Films
In the dark, a waking dream
Auguste
The Three Colours trilogy marked my move from July into August, and amusingly the fledgling judge in Red is called Auguste.
Tags
DarioArgento SeenRead DavidLynch 31DaysofHorror2023 31DaysofHorror2022 31DaysofHorror2021 31DaysofHorror2020
Socials
You can find more of me here:
Inland Empire (2007)
An unusual and meta experience, but after three hours, as the end credits roll, I find I’m crying, because of the joyful music, yes, and because I’m exhausted.
Mulholland Drive (2001)
Events organically unfold, the images are striking, the narrative is confusing, characters are not who they seem to be, and in the last twenty minutes he reveals what’s really going on, sort of.
The Straight Story (1999)
If David Lynch were trying to somehow redress all the darkness of his earlier films in one go, then he would make The Straight Story.
Lost Highway (1997)
Lost Highway is a puzzle. It opens with a jealous husband who thinks his wife is having an affair, and ends with a deadly resolution, but what happens in between is ambiguous and complicated.
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992)
A howl of pain from Laura Palmer, the murdered girl that opened the story of Twin Peaks. It’s difficult, heavy, hard to watch in places, and grapples with incest, rape, drug-taking, murder and domestic abuse.
Wild at Heart (1990)
Wild at Heart is a series of deliberately melodramatic, hyper-violent and sexual scenes stitched together into a road movie, with a tenuously-made connection to the Wizard of Oz.
Blue Velvet (1986)
Blue Velvet has a fearsome reputation but is also culturally beloved. Dennis Hopper’s over-the-top performance has become iconic, and its themes foreshadow those in the massively popular Twin Peaks.
Dune (1984)
I went into Dune thinking I would see something the critics were missing – I mean, how could the director of Eraserhead and The Elephant Man direct a complete dud? – and... it’s so over-the-top, it manages to not be awful.
The Elephant Man (1980)
The Elephant Man is as traditional and straightforward as Eraserhead is surreal and obtuse. Both are black and white, and Lynch does use some dream imagery in The Elephant Man, but they’re at opposite end of the narrative spectrum.
Eraserhead (1977)
So imaginative and pure and watchable and laugh-out-loud funny, which I didn’t expect at all. A psychosexual puzzle about the horrors of unplanned parenthood, marriage, intimacy, capitalism, poverty, dreams – you can take it any direction you like.
Writing gland
Time to stimulate my first draft writing gland and get my novel moving again. I’d run aground at twenty thousand words. Stephen King’s advice? Write every day and keep going.
Slippery surfaces
Am I doing weekly summary posts now? Perhaps I am. It helps me notice what impact the week’s books and films have had on me. Hand-written notes just get lost in the stream of ink on paper.
Autumn and The Long Goodbye
In Ali Smith’s Autumn, when discussing a piece of art, Daniel Gluck asks the young Elisabeth, ‘And what did it make you think about?’. I love that question.
She Dies Tomorrow (2020)
This isn’t a horror film, though it is marketed as one. The camera is often still as figures move towards us, faces blurred by lights or shadows, which creates a sense of dread.
To the Ends of the Earth (2019)
I couldn’t resist another film by my new favourite director, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, care of my Mubi subscription. Knowing a film I fancy is going to disappear in a few days makes me create the time to watch it.
A Short Film About Love (1988)
Tomek is nineteen, lonely and living with his possessive godmother in a Polish apartment block. Every evening he spies on Magda through his telescope when she comes home from work.
Creepy (2017)
The films of Kiyoshi Kurosawa were a revelation to me in October’s #31DaysOfHorror — I started with Pulse (2001), then went back to Cure (1997), and both were masterpieces.
Creativity 2.0(.21)
I wonder what next year will bring? I wonder how I can make my craft feel more fun? With those questions in mind, we enter a season of change.
Doctor Sleep (2019)
Danny Torrance is an alcoholic, but finds a place of peace and sobriety in New Hampshire, where he uses his shine to ease the deaths of the elderly people in a local hospice.