Blue Velvet - "Yes, That's a Human Ear, All Right."

David Lynch had been on my mind before his recent death. The Blank Check podcast recently covered him, so I had watched his entire filmography, including Twin Peaks and a lot of short films. Lynch’s work tends to stick with you, but watching so much of it in such quick succession made me think about what kind of Lynch fan I was. 

Usually, when I watch an entire series or filmography, I’ll just post a ranking of it all. But with Lynch, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Not only was I not sure if I should include Twin Peaks (and how could it not be at the top of the list just for the sheer insanity of The Return?), it just didn’t make sense to rank his films because, depending on my mood, his films would shift wildly in ranking. 

But my when my brother asked what my favorite Lynch film was over the weekend, I had no problem picking Blue Velvet. I might have a couple controversial thoughts about Lynch’s films, like preferring Lost Highway over Mulholland Drive or placing Wild at Heart near the top of my favorites, but I can never shake one basic ass opinion about his work: Blue Velvet is his masterpiece.

Sure, plenty of people have favorites over Blue Velvet, but it seems like the consensus pick as the film that cemented him as one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. I enjoy Blue Velvet much more than just as a symbol of Lynch’s greatness. I find it to be the perfect mix of straightforward narrative and Lynchian oddness.

I enjoy all of Lynch’s work, but when it comes to his straightforward films (The Elephant Man, The Straight Story) I always wish they were a little weirder, and I wish his unhinged stuff (Inland Empire, Mulholland Drive, a lot of The Return) made just a little more sense. A few of his movies strike this middle ground, like Wild at Heart, Dune, and Fire Walk with Me, but Blue Velvet is easily my favorite. 

First off, the theme is simple but timeless: under the veneer of a picturesque small town in America, complete with picket fences and smiling firemen, lies a dark, evil underworld. This isn’t a unique idea, as America’s image and history has been a juxtaposition in art since the country’s inception. But it perfectly encapsulates Lynch as a person. He’s always described as this nice, normal Midwestern guy, yet he’s fascinated with the dark dreams of the subconscious. With Blue Velvet (and with a lot of Twin Peaks), Lynch gets to have his all-American clichés but also his American monsters.

Beyond that, Blue Velvet sticks with me because of the characters. You have the contrast between Dorothy and Sandy and Jeffrey and Frank. These seemingly polar opposites can somehow exist in the same small town, showing that maybe they’re not all that different. 

The fun of it is watching these characters portray these extremes, especially in Jeffrey and Frank. Jeffrey’s over-the-top “good boy” shit cracks me up throughout the film. He tries to be helpful to the local police, he muses on “the king of beers,” and he’s just a general dork. And Frank is pure rage. Yes, he’s horrifying, but there are moments that will always make me laugh, like his love of Pabst Blue Ribbon, his sucker punch to Jeffrey at Ben’s place, and some of his lines to his lackeys (“No, I want you to fuck it!”). 

The “joy ride” Frank takes Jeffrey and Dorothy on is one of my favorite sequences of all time. The car ride itself might be one of the most terrifying rides ever, and the trip to Ben’s place is amazing. I’d be happy with Dean Stockwell’s lip-synching alone as Frank seems to struggle to keep his head from exploding, but all the other weird shit is great. Just who are all these people in the apartment? Ben’s general look is fantastic. And Stockwell adds so much with his odd little quirks, like alternating between looking asleep and being wide-eyed seemingly for no reason. It’s easily the most surreal moment in the film, but there’s still enough plot going on (the drug talk, the kidnapped child being hidden away, etc.) that it doesn’t feel like it’s just thrown in there to add some weirdness to the film.

Unhinged Lynch can be great, but this restrained version which felt the need to keep things narratively together is my favorite because it makes it easier to revisit the film, which is why Blue Velvet is easily the most rewatchable film, for me. I have to be in the right mood to put on Lost Highway or Eraserhead, but I could watch Blue Velvet no matter how I felt. 

The story is easy enough to follow, but it’s the overall look and feel of the film, and the many moments that I love that keep me coming back. The score and soundtrack perfectly capture the theme of the film, and the classic Lynch look, especially at Dorothy’s apartment, create a feeling of unease without being showy. It’s a beautiful dark world that I would never mind entering through a severed ear. 

All my claims of a simple narrative can be argued, of course, as there are plenty of fascinating theories about the film and its undertones. I like digging into that stuff, and I’ve watched plenty of YouTube videos about the film and disappeared down dozens of reddit rabbit holes, but that isn’t required to enjoy this film, but that kind of research is necessary (at least for my dumbass) for something like Mulholland Drive, even if I think I kind of know what’s going on. My favorite films have always been ones that can be delved into but also enjoyed on a surface level. 

Lynch’s work is largely focused on dreams, and that can be applied to Blue Velvet with its descent into the ear, the use of “In Dreams” by Roy Orbison, Sandy’s blatant talk about dreams and what robins represent, and the overly happy, to the point of being suspicious, ending. It’s always interesting to consider what’s real and what isn’t in a Lynch film, but when he keeps things on the edge where anything could be dream or reality, it makes things much more enjoyable. Sandy’s dad’s odd reaction to Jeffrey’s grisly discovery of “Yes, that’s a human ear, all right” seems like it could be from a dream because it’s so matter-of-fact for something so shocking. But maybe he’s just a very structured cop to the point of seeming robotic. Either way, that is a human ear, all right, and Blue Velvet is a perfectly odd and normal movie at the same time. 

Random Thoughts

You know how it is: you stop to throw a few rocks at an old shed and, while looking for a good one, you find an ear instead. Happens all the fucking time.

God, I love the music in this, both score and soundtrack. It’s all perfect.

“Yes, that’s a human ear, all right.”

The dude just standing there with his dog always creeped me out. That’s the kind of shit I love about Lynch. “Instead of Kale just walking alone, let’s have a weird fat guy wearing sunglasses standing there with a dog!”

Jeffrey is such a stereotypical “good guy” it’s hilarious.

Laura Dern emerging from total darkness is one of my favorite cinematic entrances for a character.

Not to get into theories since many others have already covered everything better than I ever could, but the whole Lincoln assassination stuff is pretty interesting. Lincoln Street is bad news. Frank Booth. Well, that’s kind of it. But it’s still interesting.

Dorothy’s apartment building always reminds me of the apartments from Silent Hill.

“Ah. The king of beers.” Jeffrey seems upset that Sandy’s dad doesn’t drink Heineken, but this line is like an assurance that it’s only because it’s Bud. How could Heineken stand a chance against the king of beers?

“I don’t know if you’re a detective or a pervert.” Definitely a pervert. A Heineken-swilling perv.

Frank doesn’t show up until forty-three minutes, but he’s shot out of a fucking cannon.

The first time I became aware of this movie was seeing it in the video store when I was probably twelve or so. I remember seeing Hopper on the back hitting the nitrate, and thought, “This is probably too much for me right now.” And I was right. It was good that I waited a few more years for this.

What the fuck is hanging on Jeffrey’s wall? Every time I watch this, I end up Googling it and finding, of course, no answer aside from, “That’s Lynch for you!” 

Sandy: “How’d it go?”

“Well…”

“And the robins represented love.” It’s truly wild, looking back over his entire filmography, that Lynch has a character say anything represents anything, even when discussing a dream. But that encapsulates what I love about this one. It’s the perfect blend of traditional narrative and Lynchian oddness.

“See that clock on the wall?”

“Yeah.”

“Five minutes from now, you’re not going to believe what I’ve told you.” Oh, fuck off, Jeffrey.

Sitting between Brad Dourif and Jack Nance (who keeps calling him a pussy), with a crazed Dennis Hopper driving has to be one of the most terrifying car rides of all time.

Ben lives above or next to a bar simply called “This Is It.” Great bar name.

Of course, Ben is a suave fucker. Who else wears a ruffled shirt and cummerbund just hanging out at the house?

“Do you want me to pour it?”

“No, I want you to fuck it!”

In Frank’s defense, that was a dumbfuck question for Dourif to ask.

That random punch to Jeffrey when he doesn’t automatically join in with the “Here’s to Ben” toast makes me laugh every time.

Dourif: “Hey, David, I feel like I should be doing something during the ‘In Dreams’ part.”

Lynch: “Okay, Brad, take this snake and dance around or something.”

I think this was the first non-Quantum Leap role I saw Dean Stockwell portray. Definitely exposed me to his range as an actor.

Imagine how stupid I felt after years of thinking “I’ll fuck anything that moves” was primarily a Jay quote from Clerks.

Say what you will about Frank, but the man is a music lover.

It’s so fucking funny when the floozy from Ben’s just instinctively climbs on top of the car to dance to “In Dreams.”

“He put his disease in me.” 

“Dorothy, ix-nay on the isease-dey.”

“Sandy, I should really go with her to the hospital. Like she said, I did put my disease in her, so this is partly my fault.”

Wild at Heart - "This Whole World's Wild at Heart and Weird on Top."

Wild at Heart, David Lynch’s surreal (what Lynch isn’t surreal except for the aptly titled Straight Story?) Bonnie and Clyde meets Wizard of Oz mash up, is one of my favorite Lynch films. I dig the simplicity of the plot (Sailor [Nicolas Cage] and Lula [Laura Dern] attempt to be together despite jail stints and Lula’s psychotic mother plotting against them with assassins and whatnot). But more than anything, I enjoy the constant movement necessary for a road movie because Lynch never has time to slow down and wallow in the weirdness, and neither does the audience. You’re forced to just go with it, and if you can embrace that, which I did, then it ends being Lynch’s most enjoyable (not necessarily best) film. I bought Wild at Heart a while back and never got around to watching it. After revisiting Lost Highway a few weeks ago, I figured it was time to watch this crazy movie again. Here are my thoughts.  

The Film That Fixed, or Broke, Nicolas Cage

I’ve written more than enough about Nicolas Cage over the years, and at this point it’s become a bit of a cliché to celebrate the craziness of the eccentric actor. Everyone gets it: Cage is crazy, great, terrible, etc. Obviously, I’m a fan, and I do think of him as endlessly entertaining, even when he swings and misses. But when he swings and connects, it’s something very special. Wild at Heart is one of those connections.

At first, I was just going to focus on how David Lynch and Cage are perfect for each other because they’re both so weird, but that’s a bit too obvious. I don’t think I’d be breaking new ground by claiming these two dudes are on the strange side. So I wasn’t going to write about Cage’s performance much at all aside from pointing out a few moments I particularly enjoyed. Then I came across this bit of IMDb trivia: Nic Cage states that Wild at Heart helped him get away from method acting. David Lynch's spontaneous re-writes and the film's odd characters helped him be more playful with acting.

If that bit of trivia is true (for the sake of this article, I’m going to say it is, but I have not come across this fact anywhere else and, actually, the behind-the-scenes stuff I saw brought up how he stayed in character on set, but oh well...), then Wild at Heart is the film that broke, or fixed, Cage. Cage’s method acting had already produced a few great performances (Raising Arizona and Vampire’s Kiss are my favorites leading up to Wild at Heart), but it wasn’t until this movie that you start to see roles in which it seems like Cage is willing to change things up with the characters he portrays. That’s not to say that he didn’t bring something to the parts he played, he obviously did, especially with Vampire’s Kiss. But with Wild at Heart, he was allowed to deviate from the character on the page. 

The best example of this is the inclusion of the snakeskin jacket Cage wears. He asked Lynch if he could wear it in the film, and then it became this recurring element in the movie. It’s not a coincidence that Cage’s line associated with the jacket concerns “individuality” and “personal freedom.” By wearing the jacket in this film, Cage was freed to start altering his roles in the future, for better or worse. 

Certainly part of the reason Cage was/is allowed to do whatever he wants at times is because of his undulating star power. But I think the bigger part is that directors see the value in letting Cage have a bit of freedom. Because of this freedom, we not only get exaggerated moments in big films (his moment dressed as a priest in Face/Off comes to mind), but we also get performances like Deadfall, which feel like complete Cage creations. 

Cage’s performance in Deadfall is why his change after Wild at Heart could be seen as both breaking and fixing him. For me, it fixed him and allowed for his greatest, most entertaining work. For others, his eccentric performances might come across as distracting, over-the-top disasters that ruin the movie. I feel sorry for anyone who feels the latter. I’m glad Cage put on that literal and figurative snakeskin jacket, and I hope he never takes it off. 

Embracing the Oddness

This is only the second time I have seen Wild at Heart, and I had forgotten how darkly funny and wacky this movie was. I found myself simply enjoying the film, which is odd for me, as I tend to try to decipher David Lynch movies.

Normally, the Random Thoughts section for any movie, but especially a David Lynch movie, would be the longest section. But when I got to the end of Wild at Heart, I realized I didn’t stop very often to make note of what was happening while I was watching. I couldn’t believe I had so few random thoughts about this batshit crazy Wizard of Oz sexual fever dream. I think the all out assault of weird shit throughout the film was too much for me to stop and dwell on any of it. I mean, we’re talking about a movie in which a contract killer manager(?) takes a phone call while sitting on the toilet, drinking tea, and watching a nearly naked woman dance for him. When that’s going on in what should be a simple scene, I just can’t stop to try to decipher any of it because by the time I start to have a thought, something else even wackier happens. And that’s why I love this movie. It’s Lynch unhinged just doing whatever the fuck he wants, and I enjoy the film by just embracing the oddness of it rather than allowing myself to be distracted by it.

It’s one of the only weird Lynch movies that I can just turn my brain off and enjoy. I don’t feel the need to “figure” it out. I think it’s his most simply entertaining film, even with it being one of the weirdest at the same time. Even with all the Wizard of Oz stuff, I didn’t feel the need to try to assign each character to their Oz counterpart. It’s just a movie that is heavily influenced by that film to the point that it’s kind of a new, weirder and more adult version of that film.

The fact that this is a kind of version of Wizard of Oz means that the film has to be constantly moving. There’s not much time for Lynch to dwell on anything, no matter how strange and interesting it might be. Wild at Heart comes at you fast, and the two hour run time feels like an hour at most. Because of this, it wasn’t until it was over that I had time to gather my thoughts and consider some of the crazy shit going on in this movie. I wanted to list some of my favorite weird moments:

• Harry Dean Stanton watching a nature show and growling and shit.
• The mom covering herself in lipstick.
• The constant heavy metal riff segue.
• “Fucking field, let’s dance!”
• Willem Dafoe’s fucking teeth.
• Laura Dern just puking on the floor and leaving it.
• Crispin Glover as Cousin Dell...there’s too much going on it that sequence to narrow it down but here goes: dressing as Santa in the middle of the year, living in fear of aliens wearing black rubber gloves, making a hundred sandwiches, putting cockroaches in his underwear and...on his anus, and then disappearing.
• There are plenty of references to Wizard of Oz throughout (with characters even talking about the movie multiple times), but things get truly crazy when Glenda the Good Witch shows up at the end to teach Sailor to embrace love.

And those are just what come to mind right now. I feel like I could make a list like this after each viewing, and it would be totally different. Wild at Heart is the fucked up movie that keeps on giving.

Why Do I Own This?

I buy any David Lynch movie that even remotely interests me because I know I’ll need to see it multiple times to truly appreciate it. I need to watch this one a few more times in the future.

Random Thoughts

Laura Dern always impresses me in her Lynch films. She just seems so at home in her roles, which is incredibly impressive when comparing this role to her part in Blue Velvet. She is convincing as both an innocent all-American small town girl and as an over-sexed Dorothy. I’m glad she finally won an Oscar for Marriage Story, but she deserved one at least thirty years ago.

A good triple feature would be this movie with Raising Arizona and Natural Born Killers. Of course, I’d need a lobotomy after watching all three of those in one day, but the experience would be worth it.

That is quite a beating to start a film. It definitely sets the tone for this fucked up story.

"My snakeskin jacket! Thanks, baby! Did I ever tell you that this here jacket represents a symbol of my individuality and my belief in personal freedom?" 

I feel like Cage has said this in his everyday life as well.

...and according to IMDb trivia the jacket was actually Cage's and he asked if he could wear it in the movie.

"Sounds like old Dell was more than just a little bit confused, Peanut."

"Lordy, what was that all about?" I think that could be the tagline for almost every Lynch movie.

Bobby Peru is the skeeziest character Willem Dafoe has ever played, and that's fucking saying something.

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"Lost Highway" - "I like to remember things my own way."

Actually wanted to write about Wild at Heart, but I guess I let someone borrow it, because I cannot find it. So here’s Lost Highway.

Update: I found my copy of Wild at Heart. So I’ll write about that one next month.

David Lynch’s “Difficult” Films

Years ago, when I first watched a “difficult” film from a filmmaker like David Lynch or Terrence Malick I hated it. This was the case with Mulholland Dr. and other films that follow non-traditional narratives. My impulse at the time, and to this day to a slight extent, is to be dismissive of a film that feels intentionally confusing. When a film isn’t very accessible, it annoys me, but only if I find that the film doesn’t have much to say and uses confusion to mask this fault. With David Lynch, I always know that there’s a lot going in amongst the weirdness, and while I prefer his more straightforward films (Blue Velvet is one of my favorite movies of all time), I am willing to watch movies like Lost Highway multiple times even if I hate them after the first viewing.

With Lost Highway, I was taken in by the trailer. I was thirteen at the time, and I prided myself on liking weird shit when it came to movies. The preview made this movie look so cool and mysterious; I had to know what the fuck was going on with Robert Blake’s character. After finally getting to watch Lost Highway, I came away thoroughly confused. I can’t remember exactly, but I’m sure my initial response amounted to, “What the fuck did I just watch?” I just did not get it. I didn’t understand how Bill Pullman turned into Balthazar Getty and everyone just seemed to go with it. And was there time travel? And who was Robert Blake supposed to be? And...just...what? Despite my disappointment, I knew there was something more to the movie (the soundtrack was amazing, at the very least), but it was beyond me. I didn’t write off Lost Highway so much as I told myself, “Let’s try this one again in a few years.”

A few years later, Mulholland Dr. came out, and I had the same reaction, although I wasn’t as drawn to the film as I was to Lost Highway. In fact, the praise for Mulholland Dr. actually made me want to rewatch Lost Highway. I was completely confused by Mulholland Dr., but with Lost Highway, I knew, somewhere deep in my brain, that I had a theory that would make the movie make sense for me. (I plan on revisiting Mulholland Dr. soon, since I haven’t watched it since it first came out. I imagine I’ll enjoy it much more the next time around.)

I’ll get to that theory in the next section, but I wanted to explain a bit more why this movie sticks with me more than the more beloved Mulholland Dr. Lost Highway is simply cool. I think this is easily Lynch’s coolest movie. The creepiness of Robert Blake, the cast, the dark mysteriousness of it all, I just found it all to be very cool. But the soundtrack and score resonate with me the most. The sound design in general of the film is extremely effective. Many moments are truly jarring and disturbing largely thanks to abrupt changes in sound (the quick cut to the saxophone performance, the overly loud phones, etc). But the soundtrack makes the film memorable. The haunting Bowie song during the opening credits, the multiple uses of Rammstein for brutal/dangerous moments, Lou Reed’s cover of “This Magic Moment” during Alice’s introduction; all of these moments stick with me years later. 

Because of all these elements, Lost Highway was a film I know I liked even though I didn’t understand it at first. Lynch’s films, like any art, can be enjoyed without being understood. But it’s his style that makes me want to understand. And when it comes to Lynch’s “difficult” films, Lost Highway has the most style.

Personal Theory

“In the East, the Far East, when a person is sentenced to death, they’re sent to a place where they can’t escape, never knowing when an executioner may step up behind them and fire a bullet into the back of their head.”

The above quote is spoken by the mysterious man played by Robert Blake, and it plays heavily into my personal theory about Lost Highway. Despite my confusion after first watching the film, I still found myself thinking that I might be able to figure the film out. This is why I prefer this film to Mulholland Dr. For whatever reason, at the time after watching Mulholland, I just wasn’t taken in enough by the film to want to puzzle out a meaning behind it. Maybe because it was even less straightforward than Lost Highway, in my eyes. With Lost Highway, I knew if I watched it again I would figure something out. Here is my simplistic reading of the movie.

Lost Highway is all about a man’s mind right before, during, and after being executed by electric chair. As far as I’m concerned, there may be nothing real in this movie aside from the fact that Fred kills his wife and is executed for it. I would argue that the events actually take place up to the moment Fred transmogriphies into Pete except that the movie begins (and ends) with Fred telling...Fred that “Dick Laurent is dead” after going through all of the events of the film. Because of that element, not to mention the fucked up interaction with the Mystery Man at the party, I believe everything is happening in Fred’s mind. He’s reliving these moments, and they can’t be trusted exactly, because as he says at one point when asked about why he hates camcorders, “I like to remember things my own way.” (Of course, per my theory, he’s saying this in his own mind, so does he believe this? Better not to delve too deeply into that line of thinking…)

I believe that Fred does in fact kill his wife and get executed for it because of all the lightning strikes throughout the film post-transmogrification. Each time lightning appears, Fred/Pete becomes more distressed and reality seems to blur a bit more. This is his brain dying through electricity. Fred is working out his psyche and what happened to him, and his execution keeps getting in the way. A major reason why I think this is because they make a point to state that Fred is set to die by electric chair, even though the film takes place in California, and the electric chair has never been used as a form of execution there. The electric chair is the method of execution because Lynch wanted to use the lightning as a signifier. 

My initial problem with my own theory was time. How is all this happening during an execution? But time in the subconscious is different than how we perceive time while awake. You can be asleep and dreaming and months can seem to pass by in the dream, but you wake up and it’s been five minutes. I also like a theory about the afterlife I first encountered of The Eric Andre Show of all places. Dominic Monaghan was the guest. When asked what he thinks happens when you die, he said that Timothy Leary had a theory that since your brain is active for around ten minutes after death, and dreams that feel like hours are only a few seconds of brain activity, then perhaps the after life is simply your brain dreaming for what seems to be an eternity. With that theory in mind, this makes the hallucination while dying or even after theory a bit more plausible. (I’d attribute the afterlife theory directly to Leary, but I can’t find a source anywhere, and I’ve never read anything by him that confirms Monaghan’s quote.)

Because of this, I just find the entire film to be Fred’s subconscious melting down as a kind of defense mechanism against the execution. Fred’s mind becomes the titular Lost Highway, as he tries to figure out what exactly happened. Why did he kill his wife? What is wrong with his mind? I’ve come across other, more detailed, theories focusing on the film on a Freudian level, and I completely agree with most of it. I won’t copy it here because you can just check it out yourself here, and because when I first watched this movie I didn’t much about Freud and his theories about ego and superego and all that stuff.

While I didn’t really have names to apply to the different forms of Fred, I still picked up on the idea that this was a man with a split mind that was trying to put itself together at the end of his life. You see him dealing with so many issues: his violent nature, his impotent sexual performance, his fear of infidelity, etc. It all plays out in this neo-noir in which Fred has become this subconsciously idealized version of himself: young, cool, good with his hands, good at sex, etc. While this fantasy plays out, however, his demons are constantly attacking him in the form of Mr. Eddy and his rage and the Mystery Man and his capacity for evil. (Once again, the article I linked to above goes into much more informed detail about this.)

The fight within Fred’s mind comes to an end with the death of Mr. Eddy, yet his appearance at his own door to deliver the message makes it seem as if he’s stuck in an endless loop. Perhaps that’s what Fred’s afterlife will be: an endless trip on the Lost Highway, battling his own subconscious demons. 

Watching Lost Highway again for the first time in years, I find my theory to be pretty obvious, what with all the lightning flashes. But it’s up to the viewer what a lot of things represent and how much, if any, of the film is “real.” My main takeaway this time was that even if this is a film that requires a little theorizing to be understood, it’s still a stylish, entertaining, and effective film even if you don’t take the time to try to “figure it out.” This is why it’s one of my favorite Lynch films.

Why Do I Own This?

Well, I just wrote that it’s one of my favorite Lynch movies, so there’s that. But if you want to appreciate any of Lynch’s films, you should just buy them because all of his work needs at least a second viewing to really appreciate it. Also, his films are the type that can feel radically different to a person at different times in their life. I certainly watched Lost Highway with a different mindset at thirty-six than I did at thirteen.

Random Thoughts

The only scene that messes with my theory is the one with the cops near the end of the film. It bothers me because Fred is not in the scene. When a movie is supposed to take place in someone’s mind, I think the person needs to be present at all times. I can’t recall ever having a dream in which I was not present, but that doesn’t mean I never have. And how could I dare to claim what goes on with other people’s dreams. In other words, my own little rule is moot, so the scene with the police is not a problem for my theory...but it still bothers me a little.

What an odd cast: Henry Rollins...Richard Pryor...Gary Busey...Marilyn Manson.

...and Robert Blake as himself.

Patricia Arquette really brings it as the femme fatale in the second half of this film. It's not a role in her wheelhouse, and she's perfect. She definitely deserved more notice for this film, certainly more than some random asshole devoting three sentences about it in some obscure blog 20+ years after the fact.

“That’s fuckin’ crazy, man.”

The landlord from Big Lebowski being a prison guard is hilarious to me.

“This is some spooky shit we got here.”

Robert Loggia’s driver’s safety rant is one for the ages.

Pete fucked up. If Robert Loggia offers you a porno, you take that fucking porno.

Pete having an ear for car problems makes sense since Fred is a musician. 

This movie was the first time I heard “This Magic Moment” covered by Lou Reed. I still picture this scene every time I hear the song.

Of course Gary Busey would play a normal character in a David Lynch movie.

Pete listening to Fred’s saxophone playing messes with his head. It’s like his subconscious trying to wake him out of this fugue state.

Robert Loggia, holding a gun: “I’d take this and shove it so far up his ass it’s come out his mouth. Then I’d blow his brains out.” I think he’d need to scale back that gun shove to blow out the guy’s brains. But who am I to argue with an angry Loggia?

This movie would be a good double feature along with Eyes Wide Shut what with the themes of fidelity and male insecurity and marriage in general.

I love the use of Rammstein in this movie.

Watching Robert Loggia watch porn is pretty disturbing, even for a David Lynch movie.

The mind being a lost highway is a great metaphor, especially for a mentally ill person.

Watching it again, all the lightning flashes throughout, especially during moments when Fred/Pete is losing it, make it pretty fucking obvious what’s going on.

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