Season 2
On The Air
Wild At Heart
Inland Empire
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
Dune

mulholland drive in a landslide (deservedly)

Actually I think there is one other thing I am missing. Some three part hotel thing also written by Barry Gifford. It was meh.

FUCK

Wild at Heart needs some love, too.

My memory may also be too kind on the On The Air.

Wild At Heart's pretty clunky though.

yeah Alex the hotel thing is bad - Crispin Glover's in one segment. Never understood Gifford's appeal.

Mulholland Drive will win, but it's not his best. For me, it's between INLAND EMPIRE and Blue Velvet.

I don't get the Inland Empire love at all.

yeah its technically impossible for it to be better than mulholland dr

mulholland drive
blue velvet
eraserhead
inland empire
elephant man
wild at heart
tp:fwwm
straight story
lost highway
dune

yah

Mulholland Drive, followed by Blue Velvet

inland empire
eraserhead
elephant man
mulholland drive
straight story
lost highway
dune
blue velvet
wild at heart

Haven't seen Fire Walk With Me. Need to rewatch Dune, Lost Highway, Blue Velvet (hated that one but everyone seems to love it). I can live without seeing Wild At Heart again really.

Mulholland Drive, followed by Blue Velvet

yeah, I settled on that finally, too

mullholland dr is an insanely overrated movie.

impossibe

a thread about lynch would be disappointing without totally different and in fact opposite opinions

If MD is overrated, life is overrated.

I expect someone to defend the touching humanity in Wild at Heart.

(xpost)

Mulholland Dr. = one dream, a somewhat entertaining middle section, an ok atmosphere, a few GREAT scenes
Inland Empire = like four different worlds, all somehow intertwined (God knows how), that all work together to entertain you for over three hours...brilliant atmosphere, cool music scenes, fascinating stories that never drag, you can love it without understanding it...it's like Mulholland Dr. x 25.

well that one guys head does go flying off xp

fascinating stories that never drag

uh

Blue Velvet
Mulholland Drive
INLAND EMPIRE
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
Eraserhead
Wild at Heart
Dune
Lost Highway
The Straight Story
The Elephant Man

(but it's all real close) The essence of Twin Peaks is #1, though.

Jeez, I'm waiting on my IE DVD from amazon so I feel like I shouldn't vote until I've seen it, but this closes in 3 days, so...Blue Velvet.

Mulholland Dr. I still would have liked to see as a series - if that was just the pilot with some added stuff, wow.

fascinating is a bit wrong, yes. but definitely interesting

Corrected: that all work together badly to entertain bore the pants off you for over three hours what seems like eternity

mullholland dr is a perfectly good movie. it's just that claiming it's lynch's best work is completely bonkers insane in my opinion. tape store otm re: a few GREAT scenes, but quite frankly a significant portion of that movie feels like someone making a parody of lynch.

everyone, these are the top four:

mulholland drive
blue velvet
eraserhead
inland empire

arrange 2-4 as you please

trying to imagine a parody of lynch that still didn't feel like lynch is a brain-twisting exercise

otm, he does it on purpose

whenever there is a re-do of this poll - i guess when The Return ends in a few weeks

What's your hurry? Some of us didn't have the money to subscribe to Showtime.

also, not a film (notice there is no TP original series in the above poll).

Eraserhead, The Grandmother, Twin Peaks finale, Premonitions, The Return eps 3 & 8, The Alphabet

xxp it was part of a local series that usually screens 80s/90s blockbusters that could be read as camp but aren't like Manos: The Hands of Fate or whatever. along with FWWM, they've done Total Recall, The Shining, The Thing, Dead Man, RoboCop, Predator, Terminator 2, Groundhog Day, Point Break, Batman, Die Hard... those are just off the top of my head, and FWWM sticks out like a sore thumb in that group, besides maybe Dead Man and The Shining.

I was lucky enough to see Lost Highway the first time at the historic Tampa Theatre while on vacation, complete with organist before the film. Memorable evening, but I still don't care for Lost Highway much.

What's your hurry? Some of us didn't have the money to subscribe to Showtime.

also, not a film (notice there is no TP original series in the above poll).

― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Thursday, August 17, 2017 2:38 PM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i don't have cable or a Showtime subscription. my TV gave me a 7 day free trial for Showtime, I watched all 14 episodes in 3 days and will pay for one month to see the last 4. and i absolutely think Twin Peaks should be included, all seasons separately. you could debate the merits of including the original series because it wasn't all directed by Lynch, but The Return is an 18 hour movie.

Nitpicking probably but the "18 hour movie" thing bugs me. Each ~57 min segment is is demarcated by opening and closing credits. Each has its own structure and momentum, and features a musical interlude. Etc. Just let it be a tv show, nothing wrong with that.

To be fair lynch didn't call it an 18-hour movie, he called it "a feature film in 18 parts", which makes more sense. People kind of conflated the first half of that construction into the second, assuming it's "meant" to be a single unbroken thing - which it obv isn't, or it would have been released that way. It was produced as one big thing and then the episodes/chapters were formed & as you note given their own internal structure.

would def put Ep 8 in my top ten of things he's ever done and probably in the top 10 best standalone episodes of a tv series ever

Isn't that how a significant amount of tv is made these days? xp

nbd; also nbd but when this poll is redone I think it should include individual eps of TP & TP:TR limited to those Lynch directed. I also want to be able to vote for short films. Altogether I think that's still under 50 options.

Sweet. Eager to rep for s2 finale

Inland Empire was a particularly intense and singular theater experience. The effect of being a captive audience in a three hour movie where coherence gradually melts away and spans of time start to lose all meaning was quiet powerful, like being trapped in a nightmare. It's not an experience I can copy at home where it's just way too easy to be distracted while watching it, it just loses that sense of total immersion.

― Moodles, Thursday, August 17, 2017 1:03 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Unfortunately missed it in the theater but watched it in the dark and with headphones on (LOUD), which felt effectively immersive and nightmarish.

Episode 8 of The Return is one of the most jaw-droppingly amazing things I've ever seen on film.

And one of the few instances I can think of where I can use 'jaw dropping' as a literal descriptor of my experience.

Isn't that how a significant amount of tv is made these days? xp

I'm not a tv expert but I don't think so, I imagine even the few tv series that have a single director are split into episodes at the script stage and I really don't think it's usual to film a season as a single film, I could be wrong tho

I have no idea what I'm talking about either really, high five

there is no major tv series with a single director, TP:TR is a glaring exception

Wasn't true detective a single director? There are a few classic non-US ones like Berlin Alexanderplatz too

non-US tv is a totally different beast imo

yr right about Fukunaga tho, forgot about that (was def noted as unusual at the time!)

All I meant is that series like 13 Reasons Why and Stranger Things that are made for the all at once dump streaming market are presumably conceived and written as a whole and fully shot before airing, unlike what I understand to be past tv practice, and have exec producers, dp's etc guiding the overall vision even if the actual directing of actors is farmed out in a more workmanlike way.

Anyway, to make this post somewhat worthwhile, I'm going to say again that I think Lynch is definitely at his best when making short films, whether they're standalone productions or folded into longer works. Ep 8 is basically 4 loosely-connected shorts, the most talked about of which is also the most derivative and least satisfying, to me.

there is no major tv series with a single director, TP:TR is a glaring exception

― Οὖτις, 17. august 2017 21:34 (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Wasn't true detective a single director? There are a few classic non-US ones like Berlin Alexanderplatz too

― blog haus aka the scene raver (wins), 17. august 2017 21:37 (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

+ The Knick and Show Me a Hero.

everyone otm wrt being in a theater experience. this is why i bought a projector a few years ago and use it to watch just about everything

I noticed David Lynch has his own brand of coffee they sell at whole foods (for $2 more than the other coffee they sell)

Pamela Fryman directed 196 of the 208 episodes of How I Met Your Mother

the commercials they did for the Japanese canned coffee w the original Twin Peaks crew and all new storyline is cool. all that stuff is on youtube.

i have mad respect for David Lynch. i first saw Mulholland Drive in a theater with a film geek friend who was my first post-HS friend and he introduced me to the Athens hipster scene and awesome movies. his roommates all worked at Vision Video and constantly had stuff. anyways we saw MD and it was unlike any movie i had ever seen. we were laughing with joy at every scene that occurred, at the seeming randomness of it all, at the anarchic mockery underlying these pretty regular subject matter of Hollywood actresses and murder mysteries. the Gen x love for twisted 60s nostalgia and one-scene characters. the boogeyman popping out from around that corner and the perfect reaction/soundtrack mix to solidify this temporary nightmare in your psyche. the holy shit is that Billy Ray Cyrus? the cowboy? what the fuck?

i watched all of Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet a few years later with some other friends that were super into that stuff and had the big VHS box set that spelled out TWIN PEAKS on the side. i've seen Eraserhead a few times now, last time at the Plaza Theater in Atlanta with a close friend of mine and the parental angst and pressure to live this absurd bleak (but beautiful) trudgery was so wonderful and poetic and industrial. it really feels like a documentary of another world. i've only seen half of Lost Highway, i think i made it to the part where the guy falls into the table and impales his head on it. the movie made me feel bad and i was not terribly interested in watching it at the time. we did find the OST CD at a thrift store recently though, and it fucking rules.

a few years ago i bought Straight Story on VHS and have watched that a few times and have cried so much both times. the movie is a perfect example of new Twin Peaks style imo, they opening shot is this weird overhead crane shot that holds for a long time w only ambient things going on for a good bit. the movie all leads up to this meeting that is possibly the best, most hopeful and loving ending of any movie i have ever seen, with Harry Dean Stanton. i am so glad he has gotten to work with Harry and so many other actors from over the course of his career. the new Twin Peaks is a victory lap.

so there are long scenes of "nothing" but the characters walking, sweeping, or just breathing. why is this upsetting to us? it is perfectly normal. it is even more normal than the "normal"
parts of the show that use cuts and editing. shouldn't we relate more to something that is in real-time? visual culture has cultivated shorter and shorter attention spans through constant jump cuts. when confronted by an unedited scene we become self aware as an audience - is this a Zen technique? to us, we are so accustomed to cheating time through editing/video/film, the passage of normal time in that medium has become funny, painful, obvious, awkward. in visual media the normal is weird and the weird is normal.

While we're on this particular trivia trip, James Burrows directed all 194 episodes of Will and Grace. No, I don't know why.

The coffee commercials are in the TP Blu-ray set, fyi.

spark plug poster shows 15 then 3

cooper's room is 315

season 3 episode 15 tonight

just sayin

Twin Peaks: The Return (even if the last 4 episodes are Dr Jacoby / Amp spray painting his shovel I’m comfortable with this ranking)

― Karl Malone, Thursday, 17 August 2017 14:39 (two weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

― rove mcmanus island (Autumn Almanac), Thursday, 17 August 2017 14:51 (two weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

doesn't matter what happens now, it's already won

― rove mcmanus island (Autumn Almanac), Thursday, 17 August 2017 14:52 (two weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

is it too late to walk this back or

mulholland drive is the best

the finale made me so frustrated. who cant relate the family home that becomes a part of nightmares/dreams. Lynch perplexes me cuz I don't always enioy what he does

Please keep all specifics to the spoiler threads...Haven't even started yet!

is it too late to walk this back or

― rove mcmanus island (Autumn Almanac), Monday, September 4, 2017 12:04 AM (six hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

if anything the last two episodes convinced me that you and karl were right

^seriously!

It's time:

It's the inevitable and long-awaited DAVID LYNCH POLL REDUX (this time including Twin Peakses, et al)

is it too late to walk this back or

― rove mcmanus island (Autumn Almanac), Monday, September 4, 2017 3:04 AM (nine hours ago)

lol

after 9 hours of puzzle solving do you want to walk that back or

;)

The Return hands down

sorry clemenza, that was posted in the wrong thread

No problem--looked away immediately, so I didn't process anything. (Facebook's been a bigger problem, but so far I've dodged everything.)

if anything the last two episodes convinced me that you and karl were right

― ToddBonzalez (BradNelson), Monday, 4 September 2017 23:44 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

having slept on it, i'm definitely coming around again.

So how comes everyone is down on Wild At Heart these days? It must be partly because some of what he made after is *so* good/much better and so many films have ripped WAH off that it no longer feels as fresh? Cause boy.. people sure did love it at the time.

The trailer is great too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCQwumNQL9E

I think I said this in another thread, but Wild At Heart definitely went from being overrated to underrated. It's a good, but flawed film, not unlike most of Lynch's films.

Reading back my earlier posts ITT, I can say that my love of Mullholland Drive has grown a lot over the years. I've really been obsessing over this film a lot lately.

The span of scenes from the Cowboy to Club Silencio is pure gold, one classic sequence after another.

I agree with Moodles, I know like 5 people whose favorite movie is Wild at Heart. And every Lynch fan I know adores it. Its aesthetics are very in tune with the culture rn.

crispin glover tho

mulhollad drive #1, inland empire close second here

Yeah very true about the aesthetics! Lana Del Rey must’ve watched it 100 times.

Yeah the way they have a very balanced power dynamic in their relationship + their own integrity + while still being sexy af and not giving a fuck what other people think + fucking constantly + being extremely cool + still embracing fantasy. Also the way the movie just glows, it’s so saturated a warm and overwhelming.

Anyone see the new Criterion docu about Blue Velvet? It's called Blue Velvet Revisited and it's amazing. Fabulous soundtrack too by 'Cult With No Name'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWkb3gATtqw

If that’s the one by the German student who attended the set and shot silent 8mm, it’s not new or by Criterion - was released 4-5 years ago, played festivals and Ltd engagements. I saw it as a one-night double feature with a print of Blue Velvet, which was great.

(ah yeah, per the soundtrack clue, it is)