Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Movie Madness

I fancy watching a film later. But I can't decide between:

The Big Lebowski
Eraserhead
Halloween
Identity
Wild At Heart
Carnival of Souls
The Big Lebowski* is always a contender when it's vid time. Any film I consider watching, it has to go up against the Dude, Walter, and Donny. Eraserhead simply puts me in a certain space that no other film can (I suspect it's to do with the sound). Halloween... no idea why I'm thinking of this. I don't really rate it as a slasher/horror flick. Groundbreaking (at least commercially) but this type of film has been done better. Nevertheless, it suggest itself. Identity... not watched this one. My mum gave it to me, raving about it (she knows what she's talking about, my mum. Honestly. It's her who got me into Stephen King, Thomas Hardy, and horror movies as a kid, just by leaving the stuff lying around. HOMEBOY is one of her favourite novels.) Wild At Heart... For all its quirkiness and great characters, Lynch seems to have pushed his "Lynchness" a bit too hard on this one. But maybe I'm wrong, so I want to watch it (yet) again to find out. You've got to keep reassessing, you know? Carnival of Souls (1962, not the Wes Craven remake), though appearing crap to the untrained eye, is actually a masterpiece of atmosphere and slow revelation.

Which one will I go for?

Find out tomorrow!

* All IMDB links acquired by cross reference from each other. Clever eh?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would go for LEBOWSKI or WILD AT HEART. The latter is a lot better than you probably think it is, the Lynchidity certainly not as high as it is in, say, LOST HIGHWAY or MULHOLLAND DRIVE. And I'm a big fan of ERASERHEAD (used to have the soundtrack at one point - great for annoying the neighbours). As for IDENTITY, the missus and I saw it, reckoned it was nothing special - there's a central twist that's a bit dubious, but the performances are okay...

Charlie Williams said...

For me. there are two types of Lynchidity. Lynchidity 1 is in LH, MD, and Eraserhead. Lynchidity 2 is BV, WaH, and TP. I prefer Lynchidity 1. I guess there is another one for Dune, tEM, and SS.

Identity, hmm... Maybe I should watch it. If I can be arsed. It's all about being arsed, isn't it? (American readers - that does not mean what you think it does.)

Steve Kane said...

I recently picked up Wild At Heart cheap on DVD and, having not seen it for a good few years, it is better than I remember. I love Lynch to bits but he's more of a weekend thing than a midweek, got to go to work in the morning kind of thing.

The Big Lebowski is my joint-favourite Coen Bros film (the other being Miller's Crossing) and it always cheers me up.

Tonight, though, as I'm tired and don't have the attention span for a movie, I may plump for a couple of episodes of Red Dwarf.

Charlie Williams said...

Your suggestions made up my mind for me, and I ended up watching CARNIVAL OF SOULS. What a film. This was definitely the one I needed to watch, at that particular time.