Lost Velvet Peaks Boulevard

Rating: 5/10 (25 January 2004)

While watching Mulholland Dr., I had my own Lynch-ian moment of inner horror: a sinister and disturbing sensation that I had never really left the theatre back in 1986 after seeing `Blue Velvet,' but that the kindly woman at the concession stand who looked like an older, grossly made-up Florence Henderson had drugged my popcorn, so that I passed out during the credits and was taken down into a dark basement room below the cinema, which was run by a mysterious dwarf in a glass-encased room with wall-to-wall red velvet carpeting. There was a slow-speaking (so I knew he was serious), folksy character who mysteriously called himself The Director, and he asked me if I could distinguish between reality and cinema, and then he proceeded to show me the same film over and over again for 18 years. The phone rang. The voice on the other end of the line, a Mafioso who spoke through an electronic device in his throat, asked me how I liked my pancakes. `Everyone likes pancakes. How do you like your pancakes?' A clown was singing Roy Orbison's `Only the Lonely' very, very slowly (so I knew he was very, very sad) in French. The now whorish-looking Florence Henderson came into the room and spoke to me in French as well, offering me a silver platter with strange-looking meat on it. A pale young blonde girl, about six years old, who was obviously dead, and who wore a first communion dress and whose head was covered in Saran Wrap, whispered to me: `Don't eat it. It's Billy Wilder's heart.' An old, grey-haired man suddenly coughed out, `I have to fix my lawnmower. They won't let me fix my lawn-mower.' He then handed me a magic 8-ball and said, "You have to help her.' I shook the black plastic globe of secrets and the message read: `Strawberry pancakes.' I shook it again and it read: `Cinema is the new reality.' Then I suddenly woke up  or had I been awake all that time and now was falling asleep?  and Mulholland Dr. was coming to an end.
Or as the Cowboy Angel said, `Oh no, no, I've seen this movie before.'
I used to be a David Lynch fan, but somewhere along the way, what used to seem cool and mysterious began to seem silly and pretentious. Take the scene at the Silencio club... please. (Or at least shorten it.)
Lynch is obviously a master in many areas of filmmaking. He's especially adept at creating moments of psychological terror  the opening sequence of Lost Highway being one of the most frightening things I've ever seen (forget the rest of the picture.) But I've had the feeling over the last few movies that he's too easy on himself and too pleased with his talent. I suppose one could say that Mulholland Dr. was the culmination of his vision over the last 20 years, putting everything together in one film, but it seems to me more of a rehashing of the same old thing, a kind of greatest hits of Lynch's mysterious, pseudo-intellectual film moments, great for those obsessive fans who try to solve his cinematic crossword puzzles, as if maybe THIS time there really would be something down there in the murky unknown.
In and of itself, Mulholland Dr. is a decent film. The acting by Watts is top-notch, and Laura Harring is pleasing to watch. The camera work is good throughout, especially lurking around those corners. If you can get through the silliness of some of the scenes, this is an interesting look at Hollywood, playing off of Sunset Blvd. but updating it for the new century. If you're new to Lynch's work, stick with `Blue Velvet,' when he was able to exert a little more control over his tiring self-indulgence.
Better still, taking a slow drive down Sunset Blvd. with William Holden, Gloria Swanson, and Billy Wilder. A similar theme but much better filmmaking.