Review: TWIN PEAKS: THE RETURN

REVIEW: TWIN PEAKS: THE RETURN

I can't stop thinking about Twin Peak: The Return (or Season 3, depending how you want to look at it). Last night television changed. As the two-episode finale was aired and streamed, television changed and evolved into something we've never seen before and perhaps never will again. The last time television was this revolutionary, Neil Armstrong was on it saying "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind!"

The first episode should've hinted that this is not the same quirky show that aired in 1990-1991, all about coffee, cherry pie, dancing dwarfs and the mystery of "Who Killed Laura Palmer?" There were traces of all of that, sure. There was plenty of humor scattered through-out, Dale Cooper's alter-ego Dougie Jones being a highlight, but this "Season 3" was a different beast. This season 3 was much darker and more surreal experience than what aired on ABC 26 years ago. At the time, Twin Peaks was as surreal as entertainment got, but that was a pre-Sopranos world where cable shows weren't common. Nowadays, with television being as strong as its ever been, thanks to less restrictions on cable compared to broadcast television and the rise of streaming services, I've wondered the past year what is Twin Peaks going to be like? Would it at all resemble the show 25 years ago, or with the limited regulations of cable, would Lynch simply run wild and created something in the vein of Lost Highway and Mulholland Dr.? Either way, Lynch was going to make something that made cable tv look conventional. But cable television is already unconventional and surprising every week. How can you shake up an industry that includes shows like Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, Boardwalk Empire, True Detective, The Walking Dead and Games Of Thrones? 

If you asked that last question, you don't know David Lynch. Lynch has always defied convention and pushed narrative storytellings into depths that have never been explored. His imagination is an enigma all by itself. How many artist can claim to have inspired an adjective? Had he not been Lynchian and more predictable and conventional, it would've been almost just as shocking as what we got.

So what was last The Return all about? Well…what the point explaining it? Either you've seen the original show and have been caught up with the new show as it aired, or you still haven't seen the show and are completely in the dark. Instead of reviewing the entire show episode by episode, (with Episode 8 being an art-form in an of itself) I'll simply say Episode 17 was as comprehensible as the show could've been. Our main character, Agent Cooper, was finally out of the black lodge, and raced back to Twin Peaks, the entire gang was there and Bob's story was more or less defeated. Yes, there were plenty of thing from the show still left unresolved, poor Audrey Horn's fate is pretty much up in the air, it certainly never explained the monster in the box in the first episode, but it came to resolution that more or less wrapped up all Twin Peaks fairly nice and what many probably expected. Then Episode 18 comes. 

What starts as a romance with Cooper and Diane(the character long hinted through-out the show, finally revealed in this show as Laura Dern)then untangles a plot twist that feels almost straight out of Back To The Future Part II: the events from the original show is completely altered, to the point we're witnessing another dimension from the entire show people have experienced. By the end, it's not even sure we're watching Agent Cooper, but a completely different character entirely. "What year is this?" is a line that will be remembered through-out the eternity of television. It's the "Where's Annie?" of the new show. 

A lot  of people on social media were…angry to put it lightly. For some people, they were actually cursing out David Lynch personally for letting them be invested in the show through-out all these years(as if he is responsible for that) only to end on THAT note. 

This could be the last we ever see of Twin Peaks: the rating were not as high as some were expecting(how could they?many fans of the original show could still be relying on broadcast television for entertainment and not get Showtime), whether we're getting another season, another movie on the likes of Fire Walk With Me, is completely speculative, and given how much everyone has aged perhaps unlikely. All I know is that Mark Frost's book The Final Dossier is expected to be a best-seller. 

As far as many fans were concerned, what was the point of finally resolving the cliffhangers of Season 2, if the Season 3 some have waited 26 years for is going to leave THAT much unresolved.

 But…mystery has ALWAYS been a big part of what makes Twin Peaks work. Seeing as Season 2 has been the "ending" of the show for a quarter of a century, it would feel, wrong, if everything concluded happy and conclusively like Blue Velvet did to an almost absurd extent. I really don't see this show could've ended any differently, certainly not in any way to make "everybody happy"(a goal that's impossible to accomplish and therefore not worth aiming for).

All I know is I was thrilled to the edge of my seat with the last episode, not sure what was going to happen, giving me, like most great movies but especially Lynch's, an "out-of-body" experience. This is art, unlike anything I've ever seen, perhaps ever will see.

People are trashing the ending of this show now, but remember, the movie Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, was HATED by the public, certainly by those who only wanted Season 2 cliffhangers answered. Today, that movie is beloved, with many 

calling it a masterpiece, and helps tie the original show with this "return". When they screened it at the Cannes Film Festival this year as part of the film's 25th anniversary(and as a promotion for this show) the audience cheered and gave Lynch a standing ovation! That's a far cry from when the film premiered at the same festival and the audience booed the film. Mulholland Dr. when it came out, confused many many people, leaving many people to complain that there is no point, there's no story, that it was just a tv pilot cobbled together and that its all meaningless. Today, virtually every film critic agrees that its the best movie released in the 21st century, and given the look of how the film industry is structured these days, it'll perhaps hold on to that title for the entire century, certainly in the foreseeable future. If there's anything to know about David Lynch, is that he ages like the finest of wines. His films are more significant and more important with each passing year.

So what do I REALLY think of Twin Peaks: The Return? Ask me in 25 years.

Fantasia: 75 Years Young

Fantasia: 75th Anniversary

By Justin Smith

Last week in January, The Aero Theatre in Santa Monica celebrated its 75th anniversary. As a celebration, they decided to screen a film that was also celebrating it's 75th anniversary: Walt Disney's Fantasia!  Being unsure whether D23 would acknowledge the film's anniversary with a screening, I jumped at the chance to see this. After all, with Disney animator David Pacheco in attendance and with a raffle that included a 30th anniversary poster of Disneyland(and free Disneyland tickets!!), I thought the event was just too good to pass up. 

The price-tag for this particular screening was a bit high at $30, as it was intended to raise money for the Aero, but the opportunity to see Fantasia on the big screen was worth it, especially considering all the perks the Aero Theater offered. Popcorn, candy and crackerjacks were literally sold with 1940s prices! Ordering my 15¢ popcorn, it was easily the first time I ever asked the question "Do you have change for a quarter?" What's more, they even gave out complimentary cookies!

I mentioned that they had raffling to give out. They gave out one ticket for free, and you could purchase individual tickets for $2.00 each. The prizes consisted of free theatre membership, yearlong-tickets and tickets for restaurants and attractions around Santa Monica. For Disney themed prizes, in addition to the Disneyland tickets and 30th anniversary poster I mentioned earlier, they were also offering a concept print of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" on canvas, two Walt Disney-themed posters, they even had a raffle for tickets to the Pantages Theatre to see Newsies! I put in tickets to all those except Newsies. 

A little after 7:30, a full of all ages took their seats. A couple of volunteers welcomed and thanked us for our support for the Aero Theatre and reminded the audience of some of the upcoming events the theater had in store. After that, one of the managers gave us a brief history of the Aero Theatre, how it was built in 1940 by Donald Douglas Aircraft, originally intended to give free 24-hour screenings to aircraft workers who worked long-day shifts(thus given the name "Aero"), until it eventually became a beloved local theatre embraced by the city of Santa Monica. It the 90s the theater suffered due to the popularity of theater chains, and the Aero mostly became a run-down place that showed second-run movies. It very nearly face extinction as Hollywood icon Robert Redford tried to renovate the theater, expressing his fondness for his childhood theater, only to have pulled out of its financing. If even the Sundance Kid thinks you're a lost cause, things begin to look rather bleak. 

Then, in 2005, American Cinematheque, the very same non-profit organization that saved the iconic Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, came to rescue to finance and preserve the theater and have been the theater's sponsor ever since, consistently screening classic movies, foreign films, smaller independent films, even having celebrities to come introduce their films in person and have QnAs.

Speaking of celebrities, the mayor of Santa Monica was there to share his memories of growing up with the theater, before declaring Jan. 30th as "Aero Theatre Day" in Santa Monica. But most exciting was when they announced that they had a filmmaker who was a member of the American Cinematheque in the audience here to support the theater, who was none other than Jon Favreau! Yes, the same Jon Favreau who directed Iron Man, Iron Man 2 and Disney's upcoming The Jungle Book remake scheduled for early 2016. After joking that he didn't actually make Fantasia, he then went on to speak highly of the movie, before speaking quite fondly of the Aero Theater, sharing both his childhood memories to how much screening his latest film, Chef, at a QnA last year really meant to him, as well as having the opportunity to take his children to see Mary Poppins on the big screen.

Then they finally drew the raffle tickets, to which: I lost every single one of them. Pity, but hey, you win some and lose some. 

Finally it was Disney animator David Pacheco's turn to come to the stage, where he gave a powerpoint on Fantasia.

Chances are if you've at all followed the movie's production history over the years, chances are you've heard most of the stories he's shared before(though when he asked if anyone in the audience had never seen Fantasia, though, an embarrassingly big number of hands went up, though even I raised my hand for never having seen in it theaters). Such as how Fantasia merely started off as a Mickey Mouse short, how Walt held a special fondness for that mouse even after Donald Duck easily eclipsed him in popularity, and decided to do a very special short with a high concept and elaborate production values in order to help showcase his beloved icon. He even got Leopold Stokowski, a very popular composer of the day, to agree to composed the short for free. However, the production quality of the animation ended up being so high that The Sorcerer's Apprentice ended up going over-budget, to the point that it would've lost money no matter how popular it given that nature of short films. So, it was then decided that The Sorcerer's Apprentice would expand into a film titled The Concert Feature, with the original intention of having it be a showcase for shorts that could've easily been Silly Symphonies. They even showed some sketches of the original plans for instrument-playing insects. Ultimately, those plans were ditched for a more classical a high-brow approach.

Among the other tidbits he talked about were how the ostrich in "Dance of the Hours" was modeled after a dancer named "Margie Bell" who later became MGM star, and Disney Legend, Marge Champion, and that Chernobog from "Night on Bald Mountain" was modeled after none other than horror icon Bela Lugosi(though animator Wilfred Jackson stepped in for a lot of it). That Yen Sid, the sorcerer from Sorcerer's Apprentice, was based on Walt, particularly his raised eyebrow to sign his anger. Or how in the Pastoral Symphony there was an accident in the art department involving a cherry food item only to completely alter the color scheme of the entire segment. Perhaps the most interesting story though was that in 1940 there was an earthquake and the glass of the multi-plane camera broke and that Fantasia literally didn't get complete until 4 hours before its first screening.

He also talked a bit about Fantasia's legacy, how, like Alice In Wonderland, it was not particularly successful until the drug-culture of the late '60s-early '70s came along. He also did mention Fantasia 2000. He finally concluded by quoting a tagline that was first uttered before Fantasia's first premiere in New York: "Fantasia Will Amasia".

The best case scenario would've been if they had screened a 35mm print of the 2-hour cut last released in 1990. Unfortunately, it was DLP, essentially being just the Blu-Ray version, complete with a Corey Burton-sounding Deems Taylor. It was still very cool to see the movie on the big screen, but with multiple version of the film around, its a shame Disney insists only on releasing one(it also would've been cool to see Sunflower, but that would've been a god-given miracle).

Since everyone who'll bother reading this pretty much already know Fantasia is a work of art, I won't really bother reviewing the movie itself, explaining how it was decades ahead of its time and paved the way for everything from Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life to Michael Jackson's Thriller, nor will I bore you with personal likes "'Sorcerer's Apprentice' inspired me to actually water the plants as a kid" or anything like that. I will say, though, the one thing that surprised me most about seeing the film for the first time on a big-screen with an audience, actually was not the animated segments, but the live-action concert footage with the musicians. As a kid, I was always under the impression the live-action footage were very serious if somewhat dry, that basically helped framed the movie as very elite and sophisticated. What surprised me was how funny those scenes were, with Deems Taylor getting some of the biggest laughs of the night. Even as an adult, I never really picked up on the sly wit of Taylor until that screening until that screening, and that actually made for some of the more interesting parts of that screening. Of course, there a couple more obvious attempts at humor such as the interview of the "soundtrack" or a band member stumbling through the chimes, but I guess I never really had given it much thought before(of course, all of the humor is extremely subtle in comparison to its sequel).

After the screening, they gave out complimentary food, which included chocolate, grapes, dip, alcoholic beverages, even Welches grape-juice!(Did You Know: Disneyland sold Welch's Grape Juice in a Fantasia theme store?)

Jon Favreau, as I expected, had long ventured out by the time the movie was over. However, I did manage to chat with animator David Pacheco a bit though. For those not in know, perhaps his biggest accomplishment was the "Walt Disney Classic Collection" figures to. Longtime Fromscreentotheme.com readers may recall I actually [LINK TO MY WALT DISNEY CLASSIC COLLECTION THURSDAY TREASURE]collected Walt Disney Classic Collection[/LINK]. Among many of the figures a booklet with David Pacheco's picture and a desc. Essentially, its just a now outdated ad for the Walt Disney Treasure Society, not overly fancy but I knew I'd regret it if I didn't managed to get him to sign it! He happily obliged, and seemed to get a real kick out of the fact somebody wanted his autograph, let alone wanted a 20-year-old photo of him signed. That made the night worth the trip!

There was even a model of the Centaurette, almost as impressives as the Centaurettes that actually showed up to the screening!

If you happen to live in a big city and have any local single, art-house, independent or classic-film theaters by you, please, by all means, utilize them as much as you can.  Oftentimes its a struggle for them to remain operational, with many of the staff being volunteers who do it for the joy of cinema rather than financial gain. Even if they don't happen to screen Disney movies, there's a high chance you'll discover treasures among them.  It would be a great pity if we ever have to live in world that solely realizes on Netflix Instant Streaming. May the theater-going experience thrive!

Encounters Of The Middle Of The World...

Of all the celebrities I've managed to encounter with since moving to Los Angeles in June, perhaps none have left me starstruck quite like the German-American auteur Werner Herzog.  While he isn't necessarily my favorite director, one thing no can deny is that he is truly one of a kind and the the most dedicated of directors. 

Its hard to know where to begin with a guy like Herzog! How about the fact he jumped naked in a cactus patch to motivate his film crew? Or the time he cooked and ate a shoe in front of a live-audience(and had it filmed it into the movie Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe). Or the film Fitzcarraldo, the film he made that involves a 300+ ton ship literally being raised over a mountain? Or how about his hatched plan to kill his leading star(Klaus Kinski) who in turn planed to kill him. Or the numerous times he's been shot at…included a time he was being interviewed by Mark Kermode, only to continue with the interview instead of going to a hospital? Herzog is a mad genius, a man who leaves all other filmmakers in awe. Its hard to think of a director, past or present, who has put more dedication to his craft than he has(did I mention he once saved Joaquin Phoenix's life from a near fatal car-accident?). 

Learning of his extraordinary life and career, I'd always wished to meet Herzog. I missed out the chance to see him and Roger Ebert present a screening of Agiurre, The Wrath of God(don't ask why, it was during that dark period of being a CO citizen). While I'll never have the chance to see Roger Ebert in person, I always knew there would be one day a chance to encounter the good soldier of cinema, as Ebert once referred of Herzog. Thankfully, the chance came last October.

Werner Herzog was at the Aero Theater to do a QnA of his 2011documentary, Into the Abyss, tackling death-row convicts. Having never seen the film before, I was eager to see it at all, let alone on the big screen, but the real reason I went was to see Werner Herzog in person. 

The film was like a lot of Herzog's documentaries: dry, deadly serious in tone, some hilarious LOL moments sprinkled through-out, yet completely mesmerizing. Following a Texan triple-homicide convict named Michael Perry, Herzog gives this person the respect every human being deserves. While he unloads most of the facts of the case interviews many of the victims of his acts, what makes this film(as well as Herzog's other films) special is that he never looses sight of the human-being front and center of the film. Having made documentaries on subjects ranging from Timothy Treadwell to Antarctican scientists, he truley is a human director. Herzog's soothing German-accented voice gives a soothing quality to an otherwise very dark narrative, he's even not afraid to have fun with his interviewees, such as when he interviews a reverend  who blesses death-row citizens before their executed and when he makes an off-hand remark about squirrels talking about life god makes, Herzog asks to further describe his encounter to squirrels to amusing results! Finally, he also manages to tackles the hard task of exploring political issues without himself ever getting political or even polarizing. This resulting I think from the true humanizing of Werner Herzog.

After the film, when the interviewer announced Werner Herzog and he walked to the stage, you could definitely feel his presence. I would've asked him a question but honestly, the interviewer did a pretty good job asking all the basic questions one could have from why he drawn to this particular case in Texas(Herzog was impressed by the non-sensible randomness of the murders) to how he avoids political politics(Herzog stressed he thought the people of Texas were wonderful and pointed out as a German he felt he had no right to dictate to the US how they should run their death penalty system). 

Since he is one of those guys you want to go inside his brain, most of the audience steered of the discussion of the movie itself and talked what they wanted to talk about. One person announced they were a member of the communist party trying to start a revolution giving a long rambling speech about his ideology; seriously, how the hell do you respond to that? Another person took pride of the fact he was from Iran and wanted to get Werner's thoughts on Iran. Then a college-aged girl didn't even have a question and just wanted to expressed how much "Cave of Forgotten Dreams", his documentary on cave paintings, meant to her as a person. While the interviewer was clearly annoyed how all the questions were off topic to "Into The Abyss", Herzog answered the questions the best he could in a non-condescending way.

Perhaps the most exciting part of the interview was the he mentioned he was close to wrapping up Queen of the Desert(his biographical film on Gertrude Bell, starring Nicole Kidman) and that in the next week he was going to South America to do location scouting for his next documentary. Herzog is one of the true treasures of cinema that more people should appreciate. I was honored to finally be in his presence, hopefully it won't be last time! 

Interstellar Oculus Review

Like Cecil B DeMille, Alfred Hitchcock and Steven Spielberg before him, Christopher Nolan has thrived at knowing what his massive audience wants and giving it to them. In doing so, he's become as big a "star" as the actors he casts.  Looking at the IMDB Top 250, his highest rated film, The Dark Knight, rates #4 just behind the likes of The Godfather, The Godfather Part II and The Shawshank Redemption, meaning that in this day of age in which people receive the satisfaction of streaming their entertainment on Netflix, Nolan is one of the last of his kind: one who makes "event" movies that people generally feel the need to have to go to movie theaters and watch on the big screen.

Not to say his films don't have their critics: search the internet and you'll find plenty of critics, some from the industry and some who are reviewers/enthusiasts like Rob Ager, a lot of them coming off as fairly intelligent who have clearly studied and know film, who'll criticize Nolan for being too influenced by superior artists like Michael Mann and Quentin Tarantino, crafting incomprehensible action scenes(they'll often use the truck chase from The Dark Knight as the best example), overuse expository dialogue and even overcomplicated his relatively simple narratives for little purpose. While its easy to write those people as "snobs" Nolan's fans take it to the extremes from consistent complaining about The Academy for not nominating The Dark Knight for Best Picture(which resulted in The Academy from expanding the number of Best Picture nominees) to even sending death threats to film critics who gave The Dark Knight Rises a negative review(which resulted in RottenTomatoes.com from removing the comments section from critic's reviews).

I myself find myself being in the middle of these two extremes.  Personally, I don't think Nolan is a genius as others seem to believe. I feel his work often lacks versatility and that he simplifies his somewhat complicated ideas for something more bland and simple, that's easier for the audience to digest but make him far less interesting than the filmmakers he has publicly stated in trying to emulate such as Stanley Kubrick or Terrence Malick. This also doesn't help that with some of his shaky-cam techniques and overreliance on Hans Zimmer he has inspired less diverse and more bland imitators. But on the flip side of that, its rather inspiring to think that in our age of Michael Bay that there's one mainstream filmmaker trying to make action blockbusters that engage their (mostly teen) audience with somewhat sophisticated  and intelligent ideas. Equally inspiring is the fact that there's one modern director who has kept his foot firmly in the past as well as the present, as Nolan insists to shoot on celluloid instead of digital, makes films both in 35mm and 70mm prints, and has even helped finance Kodak to help them keep from fading out of existence. In uneventful filmmaking times, he truly makes films that demand attention, and the fact he has done so without gimmicks like "3D" and in some more old-fashioned ones like giant screens and storytelling is sort of miraculous and for that alone I feel he deserves most of the praise he gets.

One "gimmick" though, he has indulged in is his marketing. In order to stand out, the marketing of his films think of some fairly clever solutions, whether its through ads or building viral websites he really knows how to build up anticipation to his films which sometimes don't have the established brand name to build off of.



For Interstellar, Nolan's latest, WB has offered an "Oculus" experience. In very selective cities in a mere three states, theater chains have offered a "virtual reality" trip in which you can visit the space ship sets of the movie.

When I first read about the set up in New York online it immediately perked up my interest. The reason being it reminded me of something from the viewing experience I had from watching Inception. When the "dream within a dream within a dream within a dream" sequence happened, it reminded me of what Alfred Hitchcock said of Steven Spielberg's Jaws when he praised "[Spielberg is] the first one of us who doesn't see the proscenium arch." One can easily say the same for Nolan. When watching Inception the first time what impressed me the most about the movie was that it was less like watching a screen and more like traveling in a maze with the characters. The reason why it struck popular with audiences, I say, is because it offered what Roger Ebert referred to as an "out-of-body experience". While I have issues with the movie(most of it being related to the needless exposition which bores one to tears on the 2nd viewing) the film works ultimately because of that dream within a dream within a dream climax of the movie. This Oculus experience seemed like the chance to show Nolan how he really views movies: not as a flat surface facing the audience but as an immersive experience. One doesn't need 3D glasses to see his films because the films are three-dimensional themselves.



So when I heard this exhibit was being brought over to Los Angeles, I immediately marked my calendar. As someone who is always eager for events and experiences taking in my beloved Southern California that can't simply be reproduced in just any other city in any other place in the world, such as Colorado Springs, I immediately jumped towards the chance to see this. The fact it was taking place at the AMC Theaters at CityWalk was a match made in heaven: much like theme park attraction, this sounded like an attraction that would transport you inside a movie. And as icing on the cake: the event was free(ok so you still had to pay Universal parking, but I'll let that fact slide by).

 As you can see the chairs and devices almost resembled that of the ones of Inception. While waiting in line it was fun to see the few in front of me get really involved with the experience. Before I stepped in though, some AMC employee offered a free poster to those who had pre-bought their tickets(I bought mine as I was always planning on seeing it and hey, free posters are fun). They also and made you sign of those contracts that said "I am aware of the health risks involved and that Universal and AMC weren't responsible for any deaths blah blah blah" and then it was on to the Oculus.

The best was to describe it was as virtual reality, but without any will-power or controls. It starts with you being on board the ship where your told to go into another room by your "commander". You travel through the tunnels and control, at one point even initiate "zero-gravity" to where your floating through the different rooms. You even go through a floating pencil not unlike in 2001: A Space Odyssey. It ends with you in the control-panel facing another planet(Jupiter maybe?) then ends with the Interstellar logo. Through-out the whole event, your tempted to turn your head and look all around you as your surrounded by the interiors of this spaceship. You also have the urge to grabs things even if you have no real control.

While I highly doubt Interstellar will reach 2001: A Space Odyssey heights(it's a near guarantee Interstellar won't inspire a Steve Jobs to invent and name a product after the movie like Kubrick's masterpiece has) I am sure that based on the Oculus alone that after 2014's underwhelming box office that this film will definitely be an "event" film.

And for that, I say bless Mr. Nolan's cotton socks!