Screening Log

This new site feature is a collective effort to summarize our viewing habits. Occasionally, you will find titles here that are coming to a theater near you, in addition to films viewed on television, and even films viewed in piecemeal. The screening log is archived each month; to view past entries select a month in the menu below.

August 2007 activity

Total Log Entries: 52

Total Comments: 35

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Inland Empire / France / Poland / USA / 2006

Two-thirds of the way through Inland Empire I was convinced this was the most perfectly-realised work that Lynch has done yet, a fascinating, dazzling, irresistible being-sucked-into the hermetic Lynchian world. But in the end, it’s not enough (emotionally, thematically, aesthetically)in spite of Laura Dern’s tremendous performance, and I join the notcoming dissenters Tom and Beth. For me, Blue Velvet remains – and it looks like, will always remain – Lynch’s best work, which has something that Inland Empire lacks, the structure of a traditional Hollywood narrative and, just as importantly, an emotional centre which Lynch can then twist and turn and distort. It’s the fine balance and tension between the two that makes Blue Velvet so rich and satisfying in a way that Inland Empire can never achieve. And I’m deeply unconvinced by the “feminist” theme that has been read into the film by so many, as a study of the way Tinseltown takes women in, chews them up, and spits them out. It’s all rather undermined by the leering way the handheld camera hovers at breast-level over so many beautiful young women, an effect which is reinforced in the brilliant “dying” scene’s monologue by the Japanese woman, where her tale of a prostitute friend’s perforated vagina wall to me reflects no emotional or sympathetic engagement on Lynch’s part, but rather a lurid indulgence that is a hair’s-breath away from misogynistic. Jenny’s review Leo’s review Thoughts from Rumsey Leo Adam

by Ian Johnston | Source: Absurda DVD
26 Aug 2007 5:27 AM | Submit Comment

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