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Floodhouse (2004)
Surprisingly good
This little 50 minute movie is a pleasant surprise. One of the best movies I've seen in a while. I associate movies that tread in this territory with all sorts of pretentiousness, but there's nothing pretentious going on here. I was expecting to turn it off after 10 minutes, but every second kept my attention. The whole film has a feeling of genuine discovery and the artiness, if you will, of the approach is refreshingly well executed. This could have so easily been a bad movie, but every element (location, actors, script, direction, set design, music) manages to keep the ship afloat. The lead actress Victoria Thaine is wonderful. If I ever give it a second viewing I will probably find some little thing to dislike and maybe lower the rating from 10 to 8 or 9.
Twin Peaks: The Return (2017)
Fan Edit Time!
This season of Twin Peaks is in desperate need of a fan edit, as there's at least 2 hours of set pieces that are prime Lynch. Those 2 hours are drowning in hours of mediocrity.
The original Twin Peaks was awful when Lynch wasn't at the helm. Whereas 90% of this season is awful, about 60% of the original series was awful. In some interview -- years back -- Sherilyn Fenn nailed it when she said about the original series that when Lynch wasn't directing there were constant introductions of stupid characters and "weirdness for weirdness-es sake." So when I learned that Lynch would be directing all of season 3 I had hoped we would be treated to a fantastic 18 hours of prime Lynch. After 16 episodes my hopes have been dashed.
Lynch hasn't directed a big project since 2006's snore-fest Inland Empire. I loved set pieces in Mulholland Drive, but as a story I found it boring and didn't spend a second trying to figure it out. The last movie he made that was watchable as a story was 1999's Straight Story. It could be that Lynch is just simply getting old and is only good for set pieces now.
The only good scenes with any of the old Twin Peaks characters are those with Sherilyn Fenn and Clark Middleton (who's actually the one who makes those scenes sing, and not Fenn), Grace Zabriskie, and some of Kyle Maclachlan. Most of what is good in this season involves characters that weren't in the original Twin Peaks. Lynch shouldn't have brought back Gordon Cole. That character was never amusing. Having Robert Forster instead of Michael Ontkean is a small plus, even though his scenes are dull. Ontkean was a drip in the original series and isn't missed here.
Most episodes end with notable musicians playing at the bar. The only one I liked was the Chromatics playing "Shadow." The other ending music is no good. I also disliked the extras hired to fill the bar. It's an improbable collection of PC hipsters like Moby (who makes an appearance), violent bikers and psychos, and child sex traffickers. Totally inauthentic.
There's about two hours in this series that is prime Lynch, much of it coming from the first episode. Paste all those scenes together and you have something that has, not caring about plot and comprehensibility, a pulse and a distinct vibe.
The actors who come off best in this series, and who are in the few salvageable scenes, are Eamon Farren, Balthazar Getty, Grace Zabriskie, Clark Middleton, Everett McGill (who does wonders with the crumbs he's given), Brent Briscoe, George Griffith, Harry Dean Stanton, Caleb Landry Jones, Matthew Lillard, Sherilyn Fenn, James Marshall, Jan D'Arcy, Cornelia Guest, Ben Rosenfield, Walter Olkewicz (who's briefly seen behind the bar in the first episode), Ruth Radelet (Chromatics), Madeline Zima, Melissa Jo Bailey, Scott Coffey, Michael Cera (who has a hilarious monologue, which he probably wrote), Jeremy Lindholm, Virginia Kull, John Savage (the first time I've ever seen him act well), and Amanda Seyfried.
I'd like to see Lynch make a movie with the actors listed above, particularly Eamon Farren and Virginia Kull.