1986--The Year in Review

When a year produces ten movies that, decades later, you still consider among your all-time favorites, you know you’re talking about a great year. It was painful choosing from my top three especially, but it had to be done, and I had to find for Mr. Lynch, whose film blew just about everybody's minds  in the fall of that year (if Claude Berri's Manon of the Spring would have been just a tiny bit better, it might have beaten it; I’m lumping it and the more stirring Jean de Florette in as one movie). McElwee's breakthrough documentary Sherman's March, too, gave me a challenge, as it’s a one-of-a-kind undertaking that coninually rewards repeat viewings. But I realized I just couldn’t vote it Best Picture over Lynch's stunning take on secrets and small-town crime (featuring a landmark showing from Dennis Hopper as the terrifying Frank Booth). I'm extremely happy to recognize jazz legend Dexter Gordon as the best actor of the year (against some heavyweight competition); yes, he's playing a version of himself, but he's nonetheless mesmerizing in his only major film role (hell, Hopper said he was only playing himself in Blue Velvet). Also, I'm glad to give Marie Riviere Best Actress for her alternately annoying and brave lonely girl suffering through a solitary holiday in Rohmer's The Green Ray (released as Summer in the U.S.). And, here, I gladly deliver the award Ennio Morricone deserved that year for his regal score to The Mission, relegating Herbie Hancock's brilliant Round Midnight score to the Adaptation category where it belonged. As for the short films, two teams of relative newcomers win for their justly popular cult films. NOTE: These are MY choices for each category, and are only occasionally reflective of the selections made by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (aka The Oscars). When available, the nominee that actually won the Oscar will be highlighted in bold.

PICTURE: BLUE VELVET (US, David Lynch)
(2nd: Sherman’s March (US, Ross McElwee)
followed by: Jean De Florette/Manon of the Spring (France, Claude Berri)
The Green Ray aka Summer (France, Eric Rohmer)
Round Midnight (US/France, Bertrand Tavernier)
Hannah and Her Sisters (US, Woody Allen)
Sid and Nancy (US, Alex Cox)
The Sacrifice (Sweden/France, Andrei Tarkovsky)
Aliens (US, James Cameron)
The Color of Money (US, Martin Scorsese)
Something Wild (US, Jonathan Demme)
The Mosquito Coast (US, Peter Weir)
Withnail & I (UK, Bruce Robinson)
Betty Blue (France, Jean-Jacques Beineix)
Dancing in the Dark (Canada, Leon Marr)
Salvador (US, Oliver Stone)
The Fly (Canada, David Cronenberg)
Mona Lisa (UK, Neil Jordan)
84 Charing Cross Road (UK, David Hugh Jones)
Hoosiers (US, David Anspaugh)
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (US, John Hughes)
She’s Gotta Have It (US, Spike Lee)
When The Wind Blows (UK, Jimmy T. Murakami)
The Decline of the American Empire (Canada, Denys Arcand)
Manhunter (US, Michael Mann)
Platoon (US, Oliver Stone)
A Better Tomorrow (Hong Kong, John Woo)
Children of a Lesser God (US, Randa Haines)
Home of the Brave (US, Laurie Anderson)
Man Facing Southeast (Argentina, Elisio Subiela)
Three Amigos (US, John Landis)
Seize the Day (US, Fielder Cook)
Lucas (US, David Seltzer)
True Stories (US, David Byrne)
Absolute Beginners (UK, Julien Temple)
Down by Law (US, Jim Jarmusch)
The Big Easy (US, Jim McBride)
'night, Mother (US, Tom Moore)
Stand by Me (US, Rob Reiner)
Doña Herlinda and Her Son (Mexico, Jaime Humberto Hermosillo)
36 Fillette (France, Catherine Breillat)
The Mission (UK/US, Roland Joffé)
What Happened to Kerouac? (US, Richard Lerner and Lewis McAdams)
Down and Out in America (US, Lee Grant)
Just Between Friends (US, Allen Burns)
Castle in the Sky (Japan, Hayao Miyazaki)
Matador (Spain, Pedro Almodovar)
Mauvais Sang (France, Leos Carax)
Ginger and Fred (Italy, Federico Fellini)
Thérèse (France, Alain Cavalier)
At Close Range (US, James Foley)
Peggy Sue Got Married (US, Francis Ford Coppola)
Little Shop of Horrors (US, Frank Oz)
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (US, Leonard Nimoy)
River's Edge (US, Tim Hunter)
Big Trouble in Little China (US, John Carpenter)
The Name of the Rose (Italy/West Germany./France, Jean-Jacques Annaud)
Working Girls (US, Lizzie Borden)
Eat the Peach (Ireland, Peter Ormrod)
The Adventures of Mark Twain (US, Will Vinton)
Pretty in Pink (US, Howard Deutch)
Murrow (US, Jack Gold)
Caravaggio (UK, Derek Jarman)
Extremities (US, Robert M. Young)
"Crocodile" Dundee (Australia, Peter Faiman)
Down and Out in Beverly Hills (US, Paul Mazursky)
The Best of Times (US, Roger Spottiswoode)
Highlander (UK, Russell Mulcahy)
Howard the Duck (US, Willard Huyck)
9 1/2 Weeks (US, Adrian Lyne)
Cobra (US, Geogre Pan Cosmatos)
Under the Cherry Moon (US, Prince))



ACTOR: Dexter Gordon, ROUND MIDNIGHT (2nd: Yves Montand, Jean De Florette/Manon of the Spring, followed by: Jeff Goldblum, The Fly; Bob Hoskins, Mona Lisa; Gary Oldman, Sid and Nancy; Harrison Ford, The Mosquito Coast; James Woods, Salvador; Paul Newman, The Color of Money)

ACTRESS: Marie Riviere, THE GREEN RAY (2nd: Chloe Webb, Sid and Nancy, followed by: Sigourney Weaver, Aliens; Melanie Griffith, Something Wild; Marlee Matlin, Children of a Lesser God; Beatrice Dalle, Betty Blue; Sissy Spacek, ‘night Mother; Martha Henry, Dancing in the Dark) 


 
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Dennis Hopper, BLUE VELVET (2nd: Daniel Autuil, Jean De Florette/Manon of the Spring, followed by: Ray Liotta, Something Wild; Brian Cox, Manhunter; Michael Caine, Hannah and Her Sisters; Tom Cruise, The Color of Money; Dennis Hopper, Hoosiers; Willem Dafoe, Platoon)



SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Dianne Wiest, HANNAH AND HER SISTERS (2nd: Isabella Rossellini, Blue Velvet, followed by: Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, The Color of Money; Cathy Tyson, Mona Lisa; Laura Dern, Blue Velvet; Barbara Hershey, Hannah and Her Sisters; Annie Potts, Pretty in Pink; Tess Harper, Crimes of the Heart)

DIRECTOR: David Lynch, BLUE VELVET (2nd: Ross McElwee, Sherman’s March, followed by: Claude Berri, Jean De Florette/Manon of the Spring; Eric Rohmer, The Green Ray; Andrei Tarkovsky, The Sacrifice; Woody Allen, Hannah and Her Sisters; Bertrand Tavernier, Round Midnight; Alex Cox, Sid and Nancy)



NON-ENGLISH LANGUAGE FILM: JEAN DE FLORETTE/MANON OF THE SPRING (France, Claude Berri) (2nd: The Green Ray (France, Eric Rohmer), followed by: The Sacrifice (USSR, Andrei Tarkovsky); Betty Blue (France, Jean-Jacques Beineix); The Decline of the American Empire (Canada, Denys Arcand); A Better Tomorrow (Hong Kong, John Woo); Man Facing Southeast (Argentina, Elisio Subiela); Doña Herlinda and Her Son (Mexico, Jaime Humberto Hermosillo); 36 Fillette (France, Catherine Breillat); Castle in the Sky (Japan, Hayao Miyazaki); Matador (Spain, Pedro Almodovar); Mauvais Sang (France, Leos Carax); Ginger and Fred (Italy, Federico Fellini); Thérèse (France, Alain Cavalier))



DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: SHERMAN’S MARCH (US, Ross McElwee) (2nd: Home of the Brave (US, Laurie Anderson), followed by: What Happened to Kerouac? (US, Richard Lerner and Lewis McAdams); Down and Out in America (US, Lee Grant))



ANIMATED FEATURE: WHEN THE WIND BLOWS (UK, Jimmy T. Murakami) (2nd: The Adventures of Mark Twain (US, Will Vinton))



ANIMATED SHORT FILM: THE STREET OF CROCODILES (UK, Stephen and Timothy Quay) (2nd: Sledgehammer (US, Stephen R. Johnson); Luxo Jr. (US, John Lasseter), followed by: Bring Me The Head of Charlie Brown (US, Jim Reardon)



LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM: HEAVY METAL PARKING LOT (US, Jeff Krulik and John Heyn) (2nd: Precious Images (US, Chuck Workman), followed by: Coffee and Cigarettes (US, Jim Jarmusch))



ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Woody Allen, HANNAH AND HER SISTERS (2nd: David Lynch, Blue Velvet, followed by: Eric Rohmer, The Green Ray; Oliver Stone and Richard Boyle, Salvador; John Hughes, Ferris Buller's Day Off)

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Claude Berri and Gerard Brach, JEAN DE FLORETTE/MANON OF THE SPRING (2nd: Richard Price, The Color of Money, followed by: Charles Edward Pogue and David Cronenberg, The Fly; Raynold Gideon and Bruce A. Evans, Stand By Me; Paul Schrader, The Mosquito Coast)

CINEMATOGRAPHY: Frederick Elmes, BLUE VELVET (2nd: Chris Menges, The Mission, followed by: Bruno Nuytten, Jean De Florette/Manon of the Spring; Jordan Cronenweth, Peggy Sue Got Married; Sven Nykvist, The Sacrifice)

ART DIRECTION: ALIENS, Blue Velvet, Hannah and Her Sisters, Jean De Florette/Manon of the Spring, The Mission 

COSTUME DESIGN: PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED, Jean De Florette/Manon of the Spring, Pretty in Pink, Absolute Beginners, The Mission

FILM EDITING: ALIENS, Blue Velvet, The Color of Money, Hannah and Her Sisters, Platoon

SOUND: BLUE VELVET, Aliens, Platoon, Round Midnight, Top Gun

SOUND EFFECTS: ALIENS, The Color of Money, Platoon



ORIGINAL SCORE: Ennio Morricone, THE MISSION (2nd: Angelo Badalamenti, Blue Velvet, followed by: Maurice Jarre, The Mosquito Coast; James Horner, Aliens; Jerry Goldsmith, Hoosiers)



ADAPTATION SCORE/SCORING OF A MUSICAL: Herbie Hancock, ROUND MIDNIGHT (won as Original Score) (2nd: Jean-Claude Petit, Jean De Florette/Manon of the Spring, followed by: David Byrne, True Stories; Prince, Under the Cherry Moon; Miles Goodman, Little Shop of Horrors)



ORIGINAL SONG: “Blue Shadows” from THREE AMIGOS! (Music and lyrics by Randy Newman) (2nd: “City of Dreams“ from True Stories (Music and lyrics by David Byrne), followed by: “Absolute Beginners” from Absolute Beginners (Music and lyrics by David Bowie); “Wild Wild Life” from True Stories (Music and lyrics by David Byrne); “Live to Tell” from At Close Range (Music and lyrics by Patrick Leonard and Madonna); “Take My Breath Away” from Top Gun (Music and lyrics by Girogio Moroder and Tom Whitlock); “Love Kills” from Sid and Nancy (Music and lyrics by Joe Strummer); "Kiss" from Under The Cherry Moon (Music and lyrics by Prince); “Mysteries of Love” from Blue Velvet (Music by Angelo Badalamenti, lyrics by David Lynch); "Do U Lie" from Under The Cherry Moon (Music and lyrics by Prince); “Let Yourself In For It” from The Color of Money (Music and lyrics by Robert Palmer); "Sometimes It Snows in April" from Under The Cherry Moon (Music and lyrics by Prince); "It's In The Way That You Use It" from The Color of Money (Music by Eric Clapton, lyrics by Eric Clapton and Robbie Robertson); "Mean Green Mother from Outer Space" from Little Shop of Horrors (Music and lyrics by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman); "Nothing in Common" from Nothing in Common (Music and lyrics by Tom Bailey and Alannah Currie); "Sweet Freedom" from Running Scared (Music and lyrics by Rod Templeton))

SPECIAL EFFECTS: ALIENS, Little Shop of Horrors, Labyrinth

MAKEUP: THE FLY, The Clan of the Cave Bear, Sid and Nancy

Tribute: Roger Ebert (1942-2013)

There's no way I can let the passing of Roger Ebert go by without a word of regret and astonishment. Along with his Sneak Previews/At The Movies cohort Gene Siskel (who passed away in 1999), Mr. Ebert was honestly my main inspiration in becoming a commentator on films.  I began watching their weekly show sometime in 1978 or so, three years after it had migrated from their hometown of Chicago to PBS (and eventually syndicated) outlets all across the United States.  Then a 12-year-old kid with a voracious appetite for movies, I don't think I had ever considered writing and talking about them as some sort of career path.  With their wry rivalry, obvious passion, and singular charisma, Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel changed all that for me; as a sometimes lonely teenage movie buff, each episode made me feel as if they were kindred fanatics talking to me exclusively, teaching me how to take in and discuss a particular film's merits.  Looking back at television history, it seems clear they really changed that medium's landscape.  Siskel and Ebert were the natural outgrowth of "Point/Counterpoint," the contentious 70s-era 60 Minutes debate segment with Shana Alexander and James Kirkpatrick, and were thus also the precursors of such argumentative shows as Crossfire and Politically Incorrect.  But, here, these talking heads--the bald one and the fat one--were not talking politics (not directly, anyway) but instead were debating my favorite subject, and doing so not lightly, but with such intelligence and deep concern over what profound effects movies have on our lives.

When Siskel passed--way too young--Ebert did not let that crumble his world.  Instead, he reveled in the snarky friendship he had with his newspaper rival (Gene wrote for the Chicago Tribune, Roger for the Chicago Sun-Times, where he won the first ever Pulitzer Prize for film reviewing).  Ebert mourned the loss of his friend openly, with great affection and, as always, impeccable honesty.  It was one of the first signs of utter grace from this journalist who, in the years hence, would impress us first with his prolific writing (in the last year of his life, Ebert clocked in a record 306 film reviews on his website rogerebert.com), his embrace of the internet as a communication tool, his loving relationship with his steadfast wife Chaz, and finally with his open battle with cancer that cost him his speech and his lower jaw, but not his ability to reach out to his readers in such a way that, even beyond his film reviews, you really got the sense that you knew everything about the man, and from the man's own hand.

Ebert's approach to writing was always well-reasoned and breezy.   He was able to make even the normally boring parts of a review (the recounting of a film's story) into essential reading, in that he blended such necessities so seamlessly (and often hilariously, in the case of his glib negative reviews) with the recounting of his dynamic opinions.  Though his observations could occasionally be puzzling or infuriating, he was never too academic in style--he had an everyman kind of voice.  Even so, he was always able to engender thought about the greater meaning of a movie, about its effect on the culture, or on how we view movies in general.  In his later years, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and launched Ebertfest--a passion-driven annual celebration of both new and classic movies held yearly in Champaign, Illinois--while continuing to dominate bookshelves with scores of tomes examining both the great and the not-so-great films (plus he penned an autobiography, Life Itself, and even a cookbook--after he'd lost the ability to eat solid foods--called The Pot and How to Use It).  He was some sort of unlikely Superman.

And so now, after writing one classic film (Russ Meyer's 1970 cult epic Beyond the Valley of the Dolls), and after revolutionizing film criticism, television, movie marketing ("Two Thumbs Up" changed film adverts forever), the internet, and even the concept of bravery itself, Mr. Ebert is gone and it just feels as if the projector lights in movie theaters should go dark as tribute.  But, of course, he would not have wanted that.  He was much too devoted to having people see all the great stuff, and to having them avoid those titles that deaden the soul.  He reminded us there is often something to like in even the most mundane of films, that sometimes there is reason to question even the most acclaimed ones, and that there are always both old and new masterpieces in the ether to be endlessly adored--movies that could literally change who you are and how you thought about the world.  In that way, he might be my most treasured influence.  I started my own blog, Filmicability, in 2007 with the high-minded intent of leading readers to only the best movies.  The proudest days in this blog's history was one during which I noticed my hit count had shot up in the neighborhood of 7000 hits.  After some investigation, I realized Roger--as he had surely done with countless other film bloggers--had generously tweeted about one article I had written.  Having worked in relative anonymity, I was astonished the man had taken the time to appreciate my efforts.  I never got to meet him, sadly, but that event really felt like he had reached out from his Chicago home and, through the computer screen, patted me encouragingly on the back.  I'll never forget Roger, or Gene.  I miss them both terribly, and the world will always be indebted to them for showing us film lovers--the professionals and the hobbyists--exactly how to celebrate the movies.

Here is a link to MOVIE GEEKS UNITED's fine appreciation of Mr. Ebert...

And here are only a very few of my favorite Siskel and Ebert TV moments:

Their review of Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas:


A wonderfully negative review of Rob Reiner's North:


Their look at David Lynch's Blue Velvet, which Ebert was offended by:


A very memorable look at Louis Malle's My Dinner With Andre, which really helped that movie's critical standing:


Siskel and Ebert go at it over Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket:


A rave of the Coen Brother's Fargo:


Another Rob Reiner film, This is Spinal Tap, is gushed over here:


Their slam of Paul Verhoeven's Showgirls:


An entertaining compilation of negative reviews with Ebert, Siskel, and Siskel's TV replacement, Richard Roeper:


Finally, nothing says more about the Siskel/Ebert relationship than this collection of outtakes from some promo pieces they were doing for their show.  They could hurl nasty insults at each other, and then could be laughing and shaking hands soon after.  What a hardy and unique pair they were: 

Film #145: Blue Velvet

This is a reprint of my first NYC-published review. It was first printed in a long-dead 1986 NYU film school magazine, right after I had seen Lynch's movie with a disbelieving audience partially comprised of unsuspecting 1986 film students. My fellow NYU film production cadets and I watched the film together at an East 28th street NYC theater upon its release (I, personally, had been looking forward to this event with great anticipation; I, in fact, FORCED all these people to come see this movie with me, as I was a longtime Eraserhead and Elephant Man fan; and thus my cohorts were scarred forever--none of them had any idea who David Lynch was at that time, and they all looked at me quite differently afterwards, I believe).

I am reprinting my review now in full, with many corrections; still, the original spirit, and structure, and most of the writing, is contained. The minor changes to my initial article have occurred after a recent big-screen revisiting of the film, with fellow 20-something viewers who'd never seen the movie (this made me feel really old; still, it made me feel great that these new 2011 viewers exited the showing just like my 1986 NYU buddies did). I've tried mightily to retain the essence of seeing Blue Velvet for the first time in this review; there're no mentions of Lynch's subsequent works here, though for a truly full post-1990 review, such mentions would be necessary. That said, I think Blue Velvet will always remain the quintessential David Lynch movie, even though I think he's made better films since (read: Mulholland Dr.). Anyway, here's my review, quite largely written in 1986 innocence, with only four subsequent David Lynch features to follow:

What, exactly, is a David Lynch film?

Well, maybe it would be simpler to ask what it is NOT first. It is, for instance, not a textbook for most of the carefully computed formulas of other Hollywood products. Yet it always condones and concludes with that most traditional of Hollywood devices: the happy ending (even though the delicate and syrupy denouements Lynch imposes on his films usually--and purposefully--go to show us how fatally stupid most happy endings are).

A David Lynch film, also, never belongs to either its actors or the crew that worked on it. These artists certainly help the pictures along their surreal tracks. But the end result belongs to Lynch and Lynch alone. Never one to be chintzy with his visuals, this 38-year-old's background as a painter is startlingly obvious when one examines the lush shades and tones contained in his two black-and-white masterpieces, Eraserhead and The Elephant Man--two films that are injected with more ocular vibrancy than most color efforts. Even Lynch's first color film (how many times, since the 1960s, has THIS phrase been written in film criticism?), the gigantically-scoped but still fatally hamstrung 1984 adaptation of Frank Herbert's classic sci-fi novel Dune was still an energetically-hued jolt to the senses.

Above all, though, a David Lynch movie is never, EVER easy to take. With their bitter compare-and-contrast ironies, their fetidly twisted yet tender characters and unshakable images of ugliness that accompanies them, a David Lynch production is certainly not for the squeamish, shallow, or hopelessly average.

With all of this in mind, then, Blue Velvet begs to be considered as the quintessential David Lynch movie. It is, at once, exhilarating and exhausting. When the final credits are being superimposed upon a dynamic curtain made of the title fabric, the viewer feels resolutely steamrollered. This is what it feels like to put yourself in the control of a filmmaker who delights in every aspect of moviemaking. All of art is about the battle of control: control of its technical aspects, while its key artist is out of control of the forces that binds him or her; and as for the audience, there is the relinquishment of all control. All of life is a similar tightrope walk; lose your balance and you are finished. Lynch seems to have beat the system. He walks the rope.

Some people cannot take what goes on in Blue Velvet. They are hooked by the film's ambling first 30 minutes, but when the change comes (and, boy, does it come), they cannot brave it. Inevitably, when Dennis Hopper's stunning Frank Booth enters the scene, there are walkouts. Some viewers--more specifically, ones not familiar with the director's past works--consider putting their eyes in the grips of a director of this ilk to be an act of madness. But David Lynch is such a magnificent director that the more thoughtful moviegoers would have to look hard to find true fault with what he gets on celluloid, no matter how dangerously unbalanced it may be.

On its surface, Blue Velvet appears to be the kinkiest movie mystery ever made--which, of course, it is. Beyond all that, though, it's about what goes on UNDERNEATH surface appearances; we learn this early on, when an average man falls victim to an threatening internal struggle while, outside, another struggle for survival takes place beneath his well-watered lawn. This man's grass might be keen on the surface, but there are gnawing black beetles chomping away at those roots.

Blue Velvet takes Shakespeare's timeworn moral "All that glisters is not gold" (from The Merchant of Venice) and twists it to improbable shapes. With this first scene, scored with Bobby Vinton's lilting 1963 version of Bernie Wayne and Lee Morris' 1950 standard, David Lynch plunges us into the seedy underbelly of an outwardly serene lumber town named, appropriately enough, Lumberton. And so, the writer/director contorts one of the Bard's favorite iambic lessons like it's never been contorted before. Absolutely nothing in Lumberton is as it seems: not the rosy, white-fenced gardens, nor the store-lined main streets serving as beards for bizarre crime rings, nor the model nuclear families bearing through tragedies of grotesque proportions, and neither the quaint little sharp-gabled homes that, with their obligatory skeletons, standing as monuments to the emaciated American Dream. Even here, in the most scrubbed and naive God-fearing communities, moral and sexual decay cannot be staved off (or can it?).

Jeffrey Beaumont (expertly underplayed by Kyle MacLachlan) has just come back from visiting his hospitalized, desperately enfeebled father (looking very much like Kenneth McMillan's horrible Baron Harkkonen from Dune, minus the pus-filled facial warts). On the way back home, Jeffrey returns to a field, throwing rocks at an old green bottle, when he discovers an ant-infested, messily hacked-off human ear. Searching for something to engage him in this quiet city, he nonchalantly retrieves the ear and plops it in a brown paper bag (I think his discovery of the ear visually matches his discovery of future vaginas). Jeffrey delivers the ear to his neighbor, Detective Williams (an unnerving George Dickerson), at his downtown office. "Yes, that's a human ear alright," he says, looking into the bag suspiciously. (There's a lot of smart-aleck dialogue in the first part of Blue Velvet; it's meant to put you in a place of upheaval later on.) After having his men search the field, Williams--sensing that Jeffery is a wannabe detective as he once was--insists that Jeffrey not get involved in the investigation. "Once the case is all sewn up, we'll call you in" Williams says, in the first of many of the script's hilarious word-plays.

What Williams has not counted on, however, is the involvement of his daughter, Sandy (a gorgeous Laura Dern). After Jeffrey's visit to the Williams household, Sandy emerges from the darkness, in her pink sweater and feathered blonde hair, asking "Are you the one that found the ear?" She protests throughout, but she's just as hungry as Jeffrey is for some excitement in Lumberton. Clearly in the throes of a crush, she approaches Jeffrey and tells him of the "bits and pieces" she's "heard" about "the ear." For example, a name she says keeps popping up in her father's conversations belongs to the Slow Club (is this a reference to how "slow" the film is in its first half-hour?). The main attraction there is a singer named Dorothy Valens (Isabella Rossellini), who's more popularly known as The Blue Lady. (I need to mention now the film's contributions by sound designer Alan Splet, cinematographer Frederick Elmes, production designer Patricia Norris, editor Duwayne Dunham, the sublime sound designer Alan Splet, and the fantastic score's composer Angelo Badalamenti, who collaborated with lyricist David Lynch on the film's one original song, "Mysteries of Love;" I have to also note the film's magnificent source music score that includes Ketty Lester's "Love Letters," William Doggett's "Honky Tonk (Part I)," and and most importantly, Roy Orbison's "In Dreams," lip-synched unforgettably in a powerful one-scene performance by a powder-puffed, mascarared Dean Stockwell).

Jeffrey goads Sandy--who has a football player boyfriend--into attending the Slow Club with him, after enticing her with the unknown quantities of this town-wide mystery. She sees the danger, but is excited by it. They have an uncomfortable conversation about the beers they order--Heineken (which is LATER answered by one of the most powerful brand-name retorts ever: "FUCK THAT SHIT. PABST BLUE RIBBON!"). And then Dorothy appears onstage. Backed with brightly blue and red lighting, she delivers the movie's signature tune, "Blue Velvet" in her own inimitable, slightly stiff way. Hearing her voice, Jeffery is immediately intrigued; aroused, even. The day after, he meets with Sandy and concocts a scheme to sneak into the singer's apartment in order to get more clues about this severed ear.

Naturally, this is either a grave mistake or a stroke of luck. From here on--and no more will be said about the plot of Blue Velvet--Jeffrey is subjected to the harsh discourtesy of Frank Booth (the incredible Dennis Hopper), who's a drug-crazed, foul-mouthed Freudian nightmare with a fetish for snooky nitrous oxide and (what else?) blue velvet. From this point on, Jeffrey and Snady are thrust into the black heart of everything that is evil--rape, kidnapping, assault, joyriding, drug addiction and, finally, murder.

With all the intricate plotting at the center of Blue Velvet, is it too innocent a notion to dismiss the contrast between Lumberton's sunny daytimes and sinister nights as just a more vivid way of reiterating Shakespeare's aforementioned maxim? Probably so. Blue Velvet is too vivacious a film to be limited to just that. Like each of David Lynch's movies, almost anything--depending on the personality of the viewer--can be read into the story. The movie could be seen as a criticism aimed at the clash between the passive, TV-blitzed 1950s America (notice, in the opening scene, Jeffrey's mother as she watches a spooky, gun-toting film noir movie on her television) and the liberated, degenerated, yet socially-aware USA of the 1960s and 70s.

Lynch's film could also be an examination of a people who have no conscious, but many unconscious, desires to examine their sexual undercurrents (this describes the straitlaced Jeffrey perfectly; he blanches at every mention of Sandy's sexual unavailability, but has the slightest resistance to Dorothy's learned perversions, even though his participation in them leads him to nightmares and devastating crying jags; likewise, Sandy has many detailed desires of her own). Blue Velvet is surely, in the end, a harsh indictment of every counterculture our society has had to house over our past century--yet its also a celebration of such outbursts; it's the perfect mirror of the seemingly, astoundingly square visage of David Lynch, a man who marks only cigarettes and coffee as his vices, yet who clearly purveys a potpourri of glazed insanity.

Taking into account his entirely mindblowing 1978 film Eraserhead, and his radically different (but still similar) 1980 bio-pic The Elephant Man, as well as his inevitably failed 1984 adaptation of Dune, we still have to count David Lynch as a card-carrying member of the modern rebellion. However, we cannot ignore the fact that, while audiences may laugh uncomfortably and disparagingly at the sweet, myopic one-sidedness of Sandy's devoted monologue about the hopeful robins and their simultaneous brightness of love (surely one of the more inspired scenes in Lynch's film, even if it's not visually glossy), we choke in pure, nervous terror at the more electric, presently-oriented scenes with the terrifying Frank Booth and his chosen victim, Dorothy Valens. At last, Lynch seems to be asking us: "Wouldn't we all rather be saddled with blinders, as the Williams and the Beaumont families are, than be caught up with the looser but ultimately more debilitating and depressing non-conformities that belong to Frank and Dorothy?" In other words, be thankful for what you have got, because the grass is NOT always greener. This is a dazzling thing to learn from any movie.

This final theory seems a bit more weighty when examining the casting choices Lynch made regarding his available roles in Blue Velvet. Kyle MacLachlan and Laura Dern, as notable screen newcomers, stand as personalities primed for corruption. Meanwhile, we have an ineffably superb Dennis Hopper--a villain if ever there was one--playing Frank Booth. Hopper has been a counterculture figure since the mid-1950s. He was one of the hoods pitted against James Dean in Nicholas Ray's 1954 film Rebel Without a Cause. He opposed his Texan father (Rock Hudson) by wanting to marry a Mexican woman in George Stevens' 1956 film Giant. He was the isolated, mermaid-loving hero in Curtis Harrington's 1961 indie film Night Tide. He was a vocal admirer of Paul Newman's defiant Cool Hand Luke, in Stuart Rosenberg's 1967 movie. And he was, we all know, the star, co-writer, and director of 1969's Easy Rider, a story about two outsiders trying to rediscover America. Hopper has been associated with EVERY discontented youth movement to see the ink of national headlines. Who in the world could be more suited to play one of the most extreme sensation-seekers ever to be committed to film? Meanwhile, Isabella Rossellini was the very human product of mother Ingrid Bergman's then-scandalous 1950s love affair with Italian film director Roberto Rossellini (an avowed agent of worldwide change himself). She plays Dorothy, yet another innocent person jammed in the middle of what is seen by outsiders as pure peccadillo. She's been labelled by her parents' "sin," even if its not of her own making. While this is so, she's resplendent in every shot, even when bruised and beaten. (Laura Dern's unrelenting mask of dejection, upon the apex of the worst date ever filmed, smacks up cinema's most horrible nude scene, and makes it sublimely memorable; who has a face like Laura Dern's?)

Regardless, with all of this evidence--and forgive me if I appear to be shooting down my own theory--there is a strong possibility that Lynch means to convey to his audience an embrace of solid happiness, even in the face of cultural criticism. There's a great significance in the presence of the joyous (perhaps TOO joyous) outcome for the Beaumont and Willams' families following their momentary trifling with the murderous Frank Booth. The film concludes with the most knowingly corny of happy endings--just as did Lynch's Eraserhead. The robins return--with the evil black beetles in their beak---while Jeffrey's father is cured, the weather is once again beautiful, and lunch is on the table. Sandy and her beau appear to be in a state of bliss. Who knows what's next?

My Movie Poster Collection: B

As always, click on each image to see them larger: 

B MONKEY (Michael Radford, 98). Rolled, G I've never even seen this movie, but I sure do love me some Asia Argento. This is the best American poster featuring her magnificent visage.

BABY LOVE (Alastair Reid, 68). Folded, G
Sure would! Why not? Especially if she wears that little skirt all the time.

BAD COMPANY (Robert Benton, 72). Folded, G
Brilliant, beautiful sepia-toned poster for Benton's equally sumptuous quasi-western.

THE BAD NEWS BEARS (Michael Richie, 76). Folded, G
With art by the inimitable Jack Davis, this is one of my very favorite posters of the 1970s.

BARRACUDA (Harry Kerwin, Wayne Crawford, 78). Black-and-white, folded, G
My copy of this weird Jaws rip-off (filmed in Fort Lauterdale, Florida) is, for some reason, in black-and-white, which is a disappointment to me, now that I see the color version.

BARRY LYNDON (Stanley Kubrick, 75). Folded, VG
Not surprisingly, this is most opulent poster in the Kubrick canon, with artwork by Charles Gehm. Saul Bass did a great style B poster following the films four Oscar wins.

BATMAN AND ROBIN (Joel Schumacher, 97). Pre-release, rolled, NM
I have a thing for Alicia Silverstone, thus I kept this relic from the worst Batman film yet made. I still love this poster, though, because it showcases Silverstone's gorgeous face.

BEDAZZLED (Stanley Donen, 67). Folded, F
I like Raquel Welch as much as the next man but, boy, this dazzling comedy deserved a greater graphics treatment than it got. Bouncing nuns, a pop idol Satan, Eleanor Bron and God...and this is what we're left with? A disappointment, and misleading to boot (since Welch is in, I think, about two scenes).

BEFORE NIGHT FALLS (Julian Schnabel, 2000). Rolled, VG
Lovely design, sapped of much color, for this acclaimed yet (I think) dull film.

THE BEGUILED (Don Siegel, 71). Folded, G
I wish I knew which artist designed this stunning, strangely psychedelic piece for Eastwood's disturbing horror/love story/war movie mashup. Absolutely one of my favorite posters ever!

BEING JOHN MALKOVICH (Spike Jonze, 99). Rolled, VG
The best of four styles of posters for this landmark comedy explains exactly, through oddly accurate retro drawings, how this whole portal thing works. Another of the finest posters in recent memory.

THE BELLBOY AND THE PLAYGIRLS (Francis Ford Coppola, 62). Folded, VG
Betcha you didn't know Coppola's first movie was a 3D tit extravaganza (filmed under the pseudonym "Felix Umgalter"). I like the chaos of this poster--photos and two types of art, plus a terrific logo, all fighting for our attention. This one came from the 3D movie poster collection of the late, great 3D filmmaker extraordinaire Robert Schneider.

BENJAMIN SMOKE (Jem Cohen, Peter Sillen, 2000). Rolled, VG
A haunting image of the legendary, late Benjamin takes our eye here. Another rare poster, and one of the few I own advertising a documentary. Printed on thick card stock.

THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE (René Cardona Jr., 78). Folded, G
Good ol' Sunn Classics, purveyors of many a lame 70s on-the-fly documentary. They did ones about aliens (The Outer Space Connection) and Bigfoot, too, as well as In Search of Historic Jesus and In Search of Noah's Ark. This is one of their neatest poster designs, with an excellent use of literal negative space and a cool view of the triangle's debris-ridden ocean floor.

BEST FRIENDS (Norman Jewison, 82). Folded, G
A really fun take on the stars-against-a-white-background design trope. It's a pretty damn great movie, too, with tremendously funny supporting performances by Jessica Tandy and Bernard Hughes (as Hawn's parents) and Audra Lindley and Keenan Wynn as Reynold's parents.

THE BEST HOUSE IN LONDON (Philip Saville, 69). Folded, F
Never seen this, but I found it in a dollar poster bin, so I thought, ehh, why not? It's got women's pantaloons on it, and a pasted-on X rating, to boot.

BETWEEN THE LINES (Joan Micklin Silver, 77). Folded, P
Unfortunately, my copy of this cult movie's one-sheet has a tear in it. But what a cast here: clockwise, starting at the top, we have John Heard, Lindsey Crouse, Bruno Kirby, Lewis J. Stadlen, Jeff Goldblum, Michael J. Pollard, Jill Eikenberry, Gwen Welles, and Stephen Collins. Not many of these stars made it onto a one-sheet throughout their entire careers, so it's nice to see them all get such stellar treatment, art-wise (and by the incredible poster artist Richard Amsel, as well).

BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS (Russ Meyer, 70). Folded, G
When I was a kid, I was obsessed by this ad campaign. Something about all those ample women standing over us, looking down at us as we lay in a pit--this must have appealed to the boy in me, and I never forgot it. When I got a chance to own this poster, I jumped at it, but I had to pull some strings with the previous owner, who didn't wanna let go of it. I think I traded three other one sheets for it, but it was worth it. By the way, this may be the only one-sheet I own for which the film's director himself, Russ Meyer, personally photographed its main image.

BEYOND THE MAT (Barry W. Blaustein, 99). Rolled, NM
Ugh! No thanks. Next...
BITE THE BULLET (John Milius, 75). Folded, G
The burnished artwork by Tom Jung sold me on this poster, even as I had never been much a fan of the film itself.

BLACK BOOK (Paul Verhoeven, 2006). Rolled, NM
Nice layout for Paul Verhoeven's return to European filmmaking.

BLACK CHRISTMAS (Bob Clark, 75). Folded, G
Originally this poster looked like this:
...but the studio changed the film's title after a real-life sorority house was terrorized at Chistmastime by a madman. So they sent out a black-and-white overlay with the new title that was to be pasted over the old poster. I have the original poster, and the unpasted overlay as a separate piece, so it's kind of two posters in one. The illustration of the killer's first victim, suffocated with a plastic bag over her head, remains one of the scariest images ever included in a major ad campaign.

THE BLACK STALLION (Carroll Ballard, 79). Folded, G
A sensationally simple image that's perfect for the film, even if the picture itself is filled with a thousand striking shots.

BLADE RUNNER (Ridley Scott, 82). Folded, F
John Alvin's unforgettable artwork here has done its fair share in continuing to propel Scott's movie into modern classic territory. Surely, this is one of the 20 greatest movie posters of the last 30 years. Unfortunately, my copy has seen much better days, but it's still extremely cool to have it.

THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sánchez, 99). Pre-release, rolled, NM
A rare pre-release poster that's better than the release version, as you will see:

THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sánchez, 99). Rolled, NM
A classic, I don't care what anybody says. But, yeah, I prefer the other poster.

BLAIR WITCH 2: BOOK OF SHADOWS (Joe Berlinger, 2000). Pre-release, rolled, VG
After Saturday the 14th, the worst poster I own, only this one is not nearly as funny. I feel like going to destroy this thing right now.

BLAZING SADDLES (Mel Brooks, 74). Folded, F
Another fine poster by John Alvin, filled with lots of delectable details ("Hi, I'm Mel, Trust Me"), and with a snappy tagline. Certainly one of the greatest one-sheets ever, taking its place alongside Brooks' Young Frankenstein and Silent Movie posters, also painted by Alvin. In fact, all three share key design elements and would look fantastic hung next to each other. Unfortunately, I gave my Young Frankenstein poster away to a friend long ago. She wasn't even that good of a friend. Why the hell did I do that? I didn't even have a crush on her.

BLINDMAN (Ferdinando Baldi, 71). Folded, G
Got this one for Ringo, and Ringo only.

BLOW OUT (Brian De Palma, 81). Folded, VG
"Murder has a sound all its own." Almost as good a tagline as "In space, no one can hear you scream." Brilliant black-and-white poster for a very red-white-and-blue movie. It's absolutely perfect.

BLUE VELVET (David Lynch, 86). Rolled, VG
The saturated coloring of the central image is strikingly offset by a batch of indigo and one of the finest logos in movie history. This came from the collection of my good friend, the late Patrick Flynn.

BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY (Oliver Stone, 89). Rolled, G
The best Tom Cruise posters out there, mainly because it doesn't feature him smiling or straining.

BOUND FOR GLORY (Hal Ashby, 76). Folded, G
Tom Jung's artwork here makes this poster pop, but the garish blue typeface at the top almost wrecks--no, it DOES wreck--the entire effect. Tell me, was it even necessary to have the words to "This Land Is Your Land" shoved in our faces?

BREAKING THE WAVES (Lars Von Trier, 96). Rolled, NM
Ahh, the gorgeous simplicity of this one-sheet bowls me over, from the superb tagline to the cool color choices to the magnificent blending of close-up (Emily Watson's knowing face) and extreme long shot (aping the Scottish countryside postcard shots serving as chapter stops in the movie).

BROADCAST NEWS (James L. Brooks, 87). Folded, VG
It's a superb movie, but as a poster, it's sort of an eyesore. What's with that banner across the image? Ugh.

BRONCO BILLY (Clint Eastwood, 80). Folded, VG
Sumptuous painting by Roger Huyssen, and a sharp layout by the Warner Brothers team for this, one of Clint Eastwood's favorites from his own ouvre.

THE BROWN BUNNY (Vincent Gallo, 2003). Rolled, card stock, NM
A magnificent work of art, as a film and as a poster. I consider it a great turn of fortune to have landed one of these after rummaging through some posters in the back room of the Plaza in Atlanta, GA. I didn't think the manager would let me take it home but he did, and I'm forever grateful. I adore this piece's simplicity and boldness. Also, it's a particularly sturdy poster that, I think, has to be pretty rare. It's not like Gallo's movie played in a thousand theaters, y'know?

BUG (Jeannot Szwarc, 75). Folded, G
This thing is just hilarious to me. I can't help but smile when I see it. Does that make me sick?