Skip to main content

RIP David Lynch


While browsing on social media today, I came across the news that filmmaker David Lynch has passed away at the age of 78. Lynch (along with Cronenberg, the other David) is my favorite film director. I discovered his work when I was in high school, when I became a fan of his television series Twin Peaks. Soon after, I sought out his other works, including the cult classic Eraserhead, and the suburban nightmare of Blue Velvet. I quickly became a fan of his dark, surrealist style of telling stories on the screen. His unique touch, his unconventional way of telling a story, paired with the fantastic music of composer Angelo Badalamenti, ultimately made me a fan for life. His work has fascinated, disturbed, scared, amused and haunted me like no other film director.









Because of Lynch’s work, I became a fan of musical artists such as Badalamenti, Julee Cruise, Chris Isaak (Wicked Game, which was featured prominently in Wild At Heart, was my gateway to Isaak’s great music), and his unique use of Roy Orbison’s tunes made me revisit his work with a newfound appreciation. When he partnered with Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor to work on the soundtrack to Lost Highway, it was a match made in heaven, with Reznor’s mixing of the film’s score with artists such as David Bowie, Smashing Pumpkins, Rammstein and Marilyn Manson resulting in a fantastic mix that captured the film’s insanity.







Some of my favorite memories of watching his stuff have stayed with me for years. The first time I saw Diane Ladd’s lipstick freak-out scene in Wild At Heart, I laughed hysterically for a good 10 minutes, as it was so over the top and absurd, with Ladd acting the fuck out of that role, completely selling that character and that scene. I recall first watching Mulholland Drive in a small independent movie theatre on a rainy Friday night and walking out of the screening completely shook, having loved every second of that insane, beautiful, creepy and heartbreaking film. I immediately went to the record store (remember those?) the next day and purchased the soundtrack, which I still own and listen to on a regular basis. I recall how excited I was when I found a VHS copy of Eraserhead at my local video store (another long forgotten relic). I watched it and loved it (the dinner scene where blood spurts out of the chicken and the girl in the radiator are some of my favorite sequences). My older brother saw how excited the movie made me, so he took it home that night and watched it with his wife. I’ll never forget the look on his face when he returned the tape to me the next day. It was a mix of “what the fuck did I just watch?!?” combined with a look of concern as he was probably wondering if I had lost my mind for loving something so damn weird. Because of Lynch’s work, I’ll never look at blue velvet curtains, red curtains and zigzag patterned carpets, coffee tables, radiators, the Wizard of Oz, nightclub singers, white picket fences, rabbits, American diners, keys and locks, happy retro tunes, and Los Angeles the same way ever again. RIP to the great David Lynch, one of cinema’s greatest auteurs that ever lived.








 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Titanic Creations Yongary 1967

This figure was released in late December, and I got it about 2 days before the New Year, so I'm counting it as a 2025 release. It is the Titanic Creations version of the Korean kaiju Yongary, Monster From The Deep. The film was released in 1967 as a Godzilla ripoff, with several ideas copied from the Gamera series, such as his tusks, his ability to fire a stream of flames from his mouth, and even firing a laser beam from his horn, similar to the slicing one used by Gyaos. The film is pretty goofy, but Yongary, like most of those Asian monsters, was pretty cool (to me, at least), so I was psyched that someone finally made a figure of this lesser known kaiju. When Titanic Creations put it up for pre-order, they announced a series of tiers, where they would add accessories when a certain number of orders were met. Enough fans ordered him, so that Yongary ended up with a shit ton of stuff, making him absolutely worth the price. In addition to the kaiju, you get a flame breath effect, ...
Post a Comment
Read more

S.H. MonsterArts Godzilla Evolved Version (2024)

Early last week, this figure was delivered. It is the Evolved Godzilla from the film Godzilla vs. Kong: The New Empire, from S.H. MonsterArts. I admit, I haven’t bothered to watch the movie. When I first saw the trailer (about a month after having watched Godzilla Minus One and still being on a high from it), the trailer for The New Empire dropped, and I thought it looked stupid as fuck, especially this bad CGI scene of Godzilla and Kong running towards the camera like superheroes. The rest of it looked like Planet of the Apes, so I chose to pass. However, I do think Godzilla’s new evolved look is pretty cool, so when S.H. MonsterArts announced his figure, I went ahead and preordered it. And now, Pinkzilla is finally here. Godzilla Evolved has a sleeker, leaner body, with a bigger head and pink dorsal spines. His tail ends in pink spikes, like an ankylosaurus. The figure turned out looking great, with the spines painted but also translucent, really standing out from the rest of his bod...
Post a Comment
Read more

RICSAN Custom Toys The Unbelievable (Varan)

For the last few months, I had been seeing photos and YouTube reviews of custom Godzilla kaiju from someone known as RICSAN Customs. He’s a guy in Mexico who makes 3rd party customs of articulated figures that no other company is making. Due to licensing issues, he gives them different names, such as The Dream Ogre and The Infant (Gabara and Minilla), Monster from Odo Island (pre-mutated Godzilla Minus One), Sō Shingeki Serpent (Manda), etc. This one is called The Unbelievable, and is basically the Toho monster from the film Varan (aka Varan the Unbelievable from the English dub). His figures are made of resin and use thick string articulation instead of ball joints (similar to Meego figures). So they are articulated and posable, you just need to be aware that they’ll move differently from standard ball joint figures, so practice a bit more care when handling them. Ok, let’s get the one negative out of the way. He packs his figures in styrofoam, and since that stuff can be sticky, my V...
Post a Comment
Read more