Jun. 20, 2003 - 11:01 pm
this is my second review of the night by the way.
this is another one i saw on the Heroes and Villains special that AFI did recently. Frank Booth was on there as a great villain, played by Dennis Hopper in this film. and he was quite amazing. this is the most violent and insane i've ever seen Dennis Hopper. and i can't think off hand of anyone that had this intense of a combination of violence and insanity in any other films. well maybe the preacher in The Night of the Hunter (1955). anyway, this is a David Lynch film and it's definitely the most linear and understandable thing i've ever seen come out of his head. granted, it's still pretty nuts, but at least you can pretty well comprehend what's happening onscreen all the time.
it concerns a young man who returns home from college after his father has become extremely ill. he soon stumbles across a human ear in a field. this ear ends up drawing him into a seedy mystery involving a masochistic older woman who every night goes to the Slow Club to sing the song "Blue Velvet." he discovers that the kidnapper, Frank Booth, has some extraordinarily intense perversions (sexual and otherwise) which for some reason involve the Blue lady. then Frank accidentally discovers that the college boy is partially enfatuated with the Blue lady as well and then just about everybody's life gets put on the line.
i guess i really liked this one pretty well. i think i just needed something nuts that was going to make me laugh out loud tonight. i think you either have to laugh at this or you might turn it off. or just go crazy right along with it. it's just absurd some of it to me. best example: in one scene, Kyle MacLachlan and Laura Dern have just expressed their childish love for each other and then all of the sudden, a naked and pitiful Isabella Rossellini (Blue lady) happens into his arms begging him to love her again. he tries to shrug her words off and Laura Dern stands there with her mouth gaping open waiting for him to convince her that there is nothing between them. then Isabella Rossellini slowly turns her head to Laura Dern's sad but shocked face and says "He put his disease in me." i was cracking up. Laura Dern looks even more shocked and distressed standing there in her pretty flowered dress, and with a more quiet voice she says it again. "He put is disease in me..."
i will forever love that scene. it reminds me of the Saturday Night Live skit where they have the home protection dummies. the premise for this fake commercial is that you buy a dummy that looks like he's already robbing your home or trying to kill you or something so that when a real robber comes, he will think that another villain is already there and move on to another home. as the commercial progressed, the dummies got more and more violent, culminating in a male dummy in rustic overalls (if i'm remembering correctly) with a shotgun pointed at Cheri O'Terry's face and a speaker on his forehead that says in a menacing voice "I WANT TO PUT MY EVIL INSIDE YOU."