Dune

Have you ever heard of Alan Smithee?  For a little over thirty years, it was the credit given to directors that wanted to disavow their work in a particular film due to the final version of the film not meeting their creative vision.  In other words, if the star or studio re-cut the movie, the director could protest by crediting the work to Smithee.  It's happened many times over the years, and Eric Idle made a terrible movie that joked about the process, so you may have heard of Smithee by now.  What I didn't know until I researched it for two or three minutes (I love the internet!) was that directors sometimes requested a Smithee credit for re-edited versions of their movies, like those shown in airplanes or on television.  Why do I bring this up?  I knew that one of the many versions of Dune that was aired on television had David Lynch's name removed from both the directing and writing credits.  While I haven't seen the Smithee version of the film (also known as the "Extended Version" on DVD), it can't be much worse than this approved version.

Dune is a high-concept science fiction yarn based on the excellent book of the same name by Frank Herbert.  Dune tackles a lot of serious themes and has an intricate plot that was thought, for many years, to be unworkable as a movie, and they may have been right.  This is a movie that delves into politics on a grand scale, ecology, Zen Buddhism, and revolution, all in two-and-a-half hours.  If that seems like a long movie, you're right.  It's still not enough time to develop all of those concepts simultaneously.  On the bright side, the movie soundtrack was done by Toto! They rawk!

Okay, now a quick quiz... What's the best part of this video?
A) The sweatbands on the keyboardist's wrists.
B) The singer finding Africa: The Book! and giving himself a satisfied nod.
C) The band singing a song allegedly about Africa and the video taking place on a large book.
D) That it manages to devalue an entire continent (54 countries!) in under five minutes.

The film begins with Princess Irulan (Virginia Madsen) explaining the state of the universe to the camera.  In the distant future, the universe is ruled by Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV (Jose Ferrer) and the most valuable resource in the universe is the spice melange.  Melange is kind of like a cosmic LSD, only useful; it expands the mind, prolongs the user's life, and is essential to space travel.  The Spacing Guild's Navigators use the drug to see the future and fold space, which makes space travel faster and safer.  The problem with melange is that is only grows on one stinking planet, Arrakis AKA Dune.  With this explanation, the Princess is not seen again until the last ten minutes of the film, where she might not have had any dialogue.

Are you with me so far?  Well, in an effort to smash a political rival, Emperor Shaddam is giving control of Arrakis to, um, his rival, Duke Leto Atreides (Jurgen Prochnow).  That doesn't make much sense, does it?  Well, the Emperor is arranging to have the Atreides' longtime rival, the Harkonnens, ambush Atriedes on Arrakis.  When the Spacing Guild's Navigators foresee these events, they demand that the Emperor kill not only Duke Leo, but also his son, Paul (Kyle MacLachlan).  These future-seers think that Paul is a danger to their melange supply.  So, the Emperor agrees to off the kid.  And with that, we are about five minutes into the movie!

From here on out, things pretty much fall into place.  The Atreides go to Arrakis and they get ambushed.  Paul and his mother escape into the desert and encounter the native Fremen, who manage to live in the desert and have learned how to live with the incredibly destructive sand worms that are a danger to everybody else.  But why should the Fremen help these strangers?  And, even if Paul and his mother get help, what is next for them?  Revenge?  That seems a little petty.  How about a step toward universal domination via guns that are powered by special words?  That seems a little ridiculous.  It's a little of both.

Legend has it that David Lynch's final script called for this film to be a little over three hours long, but the movie studio forced it to be whittled down to a trim two-and-a-quarter hours.  I cannot find a way to suitably express my condolences to anyone who had to watch a three-hour version of this movie.  Two hours was all I could take, and that is only because I stopped questioning the plot.  This movie positively drags.  Well over half of the movie is pure exposition, with the ambush of the Atreides serving as a mid-movie huge action scene.  The odd thing about that battle is that very little of it is shown.  Then there is more exposition, and a whole boatload of weird stuff shoved into the last half hour.

The biggest problem I have with this film is its use of voice-overs.  Sometimes, they are used to explain plot.  Sometimes, they seem to indicate telepathy.  Whatever.  They are all just awful.  I don't need to hear Kyle MacLachlan's voice explaining more than his dialogue does --- I need the scenes to explain the plot, instead.  Voice-overs that explain plot are a lazy, cut-corner trick to salvage a movie that has become too expensive to re-shoot scenes, and the fact that this movie is full of them should indicate the quality of the movie.

Speaking of Kyle, I have to admit that I am not a big fan of his work.  He's actually not too bad here, but the things that the script forces his to say often sound really, really stupid.  Do you remember the Fatboy Slim song, "Weapon of Choice?"  It borrows one of Kyle's lines: "If we walk without rhythm, we won't attract the worm;" of course, Kyle then proceeds to walk normally.  Actually, I don't particularly dislike any of the actors in this film, with the possible exception of Kenneth McMillan who, as the evil Harkonnen leader, couldn't have been more comically evil if he had a six-pound handlebar mustache to twirl.  Brad Douriff, Sean Young, Linda Hunt, Freddie Jones, Richard Jordan, Dean Stockwell, Max von Sydow, and the already mentioned Jurgen Prochnow all played their small roles capably.  They looked and sounded silly doing so, but they took their jobs seriously and did the best they could in difficult circumstances.  Patrick Stewart has a small role in the film, too, but the aspect of his performance that struck me the most was the fact that he apparently grew a skullet as the movie progressed.  I can't say that I was particularly pleased by the young Alicia Witt (in her film debut) and her bizarre voice, but her character was pretty weird and the voice may have been changed in post-production.  Now, Sting gets a lot of attention on the various DVD covers for this film, and I'm not sure why.  Maybe because of this:

Umm...is that a bird...servicing him?

Whatever the case, Sting gets to overact and has an anticlimactic fight scene with Kyle.  I would critique his work, but I can't look at those weird fiberglass undies and keep a serious thought in my head.

So, at least the acting's not bad.  There's no great work, but it all fits the film.  For this movie to even come close to succeeding, though, it needs to look awesome.  As George Lucas has shown, if your movie is visually spectacular, nobody cares about the plot.  Sadly, Dune couldn't get that right, even with a large budget.  Problem #1: the stillsuit.

It's like they have Hitler 'staches, with a left sideburn connection

Everyone on Arrakis has to wear these things to survive; they recycle your body's moisture and fluids to prevent dehydration on the desert planet.  Unfortunately, that means that everybody spends substantial time wearing nose plugs.
Problem #2: the special effects looked bad, even by 1984 standards.

An actual frame from the movie.  No joke.

In the beginning of the movie, young Paul turns on his "bodyshield" for a sparring match; it is blocky, sometimes opaque, and it made Star Wars-inspired noises.  Awful.  Thankfully, this suit is never seen again after the half-hour mark.  The sets in general looked cheap, the costumes were lame, and the special effects were often not done to scale; when you see a human and a worm in the same frame, it's hard to tell how close they are supposed to be to each other.  For being a science fiction epic tale, there is surprisingly little imagination or innovation in the visual effects.
Problem #3: the story is damn near incomprehensible.

An actual page of script from Dune

I read several Dune books as a young whipper-snapper, and I was clueless when watching the movie.  I can only pity someone who approaches this movie out of pure curiosity or, worse, a devotion to David Lynch.  I choose my words carefully here, because I want there to be no misunderstanding: this movie is confusing, even by David Lynch standards.  That's right; it is easier to decode his movies where actors switch characters in the middle of the film than to follow this plot.

I'm not even going to go into Lynch's direction, except to say that this film looks awful, and that's usually his strong point.  Did you know that Lynch was considered as a director for Return of the Jedi?  He opted to make this mess instead.  I suppose that's a good thing, because his fondness for strange dwarf characters would only have lead to some bizarre scenes with the Ewoks.

The one good thing I can say about this movie is that it approaches the source material with respect.  The final product may resemble the diarrhea of someone who digested the book, but the intent to honor it was there.  I don't even want to blame anyone in particular for this monstrosity.  I just want to forget about it.

The Straight Story

I am convinced that director David Lynch soaks his contacts in a solution of LSD every night before bed.  Let's be honest, if you think there is any sane or sober way to completely explain Mulholland Drive, you're probably using the same "saline" solution.  A few months back, someone reminded me on Facebook that Lynch also directed The Straight Story, which is about as un-Lynchian of a project as you can imagine.  How un-Lynchian is it?  For starters, it was released by Disney.  And it was rated G.  Even more surprising, this film is based on a true story.

Alvin Straight (Richard Farnsworth) is an old man, and he looks it.  After enduring a LifeCall-worthy event, Alvin has to visit the doctor.  Well, he doesn't have to, he's a stubborn old mule that will doubtlessly do things his way until the moment he keels over, but he chooses to see the doctor to make his daughter, Rose (Sissy Spacek), feel better.  In the office, Alvin refuses to undress, have any tests done, or have any X-rays taken.  I can't wait to become an old curmudgeon like him.  However, I would have a Biff cane, complete with a brass fist for knocking on McFly's head.  The (exasperated) doctor makes some educated guesses about Alvin's condition; he needs hip surgery to stand without the use of two canes (because Alvin refuses to have a walker), is losing his eyesight as a side-effect of diabetes, and is probably in the early stages of emphysema.  He is a pretty frail old man, and the doctor clearly doesn't expect Alvin to have much life left in him.  Shortly after his doctor's visit, Alvin gets a phone call that his brother (Harry Dean Stanton) has had a stroke.  The two men have not spoken in over ten years, which gets Alvin to thinking.  Deciding that now is the time to bury the hatchet, Alvin plans to travel the 240 miles from his home in Iowa to his brother's in Wisconsin.  Only, thanks to his eyesight and hips, he doesn't have a driver's license.  Refusing the aid of his daughter and several others, Alvin comes up with an unusual solution to his problem.  He decides to ride his lawnmower to Wisconsin.  Of course he does.

On the surface, this seems like an odd choice for David Lynch to direct.  It is, but you can see his touch, if you know where to look.  Lynch has always had a talent for capturing wonderful scenery and holding long shots for effect, and that talent is on display here.  Lynch really brings out the beauty and vastness of the Great Plains with his cinematography.  Of course, he's too weird to play even a "straight story" completely straight; a good number of the supporting cast are kooky and have that bizarre awkward-acting quality that Lynch encourages in his actors.  Of course, the subject matter is pretty weird, too, if you think about it.  Lynch often makes movies about subversion of some type or another; is there anything more subversive than a person choosing to do things their way, no matter how many better options are available?

Most of the supporting cast is, like I mentioned, kind of awkward (deer lady, I'm talking to you), but Sissy Spacek is surprisingly effective as Straight's handicapped daughter.  There aren't many other noteworthy actors in the movie (Chris' brothers, Kevin and John P. Farley, and Harry Dean Stanton have bit parts), so the biggest responsibility for this film's quality rests on the shoulders of Richard Farnsworth.  He does a fantastic job.  He has great nonverbal acting skills and his subtle choices, like the way his eyes dart when he's nervous, really breathe life into his character.  Alvin Straight is a character that could be played as overly stubborn or idiotic, Farnsworth's portrayal is honest and endearing, and his Oscar nomination was well-deserved.  I would be making a mistake if I didn't point out how adorably the elderly are shown in this movie; the interactions between senior citizens are funny because they're true, and they are some of the most realistic portrayals of this age group I have ever seen on the big screen.

This is a slow movie.  I know that, sometimes, I am just not in the mood to see a slowly-paced film, so I just wanted to issue that caution.  The film's pace was not an issue for me, though.  What was an issue was the occasional over-dramatic conversations (how long have you known each other, and you say that?) and some of the goofy supporting cast.  Even those things don't diminish how much I enjoyed watching this.  This is a movie that just feels...I don't know, humble and wholesome seem like inadequate terms.  It is an emotional movie, one that speaks to some very basic things that everyone has in common, and the movie comes across as being so honest and unpretentious that it's disarming to watch.  It's no It's a Wonderful Life (because it's less cheesy), but it's playing the same ballgame.  It is a simple story, but it is so good at what it does, which is warm the cockles of your heart.  If your cockles get too warm, though, you might want to have a doctor check that out. 

...and, because nobody demanded it, here's the classic LifeCall commercial from the 80s.


I reviewed this movie because somebody requested it.  A long time ago.  But, better late than never.

Blue Velvet

David Lynch is a difficult director to watch.  His movies are intentionally obtuse and his use of imagery and symbols over plot and characters is alienating for many viewers and attractive for many critics.  Blue Velvet is one of Lynch's more linear stories, which makes this one of his more accessible films for the general public.  Of course, that's just by comparison.  This is still a weird ass film.  If I had to sum up the story in one sentence, I would say that Blue Velvet is like a Leave It to Beaver episode that woke up from a nightmare, only to find itself being raped.

The story begins with Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) coming home from college to help with his family's business, while his father recovers from a stroke.  While wandering around the idyllic Lumberton townscape, Jeffrey finds a severed human ear.  He takes the ear to Detective Williams (George Dickerson), who assures Jeffrey that he'll handle the case.  Jeffrey is an annoying little busybody that clearly doesn't have enough to do like, oh I don't know, running his father's business, so he stops by Detective Williams' home to ask about the ear.  In the process, he is reintroduced to Williams' daughter, Sandy (Laura Dern).  Sandy and Jeffrey step out for a malted milkshake (or something equally wholesome) and swap information on the ear.  Sandy is a dirty eavesdropper and her father discusses a surprising amount of his work at home, so she dishes that there is a nightclub singer that is a person of interest.  The singer is Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini) and Jeffrey decides to sneak into her apartment and investigate her.  While he is searching her apartment for some clue that may connect to the ear, she comes home; Jeffrey narrowly avoids detection by hiding in a closet.  It doesn't work for long, though; Dorothy discovers him, keeps him at knife point and... performs fellatio?  Well, that's an unexpected reaction.  The couple are interrupted by a knock at the door.  Dorothy hides Jeffrey in the closet once more and lets Frank (Dennis Hopper) in.  Frank is rude, vulgar and abusive, both physically and verbally.  He huffs some unnamed drug (identified as amyl nitrate by Hopper in later interviews), smacks Dorothy around a little, and dry humps her until he's finished.  As a side note, watching that scene allowed me to check two items off my bucket list.  I'm not saying what, though.  This scene causes Jeffrey to sympathize with Dorothy and he delves deeper into her nightmare of a life, filled with Frank and his associates, but still spending time in the TV Land-ish Lumberton proper enough to fall in love with Sandy.  It's dangerous to explore the seedy underbelly of any town, though, a lesson Frank will soon teach Jeffrey.

This film is sometimes described as a neo-noir, but I disagree.  While there are similarities to the noir genre (tough guys and dames without real emotions, a mystery to solve, etc.), they only really exist within the seedy underworld of Lumberton.  In many ways, this film is about duality and how deceiving appearances can be.  On the one hand, yes, this is a noir when Frank and Dorothy show up, but it is a surreal visit to the sunny neighborhoods of 1950s television when the story focuses on Jeffrey and Sandy.  Obviously, the differences between Jeffrey and Frank are shown in sharp contrast when Jeffrey and Dorothy become lovers as are the differences between Dorothy and Sandy.  Lynch does a good job showing the importance of digging beyond the surface in the opening scene, as the camera zooms past Jeffrey's father having a stroke in the middle of their perfect neighborhood and into the grass, until all we see are bugs busy in the dirt.

I don't like categorizing Blue Velvet as a noir because I feel it is better described as surreal.  The sunny Lumberton portion of the film is almost deliriously ideal, visually bright and clean.  The characters in these scenes speak and act as if they are in a classic TV sitcom, spouting trite garbage and throwing around cliches like it's their job.  The despair of the seedy Lumberton is just as bizarre.  While I'm sure that sadomasochism and unusual sexual practices happen everywhere, but Frank's experiences put even the nastiest celebutant to shame.  There is absolutely nothing in this movie that rings true.

Well, almost nothing.  Isabella Rossellini's performance is eye-opening, and not just because she gets nekked.  Her character is very complex and has the most easily understood motives out of anyone in the film.  Rossellini does a great job handling what would have been simply an erotic role for most actresses and transformed it into a study on power, pleasure, pain and fear.  It's shocking to me that she was not nominated for at least a supporting actress award at either the Oscars or the Golden Globes.

Dennis Hopper's performance is not nearly as honest as Rossellini's, but it's just as captivating.  As Frank, Hopper plays his most frightening role.  This is at least partially because he is inexplicable and unpredictable.  Is he going to cry while watching Dean Stockwell lip-sync to Roy Orbison, or is he going to start breaking furniture with the same stimulus?  At times, Hopper's acting is so beyond the realm of plausibility that it becomes funny, but he quickly snaps back into exuding danger the next moment.

Lynch's work is equally fluid.  The film's cinematography is wonderful.  Lynch has a gift for finding great visuals and exploiting them.  He is at the top of his game here.  His direction of actors, on the other hand, is typically alien.  I am familiar with many actors in this movie, as well as the casts in other Lynch films; in every movie, it feels like he is deliberately directing his cast to act poorly.  If there is an unnatural pause or a way to make a clever line not funny, that is the take that makes the film's final cut.  If this type of acting was limited to certain members of the cast, I could conclude that Lynch is making a point about those characters, or their place in society or whatever.  But he does it with everyone.  Lynch wrote this movie, as well, so his intentions can be found by watching the camera work, seeing the acting, and hearing the dialogue.  But it's all still very confusing.  This film doesn't work as a satire of the 1950s American ideal if the "real world" that Frank rules is equally surreal.  So...does that make this a movie about naivety?  About the need to hold on to the comforting while experiencing the discomforting?  If that's the case, then why all the surreality?  To be honest, I don't care because thinking about David Lynch's intentions is just frustrating for me.

That frustration happens whether or not I am focusing on what the director intended, though.  The acting is, for the most part, painful to watch.  When Hopper and Rossellini are on screen, that pain turns into discomfort.  That's not a huge upside.  The supporting characters have absolutely no depth or humanity to them at all, and simply exist to provide momentary distractions for the cast.  Perhaps if one side of the story was told differently, this movie would be more appealing to me.  If the mystery aspect held any suspense whatsoever or had any importance, for instance, I might have invested more of myself to this film.  Instead, I am left disliking the movie, but admiring two performances and the camera work.  I guess that kind of balances things out pretty evenly.