Recommendations for Watching While Waiting for Season 3

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David Locke
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Re: Recommendations for Watching While Waiting for Season 3

Post by David Locke »

John Justice Wheeler wrote:Anything by Abel Ferrara is usually also well worth watching and his 90's classics New Rose Hotel, The Blackout and Dangerous Game all resonate with Lynchian tropes, themes and aesthetic flourishes.

Nina Menkes, yet another experimental artist, has made a career of off beat feminist leaning cinema. Her Phantom Love is a great example of that as is The Bloody Child which draws together both fables and contemporary social reality.

Nicolas Refn's early film (and first English language feature) Fear X remains among hs best and certainly most Lynchian. Strange and stilted and suspended in an airless environment as usual with Refn's artful treatment. What unsettles here again goes deep.

Ryan Gosling's obviously Lynch (and Refn) influenced Lost River was condemned and dismissed upon its initial release but this was unfair as the film is actually an exceptional , very heady and atmospheric trip, well worth seeking out and taking seriously.

Beyond the Black Rainbow is an 80's throwback picture in the best possible way. Incredibly vibrant and inspired, it's another film that displays influences on its sleeve (Cronenberg again along with Lynch) but draws upon them to deliver its own exceptional vision.

I think someone here mentioned Atom Egoyan's work and I'm a bigger defender of it than many these days but specifically, in terms of its Lynch like weirdness shot through with unique profundity and loss, I must mention his early film, The Adjuster. Actually his earliest films are among his best and I couldn't recommend them more highly.
Abel Ferrara is my favourite living director so I definitely couldn't agree more. New Rose is possibly his best film, certainly second-best at worst, and Blackout and Dangerous Game are superb as well. All of his films are worth seeing, but of the remaining ones, I'd also recommend The Addiction and Body Snatchers -- they're not particularly Lynchian, but they're the closest to that of his other films, as they're (unconventional and intelligent) horror flicks that conjure a nice atmosphere of dread.

Nice mention of Fear X -- to me, by far Refn's best work. The talent involved alone is immense -- score by Brian Eno, script by Hubert Selby, cinematography by Larry Smith (Kubrick's lighting cameraman on Eyes Wide Shut), and actors like John Turturro, James Remar, and Deborah Kara Unger in front of the camera. Very Lynchian and Kubrickian -- it's like Lost Highway, The Shining, Blow Up/Blow Out/The Conversation, Manhunter and The Sweet Hereafter in a blender. But although its influences are clear, it still carves out enough of its own path to be completely riveting and strange.
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John Justice Wheeler
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Re: Recommendations for Watching While Waiting for Season 3

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Absolutely agree with you on Ferrara. One of my favorite filmmakers too. I would especially add The Funeral and Mary to the list of titles you mentioned. Both of those are superb but too often overlooked.

Also agree with you on Refn. I love his work and consider Neon Demon easily among the best films of last year and probably his second best English language feature (and there's stiff competition). But, yes, Fear X rules for me as well, for the reasons you mention and more. I actually just recently rewatched it and was amazed by how assured and masterful Refn already was this early on, especially in terms of his use of sound and space. It's astonishing throughout and while obviously like Lynch in some very clear ways he still manages to find a particular identity of his own within the network of associations. One example that comes to mind right now is a moment I hadn't noticed or appreciated fully before. During an early scene with Turturro visiting a diner, we see a cop positioned against the back wall under an enormous and imposing, even intimidating, American flag mural. This character will later become important to the scene but for the time being he remains as a looming, portentous background. The way Refn stages his entrance into the scene was what struck me this time around as remarkable though. He frames a conversation between Turturro sitting in a booth and a waitress standing next to him; the cop can be glimpsed behind them. The waitress leans in to look at a photo Turturro shows her and partially obscures the cop without that ever seeming like an intentionally choreographed move. Turturro leans in toward her and at this point the cop is completely obscured. This prevents us from observing him rising from his seat, so when he announces his presence as he moves toward them it is genuinely unnerving. It's a masterful example of tension and dread building via careful composition. So much of the rest of the film calls attention to itself (in the best sense) that it's nice to be reminded how well Refn can manage subtle details as well. Beyond this, the movie really does function as a multi-layered narrative which allows several vying and viable interpretations so it shares some of Lynch's thematic pre-occupations as well as aesthetic ones.
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Re: Recommendations for Watching While Waiting for Season 3

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baxter wrote:My brother has been raving about Under the Skin for ages. Is that the one filmed in Glasgow? He was living there til recently, so it was extra special for him. Will have to check it out.
Yes, I believe the 'Under the Skin' crews shot much of the film in Scotland. They filmed a few encounters with locals, some of which made it into the film.
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David Locke
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Re: Recommendations for Watching While Waiting for Season 3

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John Justice Wheeler wrote:One example that comes to mind right now is a moment I hadn't noticed or appreciated fully before. During an early scene with Turturro visiting a diner, we see a cop positioned against the back wall under an enormous and imposing, even intimidating, American flag mural. This character will later become important to the scene but for the time being he remains as a looming, portentous background. The way Refn stages his entrance into the scene was what struck me this time around as remarkable though. He frames a conversation between Turturro sitting in a booth and a waitress standing next to him; the cop can be glimpsed behind them. The waitress leans in to look at a photo Turturro shows her and partially obscures the cop without that ever seeming like an intentionally choreographed move. Turturro leans in toward her and at this point the cop is completely obscured. This prevents us from observing him rising from his seat, so when he announces his presence as he moves toward them it is genuinely unnerving. It's a masterful example of tension and dread building via careful composition. So much of the rest of the film calls attention to itself (in the best sense) that it's nice to be reminded how well Refn can manage subtle details as well. Beyond this, the movie really does function as a multi-layered narrative which allows several vying and viable interpretations so it shares some of Lynch's thematic pre-occupations as well as aesthetic ones.
I'm astounded that you happened to mention that moment, because it's always stuck out to me as one of those particularly memorable and powerful shots in not just that film but any. The sheer suddenness of the cop's movement, and the way the camera sticks to his back so his face remains obscured, is very striking.
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Re: Recommendations for Watching While Waiting for Season 3

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The final episode of 'Channel Zero - Candle Cove' (produced by Harley Peyton) bears some striking similarities to the finale of Twin Peaks.
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Re: Recommendations for Watching While Waiting for Season 3

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I have Channel Zero on my list and will have to bump it up based on that description.

Has anyone watched Riverdale, which is getting Twin Peaks comparisons everywhere? Since I'm working through Veronica Mars, I might just wait til I've finished that.
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David Locke
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Re: Recommendations for Watching While Waiting for Season 3

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John Justice Wheeler wrote:Absolutely agree with you on Ferrara. One of my favorite filmmakers too. I would especially add The Funeral and Mary to the list of titles you mentioned. Both of those are superb but too often overlooked
I love both of those, maybe particularly Mary which I find to be a compelling argument for Ferrara's incredible maturation as a filmmaker, in addition to his unimpeachable direction of actors. It's beautifully coordinated, a seemingly messy film that's actually formally tight as a drum (and with some of Ferrara's most striking, impressionistic cinematography to date). I'm an even bigger champion of 'R Xmas though which is I think where that impressionism basically peaked, just such a gorgeous and moving work in so many ways: King of New York meets Bresson meets Eyes Wide Shut meets The Wire, but wholly its own thing.

BTW, JJW, have you checked out the new Arrow blu of Driller Killer yet? Although the film itself is not among my favorite Ferrara's it's still an interesting document of late-70s punk/new-wave gritty LES culture. But Arrow's release is just fantastic. Not only do we get a terrific commentary from Ferrara, moderated by the great Brad Stevens, but they've also included Ferrara's entire 2010 documentary Mulberry Street (which is wonderful), a new interview with Ferrara, and a helpful narrated video guide to his filmography. The whole thing is lovingly put together (I snagged the limited edition steelbook myself), and it's just gotta be the best Ferrara release we've seen yet on DVD or blu. Also just picked up Raro's recent Napoli Napoli Napoli blu and am eager to check it out. Considering those two, as well as the recent blu's of Body Snatchers and Dangerous Game, it may not be TOO far off for neglected masterpieces like The Addiction, The Funeral, The Blackout, New Rose Hotel, 'R Xmas, Mary, and Go Go Tales to get the deluxe-transfer treatment they so greatly deserve.
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Re: Recommendations for Watching While Waiting for Season 3

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Well I tried watching the Riverdale pilot last night, and didn't make it to the end. I'm too old for it! It didn't have anything that I hadn't seen a hundred times before, and I couldn't see what the point was of watching yet more teen angst. It did look very nice however.

Veronica Mars took me a few episodes to warm to to get over the same feelings, so maybe this will turn out to be a winner. If people here start raving, I may reconsider.
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Re: Recommendations for Watching While Waiting for Season 3

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FX's new show Legion. Highly recommend it.
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Re: Recommendations for Watching While Waiting for Season 3

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NOCTURNAL ANIMALS, EXCELENT FILM
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Re: Recommendations for Watching While Waiting for Season 3

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LostInTheMovies wrote:
Rudagger wrote:I didn't read all the posts, but, has anyone recommended the Leftovers yet?

One of the most underrated shows on television right now (well, perhaps underviewed, rather than underrated), and it stars Justin Theroux (from Mulholland Drive/Inland Empire). He's absolutely fantastic in it (and has made me even more bummed that he seems not to be in the new Twin Peaks).

The one-liner is essentially: 2% of the world's population vanishes and we see how characters move on after 'the Rapture'.

It's only two 10-episode seasons (with a third/final season still to come), so, it's not a huge time sink.
By coincidence, I tuned in for the hotel episode. It was so uncanny see Theroux seemingly reprise his role in MD (more the situation than the character), combined with the "resort" dream of Tony Soprano. Of all the episodes to stumble across!
The Leftovers hands down one of my favorite series since Six Feet Under.
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Re: Recommendations for Watching While Waiting for Season 3

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I'd recommend Steven Soderbergh's The Knick, starring Clive Owen, a period medical drama set in New York City in 1900.

Compelling characters, great atmosphere enhanced through a very interesting, anachronistic score by Cliff Martinez and Soderbergh's vivid cinematography, all connected through a cohesive thematic line concerning the evolution of medicine and the ethical dilemmas involved with that. It has little to do with Twin Peaks per se, but it is a 20-hour story (in two seasons) filmed by an important American director. This is the closest to a director's version of "auteur television" before Lynch graces us with new Twin Peaks in May.
https://thirtythreexthree.wordpress.com/ - 33x3: 33 favourite films by 33 directors, 33 favourite books by 33 authors, 33 favourite albums by 33 musicians and 3 favourite TV series
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Re: Recommendations for Watching While Waiting for Season 3

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Bruno Dumont is one of the most provocative of contemporary directors (along with Von Trier and Noe) but as regards Lynch, little in his output comes closer to evoking those qualities than his Twentynine Palms, a terrifying vision of masculinity gone awry but handled in a way that sublimates that throughout till it quite literally explodes in the end.

Christiane Cegavske's Blood Tea and Red String is a Quay like puppet film made for very little over a very long time as a genuine passion project of its creator. Its starnge and singular world is worth spending time in.

Peter Tscherkassky is yet another experimental filmmaker and one whose work is often unsettling, atmospheric and aesthetically heightened in a way that recalls Lynch. His great film to date for me is still Outer Space his appropriation of footage from The Entity in which the central character's psychological trauma is emphasized in a way that seems finally to affect and infect the film stock itself. Genuinely terrifying.

Similarly, I would recommend the work of James Fotopoulos, whose low budget features are strange and upsetting in ways that are not always easy to articulate. Of particular interest may be his take on Alice in Wonderland.

There's also been a fascinating paranoia trend in recent indie film, best exemplified by Ultrasonic, Upstream Color, The Invitation and They Look Like People, all exceptional.

I would highly recommend as well William Peter Blatty's 1980 The Ninth Configuration, which has recently received excellent Blu-ray treatment in both the US and UK. Blatty's film is way off beat and often funny as hell but again unsettling in a unique and particular sense that suggests much of what we'd get later with Lynch.

A mention must also go to a recent and rather sad case: Gee Malik Linton's superb Daughter of God was taken away from him by the studio and recut as the much loathed Exposed. Well, Exposed is far from a perfect film but it's better than its detractors let on, especially as what is powerful about it emotionally at its center remains from the initial cut. I think it would be of interest to Lynch fans as it deals with phantom or supernatural images which may be the central character's imaginative means of dealing with very real trauma. And Ana de Armas is superb in that part--not exactly Sheryl Lee level though as her performance plays out in a far more subdued form.

Finally, I have great love and admiration for Philippe Mora's adaptation of Whitley Strieber's classic, Communion. Strieber's book is well known around these parts for how it seems to presage Peaks in certain ways and certain elements, most specifically the idea of the owl as screen memory (which wasn't "new" then either but was brought much further into popular consciousness). In fact, I distinctly remember being quite thrilled by "the owls are not what they seem" at the time as it seemed an almost certain reference to Strieber and that impression was only further solidified over time. Anyway, Mora's film is superb, among the best sci-fi films of all time as far as I'm concerned for a host of reasons but the one most vital to me, and perhaps most relevant in its association to Lynch, is the way in which it perfectly blends horror with absurdity. It's very, very wise about that approach, recognizing that this only makes the horror stronger and stranger, especially as much of that horror here is sourced in a profound epistemic uncertainty, an absolute inability to know what to think.
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Re: Recommendations for Watching While Waiting for Season 3

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Gave the thread a quick search and it didn't look like this has been mentioned already - Young Pope .

I've only seen the first four hours (out of 10) and I've enjoyed it so far. In terms of subject matter the show is nothing like TP. It is however incredibly bonkers in a TP kind of way and written and directed by a man with very deliberate direction and style (that at times reminds me of Lynch). The show is very slow and deliberate and has beautiful imagery. There's heavy use of dreams/visions and many surreal and hilarious moments. IIRC the show was made in a very similar way to how season 3 was shot - all directed by one director, filmed in one go as a limited series (but they've renewed it for a second season).
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Re: Recommendations for Watching While Waiting for Season 3

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secretlettermkr wrote:NOCTURNAL ANIMALS, EXCELENT FILM
So true. Totally loved it, great dark mood going on there.

Something else that I found out last night - Fargo season 3 starts 4/20. Less than two months away and then only one more month until new Peaks.

We're in for a lot of good stuff this year. :)
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