From: jgp@zodmate.Rational.COM (Jim Pellmann)
Newsgroups: alt.tv.twin-peaks,rec.arts.tv,rec.arts.movies
Subject: TP: 'Will FWWM smash and burn?'
Date: 18 Aug 92 20:12:26 GMT
Followup-To: alt.tv.twin-peaks

From the August 21 issue of Entertainment Weekly, "News & Notes" column:

                                'Peaks' Preview

 David Lynch's film prequel to his hit television series could smash and burn
 
                               by Jeffrey Wells

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the woods, a full 14 months
after ABC pulled the plug on "Twin Peaks," David Lynch's film prequel hits 600
to 700 theaters on Aug. 28.  While the director's $9.5 million "Twin Peaks:
Fire Walk With Me," about Laura Palmer's last seven days, might well pull in
good crowds during its opening week--the TV "Peaks" counted up to 10 million
hard-core fans, after all--the international reaction has been so wildly mixed
it has created doubts about Lynch's future as a visionary genius.

Despite a smattering of applause, "Fire" opened largely to boos and actual
nausea at the Cannes Film Festival, a response attributable to the bloody,
sadomasochistic murder scene between father and daughter in the film's finale.
Some viewers reportedly couldn't eat their post-screening dinners because of
the trauma (though cuts have since been made to secure it an R rating).  The
Cannes buzz was not only that the film was a disaster but that Lynch had hit
creative bottom.  The movie, wrote Variety's critic, "feels like Lynch treading
water."  Elsewhere in France, even though Lynch has held cult status because of
1986's "Blue Velvet" and 1990's "Wild at Heart," the series didn't do well and
the movie went bust.

Yet "Fire" is a huge hit in Japan, luring overflow crowds since opening last
May, during the festival.  A factor: Both Lynch and "Twin Peaks" have been
ragingly popular there since the series came out on video, laserdisc, and pay
cable last year, although it has never been aired on regular Japanese TV.

So where does that leave "Peak's" prospects in America?  No one will know until
Aug. 28, because the distributor, New Line Cinema, isn't showing it to U.S.
critics.  The company's marketing president says, not altogether convincingly,
that reviews won't matter.  "The interest is definitely out there," insists
Sandra Ruch, citing an extra-large print order for "Fire" posters from theater
owners for sales to fans.  A reported increase in mail-order receipts for
"Peaks" merchandise like books and VHS tapes from Twin Peaks Press in
Vancouver, Wash., would also suggest that the country is still high on the
director.  "The fans are going to go, regardless," Ruch says.  "They may hate
it when they see it, but they're not going to not go to it."

There is some fear that the recognition factor may be weakened because many of
the series' most familiar figures (Sherilyn Fenn, Lara Flynn Boyle, Joan Chen)
didn't take the leap from small screen to large.   But others did, including
Sheryl Lee (Laura Palmer), Ray Wise (her wacko dad, Leland), Kyle MacLachlan
(Agent Dale Cooper), Catherine Coulson (the Log Lady), and vocalist Julee
Cruise, along with the music of Angelo Badalamenti.  And there will be ample
doses of typical Lynchian fare on hand:  nudity, violence, debauchery--the big
three.  "I hope we don't get creamed on the political side," says "Fire"
screenwriter Robert Engels.  "This is not a safe movie."

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"I lived in my head mostly."                | Jim Pellmann (jgp@rational.com)
"That's not a bad neighborhood."            | RATIONAL
"There were some pretty strange neighbors." | Santa Clara, California
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