Best 2006 films

[kelber at mindspring.com]

I'm plagued with insomnia.  I'm sure IE would have been less excruciating if I could have dozed too.

Laura

-----Original Message-----
>From: Keith <keithsz at mac.com>
>Sent: Dec 27, 2006 9:40 PM
>To: "Brawlers, Bawlers, and  Bastards List" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>Subject: Re: Best 2006 films
>
>Pleased to say that I saw Inland Empire last Thursday, and watched  
>with my critical faculties and thinking mind as close to off as I can  
>get them.   It was similar to the experience of getting on an  
>airplane for a 3-hour trip, then alternately dozing, reading, dozing,  
>listening to others' conversations, daydreaming, dozing, dreaming.   
>During the 179 minutes of the film, my mind had ample time to  
>wander.  I spent little time thinking. The movie isn't made for the  
>thinking mind. It is about images, sounds, (the un)conscious[ness],  
>reality, identity, the movie industry, art, and the purpose of art.   
>Later I thought of how there was this film: overly long, plotless and  
>characterless; and there's ATD, which has been similarly described by  
>Kakutani and others.  What, I wondered, was the difference?   The  
>difference, I think, is that on every page of Pynchon's book there  
>are starting points for mental reveries about math, time-travel,  
>light, anarchism, etc.  It's an exciting blueprint for thinking  
>about, and thinking about how we think about, the world.  IE, on the  
>other hand, is not about cognitive thought and rational mind. It is  
>about the dark under-belly of the ego and consciousness. Irrationality.
>
>Lynch taped the scenes in no particular order, without a script and  
>only decided in the editing stage what he wanted to use, and in what  
>order.  He challenges the viewers to abandon the search for meaning  
>when there isn't any, and have an experience outside of rational  
>meaning.  He holds the willing captive for 3 hours, flashing little  
>that can evoke reveries or associations: he avoids cliches like the  
>proverbial tarot card flip, for example.  Each scene seemed endless  
>out and basically uninteresting to rational mind.  Judging from the  
>reviews I've read (which mostly rave over it), the most evocative  
>scene for unadventurous filmgoers was where a bunch of hookers sing  
>and dance to The Locomotion (I missed that one during one of my brief  
>naps).  I don't mind, I'll catch it next time. Sounds like it is  
>mocking what most people go to movies to see in the middle of a movie  
>most people will have enough sense to avoid.  The series of scenes  
>with people in rabbit suits was eerily hilarious, especially since  
>he's used this before.  I can't wait to return to the theater! Laura  
>Dern was simply stunning.
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