STACK #140 Jun 2016

FEATURE DVD & BD

THE LYNCH MOB

Jack Nance Eraserhead 's iconic posterboy appeared in small but memorably oddball roles in every Lynch project up until his untimely death in 1996, from a head injury sustained in a brawl outside a doughnut shop.

Kyle MacLachlan If Johnny Depp is Tim Burton's onscreen persona then MacLachlan is Lynch's alter ego, as the protagonist of Dune and Blue Velvet , and Twin Peaks ' eccentric FBI Agent, Dale Cooper.

By now you’ll have a handle on Lynch’s weird world and its menagerie of misfits. So before you proceed into even more bizarre territory, watch The Elephant Man (1980) to see

things from a different angle. The relationship between a Hollywood hopeful (Naomi Watts) and an amnesiac accident victim (Laura Harring) sets in motion a chain of sinister

DVD & BD

Blue Velvet

what he can do with a “straight” commercial film. The poignant tale of the deformed John Merrick’s journey from circus sideshow to high society is a great fit for the director and his most mainstream film, although the black and white photography and themes of alienation and physical deformity do echo Eraserhead . FURTHER VIEWING You have now completed Lynch

events in this love letter to the dark side of Tinseltown. An intoxicating mystery and a labyrinthine puzzle that obeys its own bizarre logic, Mulholland Drive is an ingeniously crafted Möbius strip of a movie. Keep an eye on the ashtray and the Cowboy. Once you've absorbed these two tenebrous Lynch classics, you'll have a better appreciation of Eraserhead , although you'll still wind up thinking,

Angelo Badalamenti Lynch's preferred composer's haunting and melancholic scores have set the mood for Blue Velvet , Lost Highway and Twin Peaks . He also made a cameo appearance in Mulholland Drive as an espresso-spitting movie exec.

101 and are ready to plunge into the heart of darkness, where he does his very best work. The director describes Lost Highway (1997) as a "21st century noir horror film", and this surreal journey into the fractured psyche of a troubled sax player (Bill Pullman) is a supremely crafted nightmare that ventures into the same shadow realm located in Twin Peaks. It

WTF? An intense, monochrome fever dream, at its simplest it's a dysfunctional family tale involving a nervous guy with big hair, his seizure-prone girlfriend, and their monstrous, mewling offspring. Have a look at Lynch's take on

a sci-fi blockbuster, too. Dune (1984) may have been a massive box office flop, but Frank Herbert's hard SF epic is a great showcase of Lynchian weirdness. By now you're a convert, so binge-watching Twin Peaks (1989-91) is a priority, especially given the show will be back in 2017. Lynch's game-changing series shook up TV with its eccentric cast of characters and intriguing central mystery – who killed homecoming queen Laura Palmer? Skip the rubbish third season, though.

also features an abrasive soundtrack from Rammstein, Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails, and what may be the screen's only death by glass coffee table. Mulholland Drive (2001) is arguably Lynch's masterpiece. It's a film that just keeps on giving – you can watch it numerous times and when you think you've finally worked out what the hell is going on, you'll suddenly see

Laura Dern Dern has been Lynch's muse through Blue Velvet , Wild at Heart and Inland Empire (2006). The director's campaign for her to receive an Oscar nomination for the latter film involved him sitting on Sunset Blvd with a sign and a cow.

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