A Christmas Wish's greatest gift is its humanity. Frank Orth (Jimmy Durante) displays rare human qualities from another era (he was born in the 19th century) such as warmth, thoughtfulness, sweetness, gentleness, friendliness, and forgiveness. This may not sound exciting, yet I found inspiration in the many displays of quiet sincerity throughout the film. Terry Moore's (Rosalinda Amendola) portrayal of a young woman in love was beautifully kind and loving, for example her lack of money paled in comparison to her interest to have a closer relationship with her neighbor (Pete)...."we can manage". Her dates with a important,wealthy, Chick Chandler (Phil Davis) were never considered serious since sincere feeling can not be purchased in this film.


Okay, it's not exactly Gone with the WInd or a great comedy, but this is a very cute movie. In fact, it's so sweet and innocent that it's a sort of live action cartoon that would be great for children. (There is one instance where the squirrel is said to be "dead" but he opens his eyes so quickly that I don't think children would be upset.

One of the downsides I was going to say was that it wasn't in color, but I see that there is a colorized version. I would definitely recommend seeing that one over the black and white version I saw on TCM because as I say there is a real fairy tale feeling to the story and the color will add to that, especially if seen for Christmas. It even gives a good morality lesson about prayer and using it as a gimmick, but is not overly preachy about it.

I had to laugh out loud when they said the animation was so "realistic." To our eyes today it looks (much like March of the Wooden Soldiers) as if the animation was done in a 3rd grade video class, but that is part of the charm of the movie and I think you will find yourself laughing at it as I did, from the charm and not out of cynicism.

But of course the main attraction is Jimmy Durante in an endearing role in which he gets to crack jokes, sing sweet songs and just be his lovable self. This film will allow a whole new generation to fall in love with him.

So definitely sit down and watch this movie, especially for the holidays, with the kids. It's a sweet, sentimental and silly story about a "saintly" squirrel. But if you don't watch it you'd be...ummm...nuts! :)


I Had seen the great Rupert on a religious channel that has been showing all the great Christmas movies like scrooge,and the bishops wife.and i loved it.its somewhat a Christmas movie about a family led by the great Jimmy Durante.and a squirrel named Rupert that shares the same household.the great Rupert also stars the dazzling and beautiful; Terry Moore(mighty Joe young)who i think looks great in this movie,playing jimmy Durante's daughter.if you like sentimental comedies,you will love the great Rupert.i totally recommend it.if you spot it on DVD buy it.i hate myself for passing it up as a dollar movie a while back,but i see it again I'm grabbing it.although I'm not sure its a public domain movie,its well worth repeated viewings,I'm not giving away the plot.no spoilers here.all i can say is watch it,you will love it.and its the first movie produced by the late great George Pal.10 out of 10.


We got this movie because we have a squirrel.Whoever came up with the original idea obviously had a squirrel as a pet,the character's actions(other than the obvious dancing in a kilt)are pretty close to what a squirrel keeper sees.More squirrel scenes would have been nice,but probably wouldn't have added anything to the plot.Ours didn't like one slightly scary scene(for a squirrel)near the end,but everything was okay in a few minutes.Of course,since the squirrels in the recent Willy Wonka movie attacked the little girl,he didn't like that one(ran out of the room and stayed until it was over),so I'd have to say it's HIS favorite squirrel movie,since the people and animals got along.It's a funny,simple movie that anyone who likes animals would probably enjoy.


If you approach this as what it is, unashamed feelgood family fare then you'll probably enjoy it without necessarily wanting to see it again for a few years. It's basically a morality tale in which good defeats bad and everyone lives happily ever after. In a nutshell - sorry about that - Jimmy Durante with wife and daughter, who haven't got change of a match between them, move into an apartment owned by miser Frank Orth, who deposits $1,500 behind the baseboard each week. The last resident was Jimmy Conklin and his vaudeville act The Great Rupert, a gifted squirrel who returns to the apartment when Conklin releases him, takes up a position behind the baseboard and drops the money into Durante's apartment as fast as Orth deposits it. The twist is that Durante uses it to do good and help those less fortunate. Love interest is provided by Durante's daughter, Terri Moore and Orth's son, Tom Drake and the only jarring note is Moore's unexplained volte-face when she ditches the sugar-daddy she's been dating in favor of Drake's penniless songwriter. This cavil to one side this is a seriously pleasant movie and if families still exist this is the sort of stuff they should be watching en masse.


Jimmy Durante is having a lot of fun playing a vaudevillian. His character happens to play piano and sing. As wild as he is when performing in this movie, he was much wilder on stage when he did his shows with Clayton and Jackson and later with Sonny Knight.

In this film, Jimmy's character never meets the title character, but The Schnozz still shares some scenes with Rupert. The story is nice and should please all family members.

The most fun in this movie is the opportunity to look back at the US in 1950 where we see the cars and fire engines and even a soda fountain which were all very ordinary for that time period, but which now would be found in museums. $32 a month for an apartment. Seems steep.

Money can either change people, or make them more like what they already were. We see the effect sudden income from above has on two families here. We also have some fine music from a tuba, a harp and a concertina. And Jimmy at the piano.

All the characters are likable, including an IRS agent and an FBI agent and police investigators. Nice for Christmas viewing.

Tom Willett


I wish the complete series would come out in Season boxes. I used to sit at home in my room every Sunday evening just before 7. Needing to watch this show. The UST between Kate and Geoff was mainly what kept me going, they are one of the best matched TV-couples I have ever seen. I liked the show less at the end when all the focus turned on 'what was happening in Coopers Crossing' in stead of the 'accident of the week'. Other than that I liked the series from start to end and whenever possible I watch every re-run there is on any channel I can get it... I think it's called an addiction :) I just bought the DVD with 8 episodes (the episodes around Geoff and Kate's wedding and of course the wedding itself) I can't get enough, I hope they bring out more episodes... PLEASE CRAWFORD PRODUCTIONS....


I did not like the Flying Doctors; I absolutely adored them! When the series were on TV, I had never been to Australia before. Through the series, I discovered the real Australia; rough terrain, people keeping in contact through 27M7 radio, people living far from each other and the social life on the streets, in small villages. From August 1999 till May 2000, I have been to that land down under and found out that everything shown in that series, was real. I have been to Broken Hill, NSW and seen the township of Minyip in Victoria. It is the truth, that, once you've arrived in these small villages being a foreigner, everybody knows you're around.

You might say that, in a way, I went to Australia because of the Flying Doctors.

BRILLIANT SERIES!!!


I think that The Flying Doctors are one of the best TV-Series to date. I'm only 17 years old, but I've seen the series twice already. They are showing re-runs here in Sweden now again, and I can't be happier! It's a fantastic series, Kate and Geoff are really wonderful, and all the personalities in the show's just amazing! I really love this! I just wish that Crawford Productions, or whatever it is, would distribute DVD, or VHS of the complete series. I've looked everywhere on the internet, but I haven't found anything! Anyone who knows where I can purchase anything? Anyway, the series is awesome and I hope they'll never stop showing it!


I thought it was the best series around i live about 3quarters of an our away i use to go with mum after School every 2nd Wednesday and meet quite a lot even the 2 old cogers :) one who lived in Minyip nice chap :) herb Krause very nice to have a chat with the old Emma Garage is now a Internet Cafe , the 2 milk bars have now closed down. they only just recently opened a new one across from the Public toilets, the old bank

they only got Bendigo bank now , the Pub that they used has now Been Reopened was closed for a while, they only had one pub for awile down near Primary school end great people there nice lunches the emppty Bakery still there, the supermarkets still there, the chemists still there, most hasn't changed they still use the football Ground minyip-Murtoa alternate games between Minyip & Murtoa got a lot of friends both places

i remember going into the Milk Bar where i met Viki Blanch she was nice some talk to you for a while especially when their between shots


I really love the flying doctors. I've watched it when i was a child and now as a young adult again. And i know i will still love it after 10 or 20 years. It will always be my favorite TV series. It's well written and easy to follow. I like all the story lines. But especially the romance between Geoff and Kate. It's so beautiful to watch them get close. They are all great actors. You really believe what they say. You can feel there pain and there happiness. I'm so glad that they are now playing the series back on Belgium television. But what i really want is that they make DVD's of all the episodes so i can watch whenever i want to. So please make the DVD boxes !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


A few weeks ago they started to show reruns of the flying doctors here on TV and I couldn't be happier about that. Every Saturday-evening I'm hooked again. I used to watch this show as a young teenager every week and now I'm watching it every week as a young adult and I'm still loving it.

It's very exciting and has some great acting. It's a kind of show where you really start to care about the major characters. The pacing sometimes is a bit slow, but I don't mind at all. This way you can really get sucked into the story and start to know and care about the people involved. Something which doesn't happen in most shows nowadays. I really hope that the reruns are going to last a long time, because The flying doctors is really a one-of-a-kind great show.


Peter O'Toole is at the height of his comic powers in this wonderful homage to Errol Flynn, the 50's, and early live TV. Alan Swann (O'Toole) is a swashbuckling, aging, alcoholic actor billed to appear on television - which is fine until he realises that the thing is going to be broadcast LIVE, which is unthinkable. This prompts severe stage fright and heavy drinking, as he is cojoled with endless patience by his adoring young minder, Benjy Stone, (Mark Linn-Baker).

The film is funny, brilliant, sad, stirring, inspiring, exciting - unique. The cast is perfect from top to bottom A tour de force by O'Toole. Watch it. 'My Favorite Year' should become one of Your Favorite Films. 9 out of 10.


From the opening notes of Nat 'King' Cole's great recording of Stardust, this film just steals your heart. If you are old enough to remember TV's Show Of Shows, live every week, this is a real treat. Peter O'Toole is magic as an Errol Flynn like movie star, swashing every buck in sight, charming the socks off one and all. The final scene of the live broadcast, with the mayhem caused by the gangsters invading the stage, is a classic. A delighful 90 minutes. 8/10

Jane


The 1982 comedy MY FAVORITE COMEDY was a lovingly made period piece that takes place during a wonderful time in entertainment history...the infancy of live television in the 1950's (or more specifically, YOUR SHOW OF SHOWS). This laugh-filled comic romp follows the adventures of Benji (Mark Linn-Baker), a gopher for COMEDY CALVACADE (this film's version of YOUR SHOW OF SHOWS), who is excited when a swashbuckling actor of the period named Alan Swann (Peter O'Toole) has been booked as a guest on the show turns out to be a skirt-chasing alcoholic who Benji is put in charge of keeping under control until showtime. This movie is a lovely valentine to the 1950's with exquisite period detail and an intelligent screenplay that invokes the period so beautifully. O'Toole gives the performance of a lifetime as Swann, an alternately laugh out loud funny and heartbreakingly warm performance that earned him an Oscar nomination, yet somehow Linn-Baker somehow manages to hold his own and never allows O'Toole to blow him off the screen. O' Toole and Linn-Baker get solid support from Lainie Kazan as Benji's mother, Joseph Bologna as King Kaiser, the star of Comedy Calvacade, Cameron Mitchell as a not-too bright gangster, and Adolph Green as the manic producer of the show. A good looking, smartly-written superbly written comedy that documents a long gone era in entertainment history and tells a warm and amusing story as well.


Really fun movie, with a tone and style all its own. It has the same zippy sitcom character of the set which is its main stage, and the comedic acting is often over the top. Yet it drives through some very subtle and deep ideas about what makes a celebrity tick, the price culture extracts from its most ballyhooed figures, and the scars divorce and drink can leave on those with the smoothest of surfaces.

The secret to this film's success is O'Toole, who gives up some of his most intimate and affecting moments on screen and intersperses them with ass-over-elbow feats of physical schtick that would make a Ritz Brother proud. What a shock we never saw much else from him after this tour de force. Richard Benjamin did go on to direct other films like "Shoot The Moon," but he never managed to get it all absolutely right the way he did here. It's so note-perfect, from the opening shot of midtown Manhattan 1954 with the cars, outfits, and bustle all coming together beneath the strains of Les Paul and Mary Ford's "How High The Moon" into a tight closeup of Benjy Stone carrying a cardboard cutout of his hero, Alan Swann, through an uncaring, jostling crowd.

I almost wish they could have made a sitcom featuring the King Kaiser crew, with of course Joseph Balogna, Bill Macy, Adolph Green and the rest all reprising their roles in a kind of "Remember WENN"-style show. O, what roads left untravelled. Balogna is so good, managing to carry off his Sid Caesar-inspired role with the same kind of aplomb that made the original Caesar early television's most dynamic and celebrated comedy performer. There's a nice scene early on where Stone sticks up for a prone Swann by telling Kaiser he can't fire the swashbuckler. "You're a big star now, and I'm sure you always will be," Benjy says. "But suppose, and I know it will never happen, you end up like this. I hope nobody does to you what you're doing to him." Of course Caesar did end up like this, strung out on substance-use problems that derailed his post-50s career, and knowing that gives the scene, both funny and tension-filled, a certain undertone of poignancy for those in the know.

Mark Linn-Baker could have taken it down a notch or two, and the Brooklyn idyll was to die for, and not in a good way. I'd like to know how the hell I'm supposed to lock lips with the woman of my dreams by stuffing my face with Chinese food and showing her old movies, but I don't think my repeated viewings have helped my love life much. It has given me many hours of pleasure though. This is one film that keeps on giving. With lines like "Plastered? So are some of the finest erections in Europe" "These must be his drinking socks" and "Tongue...Death," how can it do anything less?


I was born in 1958, so I never saw Your Show of Shows, and needless to say, I never knew there was a famous or infamous incident involving one of my boyhood idols, a very drunk Errol Flynn.Dennis Palumbo, in what is ( sadly) apparently his only effort as a script writer, has taken this incident and woven a very human and very funny film from it. Benjamin's direction is excellent, and Peter O'Toole ( playing, it must be said, a variant of himself), is wonderful, as is most of the rest of the cast. Benjamin shows a sure comic touch in his debut. In short, like Quiz Show, one of the best movies about the fifties, and one of the best movies about the early days of television.


This was a very funny comedy set in the New York City of 1954-55, and involving the likes of three or four figures that normally did not have much in common, though three were in the entertainment field, and they would occasionally (or almost occasionally) work together. The fourth was less funny, but would (in his own way) be as much a figure of historical interest (even more so since he vanished).

In 1954, live television was the major part of the nightly line up of shows, especially variety shows. And the leading one of the day was Sid Caesar's YOUR SHOW OF SHOWS, with it's skillful blending of musical numbers and high comedy - satire skits. Even today, years after most of the shows have vanished (except for those on kines-cope) they remain legendary. Caesar had (for awhile) Mel Brooks working as a writer on his show. He also, on one occasion, planned to have Errol Flynn appear as a guest. Flynn did variety shows occasionally - he once appeared on Steve Allen's show, spoofing TO TELL THE TRUTH (he was one of three people claiming to be Flynn, one of the others being an overly confident Don Knotts wearing a little mustache). The story about Flynn's near appearance with Caesar was not as pleasant - he decided to take a powder at the last moment and did not show up for the final taping.

Based on that story we have this film, wherein Flynn becomes Alan Swann, swashbuckling hero of films of yore. Swann is to appear on THE KING KAISER SHOW with it's star (Joe Bologna). Bologna is as mercurial and difficult as Caesar supposedly was, and when upset at some comments made by Brook's film version "Benjy Stone" (Marc Lynn-Baker), he appoints Stone to keep an eye on the notoriously tipsy and unreliable Swann to make sure he shows up for the show's rehearsals and final production.

The addition of Jimmy Hoffa is interesting to this mix. The teamster boss was not really well known in 1954 (his predecessor Dave Beck was more notorious), but Hoffa's career can be shifted a few years to fit in. For the purposes of the plot, there has been a weekly segment of the show (Kaiser insists on it, showing a substantial public spirit here that is just not evident elsewhere), spoofing the thieving union racketeer (here named Karl Rojeck - Cameron Mitchell). Rojeck only physically appears in one confrontation sequence with Kaiser, in Kaiser's offices: He is a no-nonsense, humorless gangster, and his eye-to-eye confrontation with Kaiser is memorable. It ends with him grabbing the over-sized homburg hat that Kaiser uses for his costume as his own and leaving the meeting with a definite threat in his voice. But although Rojeck the character never reappears, his ominous shadow follows the movie, with late deliveries of supplies to the show, and with "accidents" almost befalling Kaiser and his associates.

As the movie progresses we concentrate mostly on Benjy's growing friendship with Alan Swann. Yes he drinks and womanizes too much, but he does show the young writer what is worthwhile about living, and he even blends in with Benjy's family (his mother Lainie Kazan and her second husband and Benjy's uncles and aunts). In one scene Swann is his charming self with them at a family dinner on Eastern Parkway.

Alan turns out to be a fairly complex figure - he realizes his glamorous image is not at all like his real, flawed self. And he knows he is selfish at times. But he is also genuinely timid about one creature: the little daughter he barely knows who lives in Connecticut. This is his "achilles heel" and it makes the audience realize that for all the glamor and fame he is not a happy man.

How Alan (with Benjy's help) pulls himself together and shows he can live up to his image is the heart of the movie. Peter O'Toole gives his best comic performance in this movie, abetted by Linn-Baker, Bologna, Selma Diamond (whose face glows when O'Toole shows her what he has to make a woman happy), Kazan, Bill Macy and the rest of the film. It turns out to be one's favorite movie about that favorite year.


After 20+ years, the characters, the situations, the wise-cracks....they are still funny! The plain faced (matzoh punim) Benjamin Stone seems to meet his demise at several turns in the film only to be lifted out of the mire by his new friend Alan Swann. The dinner scene in Brooklyn is priceless and is surely quoted often at Passover seders. The climactic fight scene in front of a live TV audience is inspired writing and gifted acting working in parallel. Like most movies, it's the small details that you often miss that stay with you. The youngest writer who wears sports coats three sizes too big...the big shot TV star who tries to pacify an angry female staff member by offering to send over several pair of used shoes...the diversion in a restaurant to help Alan steal away with a thug's girlfriend to the tune of "Somebody Stole My Gal!"

You cannot miss this movie!


It was quite a coincidence that today April 3, 2005, I first saw this great piece of comedy "My favorite Year" as so happens to be the birthday of Anne DeSalvo who played Alice Miller.

I dedicate this comment to Ms. De Salvo on her birthday.

This film is truly one of a kind. non-stop laughter. Peter O'Toole and Joseph Bologna sure were at their best. Not an easy thing to notice since, since I consider both to be among the best actors of our time. not to be out done Bill Macy as Sy Benson, Anne DeSalvo (of course) as his secretary Alice Miller , and Lainie Kazan as the mother of Stone (who was put in charge of the O'Toole character Alan Swann ) . All gave quite stellar performances.

The film centered on Benji Stone , excellently played by Mark Lynn-Barker. He tells the story of the year 1954 in which he while working on the set of a comedy. He is charged with keeping the fun loving , hard drinking Swann (O'Toole) out of trouble . By no means an easy task. The things they do together are quite out of the ordinary. Though he is in charge of keeping Swann out of trouble, he really gets to enjoy his job.

This film also show the side of the entertainment history we don't see, Swann (O'Toole ) confesses that his entire "persona" is a fabrication of the studios, and show his own insecurities.

This film is fine entertainment.


The supporting cast of this movie is almost flawless (Mark Lynn-Baker is a little too frantic in some of the more slapstick moments, but VERY good when simply being sarcastically funny or very sincere). With the exception noted above, there isn't a missed beat from a single cast member, and Bologna and Kazan are particularly notable.

But the movie belongs to Peter O'Toole, and, as in The Stunt Man (made a few years earlier), when he's on screen you can barely take your eyes off him. Whether being hysterically funny or terribly sad, he owns the screen from start to finish. From the first shot of him, waking up embracing what he thinks is an unremembered lover from the drunken night before, and staring in bewilderment and near terror as he realizes that it's not a girl at all but a furry THING (a teddy bear), to the last shot of him as he accepts an ovation from the studio audience in probably the only truly serene joy he's had in decades, he is utterly perfect and utterly compelling. Richard Benjamin may have directed well, the script may have been terrific, the supporting performers excellent, but this movie could not have been what it was without O'Toole's presence and brilliance.

It's hard to imagine a more enjoyable way to spend an hour and a half than in watching this movie. There are so many little jokes, so many big jokes, such lovely and REAL touching moments. It is, despite its occasional hilarity, a very gentle and loving movie; there's just no meanness in it, which is a very pleasant and rather unusual thing, especially in a comedy. Well worth watching and re-watching. You'll love it. Your parents and/or grandparents will love it, and you wouldn't be embarrassed to show it to them.


The other reviewers have said it all. One of them said that he gets choked up every time he watches it. So do I. In fact I got choked up reading his comments. When I was in 7th grade, (so many years ago) I saw Sid Caesar in a movie called "Tars and Spars" In it he did a sketch called "Wings over Bermerschnitzen" I stayed for a second show and came back the next night and memorized it. Now 57 years later I can still do it. Needless to say every Saturday I was glued to the TV watching "Your Show of Shows" Even though I was at an age when I should have been out chasing around. So when I see a truly outstanding movie based on these people, I am doubly touched.

I have heard that Dick Benjamin is an extremely kind and gentle person. That must be true as Benjy tells Alan, "nobody's that good an actor without the courage in himself" Well to Dick Benjamin I say, "Nobody's that good a director without the heart in himself"

As you watch this movie, IF YOU HAVE A HEART IT WILL BE TOUCHED!!!!!!


Peter O'Toole, who's been known to take an occasional drink himself, probably had a lot of experience to bring to the part of Alan Swann, swashbuckling movie star of bygone years who's gone to seed. O'Toole has a tax problem and he's agreed to do an appearance on a top rated television comedy show of the Fifties to satisfy Uncle Sam's lien on his future income and to avoid deportation. But by now he's a boozy shadow of his former self and the star of the show Joseph Bologna assigns his most junior writer, Mark Linn-Baker to keep him in reasonable condition to perform.

As it turns out it means bringing O'Toole into his world which is Jewish Brooklyn of the Fifties, something I'm somewhat familiar with myself. Baker and O'Toole become a marvelous comedy duo themselves here. I'm surprised they did not team to do a whole lot more films than this.

O'Toole's performance succeeds on a lot of levels. Yes it's pretty funny, sidesplittingly funny at times. But there's also an element of sadness in it as well. You see in film clips the man O'Toole once was and now only commands attention by making a public spectacle of himself at times. I knew someone like that in my life, one who hardly had any kind of a career, but also HAD to be the center of attention at all times and usually did it by getting riotously drunk and acting abominably dumb. He had a certain charm and could get away with it, a lot though not the way O'Toole does.

Based on Mel Brooks's recollections of having to work with Errol Flynn, the film lets you know it's Flynn were remembering. Note the almost step by step choreographed duel recreation of Flynn and Basil Rathbone's final duel from The Adventures of Robin Hood.

Joseph Bologna is great as the egotistical comedy star and the Brooklyn vignette has a great performance by Lainie Kazan as Baker's most Jewish mother and Lou Jacobi as his most Jewish uncle.

Still it's what goes on and what's between O'Toole and Baker that makes My Favorite Year an all time comedy classic.


My Favorite Year is my favorite movie. After reading about this movie, I put my movie on my DVD player to observe a few details and wound up sitting through the whole movie, enjoying it from start to finish. And the following evening, I had to watch the movie again.

The beginning with the outline of New York City as Nat King Cole's "Stardust" played, was truly a magical combination, a high point with even more high points to come! Just what was it that made this movie so funny and so enjoyable? Was it the swash buckling washed out Alan Swann (played by Peter O"Toole) as he moved from one situation after another? Or was it Benjy Stone (Mark Linn-Baker) as he tried unsuccessfully to keep Swann out of trouble, only to wind up becoming an involuntary accomplice to Swann's wild schemes, and realizing that he was actually enjoying himself, having every bit as much fun as Swann? Maybe it was King Kaiser (Joseph Bologna), with his outrageous outbursts and unreasonable demands. King Kaiser's writing staff with those connivers, ready to tell their boss off, only to turn into a team of cowardly "yes-men", the moment he showed up, is worth its weight in gold.

Maybe it was the performance of Cameron Mitchell as Karl Rojeck as he had that face off with King Kaiser?

Come to think of it, the correct answer here is "all of the above"! It was sad, though, to see Selma Diamond, with that cigarette dangling out of her mouth, knowing that within 3 years, her smoking would turn her into the "Late Selma Diamoind" as lung cancer would claim yet another life.

The use of equipment used in the late 1950s as opposed to equipment used in 1954, is on little or no relevance unless you've been working in a television studio since the early 1950s. While a lot of work was put into the styles and fashions of the time, leaving no detail overlooked, I couldn't help noticing that some of the men wore their hair a little too long for the time.

But for crying out loud! This movie is a comedy, not a history lesson! Just sit back amid enjoy this movie, again, and again, and again, like I have!


Mel Brooks wrote this based on his experiences working as a junior comedy writer on Sid Caesar's "Your show of shows." The first time I saw this movie I laughed from beginning to end. Mark Lynn Baker plays the Benji Stone (the young Brooks) whose real name is Stoneberg. He has the right innocence for role. He gives a great performance. But this movie is Peter O'Toole's. He plays a larger then life Earol Flynn character. He is drunk and about to be thrown out of the country by the IRS. He teaches young Stone the difference between the man and the star, and how stardom sometimes overtakes the man's own identity. One of high point of the movie is when Baker takes O'toole have dinner in his mother's apartment in Brooklyn. O'toole also coaches Baker on getting the girl of his dreams, played by Jessica Harper. One of the great scenes has Mark Lynn Baker trying to teach Harper how to tell a joke. All this takes place with the backdrop of late 1950's television. A time where TV was still a novelty. Every scene makes you at least smile, and most make you laugh out loud. Richard Benjiman show great skill as a director even though this one of his earliest films. I guess all those years as an actor paid off behind the camera as well.


My Favorite Year is a comedy set in New York in 1954. The plot is based on Errol Flynn's appearance on Sid Caesar's Show of Shows. Mel Brooks was a young writer on the show and had to chaperon Flynn and keep him out of trouble. In this movie Flynn becomes Allan Swann (Peter O'Toole) and Benji Stone (Mark Linn Baker) plays Brooks. Swann is a famous hell raiser, women find him irresistible but he ends every evening drunk. Stone hero-worships Swann but fails to make him behave. Most of the comedy comes from Swann's amusing and outrageous antics.

The cast are funny, wise-cracking New Yorkers. Joe Bologna is particularly good as the star of the show. O'Toole is brilliant and lovable. This was Richard Benjamin's first and probably finest film as a director. I saw My Favorite Year with a cinema audience in 1982, who thought it was hilarious. It loses a lot on TV, but it's still enjoyable.


PETER O'TOOLE is the nominal star of this brisk farce about an alcoholic action hero (based on Errol Flynn, in case anyone doubts it), given the fictitious name of Alan Swann. When he is assigned to appear in a live TV show as guest star, his reputation for booze gets him assigned to the care of Benjy Stone (MARK LINN-BAKER), a Brooklyn kid whose job it is to protect O'Toole from further exploits with the bottle so that he can perform as scheduled before a live audience.

That's basically the plot, derived from a true-life situation involving Errol Flynn's appearance on, presumably, Sid Caesar's Saturday night live show, "Your Show of Shows". In the film, we have Joseph BOLOGNA in the Sid Caeasar role, an egotistical bully in over-sized suits who struts around bellowing orders to everyone. And once the tale leaves the studio to the home of Benjy Stone's abode in Brooklyn, the comedy gets into even higher gear for laughter--thanks largely to LAINIE KAZAN as Benjy's Jewish mother.

Well paced, stacked with laughs, and played to the hilt by an ingratiating cast of comic professionals. Richard Benjamin can take a bow for directing this with flourish.

Peter O'Toole gives one of his best, wickedly funny performances as the matinée idol who finds it hard to separate his adventurous screen self from real life. He performs his various pratfalls and stunts (or someone else does) with apparent ease. While O'Toole is great, his co-star, Mark Linn-Baker comes close to stealing several scenes with comic finesse.

Trivia note: That's GLORIA STUART as the lady at the Stork Club that O'Toole dances with. She played "old Rose" in TITANIC.

A barrel of laughs, well worth viewing--and nostalgic for those of us who remember Sid Caesar's Saturday night antics.


This film is likely the best view in the world of early television. Though most of the audience didn't know it at the time, the large part of TV performers were second-rate, washed-up, or suffered with substance abuse. Surprisingly, many of them had great success in this new format.

The cast all fit the time period excellently. Peter O'Toole is perfectly cast as the aging drunkard who wishes for his former glory and Mark Linn-Baker is good as the ambitious young writer. The whole film is brimming with energy and cleverness, more than it's share, but kept together by director Richard Benjamin.

7.1 out of 10


A perfect little gem of a film, which the other posters here have attested to quite well. Peter O'Toole fans and those who can remember that time in our history would do themselves a great service in seeing this movie. It gets shown on TCM once and a while (good on them), this is where I had re-stumbled upon it after many, many years. I am also delighted to hear that it was released on DVD a couple of years ago, and I am eager to check it out.

This is one of my favorite movies. Reason being, I remember seeing this as a kid with my grandfather, who was very much a part of that era. I've never seen anyone laugh harder at a movie, ever. Seriously. Though he passed away a long time ago, it's one of my favorite memories, of him just laughing out load in uproarious delight. That's what movies should do.


This is, by far, my favorite movie of all time! I was twelve years old when my parents took me and my brother to see this terrific film in a nearly empty movie theater on Long Island. We had heard so many stories from my parents about Sid Caesar, Jackie Gleason and Milton Berle, yet I never knew what to expect from this film. I nearly died laughing watching "my family" during the dinner scene, and I bursted out with joy during the finale. Seventeen years and countless times reliving those moments later, they STILL make me laugh!! Seeing Lou Jacobi on screen brings back so many memories of my grandfather, and watching Benjy Stone only makes me wish more and more that I would, one day, switch places with him. If you ask me what my dream job would be, I would DEFINITELY choose writing for "Your Show of Shows."


Yep - and one of My Favorite Comedies too, that seems to get better and better each time I catch it! That title year is 1954 and young TV comedy show writer (Linn-Baker) gets assigned as the chaperone to former, swinging, - and heavily drinking - swashbuckler movie star on the downfall (O'toole) for one wild weekend in NYC. Loving, glorious comedy nostalgia that is both a dreamy-eyed glance at old-time movie matinées & stardom as well as a smashingly production-detailed ode to those seemingly innocent, care-free days of the 1950's and its dawn of television.

Bullet-paced and aloof like a sitcom (or a Marx brothers movie), with nonstop parade of quotable lines and caricature-like characters that makes it ideal for multiple viewing... and a mystery why it seems SO overlooked and not rightly revered as one of the best comedies of the 1980's. The star of O'toole shines at its brightest, but down to the smallest role, it's cast to utter completion.... which makes me ask: what ever happened to Mark Linn-Baker and Joseph Bologna?

8 out of 10 from Ozjeppe


Directed by Richard Benjamin,My Favorite Year is a film that I saw for the first time a few months ago and loved instantly.

I think it's so very underrated and that's a shame because it has so much to offer.The story is all about young assistant and aspiring comedy writer Benjy Stone(Mark Linn-Baker)who works at the 30 Rock Studios in the 1950's.

Everyones excited by the news that a Hollywood legend the actor Alan Swann(Peter O'Toole)will be guest starring on one of their live shows a sketch about Muskateers.

Well of course everyones thrilled but there's just one small problem....Alan is a notorious hell-raiser who has a reputation of being drunk when he's not working.So Benjy is set the task of staying with Swann to make sure he shows up for the show sober.

And so begins a week he'll never forget as he's befriended by his childhood hero and learns a thing or two about life from a man who's seen it all and lives for today not tomorrow.This will have you laughing and crying I found it a fun and surprisingly touching and poignant film.

Peter is just superb as the fading actor and I found it fun to see him play Swann as a mix of Errol Flynn,himself and I think there's some Douglas Fairbanks in there as well.Some priceless scenes involving him include Swann trying to go off with another mans girl at The Stork Club and an unforgettable incident involving a fire hose and an apartment building.

Oscar nominated again for his work here Peter lost yet again and that's a shame because he's excellent and shows he has a real gift for comedy.Other performances to keep an eye out for include Lainie Kazan as Benjys mum Belle who tells Alan a few home truths and Lou Jacobi as Benjys Uncle Morty.Funny,poignant and well acted this is one that deserves more attention than it's had and is one to watch especially if you need cheering up a classic.


"My Favorite Year" is a very funny and charming piece of nostalgia that wears just a little bit too much of its sincerity on its sleeve. The opening shots of the classic New York skyline bring back fond memories of films set in New York like "On the Town" and "Bells Are Ringing", both of which opened with very similar views (and both of which had lyrics by Adolph Green, who appears in the film as Leo). There are many parallels to classic comedy in a broader sense as well, like the relationship between has-been swashbuckling icon Alan Swann (Peter O'Toole) and his chauffeur/manservant which mirrors the classic Jeeves and Wooster dichotomy loosely.

The story is very straightforward  Swann must make an appearance on a TV variety show hosted by King Kaiser (Joe Bologna) to appease the IRS. When he shows up "plastered" ("so are some of the best erections in Europe"! he exclaims) for the first rehearsal he risks losing the job but is saved by nerdy writer Benjy Stone (Mark Linn-Baker), who must act as his chaperone for the rest of the week in NYC. In the course of that week Stone somewhat accidentally teaches Swann that what he's missing the most is a solid family relationship, and Swann teaches Stone how to be more confident and go after the things that he wants at all costs. There's also an interesting theme here concerning what we choose to show to other people. Stone confesses that his name is "Steinbaum" or something like that, a very Jewish name, and Swann confesses about his child whom he has not seen in years. The idea I think is that no one would guess that these two very hyper-kinetic and funny individuals were harboring such pain and guilt, but they are able to tell each other because of the mutual respect that exists between friends.

I thought the movie was very funny although in the end the plot about Swann's family becomes a bit too obvious and sentimental. But there are just too many hilarious moments to complain too much. The only other comedy I've seen with O'Toole was "What's New Pussycat?", which I thought was kind of lame. He was very, very funny in this one. An even bigger surprise is Joe Bologna in the role of a Sid Caesar-esquire comedian full of swagger and arrogance, a man who would probably blame the pope if he slipped on a banana peal in the Vatican. The scene where he squares up with a tough gangster (played by the appropriately surly Cameron Mitchell, taking quite a big step up from his recent films like "Tool Box Murders") is one for the ages. And unlike a lot of show- business comedies that end in "the big show" (even "The Producers) the conclusion of this film was far from a let-down.

I really felt like I was watching a film from the classic era  not just because of the high quality of the script and the actors, but because this film knows how to present an innocent kind of charm in a sophisticated way; it's a far cry from the juvenile (though occasionally hilarious) films being pumped out of the teenage movie factory that Hollywood became in the 1980s. In other words, it's a film with class and integrity. And speaking of "The Producers", I think a musical version of this film might be a very good idea.


Mark-Linn Baker plays Benjy Stone, who reminisces about "My Favorite Year" in this 1982 film starring Peter O'Toole, Joseph Bologna, Anne DiSalvo, Bill Macy, and Lainie Kazan. Set in 1954, Baker plays a young NBC writer for a live TV show starring a Sid Caesar type (Bologna). He is put in charge of a drunken film swashbuckler named Alan Swann (O'Toole) to keep him sober and make sure he shows up for the rehearsals and the performance. This includes bringing Swann (totally based on Errol Flynn) to his family's home in Brooklyn for dinner, riding on a stolen policeman's horse through Central Park, and witnessing Swann going over a rooftop with a fireman's hose tied around him. That's actually the good news. All goes well until Swann realizes it's going to be a live show. "I played before an audience once!" he screams. "I was a butler. I had one line. I forgot it." One of my favorite lines was made all the more hysterical by O'Toole throwing it away - when he's questioned about going to the Stork Club, he says, "Why not? It's been a year. Surely they've fixed the wall and replaced the bandstand." The film captures the egomania of the TV star with Bologna's fabulous portrayal of King Kaiser, who is being threatened by a mobster (Cameron Mitchell) due to his weekly impersonation of the man; their scene together is a riot. Mark Linn-Baker is delightful. The other actors fit their roles to a T. As far as O'Toole, what can be said? As Alan Swann, he is sheer perfection - dissipated but handsome, drunken but charming, frustrating but lovable - a man who hides his sorrows, fear and loneliness in drink and debauchery. A truly great portrayal that doesn't simply rely on the surface comedy but let's you see the man beneath.

Director Richard Benjamin gives us the feel of '50s New York and live TV in all of its excitement and keeps the pace going beautifully. A real treasure you won't mind seeing more than once.


Very few movies have the overall excellence of this one..."My Favorite Year" melds together a superior script, outstanding ensemble cast, and outstanding direction from Richard Benjamin...and the crowning achievement of it all is the tour de force performance by Peter O'Toole...Mr. O'Toole takes a character that potentially could have been a buffoon and creates a hilarious yet touching portrayal of an aging action film star who has to do American TV for his "new business associate- the IRS"...assigned to watch over our British invader is Mark Lynn-Baker, who is lucky to still have hair by the end of the show...which by the way is one of the cooler endings ever...and ya gotta get the movie to see it for yourself...I could say something wonderful about each member of the cast...and you'll want to pay particular attention to Joseph Bologna as "King Kaiser"...in fact, rent this movie, enjoy it, then buy it...you can watch it over and over again and love it each time...one note...the scene with the firehose on the roof is one of the funniest movie sequences ever...but it is all good...and I loved it!


I have always been a sucker for classic comedy and this movie is great fun.

I understand that the O'Toole character was based on Errol Flynn, even though he had died before this movie supposedly is set. O'Toole is great in the role.

I was born in1952, so it is nice to see what fashions, cars and other things looked like in the New York of that era.

The King Kayser character has echoes of Sid Caesar when you hear him.

This movie is one to watch if you want something to watch on a night when there's nothing else on.

George Senda Concord, Ca


Comedy takes place in 1954 and is based on the TV show "Your Show of Shows" with Sid Cesar. Here it's called Comedy Cavacalde and run by King Kaiser (Joseph Bologna). Star Alan Swann (Peter O'Toole) is set to guest star on the show--but he has a serious drinking problem. Writer Benjy Stone (Mark Linn-Baker) is set to watch him and keep him out of trouble. Naturally everything goes wrong.

A huge hit in 1982. I remember loving it back then but, for some reason, I didn't find it that funny this time around. It's badly directed by Richard Benjamin, Jessica Harper is totally wasted in a small role, Bill Macy is TERRIBLE (he seems to equate screaming as acting) and I don't find alcoholism particularly funny. Still this has enough good material in it to recommend it.

The 1950s are captured perfectly down to the costumes and settings. Linn-Baker is pretty good as Stone, Lainie Kazan is great in her few scenes and Bologna is good (if a little overly obnoxious) as Kaiser. Some of the jokes are very funny and it's also great to see Gloria Stuart. But this is O'Toole's movie all the way. He has a great role and plays it for all it has. He's just perfect--you can't take your eyes off him. I believe this role was written with him in mind...and it shows. A gentle and amusing comedy. No great shakes but worth seeing. I give it an 8.

Best line: "I'm not an actor, I'm a movie star!"


This film is set in the early days of television when all shows were filmed live before an audience. Young script writer Benjy Stone is asked to look after fading ,alchoholic ,swashbuckling film star Allan Swann who is appearing on the comedy show that Benjy writes for. Mark Linn Baker does a good job as Benjy but this film belongs solely to Peter O Toole who plays the alcoholic Allan Swann perfectly.This may well be because the role mirrored his own life in so many ways. This has to be the funniest film i have seen in ages.Scenes where Allan steals someones girlfriend in a restaurant,where he swings from a balcony on a fire hose and the final chaotic scene on stage involving gangsters and musketeers had me rolling around in stitches. This film had tender moments too.Allan Swann waiting in his car to see his daughter who he hadn't seen in years is one of the many moving scenes in this film. This film combines laughter with moments of contemplation perfectly and deserves 8/10


This was such a great little movie. Peter O'Tool was perfect in what was to become one of his last great roles. I wonder why more people haven't seen this movie. I wonder why O'Tool doesn't get more interesting parts these days. This year O'Tool was just fine in "Troy" however, that wasn't a very special film. "My Favorite Year" was though. It wonderfully recreated 1954 and was filled with many touching and funny moments. For some reason this movie reminds me of some of th period Woody Allen movies from this time such as Radio Days, Purlple Rose of Ciro, ect. I just wish Woody would make another movie w/ the great O'Tool visa vie- "What's new Pussycat", but I sappose that's a pipe dream. Maybe Woody and or O'Tool read this and get an idea. God knows they both need to boost their movie hype....come on guys get this guy into a good movie before it's too late.


Actually, I lied: Paul Newman deserved the Oscar for "The Verdict". Anyway, Peter O'Toole gives another one of his superlative performances. How this man doesn't have an Oscar (for a performance that is) is beyond me.

Then again, Cary Grant, Alfred Hitchcock or Martin Scorsese don't have Oscars either.

As was said in the film "Comedy is hard." I believe that doing comedy must be harder than drama but for a classical actor like O'Toole--unlike American actors---comedy is an easier transition.

Excellent direction by Richard Benjamin, who keeps me laughing till this day from his performance in "The Sunshine Boys" . Bill Macy was hilarious as the sycophantic writer.

All in all a great film. Cheers me up every time.


As I was thinking about what to rate this movie, I tried to come up with flaws. I couldn't. This movie is a loving look at the golden age of television comedy. It shows the process of building a television show. But it is so much more than that. It is also a comedy that doesn't miss a beat. And it is a story of redemption. My advice is to see this film and when you do, just sit back and have some fun.


One of the films I can watch again and again! The script and pace of direction allow the cast to glitter and glide through the simple plot. Great comedy drunk scenes performed by a superb Peter O'Toole. Behind all the laughter the film has a lot of observations to share about fear, love, commitment and alcohol abuse. As the end titles role I'm always left with a feeling akin to the after glow of good whiskey seeping through my heart. Bravo to all involved.


I just saw this film at the New York Film Festival followed by a Q & A session with David Lynch, Laura Dern, and Justin Theroux. I will try my best to recount my thoughts while they are fresh, and incorporate what the film maker and actors had to say.

"I can't tell if it's yesterday or tomorrow and it's a real mind f---"

This single quote from Laura Dern sums the movie up fairly well. It is also one of the self- referential moments of the film that explores the audiences very thoughts while providing some comic relief.

Lynch's new film, INLAND EMPIRE, is similar to his other work, but unlike anything he's ever done, or I've ever seen before. As one reviewer aptly put it, it is a double reference to Hollywood and the inner workings of the human brain. Before I discuss the substance of the film I will briefly review the technical aspects.

First of all, the movie is not unwatchable (because of clarity purposes) as some critics had said, although I did see it at the Lincoln Center which has a beautiful theater and top quality facilities. The digital camera works well for this film. It lose some of the cinematic flourish of film, but also brings a more realistic, gritty feel to it that is appropriate for the theme. The lighting and production were top quality as usual for a Lynch film and the score sets every scene brilliantly. Often times we can't tell if the sound is diegetic or non-diegetic, but it makes no difference.

Lynch said that he used the digital camera to give him freedom. You can see much more movement in this film than his others, giving an almost voyeuristic feel. He also uses many close shots, and as always, obscure framing allowing ambiguity and confusion. Lynch really explores the freedom of movement and editing that is available with digital, and you can feel his energy and zest in the new medium. The moments of suspense and terror are so well done - there are several scenes that will literally make you jump - that I found a Hitcockian brilliance of using subtlety, indirectness, and sound to convey emotion rather than expensive special effects. Of course, there are other scenes that would qualify as downright freaky.

The movie is completely carried by Laura Dern, and not because she is in 90-95% of the scenes. Her character(s) morph and change so often in identity and time that it is hard to believe it is her in every role. Her range and ability to work consistently over so many years and under the conditions of this film is mind blowing. It is one of the finest performances I've seen by an actress or actor.

The film itself is hard to summarize. Most of you know the basic plot, but this really means nothing about the film. It has no type of linear story line and the converging and diverging plot lines are connected by only the most simple threads, time, location, memory ("Do I look familiar? Have you seen me before?") identity, and people who are good with animals. It would be a disservice to this film to try to find meaning or symbolism as I see some people already are. It is not a mystery to be solved, as Mulholland Dr. was (though that film never will be solved either). It is a movie that plays off of ideas, color, mood, it presents intangible emotions that we feel and internalize rather than think about and solve. Film doesn't need a solution to make sense, but it is typical for us to want solve things, to have closure. This film is better if you just let it wash over you and surrender the urge to find meaning.

The three hour running time makes no difference because the movie moves in and out of itself with no regard for time. Using so many scenes allows time to effect the viewer much as the characters themselves. As the characters question time and reality, the audience does too. As the scenes slowly build up, giving us reference, we start to wonder where we saw that character, who said that line before, what location fits into what part of the sequence and how, leading up to the Laura Dern quote I used before. It doesn't ask us to think, but to feel, and it does this better than any film I've seen. It plays on our emotions with intense sound and cinematography, grasping fragments from dreams, sliding in and out of reality, exploring nightmares, and asking us what time and reality really are. The film is also very self-conscious as I said before, and also makes many subtle (and not so) pokes at the audience. It also has some truly surreal moments of Lynch humor.

Explaining all this doesn't really matter because you will have to see it and take your own idea from it. I would recommend that you see it in a theater though, as it could never have the same impact anywhere else. I was skeptical going into this movie after what I had read, thinking Lynch had gone off the deep end. However, I realized nothing you read about it will make a difference once you see it, and that Lynch is in better form than ever. Ebert said that Mulholland Dr. was the one experiment where Lynch didn't break the test-tube. With INLAND EMPIRE he throws the lab equipment out the window. His freedom in making this movie, both with medium and artistic control, is unparalleled in anything he's done. He finally made a movie for himself and his vision, without any kind of apology or pretense.


I saw INLAND EMPIRE at the Venice Film Festival world premiere last month. I want to keep this review short due to the fact that writing in great detail about this film is useless. INLAND EMPIRE is an experience. An experience not to be written about but to be FELT. It is David Lynch's definitive work. It's everything he has ever wanted to put into a film and it's completely free from anyone else's taming influence. The film is suffocating, dark and endless yet paradoxically contains some of the director's funniest and lightest scenes. I was frightened, uneasy, overwhelmed and moved. My emotions were thrown into disarray several times during which I lost all sense of appropriate reaction. Do not expect the mystery of this film to be solved, but expect it to be finished. Do not expect your head to understand the resolution but expect that your heart and intuition will.

If you cannot decide whether to see this film or not, I implore you to get up and go. Whether or not you enjoy it, you will never see a film like this again. I also implore you to see it IN THE CINEMA. Do not wait to see it on DVD because the experience won't be half as extraordinary.


Much can be said about David Lynch but I think the mistake most people make is to think that he is trying to create a coherent and straight forward narrative structure. He is working on a subconscious level in his mind. The idea comes before the reason behind the idea. In many ways this is how art should be created because any other way will feel forced and pretentious.

David Lynch is not just trying to f*k with you. Its not meaningless and its not pretentious. If you've ever seen his interviews he is one of the most humble and soft spoken directors I've ever seen. Justin Theroux did a Q & A after my screening of Inland Empire and he described working with lynch as light hearted and fun. The complete opposite of what its like to watch some of his films which are often dark, terrifying, and disturbing.

Inland Empire is a sister film to Mulholland Dr. As my wife put it, "Watching Mulholland Dr. helped me to understand Inland Empire." They are two sides of the same coin. Lynch still seems to want to take a stab at the evils of Hollywood. His concern for the well being of actors is strong but this time instead of a new comer (Naomi Watts) he deals with one older actresses come back role and like Mulholland Dr. their are the evil producers behind the scenes and even the added possibility of a cursed set.

I am a huge Lynch fan. I don't find his films hard to understand. I am not a very intellectual person but Lynch's themes are so simple. The visuals are to be enjoyed on their own terms especially when they seem not to fit with the rest of the film. A lot of lynch's trademarks return, the dual personalities, time folding in on itself, gratuitous nudity, and another tragic murder mystery.

While this film does feel like a retread of Mulholland Dr. it also stands on its own especially since it contains a much more upbeat ending and perhaps four layers of storytelling,good luck figuring out which is which. He also continues to experiment with sound and even sings the vocals to a song in the film.

I got exactly what I wanted from Inland Empire. The downside to this is that Lynch is sort of repeating himself and I hope that doesn't mean he's out of ideas or perhaps Mulholland Dr. did not yet exercise his disdain for the studio system. The film is part murder mystery and part lucid dream. It has dream logic and has a lot of fun with some of its bizarre dialog and incredible visuals. This film also has much in common with Eraserhead in that he's completely free to explore his ideas. No one is telling him to shorten the film, cut out scenes, or that it doesn't make sense. Its uncompromising and truly art without boundaries.

My only other criticism is that the digital video is just ugly at times. When the shot is static the amount of detail in the picture can be incredible but when its hand held and moving around its grainy and looks pretty terrible. I miss the polished look of his older films but I guess that is going to be another thing that sets this movie apart from the others. I highly recommend this film to the Lynch enthusiast and to no one else. If you aren't in on the joke then I cannot imagine you leaving the theater happy after three hours of pure, free from concentrate, unpasteurized lynch. I went to see this with my wife and my best friend needless to say only I loved it. Take that as you will.

4/5


Inland Empire: it means Los Angeles, the place of Lynch's inspiration, but also the inward realm of the mind and of dreams, the surreal world of Lynch's imagination that uniquely inspires his visual poems. This new work, three hours long but unified by a savage and harrowing performance by Laura Dern channeling three or four or more overlapping personalities growing out of a lengthy free-standing monologue that was the film's starting point, is proof that the man isn't playing; hasn't lost his touch; still produces work unlike any other, work to be treasured.

DL explores a universe reachable only by going past the rational mind. It is a realm where a character, in the present case particularly the characters played by Dern (the press cliché is 'career-defining performance'), turns into other characters and turns again. It's a realm where there's another world behind the sound stage and that other world is another life, another identity, another set of terrors. And we go there; we come back; and we go there again.

After becoming the desperate monologist, Dern also became "Nikki," a movie star chosen with "Devon" (Justin Theroux) to star in a film, 'On High in Blue Tomorrows', directed by "Kingsley" (Jeremy Irons). And "Kingsley" works with "Freddie" (Harry Dean Stanton) a co-director who cadges money from stagehands and actors and apologizes saying, "I used to carry my own weight." On High in Blue Tomorrows turns out to be a remake of a doomed film, '4/7', never finished because both stars were murdered, and based on a Polish gypsy folktale. In the film Nikki, as "Sue," is cheating on her husband, and during the shoot Nikki's "real life"husband warns her not to do it for real. But of course she does: the film relationship parallels "real life," and the stars find they're confusing themselves with their film characters, just as it happens in Michele Piccioni's recent film, La vita che vorrei.

That expletive-strewn 14-page ("single-spaced") ur-monologue that anchors the film was shot in the back of DL's house with a Sony PD-150 digital video camera he'd started to use in connection with his website, www.davidlynch.com, "a common midrange model" that sells now for $2,724. The monologue became the ground of being and the Sony became the simple visual tool that gave 'Inland Empire' its content and its visual style. Lynch has switched to DV for good, saying a sad farewell to the glorious beauties and cumbersome complexities of celluloid, and for this film embraced DV's limitations. He does not try to make it look like film. DL admits people say the quality is "not so good." "but it's a different quality. It reminds me," he says, "of early 35- millimeter film. You see different things. It talks to you differently" (NYTimes, Dennis Lim).

This reversion, if you will, to a cruder visual medium (but one that's in many ways more fluid, both for the actors  who can work through without pauses  and the editor  who has handy software  and the crew  who can be fewer, and work lighter), has stirred up the director's creative juices, brought him back in a way to the raw energies and immediacy of Eraserhead. Thus it's a return to youthful beginnings and yet something completely new. It's burning the bridges and rediscovering roots at the same time., which basically is what any artist to stay alive needs to do.

Dern anchors the film, but it has many elements that need anchoring. There is the disreputable husband of the disreputable monologist, who joins a Baltic circus.There's a woman played by Julia Ormond, who's first seen in a sleazy backyard with a screwdriver in her stomach, and later reappears as Billy's wife. And there's a Polish thread  which grew out of Baltic connections DL has forged and in the structure of ideas may trace back to the origins of the film of Devon and Sue (be the ur-'4/7'). There's a weeping Polish prostitute, watching a TV monitor on which appears a sitcom shot on a stage with people wearing rabbit heads; a laugh track creates a disquieting effect because the laughs come at "meaningless" points, giving the lines a sinister ring. Later the screen shows Sue. Slant magazine's Ed Gonzales smartly refers to the monitor as one of various "portals" through which characters merge into other worlds (go through the looking-glass; fall through rabbit-holes). Clearly it's all in the editing, and those who feel DL's creations are chaotic and portentously meaningless overlook his canny sense of structure.

There's a group of pretty prostitutes in a motel room, who talk to Laura Dern's character and sing and dance, "Do the Locomotion," and then at the end lipsynch Nina Simone's "Sinner Man" behind the closing credits -- one of the great closing credits of recent decades, a rollicking, gorgeous episode, which cheers you up but still contains flashes (Laura's face) that haunt you with memories of the strangeness and terror that's passed.

These are some of the interlocking boxes of 'Inland Empire'. DL mocks the idea of the "real" while using the concept to slide in between worlds.

All this is gloriously cinematic.

The film "technically" has no US distributor, though it has many European ones and the French Studio Canal signed on early at the stage when DL said he was using DV and didn't know what he was doing.

The whole of 'Inland Empire' perhaps "resembles the cosmic free fall of the mind-warping final act in Mulholland Drive" (Lim), but on the other hand it has someone to "identify" with (if you can stand the ride) in Laura Dern, who dominates the film and threads it together. Her full-ranged performance is sure to gain much mention at year's end.

After fifteen years of disappointment with and doubt about DL, it is possible to love his work again.


I saw INLAND EMPIRE at the Venice Film Festival and I think it's incredible... surely the most strange Lynch's film. A terrible nightmare of about 3 hours! I love Lynch's films and I think that INLAND EMPIRE resumes his whole filmography! And I want to underline also the interpretation of Laura Dern. She's absolutely fantastic! You can't pretend to understand completely the story (it's more confused than Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive...) but you'll be captured by the sounds, the lights, the changes of rhythm... David has written the screenplay day by day and also the actors couldn't understand what they were doing... I think you should see this wonderful film of one of the best contemporary director.


Inland Empire is the Man with a Movie Camera of the 21st Century. It is the most experimental, surreal, and technically brilliant film I may have ever seen. Lynch proves that all he needs is a simple DV camera to show the world the entire range of human emotions and the human experience from the happiest to the darkest moments we must go through to achieve salvation and cleansing of the soul. This film is not so much about a particular story or narrative as it is about analyzing, exploring, and creating a visual palette for ideas about traveling to and from the past, present, and future as it relates to our constant journey back and forth into our own psyches and our collective unconscious. Each of Lynch's films explores the mind in terms of Jungian philosophy, focusing particularly on The Shadow; however, Inland Empire goes further in this direction than any film previous to it. If Mulholland Drive was 25% a dark and surreal suspense thriller ghost story and journey into the nether regions of the mind and 75% classical, yet not necessarily structural or connected narrative, Inland Empire is 10% straight narrative and 90% raw psychological horror ghost story.

The journey is long and hard but at the end you will be rewarded with the kind of peace and serenity that can only come from a meditation this long, deep, and powerful. I was filled with only inner bliss as I left the theatre and slept like a baby, completely at peace. This is David Lynch's most powerful film and speaks volumes on the many unexplored topics of how this medium can communicate, terrify, and heal in ways we have not yet even begun to understand.


I just saw the NY premier of Inland Empire, and it was so refreshing to once again be transported in a way only David Lynch can transport somebody. Inland Empire is Lynch at his best - funny, thoughtful, eerie, beautiful, dark, deeply disturbing, and terrifying in a way that few horror films have ever affected me. The film is a slow burn, taking its time (about 3 hours), leaping through realities and bizarre encounters, continually keeping the audience asking themselves what reality they are experiencing, and what that reality means.

Laura Dern gives an outstanding performance as the tagline's "girl in trouble." She goes to places I don't ever remember seeing her go, from the naive to the terrifying, truly exposed. I've heard Lynch is campaigning for an Oscar nod for Ms. Dern, so maybe this is the one. She really blew me away.

This film - like all of Lynch's endeavors - is certainly not for everyone. It's vague, bizarre, jumps all over the place, and at times is deeply frightening (one of the few films in a long time to actually give me nightmares), but in my opinion it's also truly beautiful, almost serene. If you like a linear, clear-cut story, then don't see this film. If you appreciate non-linear, surreal drama/horror, however, then by all means go see it. Lynch is independently producing this, so I know he's banking on a lot of word of mouth for Inland Empire to be successful. Help him out. It's a fantastic film.


Lynch has very high artistic integrity.

Lynch will never tell us what any of his films are about - if indeed he knows or would ever admit that a film might be about something in particular. There can be no evaluation of any specific interpretive approach. There must be such an approach, whether conscious or not. Lynch would likely disagree. He's right - and some of the disappointed reviews expressed here by his fans are nice examples of why this is so. I am sure he would also understand and agree with my rebuttal - "Who cares, it's fun"

When fans either gush about the brilliance of a piece of work or resort to name-calling ("pretentious hipsters??"), the film is, like most works of art, not going to allow much of a middle-ground.

A lot of smart and well-written reviews here on IMDb treat the technical aspects of the film. This review is not about HOW the film was done, but rather WHAT the film does.

If you haven't seen the film, try this review on. If it doesn't fit, then I can't recommend seeing Inland Empire. If you do keep reading, get it into your head that there is no spoiler here, really. The interpretation offered below is not even an opinion -it is simply a facile, creative construct I use heuristically for talking about the film after my first viewing.

If you have seen this film, you will probably view the interpretation below as too simplistic - that is, if you got it. That's fine. I do not care, but feel free to send me a note if you want to discuss it. Keep in mind - as I stated above - I am simply using this interpretation as a means for discussion. Don't take it too seriously, I really don't care to defend this.

Laura Dern should win two academy awards for Inland Empire - for Best Actress as Nikki and for best supporting actress as Nikki's role of a lifetime - Susan. But she won't get nominated because this film will be systematically ignored by the mainstream.

Why bring up acting talent so early in the review? Because this inherently non-linear film (though it is more linear and plot driven than Eraserhead, Mulholland Drive and Lost Highway) offers one of many possible (possibly an infinite number of) linear interpretations - the film is/could be about acting and losing one's identity in a role. It could all be going on in Dern/Nikki/Susan's head as she comes to grips with what she is doing in the three levels of "reality" portrayed.

If this particular interpretation were chosen, the free association between the roles played by the Polish actress/victim/perpetrator of the film "47" and that played by Dern's actress/victim/perpetrator in "Blue Skies" create a meta-text which, though unseen and unexplicated throughout the film, nevertheless identifies its subject as the disassociation and power of performance and creativity in the production of fiction/reality/drama.

This interpretation is suggested by all of the many seemingly out of place and jarring details in the film - the usual red herrings Lynch throws at us to suggest that there may be some linear subtext in all of the sensual experience offered by his sumptuous, immersive films.

- scenes from the Polish film

- reenactment of the film by Susan - possibly in her dreams or fantasies

- The placement of the Polish actress into a couple seemingly disparate and unconnected roles (which, in fact make the creation of "Blue Skies" and the folklore surrounding its predecessor "47" unite at a different interpretative level)

-The rabbit people performing within the television with an incoherent but suggestive script and an absurd laugh track

- and especially their audience (key to this interpretation because of its chronological placement in the narrative and the identity of the viewer).

-Nikki's opening and closing scenes and Grace Zabriskie's foreshadow which identify closure for the meta-plot.

- The seemingly anachronistic white noise and record-cutting scenes and sound-cues, which occur at crucial transitions between the alternative realities inhabited by Nikki's disassociated personalities.

If any of you find this interpretation compelling and would like to hear more about it, feel free to send a note. It is, in my opinion, just as worthless as any other interpretation of art - probably better left unexpressed and unexplained. But if having something linear to talk about helps you, you are welcome to further pursue it. Do not mistake this interpretation as an opinion. I have no opinion concerning the plot of this film.

For my part, I completely understand the film through and/or without the interpretation above.

Which pathway to the palace (is it Alan Smithee's House on the set?) I might chose, whether through the back alley or the front entrance to the studio (as the interpretation above offers) - I get it - just as I always "get" Lynch more than most directors.

For fellow admirers of Lynch: IMO, This is a more coherent film than Eraserhead, a more upbeat and enjoyable film than Lost Highway, a less commercial film than Mulholland Drive (though it does bear some thematic resemblances largely because both films are overt self-referential interpretations of American media culture). You might talk about it for hours afterward, but this discussion will mostly only help you to know the people you attended it with better. Let it pour through your mind and soul.

No profitable comparison to Lynch's more linear films can be made, although, on a second viewing of IE I may wish to spend some time thinking about the connection between the exploitation themes in Elephant Man and this film.

Of course, the directing, camera work, and especially the sound design are flawless. Goes without saying.


First off, this is easily the most confusing and bizarre of all of David Lynch's films, even more so than Lost Highway. I think it's also the most bizarre film I have ever seen. The film is harrowing and creepy and Laura Dern is incredible in her performance. I never thought she was capable it. Fans of Lynch will love it, especially those who think Mulholland Drive and Lost Highway were his best. Average filmgoers will most likely be bored (it's 3 hours long) or think it is Artsy crap. Lost Highway is probably his most comparable film based on structure, technique, and bizarre elements, although it would not be entirely fair to use Lost Highway as a basis for judgment. One of the only things that keeps me from giving it a higher rating is that there are a couple scenes which seemed to drag on a little longer than necessary. Inland Empire at first is reminiscent of some of Lynch's older short films because of the way it is filmed. It is gritty, shaky, and even gives a documentary feel at first. While it is still not his best, it's among them and it's what Lynch fans have come to expect and love.


David Lynch, the visionary director who created unforgettable films revealing darker realms of life such as "Elephant Man" and "Blue Velvet" and who brought to mainstream TV a deeper aesthetic and consciousness with the "Twin Peaks" series, unfortunately went overboard with "Inland Empire" writing and directing the worst film of his career.

"Inland Empire" is arguably Lynch's most ambitious effort: a meandering three-hour dive into a nightmarish dream world where all his previous themes and obsessions convey. There are enslaved women (Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks), women in trouble (Mulholland Drive), supernatural entities in other realms (Twin Peaks, Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive), dissociative fugues and alternative realities (Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive). As expected of a Lynch movie, the cast is top notch starting with Laura Dern and it even includes Jeremy Irons as a movie director. But the direction and the script fail to give us something of depth or a remotely compelling, entertaining story, therefore this Lynchean nightmare becomes endless, pointless, and ultimately boring. Each shot of dreary,dilapidated Polish buildings or empty and dark Hollywood sets become endless. Every time the character are hurting or menacing, the camera does a close-up distorting their faces or they behave histrionically as in the worst of the Mexican telenovelas. This is simply poor direction. These close-ups and long shots, among other cinematic pyrotechnics, are Lynch's filler to disguise the emptiness of "Inland Empire," Although both films are similar in plot and style, "Inland Empire" suffers compared to "Mulholland Drive." Lynch deserved the Oscar for that brilliant film which is memorable for its character development along a dark psychic ride, elements that are missing in "Inland Empire" replaced by a cheap thrills posing for art and profundity.

The plot is vintage Lynch, but it is the most convoluted, longest, and silliest of them all. Lost Girl, an enslaved woman in Polish hotel/purgatory watches shows on a psychic TV: a sitcom with supernatural rabbit people, scenes from a Polish film that never got finished because the leading actors were murdered, and the life of an American actress who starts in the remake of the Polish film. Nikki (Laura Dern), the actress, begins an affair with her leading man and freaks out entering an alternative reality becoming Sue, the white trash character she is playing in the movie. Sue is having an extramarital affair with Billy, a rich man, and lives with Smithy in the house of the movie set. Sue is psychically connected to enslaved prostitutes who teletransport themselves from the snowy streets of Poland in the 1940s to present day Hollywood Boulevard. The prostitutes talk about men, love, and T&A and suddenly burst into dance for no reason - they do a killer number with "The Loco-Motion" which is unfortunately too short. Sue's husband, Smithy, who is Polish, leaves for Poland to work with a circus. Sue goes to see Billy and Billy's wife beats her. Sue becomes a whore working Hollywood Boulevard with the dance-loving, space/time-jumping whores. The Phantom, an evil supernatural man who has Lost Girl enslaved in purgatory, kills an early incarnation of Smithy who was Lost Girl's lover. The Phantom hypnotizes Billy's wife who is the reincarnation of a Polish woman who was stabbed to death with a screwdriver by the original actress in the Polish movie. The rabbit people are also wise, older Polish men and have a séance with Lost Girl and they bring Smithy to talk to Lost Girl. The old men give a gun to Smithy to kill the Phantom. Sue gets stabbed with a screwdriver on Hollywood Blvd. by Billy's wife and dies. That is the end of the movie and it is a wrap. Nikki is congratulated by the director but she ignores everybody and walks away from the movie set remaining as Sue. She goes to the house where she finds the gun Smithy was given by the old men. She goes through some dark corridors and finds herself in the Polish hotel/purgatory where the Phantom is and as she shoots him his face becomes Sue's own distorted face. The Phantom dies and all the women are free and Lost Girl reunites with Smithy and her son. Then Nikki is back in her home and all the women have a big a party and some women shake their booties to a Nina Simone song. They are in a kind of good place, not purgatory. It is not clear whether Nikki/Sue was an invention of Lost Girl who had been the real murderer and was in purgatory or whatever; in the final analysis, it does not matter because the movie is empty and lacks any redemptive qualities.

It is hard to understand why some of the critics and audience fail to realize that this is a very bad film, poorly written and badly directed. Lynch is a true artist and has done some remarkable films for which he should be praised, alas, "Inland Empire" is a disjointed, tedious, nonsense mess filled with pretentiousness. If you want to waste three hours of your life with a superficial mind-tease filled with pseudo transpersonal psychology and collective unconscious references, see it at your own risk.


Let me start by saying I've admired every single Lynch film to date, and I've seen all his feature filmsnot only all the original work, but also the non-auteur stuff (like "Elephant man," "Straight Story," and "Dune") as well.

Moreover, "Mulholland Drive" is on my short list for best movie of all timea hands down perfect piece of art. And I really liked "Lost Highway" and even found "Eraserhead" engaging.

However, I must say the first 90 minutes of "Inland Empire" ranks as some of the most boring and pretentious film making in the short history of the art. I can't speak for the rest of the movie--as 90 minutes of unrelieved murky shots of Laura Dern looking distressed, while the dialogue-obscuring sound track of a B-movie organ drone desperately tries to create some kind of suspense--was all I could stand.

Lynch's images have always been arresting, sometimes even pretty. But he seems to want to play against that here, creating choppy, grainy, bad-home-video-style visuals that just beat down the viewer trying to let them flow. Hey! art should require its audience to work for its pleasure and meaning; but the effort required here is just too much for me.

I think film should tell a story with pictureshopefully a complex story with emotionally and intellectually engaging pictures. But this film is just ugly chaos.


The Purple Rose.. is a fantasy/romance movie by Woody Allen where a character from a movie falls in love with a "real" woman and steps of the screen starting a love affair with her. This begins to be a problem when the real guy who played the character in the film confronts his persona and demands that he return to the movie and everyone resume their "real" lives where movie character are fictional and people are real. There's more to it but this is essential.

In IE Lynch puts forward the following basic idea that structures the whole movie and makes it have a meaning: what would happen if the characters in a film start assuming a "real" identity interfering with the "real" people? What if, added to this, those characters are only remakes of characters from an older film that was never finished because the actors were killed? In my opinion this is what the "curse" meant, that the fictional becomes real. This theme can be associated with Mullholand Dr. and the idea of illusion. Cinema is just an illusion, you can't actually "play it real when it gets real" because IT (cinema) never gets real. The character in Bergman's Persona (referenced in M Dr) stops talking because she feels the pointlessness of acting, that it never solves any real, life problems.

I think the characters in IE are on the one hand the so-called "real" Nikki and Kingsley etc who make On High in Blue Tomorrows, the "fictional" Sue, Billy etc who are In the film and the Polish counterparts from the 47 unfinished movie. All of them are trying to find the passages that will give them their TOMORROW, their sense of being in time and space. Because the film is cursed and never finished the characters have a truncated identity. Just like the guy that comes down from the screen in Allen's movie has no idea you need keys to drive a car, the characters in IE have no idea that they sometimes play in a movie that is not theirs and has other rules. This is why sometimes they are bewildered that another character IS THERE, in their movie. The confusion maybe never really stops, though I think the Lost Girl character may be the only "real" character because she is the only one watching what all the others play, she is the only one who plays it for real. Her family reunion at the end may be also real and maybe her watching those movies on the screen is just a way to refuse to deal with real life problems, just as the girl from The Purple Rose...

The Rabbits are a metaphor of entrapment given the fact they are only filmed from one perspective (in the series). In IE the perspective changes only once towards the end and it means that the characters are starting to find their way through the passages, through the rabbit holes, if you like, and maybe are getting somewhere. It may be that given the film is cursed there is no actual solution for none of the characters, they are meant to lurk in this disjoint world devoid of yesterdays and tomorrows, causality and agency. Actions have consequences only in real life not in a movie that as we know was filmed during five years (I think Lynch uses self-irony in IE).

The first scene Lynch filmed was the one with the Polish actor coming out of the house with a light-bulb in his mouth. No movie is filmed in a linear manner, it may start with the end. But if the Polish movie was abandoned and assuming the hypothesis of the reality of its characters just think how emotionally and cognitively frustrated they must feel not knowing why their god the screenwriter made them as they are. Their actions have no consequences, a movie character can die today because the director films the last shot of the movie and he/she can happily make love the other day when another shot is filmed.

Lynch knows very well cinema can play tricks! Don;t loose hope, no hay banda but there is a passage to get there...over the rainbow!


I just watched Inland Empire, and could not be more disappointed. I am a fan of David Lynch. He, and Dario argento(his earlier films), I consider to be the best directors. However, this movie really is a departure from what we have come to expect of David Lynch.

Let's have a look at a few of his hits: Twin peaks: The TV series, well, even the episodes he directed were all very good. However, the last episode of twin peaks really dragged as it just went between different rooms, becoming quite comical.

Mullholand drive: Made for TV originally, then made into a movie. Lynch was forced to stay within boundaries, which seems to work well for him.

Inland Empire: David Lynch became far too self-indulgent. After the initial walk into this movie, where we are introduced to Laura Dern's character, where we learn that she is an actress, desperate for a new role in an upcoming movie. We learn there is a curse on the movie, where the last two leads of the movie died. It has an interesting enough build up, until it goes completely off course. The entire last two hours of the movie become nothing more than Laura Dern walking through hallways, even more corridors than in Alien 3, but without the excitement of the Alien.

The score/music is really off as well. I would say that in the past, David Lynch's directing and visual style has come first, followed always by a solid score, and memorable songs. However, in this movie, the first thing I noticed was that we would be introduced to a pretty bland scene where not much happens, only to be shaken by the overly loud and intrusive score. For example, a light flickers... not that exciting, right? Well, it's not, but the music is so loud and alarming that it convinces us that the scene is intense. Several similar scenes that aren't very scary visually, are meant to be scary due simply to the music informing us to feel this emotion. I know this from the girl sitting in front of me, who wasn't scared by the initial images of things, but by the blaring music that would follow informing her to be terrified. And the songs that play... one example in particular is a key scene that takes place on a street. A Beck song begins to play. Okay, for one this is a David Lynch movie known for setting mood. Based on the gritty style of directing, and the Beck song playing, it takes anything serious from the scene and quickly made me think it was a trailer for the latest movie starring Eminem, on da' streets yo!

As for Acting, I really believe Laura Dern did all she could do. She was given a very vague role...well, I should say roles. She plays an actress, a hooker, a house wife. However, unlike all of Lynch's previous films, this movie lacks any romance, and a strong female that you care about. Just as you are in the position of starting to care about her character, we are quickly taken to a dream world where no more is known about her. If anything, after we go to the little dream world that takes over the entire last 2 hours of the film, anything we have learned or liked about her are quickly killed as the film tends to focus on her as an abused, sadistic, and bitter woman.

As for the visual style, I would say it is non-existent. There are no beautiful shots, and this is not even due to the digital video. I believe that David Lynch was so caught up in himself, that he thought he wouldn't need the beautiful film making that made him famous. Rather than great shots and angles, we are delivered very straight forward scenes, usually in a hallway of some form. And on top of that, the later portion of the movie tends to have scenes right out of a mafia movie of older men sitting around tables talking about things that would otherwise be boring in a movie without the occasional offing of someone, like in any typical mobster movie. However, we don't get that in this movie, so all of these scenes have no payoff.

The worst part of the movie is the length. I am one who believes that in general the average length of a movie should be 90 minutes at most. There are some great epics that can be 3 hours long, on the rare occasion. However, majority of movies start losing steam fairly early on, like Inland Empire. Considering it seems to be nothing more than about twenty of minutes of real movie, followed by a bunch of stock footage filmed by David Lynch. It makes me think of the movie Ed Wood, where he is looking over stock footage of I believe an explosion and buffalo running and thinking of ways to put that into a movie. That is what I got of this movie. Let's film a bunch of footage, then put it together so it seems very dream-like, and use Lynch's name to sell it as a very artsy work of art. At least make it original, I mean, this felt like a dozen of other straight to video movies I've seen that upcoming filmmakers have made.

I for one, am a fan of David Lynch, as I have been of Dario Argento's part work. However, I will not continue to be a fan of Lynch's work if it will be nothing more than him filming anything that comes to mind in Digital Video and throwing it together. He made his fans by giving us beautifully made, well filmed movies. If you are going to use DV, then at least make it interesting. If not, then go back to film, please, and give us a boring but beautiful movie.


Its dense, so dense, I'd say Lynch's most obtuse, sprawling and encompassing film since Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. It may take two or three more sittings to digest everything thrown at the screen. Its incoherence means characters, moments, plot points (ha!) still seem a little hazy at the moment, so I apologise if the following is, well, junk frankly.

When approaching a Lynch work, to avoid finding oneself completely lost, it is often helpful to hunt out the emotional anchor - the 'reality' border which frames our subsequent trip into the disturbed mental wasteland.

In Eraserhead, Henry's fear of commitment and fatherhood. In Blue Velvet, Jeffrey's sexual awakening. In Lost Highway, Fred's jealousy and inferiority regarding his wife. In The Straight Story, Alvin's guilt over the deaths of his grandchildren. In Mulholland Drive, Diane's sense of rejection and betrayal.

With these rather ordinary strands of guilt, fear and failure, Lynch relocates to his absurdist, cineliterate dreamscapes - chaotic, multi-layered palimpsests of creaky genres and deeply personal insecurities, sexy red curtains and frazzled electrical currents.

We arrive at Inland Empire.

I'm sorry, but I can't see Dern's character as being anything other than a figment, a fragment even, of the hotel room-bound Polish girl's nervous breakdown.

The Pole lives in a run-down flat with a husband who is a distant, mean man. Her marriage is disintegrating, plagued by infidelity, jealousy, the conception of a child that does not belong to him. She feels degraded, guilty, trapped, terrified by impending child birth and the world the baby is entering.

She retreats, collapses into herself, her mind splinters and starts to conflate all number of separate realities, pre-conceptions, clichés, imaginary situations. She dreams of a Hollywood actress - Dern - whose life slowly, disturbingly is pulled towards her own. Within that dream of Dern, we have two, perhaps three, separate versions of Dern's own reality - as a rich, lonely actress in a large house, as the character she is playing in the 'cursed' remake, as a literal substitute for the Polish girl. It's the Great American Cinematic Obsession - the construction of identity.

Like Mulholland Drive, Lynch is stuck on the cultural devastation wreaked by Hollywood. Writing about the influence of film on societal attitudes towards violence in his seminal history of Tinseltown, The Whole Equation, David Thompson argues that cinema's impact on our attitudes to love and sexuality has been far more devastating and expansive.

Is this what Lynch is getting at? That the very nature of our watching film - that collective, passive, erotic musing in the dark - has broken our notions of beauty, fidelity and desire. The messed-up philandering Polish girl withdraws into the shadows of rabbit sitcoms, trashy celeb chat-shows, noirish murder-mysteries and Southern romances. She becomes a catatonic spectator staring at a fuzzy TV screen.

The projector's shaft of light that threateningly tears through the opening frames of the film is a definite omen. Hollywood here is not the Dream Machine, it is a sinister exploitative cage, populated by gangsters, hobos and, in an obvious link to the nature of acting, prostitutes.

But yet, there is an escape.... that epiphanic closing sequence where Dern finishes the shoot, breaks away from the director and sees herself on screen - now outside the movie - is followed by her killing the sinister phantom and embracing the tearful Polish girl... its a serene, goose-pimply moment of release and self-discovery. The Pole's mental surrogate finally finding an escape route, bursting out of the rabbit hole, peering at the daylight. The horror is over.

Oh, one final thing, Dern's performance is something else. DV lends itself well to the raw immediacy of the extreme close-ups Lynch favours here and Dern just plunges herself into the camera's emotional intrusion. It's like someone's excised the first few layers of her face with a scalpel and left the audience to soak in this teeming deformed mass of expression, tic and utter abandon.

Do not, under any circumstances, miss this.