I ran a mile in less than seven minutes

Boom shakka lakka lakka boom.

A symbol of my individuality and my belief in personal freedom

I have a large number of older David Lynch movies I have to get around to watching, especially to build excitement for the rare chance that I may actually get to see his new piece, Inland Empire. I've seen most of them, but it's been so long that I really have no memory whatsoever. The only film I can remember from start to finish is Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. Today I started my Lynch extravaganza, and I plan to continue it over my break.

Wild At Heart is among Lynch's more linear pieces, and this is probably because it's based on a novel (Wild at Heart: The Story of Sailor and Lula by Barry Gifford). There tends to be a pattern to Lynch's work: if it springs entirely from his mind, it is an iconic and often wholly incomprehensible Lynch piece (see: Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive, among others). When the work is based on another piece--whether it be a real-life occurrence or a novel--it is easier to follow, yet still marked with Lynch's fingerprints (see also: The Straight Story, The Elephant Man).

And boy, are his fingerprints all over this one. Anybody who has watched multiple Lynch pictures will know that there are recurring motifs--images or sounds that intrigue the director. Fire is one of those things, and it plays a huge role in the picture. Not only is fire an essential part of the story (it is the demise of one key character), but it appears interstitially during jump cuts. Lynch is, perhaps, best known for his use of fire in Twin Peaks and its subsequent film adaptation, Fire Walk With Me. More common in the auteur's repertoire is the use of slow motion. It only appears to be used in two establishing shots of a junky apartment in New Orleans, but it adds the unsettling, dreamlike Lynch quality to the scenes. Other familiar elements appear as well (the yellow lines passing on the road, a'la Lost Highway, for instance), but in Wild At Heart, unlike, say, Mulholland Drive, they are not used to tell the story.

The essential Lynchian theme is the collision of idyllic, dreamlike Americana contrasted starkly with either brutal violence or brazen sexuality. This film has plenty of those collisions. Much to the delight of all the women in the crowd, Nicholas Cage performs Elvis Presley's ballad "Love Me," sandwiched between a barfight and an intense lovemaking session with his girlfriend. A brutal skull-crushing is underscored by Angelo Badalamenti's 1950's-esque dream pop.

The most incomprehensible (and yet the least Lynchesque) element of the film is the allusion to The Wizard of Oz. I've very infrequently seen Lynch reference other films within his own work. Certainly, he pays due to famous starlets of the golden age of cinema, but other narratives seem to have been off-limits. However, The Wizard of Oz is all over this piece. Lula (played by Laura Dern) references her homicidal mother as the Wicked Witch. Lula recalls her mother's cackle as her father was murdered. She sees an eerie, broom-riding specter following her car. In the end, Lula even vanquishes her mother's influence by tossing water onto a photograph of her (which shortly thereafter disappears, steaming). After a particularly brutal scene of sexuality involving Willem Dafoe's character Bobby Peru, Lula clicks the heels of her red slippers, almost in a cry to return to a place she could be comfortable. When that reprieve doesn't come, she slumps into a ball in the motel room. It is almost as if Lula lives her life in the fantasy world of Oz in an attempt to come to terms with all of the terrible things that had happened to her. In the end, it is only fitting that she is saved by the Good Witch.

Wild At Heart is not mindless entertainment, obviously, but it is an interesting film, and it stands up to aimless analysis. The film was made during the production run of Twin Peaks, and it's interesting to see so many cast members in roles so different from their television personae (Grace Zabriski, David Patrick Kelly, Fenn, Jack Nance, Sheryl Lee, and Frances Bay all make appearances).. In addition, there are some truly disturbing (Defoe) and moving (Dern, as well as Peaks' Fenn) performances that are entirely worth making this film part of your collection. So do it already.

Take a tit in each hand and let nature take its course

Going through my DVD collection, I stumbled across an old chestnut that I picked up for $5.50 at Wal Mart because I vaguely remembered watching a comedy about a train crashing on Comedy Central back before their original programming was such a large part of their line-up. I had discovered a number of movies on Comedy Central that rank among my favorite comedies of all time today. Airheads is a silly and inconsequential bit of fluff that I'm glad to say has lodged its way into my collection. Better Off Dead, which used to play ad nauseum, recently ranked number 3 on my personal top twenty-five comedies of all time list.

The movie I remembered was, obviously, Silver Streak. I'm typically a sucker for anything Gene Wilder, and Silver Streak is no exception. This is the first time I've seen the movie in full, and it didn't quite live up to my expectations. But how could it? Gene Wilder! Richard Prior! A murder mystery! A train! Hearing the premise on the back of the box made me think of Hitchcock's near-perfect thriller, Strangers on a Train. They even wanted me to think it! Here, listen:

"In this wild comedy adventure, rail passenger George Caldwell (Gene Wilder) finds that a romantic escapade with a sultry secretary (Jill Clayburgh) puts him in the middle of a Hitchcockian murder plot."

Hitchcockian. Nice. Sorry to say, the only way this plot could be considered Hitchcockian was if Hitchcock had been bashed in the head with a billy club and became partially mentally retarded. But then, I don't watch my Gene Wilder movies for the intrigue. I watch them for the wit.

There is nothing extremely brilliant about Silver Streak. It seems to be one of those movies that makes up for its lack of quality with its breadth of talent. There is a charisma about Gene Wilder that makes even the lamest comedies worth watching. Yes, See No Evil Hear No Evil, I'm looking in your direction. Richard Prior is consistently funny, even when he doesn't seem to be trying. There's a Steppin Fetchit routine that just knocked my socks off. It's a shame that neither of these comedians is working today (one's in some sort of retirement, the other is in some sort of coffin).

One of my favorite parts of the movie, upon first watching, probably wasn't meant to be funny. There is a scene at the beginning in which the female lead hits on Gene Wilder unsolicited, coming on in a way that is so unbelievably strong that you really believe she thought to herself, "There is something about that man and his untameable Jew-fro mane that just makes me want to SEX that." There's definitely a chemistry between the two actors, which is nice to see in something like a late seventies comedy caper (and would be nice to see in modern romances).

Another funny part--although it's funny to the detriment of the picture--is the cop logic. Most movies have some level of blurred reality when it comes to police work, but Silver Streak may have the most bizarre moments of all. Cops will pull their gun on almost anybody, and this is evidenced throughout. This is no surprise, and it occurs in almost every movie ever made. Real cops just don't pull their guns unless they see a weapon. I think that's the rule. Anyway, after arresting George (Gene Wilder) under suspicion of murder, the police clear his name. Then, they GIVE HIM A GUN AND A BOX OF LIVE AMMUNITION. They armed a civilian and drove him to a firefight. Not only that, but they left him unprotected. All of the other police wear body armor as they approach the villain, but George is left in his fashionable sweater and a pair of nice slacks.

Minor problems, really, and one can appreciate a level of banality in a movie that includes a shuckin' and jivin' Gene Wilder in blackface. Catch it if it's on television, but pass on the buy unless you're a die-hard Gene Wilder fan, as Richard Pryor doesn't even enter until the halfway point.

I will leave you with my favorite quote from the movie, which will become my insult-of-choice assuming I can wrap my head around it enough to memorize it. "You stupid, ignorant, son-of-a-bitch dumb bastard!" Uh...take it easy, killer. Stay loose.

Quick, man! Cling tenaciously to my buttocks!

In the continued effort to view every DVD on my shelf, I had a The Ren and Stimpy Show marathon today. I've been meaning to watch this box set since Halloween ended, but every time I tried to pop the first disc of Seasons Three and a Half-ish, I fell asleep. Finals week was the perfect time to sit down and watch DVDs, because I don't study and I literally had nothing to do for days at a time.

You know those shows that you loved when you were little, and you rewatch it on DVD and realize that it IS good, but for entirely different reasons than you had thought years in the past? Pee-wee's Playhouse is one of them. Ren and Stimpy is not. In fact, it doesn't hold up particularly well for me at all. The humor is silly, but not my kind of silly. I also threw up in my mouth a little bit when the titular pets choked down steaming glasses of skunk milk.

There are good moments, of course. Gilbert Gottfried and Rosie O'Donnell provide great guest voices that I didn't catch as "guest voices" the first time. Every episode had one or two laugh-out-loud moments. I am in love with the episode "House of Next Tuesday," which plays on the various classic cartoons involving the House of Tomorrow, which I also love. However, all in all it falls flat for me. I can see kids today loving this, even with the glut of Cartoon Network and NickToons originals currently on television. Something tells me that they'd be able to tell the marked quality difference between this and, say, Thugaboo.

A lot of to-do is made about John K.'s eviction from the show, and it was a travesty. However, I can see no marked decline in quality from the first box set to the second. John K. was revolutionary in his animation and in his twisted premises, but Bob Camp and the rest continue that tradition equally well. The animation is beautiful, and the inventiveness the animators have in creating expressions for the characters is the best since the golden years of Warner Bros. cartoons, and remains unrivaled by anything since.

Ren and Stimpy is not really suited for marathon viewing. If you buy the box sets, I would recommend popping it in on for an episode or two on a Saturday night, sandwiched between The Adventures of Pete and Pete episodes while you wait for Are You Afraid of the Dark? to hit DVD.

Neglect, etc.

I haven't stopped doing things on this list, but I have stopped posting about them. Deal.

I completed "Friends #6," which was to play board games with friends. Over Thanksgiving, my pal Brad came home from Ohio, and we went over to our friend Chris's to play. I have discovered the joy of Euro-games.

I dressed up for no reason, wearing a shirt and tie to a day's worth of classes. Done and done.

I rediscovered "reading for pleasure," and I have to say that it was far earlier than I had intended. I figured it would wait until after I graduated school and cooled down from my English-major-reading fervor. However, I made friends with a little monster called "Seminar in Drama," where we've been reading modern drama. I was moved by classics like "Our Town" and puzzled by modern plays like "The Birthday Party" and "Buried Child." Either way, I enjoyed the hell out of it. I ate them up. I discovered I could enjoy reading even when I had to do it for class--assuming the reading was worth my time.

Write a short story...I did one better, but I'm still going to count it. I wrote a novel. And no, I won't post it, because it's not swell.

Writing a poem every week. I'm sure that I've been slacking, but I've found that I can't force myself to write a poem. Sometimes it comes to me and sometimes it doesn't. I think, though, I've averaged about a poem per week. Just Monday I wrote two good ones. The real test will be keeping it up through times when I'm not in a poetry class.

I'm halfway done with the completion of my Beatles collection. I received "Yellow Submarine" for my birthday. Now I only have one disc to go--the "songtrack" to Yellow Submarine--to finish that puppy off for good.

Finally, I spent my birthday (observed) with my family playing Trivial Pursuit. My parents, my brother, my sister, and her manfriend. That's it. Move along.

Aside from the dubiousness of the poetry task, I have officially failed my first task. It has been over two months since I've seen Chris the Great or Tim. I'll have to get on it--I have a winter break coming up in a little over a week. Here's hoping.