evans theatre

RIP, David Lynch

Posted on by Patrick
Still from Mulholland Dr.: Rita (Laura Harring) and Betty (Naomi Watts) facing the camera, looking perplexed

David Lynch has left us. He made some amaz­ing movies, some of which we showed at the Evans The­atre.

I remem­ber show­ing Mul­hol­land Dr. back in ’01. In that era we were show­ing two films a week­end: one would play on Fri­day at 7:00pm and Sat­ur­day at 9:30pm, and the oth­er would be Sat­ur­day and Sun­day at 7:00pm. I watched most of Mul­hol­land Dr. on the Sat­ur­day ear­ly show, and had to leave before the end of the movie to set up for the sec­ond show (I was the late-show pro­jec­tion­ist that night).

It was a sur­re­al movie, with a lot of dis­parate things going on, but by about 8:45pm, when I had to exit the the­atre, I felt like I had a han­dle on what was going on, and how things were going to tie togeth­er in the end. I knew I’d be able to watch the whole thing on Sun­day night, and test my theories.

(For those who have seen the movie, I left right around the time Bet­ty and Rita found the blue box.)

Well, Sun­day night I set­tled in and watched the movie start to fin­ish, and, uh…

Long sto­ry short, I had no idea. Short­ly after I’d left the the­atre on Sat­ur­day, every­thing changed. I still am not con­vinced I under­stand what was going on, despite hav­ing read many an arti­cle with titles like “What’s real­ly going on in Mul­hol­land Dr.” But what a ride it was.

Farewell, Mr. Lynch. We will not soon see your like again.

Guitar Lessons

Posted on by Patrick
Still from "Guitar Lessons": Leland walks down a railroad track

Leland inher­its a gui­tar from his “uncle[1]More like­ly his dad.”. Ray—once a tour­ing musi­cian, now a suc­cess­ful oil­man[2]He’s the type who would bris­tle at the sug­ges­tion he’s an “oilper­son”.—gets a call from a for­mer band­mate, let­ting him know their deceased friend left his gui­tar to some kid in his area (“and you might want to check in on it before it turns into firewood”).

Kind of like Viking last week, this one’s a Cana­di­an com­e­dy that becomes less fun­ny in the sec­ond half. Where Viking went a lit­tle dark, though, Gui­tar Lessons delves deep into the char­ac­ters’ flaws, and shows us how they try to fix them­selves. There’s a deep lake of dra­ma under the sur­face laughs. This film has things to say about fatherhood—biological and adoptive—addiction, grow­ing up (for both teens and 50-year-olds), priv­i­lege and wealth, rela­tion­ships, and life in oil coun­try. It’s also beau­ti­ful­ly filmed: med­i­ta­tive in its fram­ing. There’s a long sequence of Ray clean­ing, repair­ing, and pol­ish­ing his old friend’s gui­tar, word­less. The shots of the coun­try­side and the towns through­out are love­ly, too.

I quite enjoyed it.

Foot­notes

Foot­notes
↑1 More like­ly his dad.
↑2 He’s the type who would bris­tle at the sug­ges­tion he’s an “oilper­son”.