From: jgp@zodmate.Rational.COM (Jim Pellmann)
Newsgroups: alt.tv.twin-peaks,rec.arts.tv,rec.arts.movies
Subject: Twin Peaks movie US premiere and festival
Date: 28 Jul 92 01:33:35 GMT
Followup-To: alt.tv.twin-peaks

From the July 26 San Francisco Chronicle/Examiner:

                    STOKING FANS' INTEREST IN 'TWIN PEAKS'
                    
                Town plans festival to celebrate U.S. premiere
                     of movie prequel, "Fire Walk With Me'
                     
                               By Don Tewkesbury
                              Hearst News Service
                              
Seattle

Although TV critics once pronounced "Twin Peaks" as dead as Laura Palmer, the
surrealistic series has refused to die.

Like unending "Star Trek" revivals to satisfy trekkies' insatiable desire, FBI
Agent Dale Cooper has been resurrected in a theatrical movie to assuage the
cravings of "Peaks" freaks addicted to the bizarre collection of characters in
a moody Washington state logging town.

At the show's peak, devotees across the nation regularly gathered for house
parties while watching the exploits of a quirky cast that included an enigmatic
lady who gets messages from a log; patch-eyed, drape-crazy Nadine;
straight-arrow Cooper's arch enemy, the evil killer Windom Earle; and Audrey
Horne, a '50s-style teen-age sexpot in tight sweaters and saddle shoes.

"Twin Peaks--Fire Walk With Me" will have its U.S. premiere Aug. 16 in North
Bend, Wash., which also is the first place in the United States planning a
festival based on a TV and movie drama.  Most of the early episodes of the
"breakthrough" TV series and the exteriors for the theatrical movie were filmed
in the Snoqualmie Falls area.

The new movie, which like the eerie series stars Yakima, Wash. native Kyle
MacLachlan, already has been shown at the Cannes Film Festival and in Japan,
where current reruns of the original ABC series have become a runaway hit.

"The new movie was a much bigger hit in Japan than in Cannes," said Cathy
Runkle, spokeswoman for the first annual Twin Peaks Fest, scheduled Aug. 14-16
in North Bend and Snoqualmie.

"We've already gotten inquiries and reservations about the festival from as far
away as Pakistan, Australia, and Switzerland because some young fan of the
show put the festival information on a computer network bulletin board," she
said.

Dedicated "peakies" from the United States, Europe, and Asia still regularly
visit the two small King County towns to view such "Twin Peaks" locales as the
Salish Lodge (seen as the exterior of the Great Northern Hotel in the TV
series) and to patronize the Mar-T Cafe (alias the Double R Diner, where Agent
Cooper praised the "damn fine coffee").

"Twin Peaks" creator-director David Lynch is scheduled to be on hand for the
three-day festival along with many members of the regular Lynch mob, including
featured movie performers Sheryl Lee (who portrays Laura Palmer); Ray Wise (who
plays Laura's father, Leland Palmer); Catherine Coulson (the "log lady"); Moira
Kelly (who plays Laura's best friend, Donna Hayward); and James Marshall
(Donna's secret boyfriend, James Hurley).  Appearances by several others also
are pending.

"Because of his busy schedule, Kyle MacLachlan can't make it," Runkle said.

Tickets already are sold out for the premiere of the movie in the 375-seat
North Bend Theater, Runkle said.  However, she said, reservations are being
taken for a possible second showing later the same day.  (The movie will not be
released nationally until Aug. 28.)  Tickets also are sold out for a dinner 
with the film's stars at Salish Lodge.  Last week, about 50 tickets remained
for a breakfast with the stars at the lodge.

However, many $35-per-person tickets were available for a ceremony to present
awards to cast members Aug. 16 in a 3,000-seat amphiteater at the Snoqualmie
Winery.  The price includes a barbecue lunch.

The stars also can be seen at a separate "Twin Peaks" characters' look-alike
contest.  A small fee is being charged to enter the contest "only because we
want to avoid big crowds of participants," Runkle said.

Peakies looking for a unique souvenir can buy a raffle ticket for the former
Snoqualmie police car that was driven in the TV series by Agent Cooper.

There were also be a murder-mystery dinner theater and lots of free events,
including a "log lady" relay race, a trivia contest, street dance, fun run and
cherry pie eating contest at the Mar-T cafe, where wide-eyed Agent Cooper said
"cherry pies go to die."

"We decided to rule out a fire-walking demonstration, because of the high cost
of fire insurance," Runkle said.

"Twin Peaks" expressed Lynch's vision that small-town America, sheltering the
secrets of the murdered Laura Palmer, was not as wholesome as it seemed.  The
new movie, also directed by Lynch, is a prequel, showing Laura's haunted and
disnintegrating life in the days before her death.

With its complicated plot and weird characters, the TV series was a phenomenal
hit when first broadcast in the United States in April 1990.  But as the story
dragged on, becoming more far-fetched without resolving the murder mystery,
viewers lost interest and the program was canceled a year later.

Runkle said she could not truthfully say the Snoqualmie festival would be an
annual event "because this has turned out to be an awful lot of work for a
bunch of part-time volunteers.  It's already become a full-time job for me and
members of my family."

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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