Yeah, or rereading it, a simpler way of summing it up might be that it's a story about an imaginary starlet realizing that her real spiritual/psychic source is a common hooker, the movie being a gradual trajectory of the two halves coming together, dream and reality; and all the violence that entails along the way. To embrace reality -- appealing or not -- the illusions must die. But it isn't malicious or actual. It's the only way to break free of the hypnosis perpetrated by the "cursed script" and illusion-makers. It takes the pained reality of Susan's actual self and actual life to murder Nikki (thus kind of freeing her), but it takes the acceptance of that and subsequent decision of Nikki to break similarly free of her Hollywood Masters and embrace the hurt woman she's fed such glamorous dreams to in order to complete the liberation from the whole weird paradigm. (As the freaky old woman says, "there are bills unpaid" or something to that effect, maybe just an echo of a common sentiment in her real life, I dunno.) Since the feelings that give spawn to a Nikki are genuine and innocent and mean the most to a woman like Susan, it'd make a sort of sense that ultimately it is Susan that Nikki really belongs to and needs to be one with; not the director, and not the mysterious man she kills at the end. Then Susan can in turn give herself wholly to her husband and child. It's all kind of surprisingly feministic and vaguely condescending at the same time, in a weird way.

What else while I'm killing time here, hmm. The rabbit room functions like a sitcom that doesn't make any sense, replete with laugh-track. It seems to be green or red, depending; perhaps the red portions parallel the points at which unpleasant realities are shifting back into focus, e.g. the illegitimate child. But I'm not sure. A sitcom gives us a sense of comfort and normality -- unlike a melodramatic romance at the heart of the story initially, which sweeps us away in emotional ideals of love and lust, etc. It's a human version of the male rabbit -- the pudgy dude in the crooked glasses -- that Nikki gradually confesses her true nature to, or the dark side of her nature at any rate. "They said maybe you can help me," I think she tells him at first.

It's also worth noting that the "real" Susan that Nikki eventually unifies with at whatever key moment in the hotel is staring into a television every time we see her.

What's all that mean? I don't know, but I feel like some sort of sense could be made of it. Maybe.

I might watch it again this weekend, if I have time.

K

If that's the same scary lamp as I'm thinking of,* that's also a great example of Lynch's use of visuals and, especially, sound.

I think he's technically and formally one of the best directors out there, in terms of evoking (as you say) nightmares, and at creating just plain scary scenes. Even though I didn't know exactly what was going on in terms of plot, his scenes still cause dread and suspense. I think it takes a director who really knows his craft to be able to that.


* “If that's the same scary lamp as I'm thinking of”. Ah, the things you end up writing when discussing a Lynch film.

American Gangster: Denzel Washington is great as Frank Lucas, a heroin dealer who made ridiculous amounts of money during the Viet Nam era. Russell Crowe is good as the cop who eventually caught him, but in his case it helps a lot that the guy he plays was really interesting in real life. There is some fun stuff involving corrupt cops from New York who like to mess with both of the lead actors.

Recommended.

The Amateurs: Jeff Bridges heads up a great ensemble cast featuring Valerie Perrine, Judy Greer and a bunch of underrated character actors in a movie that... isn't as good as it should have been. The basic idea is that a bunch of lovable losers decide to make a porn movie and things don't go according to plan. Some of the dialogue is pretty funny, but overall it doesn't live up to its potential. The ending is pretty good, though.

If you liked The Big Lebowski, it's sort of what you might get if The Dude actually tried to better himself instead of just abiding.

Recommended. Even though it could use more lesbians.

Darjeeling Limited: I'm glad I finally saw this, because I had been wondering if it was any good for a long time. But... I found it really disappointing. The funny bits couldn't make up for the stuff that just seemed pointless and/or boring.

So... I finally rented Walk Hard. I'm really glad I waited to see the director's cut, because most of my favorite scenes aren't even in the theatrical version.

All the extra sex and nudity helps too.

Some of the cuts in the theatrical release make no sense. For example, the "Negro Man" sequence (the part where the Hasidic Jews come to see him play) originally had a bunch of stuff with Dewey (John C. Reilly) playing piano like Jerry Lee Lewis and playing a guitar solo. It's a fun scene and it's only a couple of minutes long. They should have just left that in since they kept most of the over-the-top dancing.

At another point, they cut out a scene where Dewey talks to his brother's ghost that they definitely needed for story reasons. If nothing else, it helps a scene with the ghost later make a lot more sense. Again, it was only about two minutes long. Even after listening to the commentary, I don't really get their thought process.

I rented Gamers because the ad copy on the box made it sound like it was a brilliant comedy about five Dungeons and Dragons nerds. Also, they somehow got Kelly LeBrock and William Katt to be in it. The blurbs from reviews on gaming sites just added to the ironic appeal.

It's really stupid. There are funny bits occasionally that you'll appreciate more if you have either been a gamer yourself or have tried hanging out with gamers. But it's basically what you might get if somebody tried to turn the webcomic Penny Arcade into a live-action movie.

... which is great if you can enjoy stuff like the running gag about the guy from Argentina collecting horse semen for a living, or the multiple versions of a children's song written by the DM called "I Love Dick."

If you can't, there's not really much point in waiting to see if it ever gets better.

It does, finally, but between bad attempts at having dramatic arcs and how obvious it is that they didn't have much money to work with it's really rough going.

Avalon directed by the guy that did both Ghost In The Shell's.
A very good SF movie.

The Thirteenth Floor was also good.

Avalon? I loved that movie.

"In Bruges" is incredible. You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll wonder why Ralph Fiennes is trying to talk like Terence Stamp. It's terrific stuff. Especially the scenes with the midget.

"Be Kind, Rewind" is a cute little movie. It's not as funny as "In Bruges" but it's worth a rental.

I figure the thought processes of most Hollywonk directors is usually soaked in coke of the cane.

I've seen them make the same mistakes of omission dozens of times, and always with the same lame audio commentary excuse of "we found that it just slowed down the flow, man."

Bullshit! A minute added here or there doesn't slow down anything, you stupid MTV-brainwashed twits! They have no clue what the hell a flow is - look at any great classic movie, and you'll see tons of pace-relaxing moments, as well as atmosphere and exposition-laden moments, all vital to the overall piece.

That's what makes your contrast, which gives the thing depth and full dimension. That's why artists use dark as well as light lines, or musicians mix up their sets with slower ballads among the hard rocking bits.

But no, these dumb kids all want to go for the bad Spielberg 1941 dogma of "action quickly followed by action" instead, and so we get all these crappy, "too much in a hurry to end" movies.

I swear that 9 times out of 10 their "deleted scenes" are better than any of the junk they left IN the film! (The wedding Planner is a good example.)

What these punks need to do is go into some other business, where their drug-addled little greed-oriented minds would be welcome - like politics!

.