Inland Empire Review

Copied from The A.V. Club

Inland Empire
Director: David Lynch
Cast: Laura Dern, Justin Theroux, Jeremy Irons
Rated: Not Rated
172 minutes

Reviewed by Keith Phipps
January 19th, 2007

Everyone is for artistic freedom as a theoretical principle, but
sometimes artists do their best work when someone, or something, is
putting on the brakes. The story behind David Lynch's largely self-
financed and self-distributed Inland Empire the product of two and a
half years of filming is one of a resourceful filmmaker taking the means
of production into his own hands and doing exactly what he liked.
Hurrah. Too bad the finished film doesn't say much in favor of that
approach.

Not that it looks like anything other than a Lynch film. All the old
obsessions come out to play here: '50s décor, willfully naïve notions of
good and evil, curtains, classic Hollywood, ominous ambient music, pop
songs turned to sinister purposes, multiple identities, and violence
against beautiful women wearing bright red lipstick. (What? No
lumberjacks, you say? Stick around for the closing credits.) It's all
Lynch, all the time, but there's no room for anything else to breathe.

Tenaciously committed to her ever-shifting role, Laura Dern stars as an
actress happy to land a part in a southern melodrama called On High In
Blue Tomorrows. Gossip about her lothario co-star (Justin Theroux
fanned, in a hilarious early scene, by a catty TV hostess played by
Diane Ladd begins before they've shot a frame, but director Jeremy Irons
warns them of a potentially greater threat. Turns out On High is a
remake of a film left unfinished due to the murder of its stars. These
early scenes return Lynch to the dark wit of Mulholland Dr. But then
something happens. The easiest way to put it is to say the film goes off
the rails, but most of Inland suggests the rails were just an illusion
anyway.

It's a bit like watching the final 40 minutes of Mulholland stretched to
three hours and filmed with digital-video cameras available at a Circuit
City near you. While the technology works with some images (rooms
glowing with candles, the streets of Poland at night), other
applications like, say, keeping two characters in focus at the same time
stretch its limits. Inland Empire is still a Lynch film and still filled
with incredible sequences. Viewers won't soon forget a strange sitcom
featuring actors in bunny suits, or a Greek chorus of Suicide Girl
wannabes. But whatever strings it all together never makes it from
Lynch's head to the screen.

A.V. Club Rating: C

On 23 jan, 21:26, ham and eggs <hamande....DeleteThis@breakfast.com> wrote:
> Copied from The A.V. Club
>
> InlandEmpire
> Director: David Lynch
> Cast: Laura Dern, Justin Theroux, Jeremy Irons
> Rated: Not Rated
> 172 minutes
>
> Reviewed by Keith Phipps
> January 19th, 2007
>
> Everyone is for artistic freedom as a theoretical principle, but
> sometimes artists do their best work when someone, or something, is
> putting on the brakes.



utter bollocks.





The story behind David Lynch's largely self-
> financed and self-distributedInlandEmpirethe product of two and a
> half years of filming is one of a resourceful filmmaker taking the means
> of production into his own hands and doing exactly what he liked.
> Hurrah. Too bad the finished film doesn't say much in favor of that
> approach.
>
> Not that it looks like anything other than a Lynch film. All the old
> obsessions come out to play here: '50s décor, willfully naïve notions of
> good and evil, curtains, classic Hollywood, ominous ambient music, pop
> songs turned to sinister purposes, multiple identities, and violence
> against beautiful women wearing bright red lipstick. (What? No
> lumberjacks, you say? Stick around for the closing credits.) It's all
> Lynch, all the time, but there's no room for anything else to breathe.
>
> Tenaciously committed to her ever-shifting role, Laura Dern stars as an
> actress happy to land a part in a southern melodrama called On High In
> Blue Tomorrows. Gossip about her lothario co-star (Justin Theroux
> fanned, in a hilarious early scene, by a catty TV hostess played by
> Diane Ladd begins before they've shot a frame, but director Jeremy Irons
> warns them of a potentially greater threat. Turns out On High is a
> remake of a film left unfinished due to the murder of its stars. These
> early scenes return Lynch to the dark wit of Mulholland Dr. But then
> something happens. The easiest way to put it is to say the film goes off
> the rails, but most ofInlandsuggests the rails were just an illusion
> anyway.
>
> It's a bit like watching the final 40 minutes of Mulholland stretched to
> three hours and filmed with digital-video cameras available at a Circuit
> City near you. While the technology works with some images (rooms
> glowing with candles, the streets of Poland at night), other
> applications like, say, keeping two characters in focus at the same time
> stretch its limits.InlandEmpireis still a Lynch film and still filled
> with incredible sequences. Viewers won't soon forget a strange sitcom
> featuring actors in bunny suits, or a Greek chorus of Suicide Girl
> wannabes. But whatever strings it all together never makes it from
> Lynch's head to the screen.
>
> A.V. Club Rating: C