Latest Updates - Dan Hedaya

---

Comment by Magic Marmalade:

Still good fun... but with a twist.

Seeing this after all these years, and having watched it back in the day at least a hundred times, I had wondered if it would hold up, or if perhaps, being a comedy variation on the buddy cop genre, the humour might have dated a little...

...Fortunately, the light bubbly wit and humour is still good fun, with nothing really that would date it, or make it cringe worthy to modern eyes and ears.

Indeed, the story of a couple of Chicago cops chasing down a local drug lord, and getting embroiled in a game of cat and mouse with him is still hugely entertaining, and the story and dialogue is first rate - Jimmy Smits gives a good performance as a stock villain / bad guy, and the ever reliable Joe Pantoliano has a small but memorable supporting role...

...But it's the brilliant camaraderie, repartee, and flat out chemistry between Gregory Hines and Billy Crystal that is the heart of this story, and what gives this movie huge personality, and charisma. In fact, the movie, in essence, is the back and forth banter between them with a detective / action story on top, which mostly serves to showcase their relationship.

But there is a problem here I've noticed, and it consists in how I watched it, in contrast to how I originally watched it, which detracts somewhat from it - and it's quite an odd thing too:

I originally watched this, first of course, on TV, then on my overworked VHS copy, in 4:3 ratio, so it was a fairly meat and potatoes movie with a kind of dingy look and feel, in how it presented the Chicago city-scape of the time, which the VHS and ratio only served to highlight, and feed into, in terms of look and feel of the production design etc.

...What hit me immediately, when I set my newly acquired DVD copy of it playing, was that the aspect ratio was 16:9, and this revealed a truly startling fact: The cinematography is stunning, and the production is incredible to look at this way... But that's a problem (for me, at least).

Being shot, and presented like a more upscale movie, like The Godfather, or a Kubrick work f cinematic art, doesn't chime with the character and personality I spoke of earlier, it seems, in fact to make the comedy banter (heart of the story) out of place a tad, smaller, and diminished a little, like those warnings you used to get on CDs, to the effect of: "CDs can reveal the shortcomings of the original recordings...etc.", and also put me in mind of the whole Mono / Stereo debate in music, whereby some original music sounds better in mono, as the music was recorded with the intention of maintaining that mono focus, and to have that kind of impact, and where stereo versions of such music can sound... off, or just plain wrong for what you're hearing. Here, the interaction between Hines and Crystal, is the focus, and the addition of all this extra screen, and sharper, more modern DVD quality only serves to distract, dilute a little, and draw away that focus.

Well, that's me, anyway. Objectively, if you have not been conditioned to see it this way, you might feel differently, but still find a movie to enjoy here...

(Does make me wonder though, if original screenings in this (presumably) original aspect ratio may have negatively coloured some critics view of it, in the manner I suggest, whereby, they may well have had a better opinion of it had they seen a 4:3 VHS copy later, it being more at home that way, and having that greater emphasis on the central pairing's comedy duo.

I'm glad to have a DVD copy, but honestly, I think 4:3 VHS is the one for me, so I'm going to make a point of getting one of those, as it does seem to impact on substance of the movie, and my impression of it.

---

Comment by Magic Marmalade:

Unfortunately, nobody can be told what Mulholland Drive is... You have to see it for yourself.

...Oh, sorry, that's the Matrix, isn't it?!!

(That said, that line in The Matrix always bugged me - clever marketing though it was - as you decidedly can tell someone what it is, if you sit down for five minutes and explain to poor Neo, rather than making him jump straight in... not to mention the fact that Morpheus then proceeds to spend fifteen minutes or so of the movie doing just that.. after Neo has committed. Bastard!)

((But I digress! :))

Actually, that is certainly applicable tot his movie, as the reputation it has is a mix of: It's the greatest movie ever made, or conversely: It's the worst movie ever made... A streaming pile of incoherent sh.....

The truth is, it's both, and deliberately so, I divined, from watching it the other day for the first time, and that is what may make this a work of genius.

To explain:

Although, exactly what this film is about, and the meaning of it may be open to many an interpretation, and perhaps no definitive point can be arrived at (I have my own thoughts, for later :), how it does it... goes about telling this story, whatever it is, is a little clearer on reflection.

For, from the opening, this is reeking with Twin Peaks look and feel, like it was made for TV in the early nineties (I had to check the date of the movie to remind myself of the real date because of this)... only worse.

Shonky, jittery soft-ish focus, amateurish camera work with a forced, contrived script, with forced, contrived dialogue, played by the most wooden, artificial performances from a collection of the most wooden, artificial actors Lynch could find.

It feels like a cross between low budget 70s porn acting and staging, and early nineties television pilots with ridiculous melodramatic plotting and absurd coincidental events.

You think, from the off: man, "this is the most shit movie I have ever seen!" (And what a shame it's Lynch too!)

I can see this movie losing 90% of it's audience in the first ten minutes, because of this.. who could just take no more, and would in reality, or metaphorically, stand up, and walk out of the theatre (Or change channels).

But this is a mistake!

As this is purposely done, and in a key scene, where Watts "character" as a young, freshly arrived starlet in Hollywood seeking fame and stardom, auditions for a role in a soap, you get the most real, and naturalistic acting from her you could get.

"Aha!... I get it now, this is about perception in media versus reality to some extent"

(thinks I)

People are more real in fictions than in their "real lives", seems what this story says.

And from here, the camera, imperceptibly, and by degrees, straightens up, the production gradually acquiring cinema quality, as does the acting, and the script, and you, the audience member, doesn't consciously perceive it happening. You see the earlier style was a deliberate choice, that says something about.... something.

I spite of the Noir-ish ("neo", or otherwise) style and themes (mystery, hallucinatory, oblique symbol heavy, metaphorical affair) I think this actually transcends this, and should rather be regarded as a kind of art installation, or a work of art of some description.

I would personally hazard a guess that this is a kind of subconscious, poetic eulogy of sorts to the kind of tragic figure that an Amalgam of Marilyn Monroe and Princess Diana would represent to David Lynch, set against obscure, dark, and sinister, background forces that controls her fate.

This hall of mirrors, has at least a couple of characters who may well be the same person, (maybe more!), but is captivating, and quite brilliant if you can persevere through the opening half, so then you later see the brilliance of what you thought, at the beginning, was shit.

Not sure I'd hurry back to watch it again immediately - for fun - but once it's rattled about at the back of my brain a while, I think I'd like to revisit it... Meantime, I'll file it away as an impenetrable piece of possible genius right next to 2001: A Space Odyssey, where it belongs :)