that surrealism you like will come back into style

We watched Inland Empire, the new eagerly awaited David Lynch movie Thursday night. Then we watched it again last night. And then we were just the teeniest bit tempted to watch it tonight too, but decided against it since it’s three hours long. Which is my only complaint. That is one loooooooooong movie. I can’t even begin to tell you what it was about. Laura Dern plays an actress who gets a part in a movie called On High in Blue Tomorrows. I keep trying to write a concise little synopsis of the, ummm, plot, but I think it would take longer than watching the movie did. The movie that was being made kept blurring into the original movie that was abandoned due to the murders of its two stars,  the actress became consumed by her character, the stories merged, there were gypsy curses, flashbacks to Poland in the 40s, scary seamy carnival people, a gaggle of hookers who kept showing up all over the place, a weeping girl watching a television in some other country where she would sometimes see static and sometimes see what we were seeing, time going in every direction at once, endless mazes of hallways, rooms, and corridors, and a sitcom about three rabbit-people. With an inappropriate laughtrack. 

It was very very very David Lynch.

I loved it, though. Except that I think it goes on so long that by the time you’re done, you’re completely drained and exhausted and just want it to be over, so it’s a little hard to remember how fantastic it was. My only complaint is that David Lynch needed to cut out about half an hour, mostly of Laura Dern wandering badly-lit, frightening hallways looking baffled and afraid. But mostly it was wonderful. Extremely surreal, fantastic filming, full of weird time and twists and never what you’d expect. And even funny in places.

So I highly recommend it. Just be aware that it’s three hours long and the last part needs some editing. Oh, and don’t watch it right before bed. Like I did. Twice. So that I ended up having bizarre scary dreams about dark twisty hallways all night long.  

That Wikipedia article leaves much to be desired, but it does have some good links.

And that’s the most thrilling topic I have. I spent a big chunk of today trying to clean up the house. I did manage to get all the boxes out of the livingroom floor. And get my books unpacked. You still can only barely squeeze into my "study" by crawling over several crates. So that’s an ongoing project. OH, and I finally put all my old paper journals into a huge steamer trunk that came from my grandparent’s house. I’ve meant to do that for nearly two years now. The steamer trunk had been in my study, but we had to move it out into the livingroom to make room for the bookcases, so now it’s behind the couch. And is just perfect for my ten gazillion journals. I was going to line it with some fabric but never did manage to actually go buy some fabric to line it with, so finally decided if I ever get around to that I can just take the journals back out again. It’s not one of your more handsome steamer trunks, but I’ve always liked it a lot.

So, off to read some Harry Potter. I’m still on Order of the Phoenix. And surprisingly have managed to remain ignorant about what happens in the final book. No spoiler notes!