Reviews

SPOILERS in this post (*MAJOR* spoilers), both for Mulholland Dr. and Jacob's Ladder, so please stop reading if you want to watch either movie with a clean slate:

Following the Starz! premier of Mulholland Dr. a couple of nights ago, I signed onto here to check out who played certain characters. I was surprised to see a review here by someone who I think also TOTALLY understood Mulholland Dr. It was TxMike's post (http://us.imdb.com/CommentsShow?166924-720). It seemed to me that TxMike very much got the gist of the story. It really DOES have a great deal of similarity to Jacob's Ladder. (Heretofore, I thought I had a unique view of the movie, but I'm glad I don't.)

There are some folks here who have asserted that Diane's initial 2 hour self-aggrandizing dream sequence (as Betty) was a regular dream, and that she didn't actually kill herself until later, but there's NO WAY they could be right. TxMike didn't explain why he was so sure that the whole thing was her dying dream, but I'm not so shy: The telling clue was that Betty and Rita found Diane in apartment 17 in exactly the same position as she was in when Diane shot herself.

How could she have known the exact position in which she had shot herself (or even known to visualize her 3rd-person self as having died there in that position), if she hadn't yet already shot herself? Clearly the whole dream sequence AND the out-of-sequence "reality" memories that follow are all Diane's Jacob's-Ladder-like dying dream.

I didn't pick up on some of TxMike's observations. I'm not altogether sure he's 100% right on the details. So I guess I'll have to watch Mulholland Drive again. If so, I may expand/expound the next time I post.

P.S. #1: After first seeing the movie, I had my own "waking dream" (reference to Dune) of being in an RTF class (radio, tv, film) in some major university auditorium with about 200 students. David Lynch was the guest speaker and asked "Who here understood Mulholland Dr.?" I raised my hand and said "It's a lesbian murder/suicide, told in the dying dream of the suicide." In my waking dream, I was derided by morons who didn't understand the movie. But I apologize for that, because clearly RTF folks are much smarter than that. After reading the many posts here, my observations seem to be pretty close to almost everyone else's.

What I'm saying is, I don't mean to criticize anyone for the BRILLIANT analyses I have seen here. I just think that TxMike's was the first I've seen that got it all-the-way right, at least in the overview, that's all. Probably others did too, but I didn't see their posts. So no criticism whatsoever. You're all FABULOUSLY analytical. Praise to all around.

P.S. #2: We all need to be a little more careful about saying "Camilla Rhodes" or "Camilla". There were 2:

(1) Laura Elena Harring was Rita and the REAL Camilla Rhodes.

(2) Melissa George was the mob's blonde Camilla Rhodes in Diane's self-aggrandizing dream as Betty. Melissa George was also in the movie Sugar & Spice (http://us.imdb.com/Title?0186589), about cheerleaders who became armed robbers to help out their pregnant cheerleading teammate. Very cute, but in this movie, she was only there to explain why Betty didn't get the wonderful part that she didn't really want, because she had to be noble and help out the Rita version of Camilla that she really loved.

P.S. #3: Thanks again to TxMike for telling us about how lame the non-chaptered DVD is. I'll wait for a chaptered (preferably 2 disc with bonus materials) re-release, or not buy it at all if they don't do any such thing.

I liked the movie's cleverness, but it has such a depressing, hurtful theme, despite all the appealing girl-on-girl and girl-on-self action, I don't think I would watch it again without bonus materials. The prurient elements just sucked me into being even sadder as to how it ended. So sorry, Mr. Lynch, if you can't give me anything more than the theatrical release of the movie, I don't think I'll watch it again on DVD. Starz! is fine if I have to watch it sequentially.

Steve