by switters
("Non-Review"? Sure. What better way to review a non-movie. Anyways...)
Grab my stash and meet me at the bong. Cause Lynchberg just got handed a lemon and made a smile by turning it upside down and filming it for 14 hours in the dark with no light. And it isn't just for breakfast any less.
Anytime I throw a Dave Lynchmeister flick into the ole Moviepal TapeMate, I invariably hear myself hollering right from the beginning, "I so fucking want that lamp!"
No one and I mean no one likes a good Lynch picture more than yours truly. And sometimes I like a bad one even more. So boy have I got some good news for me!
All your favorites are back, folks. And I do mean all of them: No name actors, obtuseness, gratuitously brutal closeups, Laura Dern, Jeremy Irons, people sitting at tables saying, "So...", plotlessness, pre-sequels, arrogantly inappropriate subtitles, murder, go-nowhere/went-nowhere backstories, William H. Macy, mass perspiration, the Snickers dude from Seinfeld, crooked cops getting off on hookers packing screwdrivers in their abdomens, awkward pregnant pauses (ABORT ABORT), scene studies, sexual intercourse, intentionally mannered scene-chewery, nuns in heat, a TV show about
giant rabbits who live indoors, and spirit-crushing non-closure.
I THINK THERE'S A LIZARD ON ME!!!
And that's just the opening credits!
Let me tell you: I watched 30 to 45-minute chunks of it all week long, then watched it in its entirety in one sitting, masturbating while sobbing heavily. Again. So this should be a fairly thorough (if not unsettling) "reading" of the film. Trust me on this one.
We pick up right where we left off in Mulholland Drive, namely, Confusionville, population: Huh? In fact, Inland Empire's non-linear narrative geometricism (New word!) makes Eraser Head look like an old episode of Barnaby Jones by comparison.
Nikki Grace (Dern) is an A-list actress living a B-list life getting C-list offers. She's also a mind-reading space robot from planet Chronika in the Darlaebian system in an adjacent galaxy. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
No. I'm not. I think.
Anyways, much of the time, we don't know whether Nikki is acting in a scene for a new movie in production, rehearsing for a scene in a new movie in production, or, well, living life, acting. Or whether Dern's just playing herself. It's all very Pinter meets Kubrik, but on 'shrooms.
I.e., ka-CHING!
If you were to ask me what my favorite moment was while watching this movie, and if I had to choose a favorite scene during this movie, I'd have to confess to it being when, blazing like a good old-fashioned 1963 Bombingham church fire, I tried to open a new DVD I'd just gotten in the mail with a Ruffles potato chip I'd gnawed into the shape of a scimitar. I rule!
But you probably meant from the movie. You got me there. Stumped.
Something something something.
The End?
Nope. And in strolls a singing midget on stilts who talks backwards to a horse wearing a yarmulke. Score one for the good guys again!
Special features? Oh yeah.
-The "Director's Commentary", in which David Lynch, during the entire movie, says nothing about the movie but, rather, yammers on and on about pine trees, stop lights, wind, the respective health ratings of his favorite restaurants, composting techniques, the nightmarish elasticism of a horse's scrotum, and egret mating rituals.
-Deleted scenes, including, but not limited to, "29-Minute Static Shot Of Men's Room Urinal Lit By 3 Candles", "One Day At A Time Dream Sequence", "Snap Zoom To Puking Turtle", "17th Extreme Closeup Of Laura Dern's Left Eyeball" (the other 16 "Eyeball" scenes having survived the cutting room floor without much incident), "Let's Make A Deal Dream Sequence", "Uh-Oh I Think I Lost My Mood Ring Up There", "Camel Toe Shuffle", "That One Guy With The Glowing Thing In A Box On A Tricycle-ish Sled-Like Contraption Tossing Cocaine-Dusted Figs At Burmese Hookers", "Who's Hungry?", "Fire Run With Me", "Non-Sequitor Montage #35" (#1 thru #34 pretty much in tact [long story])", "Facts Of Life Dream Sequence", "Cat Fight Conundrum", "Extreme Closeup of Out-Of-Context Turkey Baster", and many many more, possibly.
-A bunch of other pointless/indecipherable stuff.
Still, at the end of the day, folks, we don't want movies like Inland Empire. We need movies like Inland Empire, if for no other reason than that David Lynch may or may not indeed be an insane fraud, but he's a damn entertaining one, but only if you're higher than the house band at The Blue Note during open mic night.
switters also blogs at The Outer Sanctum. He lives somewhere that he insists on calling "The 'Ham" and claims to be gainfully employed.