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

RicSan Custom Toys Kyōrū Kaiju (Titanosaurus)

My latest kaiju figure purchase is the Titanosaurus made by Ricsan Custom Toys. I own and love the Varan & Gabara, so of course I had to preorder this one when it was available. He was delivered earlier this week. This kaiju hails from the last Godzilla film of the Showa era, 1975's Terror of Mechagodzilla. The Black Hole aliens are back, rebuilding their robot in another effort to take over the planet. They enlist the help of an ostracized Earth scientist named Mafune and his daughter Katsura, who are able to control an aquatic dinosaur named Titanosaurus. They plan to use both kaiju and mecha to attack Japan. Titano was a cool monster, with his tail that opened into a fish fin, and he would use it to create whirlpools in the sea, and high winds on land. I'm hoping that S.H. Monsterarts makes one for the 50th anniversary of the film, but when I saw this Ricsan Custom version, I couldn't pass it up. Titanosaurus (called the Kyōrū Kaiju), comes in a white box, with its n...
Post a Comment
Read more

Help Me… I’m Possessed (1974) / #Missingcouple (2024)

I've watched some weird, obscure horror movies throughout my life. I can now add this lurid 1974 schlockfest to that growing list. In a castle in the desert, Dr. Arthur Blackwood runs a sanitarium filled with mentally disturbed patients (as well as staff). He claims to be working on finding a way to cure people of any violent tendencies they have, and brags about his younger sister, innocent, child-like Melanie, as evidence that his treatment works. When she was a child, their parents had to keep her locked up and chained in the basement, to control her violent fits. Now that he's cured her, Arthur has his wife Diane come to the castle to meet Melanie, so that they can be one big, happy family. Diane begins to grow suspicious that something is amiss after a Sheriff shows up investigating the murder of 2 local teens, and sets about on her own investigation, hoping to uncover the sinister secrets that she feels her husband is hiding. Help Me... I'm Possessed is an outrageous,...
Post a Comment
Read more