posted
I used our wonderful search function but I was kind of thinking there wouldn't be much written up about Blue Velvet. Someone did write a great main page!
I never really thought of Blue Velvet being an "80's" movie.....even when you watch it........it's beyond it's time or even feeling like a time period because you get so entranced in the story. Well Jeffery does wear skinny ties haha
This was my first time watching it....I went through a dark indie movie period awhile back and i'm not sure why I missed this. Maybe I saw it now so I could fully appreciate it. I watched Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart back to back........anyone want to know my thoughts on the latter?
Frank is pretty creepy to say the least and Dorothy might be a bit creepy in her own right haha Posts: 2912 | Registered: Jun 2003 | Site Updates: 26
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Valley Dated Julie From 'Valley Girl' (allegedly!)
Member # 1322
Muffy.. I've watched "Blue Velvet" a few times. It is seen by many as a masterpiece, but for me the only words that come to mind are strange and disturbing.
Really thought Laura Dern was outstanding in this movie. And Dennis Hopper was just flat out creepy and ruthless.
David Lynch makes movies that challenge the mind and while this movie achieves that.. the disturbing factor just overshadowed the overall goal of the movie for me. And before you judge my openmindedness to 'different'.. understand that I think the movie "Donnie Darko" is an incredible mind trip everyone should try.
Posts: 7845 | From: Smiling and glancing in awe in the back of a limo | Registered: Mar 2003 | Site Updates: 22
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Muffy Tepperman
Leopard-print Leotard Wearer.....
Member # 1551
posted
Valley I love Donnie Darko too a great mind trip with a great soundtrack!!
I think watching BV and knowing it's David Lynch and appreciating it for that....made me like it.....Laura Dern does have this lovableness.
His bits are so dark and quirky I laugh! The scene where they are roughing up Jeffery and there is this weird guy/girl dancing in the back.....totally got laughs out of me....and Dean Stockwell! his makeup and singing.
I watched Wild at Heart and I might have loved it more.......it had more of a "campy" feel to me and an even greater supporting cast. (Crispin Glover, Sherliyn Fenn, Harry Dean Stanton, Diane Ladd was so creepy!!!and William Dafoe!) Dern was even more over the top and lovable.
It was a pretty cool double feature.
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Valley Dated Julie From 'Valley Girl' (allegedly!)
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Muffy .. "Wild At Heart" was a Wizard of Oz roadtrip into Sex, Violence, & Elvis! ha
Actually enjoyed it far more than "Blue Velvet".. probably because of Nic Cage's wackiness.
Posts: 7845 | From: Smiling and glancing in awe in the back of a limo | Registered: Mar 2003 | Site Updates: 22
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posted
My friend absolutely loved 'Wild at Heart' when it came out.
I'm no great fan of Lynch, although I do like some of what he does. 'Blue Velvet' and 'Wild at Heart' are both enjoyable enough.
Speaking of Lynch in the 80's; it's odd that we don't mention 'Dune' very much on the site. It has all the right ingredients: based on a huge sci-fi novel; music by Toto; Sting and Virginia Madsen. What more could you want?
I'll throw it in to the Lynch roulette wheel Muffy's spinning: 'Dune'.
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Muffy Tepperman
Leopard-print Leotard Wearer.....
Member # 1551
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I never even thought that Dune was Lynch!....I loved The Elephant Man and I never think of that movie being Lynch either but it is.
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posted
My first Lynch movie was Eraserhead-it was a fave of my good friend who couldn't get enough of it. Liked Wild at Heart-"I'm a prickly pear" but Blue Velvet not so much. I love weird movies, but the whole air mask thing was too over the top. Has anyone seen Dumbland?
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Muffy Tepperman
Leopard-print Leotard Wearer.....
Member # 1551
posted
I keep bringing up to people I saw this and everyone in the world has seen it and for sure gives you their opinons...."It's so weird" "I hated it" "My friend a drama teacher talks about this movie all the time" Those are some of the comments that came back to me.
Bamersy I haven't seen Eraserhead my question did you like it? Do you think I will?
Secret Admirer I cracked up at Jeffery peeing in Dorothy's apartment "oh Heineken" so random but needed to be put in there haha
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posted
Eraserhead is one of those movies you either love or hate. My friend had very "eccentric" movie tastes, and this movie was up there with Rocky Horror as one of her all time faves. She was a big Twin Peaks fan too.
It's creepy, disturbing, atmospheric and really hard to follow. Haven't seen it in years-it was out of print for a very long time. I'd watch it again, but can take it or leave it. I do think everyone should see it-at least once Posts: 452 | From: California | Registered: Apr 2010 | Site Updates: 14
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Kash
Kash : Aha! He'll save every one of us...
Member # 297
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There are great movies you enjoy and great movies you don't. Lynch makes the great movies you don't enjoy. How can you possibly have a good time? That's not what they're about.
Blue Velvet is as twisted as the world David Lynch inhabits, or at least as twisted a representation of the world as Lynch sees it. A movie that forces the viewer into a dark place and then locks the door for two hours: Satire, perverse psychological horror, noir, erotica and buddy movie rolled into one. Its as if Lynch chewed up the worst of the world and then spat it out on screen.
The artifice and banality of the world as it exists feeds and exacerbates the evil, but who's ultimately responsible for that world if not the people in it? Lynch gives us the classic chicken and egg scenario: was it a corrupt world that made man evil, did the evil of man corrupt the world or was it both?
Kyle MacLachlan's chracter represents society IMO: an impressionable, promising vessel that goes the way of what surrounds it. Each chracter represents something else but that's a strength and a weakness, for the symbolism is quite contrived and unsubtle. Lynch amended the flaws in Blue Velvet with Twin Peaks.
Just imagine how the movie would've been if all the stars who turned it down had accepted: Steven Berkoff playing Frank: "There was nothing but destruction in that role", said Berkoff.
Chris Issak or Val Kilmer as Jeffrey: "The script I read was pornographic" claimed Kilmer.
Molly Ringwald as Sandy, so disgusted was Molly's mother that she didn't even show her the script!
Posts: 2041 | From: The Ice Planet Hoth | Registered: Jul 2001 | Site Updates: 0
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Muffy Tepperman
Leopard-print Leotard Wearer.....
Member # 1551
posted
Kash you always put things in the way I WISH I COULD haha
love that you said Jeffery's character represents society...."impressionable" look how quickly he's drawn into Dorothy and her whole world and how Sandy was drawn into it also.
Interesting the casting choices at the time....by the time Wild at Heart came around you can tell actors were lining up.....What's your take on Wild At Heart Kash?
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Valley Dated Julie From 'Valley Girl' (allegedly!)
Member # 1322
I like your statement .. "Lynch makes the great movies you don't enjoy."
Posts: 7845 | From: Smiling and glancing in awe in the back of a limo | Registered: Mar 2003 | Site Updates: 22
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I started with Twin Peaks and then went on to Blue Velvet. I actually enjoy the craziness, when I usually don't. So there's something about the way Lynch puts it together that pulls me in, instead of making me roll my eyes. Some of my favorite scenes are built around music, and I love that.
Posts: 929 | From: Deb to Tone | Registered: Dec 2004 | Site Updates: 37
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quote:There are great movies you enjoy and great movies you don't. Lynch makes the great movies you don't enjoy. How can you possibly have a good time? That's not what they're about.
It makes me think of a Seinfeld quote:
"What's the show about?" "It's about nothing." "It must be about something." "Nothing!" "Then why am I watching it?" "Because it's on TV!" "Not yet."
Why would anyone want to watch a "great" movie they didn’t enjoy?
David Lynch makes the kind of films critics love, because they allow them to beard-stroke and pontificate. In short – he makes films people like to talk about. Unfortunately, that's part of the reason so many mainstream viewers stay away. It doesn’t matter to Lynch; he makes the movies he wants for modest amounts and they always make a decent profit.
Where do I sit on Lynch? I'm just passing through. This is someone else's discussion.
quote:Lynch gives us the classic chicken and egg scenario: was it a corrupt world that made man evil, did the evil of man corrupt the world or was it both?
The first one. No wait – both. I mean neither. Hang on… why are we blaming chickens?!
quote: Lynch amended the flaws in Blue Velvet with Twin Peaks.
First season, yes. Second season it went right off the rails (and Lynch abandoned it). It's a classic example of a show that started well and then just kind of petered out.
quote:Just imagine how the movie would've been if all the stars who turned it down had accepted: Steven Berkoff playing Frank: "There was nothing but destruction in that role", said Berkoff. Chris Issak or Val Kilmer as Jeffrey: "The script I read was pornographic" claimed Kilmer. Molly Ringwald as Sandy, so disgusted was Molly's mother that she didn't even show her the script!
They were all talking about 'Deep Throat # 4'. Someone was playing a hilarious prank.
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Kash
Kash : Aha! He'll save every one of us...
Member # 297
Muffy, Wild at Heart is absolutely insane probably the closest thing to straight comedy as Lynch gets. Nic Cage's Elvis impersonation makes the movie for me, the random brilliance of 'Love Me Tender' at the end, the cool driving scene with Chris Issak's 'Wicked Game' and allusions to The Wizard Of Oz (links in with that film being used in sinister mind control / occult experiments by the government).
I saw similarities between this; True Romance and Open Road (the original script that became Natural Born Killers). It takes two American film genres (i.e. couple on the run road movie and the Elvis Presley musical) and parks them in the middle of Lynch's nightmarish world of surrealism and unsettling violence.
Notice how Laura Dern always gets to utter the understatement of the film, and its always some reflection on life. Diane Ladd was also very good in this movie (she'd be ideal in your evil movie mothers thread Muffy!) but its Cage who steals every scene.
quote:Where do I sit on Lynch?
His lap, his shoulders perhaps? I find his coif a comfortable alternative to the sofa, often, he doesn't even know I'm there... Posts: 2041 | From: The Ice Planet Hoth | Registered: Jul 2001 | Site Updates: 0
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quote:DL didn't need to make Jedi, he directed Dune damnit!
Something he barely acknowledges. I wish he'd put together a special edition. I guess that's not his style.
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Helen_S
Hiding behind the shower curtain.....
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posted
Wow,I just watched this. It had been so long since I last did it was like new to me. It blew me away, flawless in my eyes.
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posted
David Lynch is one of my favorite directors, and "Blue Velvet" is one of my very favorite movies of not just the 1980's but of all time. As strange, weird, and twisted as this sounds, every time I see a David Lynch film, I feel like I am watching a movie made just for me. He's not simply a director making great movies. He's a master filmmaker creating unique works of art, substanial comments (as Kash points out) on the human condition, filled with beauty, truth, ugliness, fear, drama, and humor. I could sit in a room the rest of my life and not be able to imagine or create something equivalent to five minutes of any Lynch film. Even when he's not at the top of his game, e.g., "Dune," his imagery, dialogue, music, and symbolism are about as brilliant as it gets. My favorite line from a review of "Eraserhead" that I read many years ago went something like, "It's set in an indeterminate universe. It could Philadelphia. It could be Poland." That pretty much sums up Lynch for me. He's a brilliant, amazing guy. I'd have a coffee, milk shake, and cherry pie with him any time. :-)
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posted
Sorry but Dune stunk, it was just a big overblown 47 million dollar mess of a movie that makes no sense, bad acting, cheap special effects and a complete rape of a great novel as it's still a major turkey that is one of the worst movies of the 80's that ranks with Ishtar and Heaven's Gate in terms of big budget flops/stinkers.
Blue Velvet was a very good step away from that Dune disaster.
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I read he only directed Dune because he was contracted to make it for de Laurentiis. After that they let him make Blue Velvet where he could do pretty much what he wanted, and the end result was great. Have you guys seen Siskel and Ebert's review of Blue Velvet? It's hilarious: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jga_yqTiqhI
Also, I'm a huge fan of Twin Peaks. I haven't enjoyed Lynch's latest movies that much. When it comes to Dune i really liked the soundtrack.
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quote:Sorry but Dune stunk, it was just a big overblown 47 million dollar mess of a movie that makes no sense, bad acting, cheap special effects and a complete rape of a great novel as it's still a major turkey that is one of the worst movies of the 80's that ranks with Ishtar and Heaven's Gate in terms of big budget flops/stinkers.
It's all a matter of opinion. I agree that Dune was a poor adaptation, but that doesn't automatically make it bad as a stand-alone. I also agree that some of the effects were very weak. If anything Dune needed to be a longer movie, because it was trying to convey an awful lot which made it confusing. I liked Dune then and I like it now. It was a failed attempt, but Lynch made it (I believe) an honorable one.
quote:I read he only directed Dune because he was contracted to make it for de Laurentiis.
Not quite sure what that means. You make it sound like he was forced. They asked him, he wanted to do it, so he said "yes".
quote: When it comes to Dune i really liked the soundtrack.
It is a good soundtrack.
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quote:Sorry but Dune stunk, it was just a big overblown 47 million dollar mess of a movie that makes no sense, bad acting, cheap special effects and a complete rape of a great novel as it's still a major turkey that is one of the worst movies of the 80's that ranks with Ishtar and Heaven's Gate in terms of big budget flops/stinkers.
t's all a matter of opinion. I agree that Dune was a poor adaptation, but that doesn't automatically make it bad as a stand-alone. I also agree that some of the effects were very weak. If anything Dune needed to be a longer movie, because it was trying to convey an awful lot which made it confusing. I liked Dune then and I like it now. It was a failed attempt, but Lynch made it (I believe) an honorable one.
Also, 'Heaven's Gate' has been critically reappraised since its initial flop status. I happen to think it's something of a masterpiece. Unfortunately, it was *never* going to make its money back in the post 'Star Wars' world.
quote:I read he only directed Dune because he was contracted to make it for de Laurentiis.
Not quite sure what that means. You make it sound like he was forced. They asked him, he wanted to do it, so he said "yes".
quote:When it comes to Dune i really liked the soundtrack.
It is a good soundtrack.
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