Tag Archives: Matthew Lillard

Capsules

CAPSULE: TWIN PEAKS: THE RETURN (2017)

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: , , , Miguel Ferrer, Chrysta Bell, James Belushi, Robert Knepper, , , , , , Al Strobel, Carel Struycken, , David Lynch

PLOT: Picking up twenty-five years after the events of “Twin Peaks” and Fire Walk with Me, life has continued for most of the small town’s residents; but things are afoot which once again will involve the FBI and Agent Cooper and a mystery involving “the strange forces of existence.”

WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: As noted in the earlier capsule on Twin Peaks, “it’s a TV series“. However, I’d like to put forth the case that the entire Twin Peaks universe—the original 90’s series, the feature Fire Walk With Me, and “The Return”—should be treated as one whole project instead of as separate entities and as such, should be considered as a contender for the List.

COMMENTS: In uncertain times, audiences and institutions like to choose the familiar, which may account for the numerous remakes and “reboots” of successful material from the past (witness the return of “X-Files” and “Will & Grace,” to name just a couple). Most of these are obvious cash grabs, empty and unrepentant. When it was announced in late 2014 that David Lynch and Mark Frost would be bringing “Twin Peaks” back to television, however, speculation was wild and expectation high on what that result would be, especially as it went from a proposed nine episodes to an eighteen-hour “feature film” and Showtime gave Lynch and Frost complete creative control.

It’s evident now that “Twin Peaks: The Return” (Showtime’s marketing title; Lynch and Frost have made it clear that they consider this “Season 3”) was in every way the Major Event that fans and critics had hoped it would be—but it was in no way what anyone expected. As the head of Showtime, David Nevins, told the press in early 2017, it was the “pure heroin version of David Lynch.” We had no idea.

Unfettered by the constraints of network television, instead of bringing fuzzy warm nostalgic memories of the original 90’s show to the forefront, Lynch and Frost opted for a true continuation, and also made it very contemporary to the current times (there is a small amount of nostalgia indulged in as things converge at the end, but it’s very brief). Going even further than he did with Fire Walk With Me, “The Return” is a culmination of tropes Lynch has employed throughout his career, but with an emphasis on his aesthetic post-Lost Highway/Mulholland Drive. Those who were expecting a straight return to the world of “damn good coffee” and doughnuts were thrown immediately, and it drove almost everyone watching from May to September crazy in attempts to “figure out” where the show was heading.

It’s twenty-five years later and characters have aged, and changed. Continue reading CAPSULE: TWIN PEAKS: THE RETURN (2017) →

Capsules

CAPSULE: SLC PUNK (1998)

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DIRECTED BY: James Merendino

FEATURING: , Michael A. Goorjian, Annabeth Gish

PLOT: Young rebels grow up in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA—a location not very conductive to rebellion.

Still from SLC Punk (1998)

WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: One-and-a-half acid trip sequences do not a weird film make, especially when they’re just played for a quick laugh. SLC Punk is in fact a pretty wholesome teenage rumination which happens to be set against the background of the 1980s; in this modern day, it plays like Disney trying to make its own Trainspotting.

COMMENTS: Punk, especially ’80s punk, is a genre defined largely by arguments about its own definition, and SLC Punk spends a lot of time on the debate itself. At the end of the day, we have to give up trying to pin down the genre nobody can agree on and just move on, waving our hands at “that thing over there,” whatever you call it. Punk is Tao; to define it is to grip the air. And we all know the Billie Joe Armstrong quote, thanks.

With that out of the way, you will search far and wide for a comparably mature and realistic snapshot of punk rock culture, the Reaganomics ’80s, or Salt Lake City, for that matter. Stevo (Matthew Lillard) carries us through from start to finish, telling us of his life and coming of age. Along the way, we get some philosophizing about what it means to be a non-conformist, and how to harmonize your nonconformity with the world around you. Stevo’s cast of friends are characters in a punk-culture parable: some come to good ends, some to bad, and some just cruise along.

Not only does Stevo narrate, but he erases the fourth wall and takes us on live guided tours around his life, introducing us to his friends at a party as if we, the audience, were attending. Further segments become mini-documentaries, tackling the rivalry between punk and other cultures, the dichotomy of “posers” within the culture, U.S. vs. U.K. punks, what it’s like to score drugs or even decent alcohol in Utah, and other video-blog topics. We meet Stevo’s chum “Heroin” Bob (Michael A. Goorjian), his dad (Christopher McDonald) who doesn’t quite see eye to eye with his son but manages to have an amicable relationship anyway, his girlfriend Trish (Annabeth Gish), and his drug connection and part-time psycho Mark (Til Schweiger). There’s no real plot to be found here, just a series of interrelated vignettes in the day-to-day lives of these characters.

SLC Punk is a much-cherished cult classic which looks amazing for its six-figure budget. Its soundtrack is one of the greatest punk albums you will ever own; this is the music punks actually listened to in the ‘80s, as opposed to the music we think they listened to. While the movie puts the dyed mohawks and party hi-jinks up front, at its core it’s a thoughtful documentary masquerading as a fictional dramedy, one that wears its heart on its sleeve. It even winds up on a positive note, miraculously pulling through the nihilism to come to some upbeat conclusions, even though not everybody pulls through. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you’ll be left with a story that transcends a punk culture exposé and resonates with any youth scene in any state during any decade. All of us, goths, mods, emos, slackers, hippies, yuppies, and hipsters, are all our own brand of punk… and in the end, we are all posers to somebody.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…an absurdist coming-of-age comedy… likable for its outlandishness, less so when it shows a self-important streak. For all of Merendino’s jump-cutting affectations and other flashes of attitude, it’s finally as mainstream as its hero turns out to be.”–Janet Maslin, The New York Times (contemporaneous)