Rest in peace David Lynch

He passed away today at the age of 78.

The impact that this man had on the cinema arts can not be emphasized nearly enough.  Everything he did, be it surreal or more traditional storytelling, he made his own.  David Lynch showed us more than most what the camera was capable of doing when guided by a mind willing to step away from the safe path.  He saw the guardrails and crashed through anyway.

I first came upon Lynch's work when I was a high school sophomore.  I had seen the promos for Twin Peaks and they intrigued me terribly.  So I did something I rarely did and still rarely do: I watched its two-hour television premiere.  Twin Peaks sucked me in hard and never let go.  And it was the gateway drug for more of Lynch's unique vision.

Admittedly, I will never be able to confess ever "getting" Eraserhead.  But that's okay.  Somehow, I think Lynch wouldn't mind.

David Lynch was also a fellow Eagle Scout.

Thoughts and prayers going up and out for his family. 

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TWIN PEAKS is back on and David Lynch is directing!

I said a few posts down that I spent the weekend away from the Internet, so I could re-focus my thoughts, especially toward writing the book.  However this bit of news almost yanked me away and had me rejoicing on this blog.

So in case you missed it: David Lynch is returning to helm the Twin Peaks revival!  And not only that  but apparently there will be more than the nine-episode order we had already been told was coming.

Apparently the heart of the disagreement that had earlier threatened production is that Lynch wanted more resources to tell the story the way he felt it needed to be told.  Which is totally understandable.  Twin Peaks is his baby, always had been.  Nobody else could pull off the mystery, the tension, the flat-out weirdness that has made this show so consistently beloved and admired over the past two decades.  Twin Peaks never got the full resolution it deserved.  But next year, thanks to Showtime, we'll be getting that.

The show is still on for the summer of 2016.  It will air exactly one-quarter of a century after the final episode of its broadcast run in 1991.  Right on time for, as dream-Laura told Dale:

Speaking of 25 years, how has the cast fared all of this time?  Based on this video that Madchen Amick (who played Shelly Johnson) posted... they look downright great!  I think this is everyone except Kyle MacLachlan and Ray Wise (we know MacLachlan will be back as Dale Cooper, and Ray Wise's character is dead), Jack Nance died under mysterious circumstances (no joke) so Pete can't return, and Frank Sylva (Killer BOB) passed away from illness.  Otherwise it looks like the whole gang did this clip:

This is looking better than I originally imagined. Wonder if the cherry pie is as good as ever...

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David Lynch should direct a new Star Wars movie

Just a wild idea that popped into mind while thinking about yesterday's horrid news about the revival of Twin Peaks:

If David Lynch won't be returning to helm the new Twin Peaks, then he should be allowed to direct one of the new stand-alone Star Wars movies.

I'm serious.

It's been thirty years.  He's ready.

It almost happened anyway, with Return of the Jedi.  Apparently Lynch was George Lucas' top choice to direct the third Star Wars film.  But Lynch wanted to take the movie into... well, a different direction.  One that veered away from the vision of the saga's creator.  By all accounts the two filmmakers shook hands and each went their way: Lucas to pick Richard Marquand to direct Jedi.  And Lynch would soon after direct the sci-fi epic Dune, based on the novel by Frank Herbert.

That was more than thirty years ago.  And in light of how there will be new Star Wars films that will tell different stories apart from the Skywalker mythology, there is now room for practically every director to potentially bring his or her vision of Star Wars to the big screen.

Including David Lynch.

It would likely be the most disturbing and confusing Star Wars movie that could possibly be conceived by maddened man.  But I for one would trust Lynch to deliver.  Time and again he's proven himself to be one of the premiere filmmakers of our generation or any other.  And he does know how to realize a story that is approachable by any audience: witness 1999's The Straight Story for proof of that.

Disney should let David Lynch direct a Star Wars movie.  It's time.  If Lynch can't be given the resources to return to his own creation of Twin Peaks, then the Mouse House should seize the opportunity to put Lynch's brilliant mind to work in its favor.

But what would a David Lynch-directed Star Wars film look like?  This is after all the genius who made Eraserhead, The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet and so many other movies of dark atmosphere.  Personally, I think Lynch should shoot his Star Wars movie on grainy film, in black-and-white, with Seventies-style audio quality.  What if Lynch was directing The Force Awakens instead of J.J. Abrams?  It would probably look like this:

David Lynch, directing a new Star Wars movie.

It could happen.

It should happen.

Disney, make it so.

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UPDATE! Showtime cancels new TWIN PEAKS

Sorry Laura, but Showtime just made a liar out of you.

I guess it was too much to hope for.  Just as it seems that now, as then, this show really is too innovative for any network.

News coming out of WonderCon this afternoon, lighting up Twitter like a Christmas tree, is that the new episodes of Twin Peaks have been cancelled by premium cable network Showtime.

You may remember that it was six months ago when the announcement came that a third season was in the works, and would debut exactly twenty-five years after the last episode aired in June of 1991.

The anticipation for new Twin Peaks has been nothing less than extraordinary.  I think this show has built up an even more rabid following in the intervening years than it had in the early Nineties.  A quarter-century's worth of fanhood was primed and ready to have a real fitting closure to this trail-blazing series...

...and now, apparently, that closure will not be happening.

Can't express how disgusted I am by this.  I don't know what happened but it was pretty widely known that David Lynch and Mark Frost were looking forward to this.  So too were Kyle MacLachlan, Sherilyn Fenn and a bunch of others from the original cast.

Maybe some sanity will prevail yet.  I guess Netflix could pick it up still.  If given the opportunity they would be crazy not to.

UPDATE 7:47 p.m. EST:  Well, this gets stranger by the hour.  Now comes word that Showtime is probably still going to do Twin Peaks... but without Twin Peaks creator David Lynch at the helm.

Try to imagine this without David Lynch.  I dare you...

(There must be a lot of people hooked on this news because since this post was first published, Google Analytics has said that it's been read more than 200 times, mostly from search engine looksies.)

io9.com has the full story about what happened, which Lynch ascribes to not being given enough money to make it the way he wanted it to be.

So we likely going to get Twin Peaks.  But without David Lynch.

I still think Netflix should step up to bat.  THEY would provide Lynch all the cash he needs to do this and to do it right.  Otherwise, anything Twin Peaks without Lynch's involvement is going to be a tough, tough sell.

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That show you like is going to come back in style

It's happening.  No joke.  Right on time.  Just as dream-Laura said to Dale Cooper.

Twin Peaks, arguably the most influential television show of all time, is coming back.  We will see it again 25 years after that final episode of its second season in 1991.

Not a remake.  Not a relaunch.  It's going to be an honest to goodness continuation of the ground-shattering series.  With creators David Lynch and Mark Frost writing the episodes and Lynch himself directing every one.

The nine episodes of Season 3 (jeez did I really just write that?) will run on premium cable channel Showtime in 2016.

Earlier today Kyle MacLachlan tweeted that he would be returning as FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper.  The last time we saw him in 1991, "Coop" had been taken over by the ultra-malevolent spirit Killer BOB, smashing his own head into the bathroom mirror and screaming in mock rage about Dale's girlfriend.  Except it was strongly implied that the real Cooper was still trapped in the Black Lodge (sort-of a Hell dressed up to look like a French bordello, and everyone in it talks backwards).

Deadline Hollywood has tons more about Twin Peaks' return as does The Telegraph.

Look!  Official announcement video from Showtime!



This is a big, big deal.  That cannot be stressed nearly enough.  I was intending on being in "radio silence" on the Internet for this coming week as I finish up writing the third part of my book.  This news totally jerked me out of that.

Or maybe there was something more amiss.  During the weekend I came across my CD of the Twin Peaks soundtrack, composed by Angelo Badalementi.  It was released in September of 1990 and I bought it that first week.  I was thinking of putting it on my iPad for listening while I work.  No question about that now.

2016.  Plenty of time to get some damn fine cherry pie and clean out the percolator...

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David Lynch is shooting new TWIN PEAKS material. For real.

"Diane, 11:30 AM, February 24th. Entering the town of Twin Peaks. It's 5 miles south of the Canadian border, 12 miles west of the state line. Never seen so many trees in my life. As W.C. Fields would say, 'I'd rather be here than Philadelphia.'"

-- F.B.I. Special Agent Dale Cooper

Looks like we may yet be going back to the Double R Diner for that cherry pie and a damn fine cup of coffee...

"Twenty-Five Years Later..."

".ria eht ni cisum syawla s’ereht dna gnos ytterp a gnis sdirb eht, morf er’ew erehW"

This is something I thought would be more unlikely to happen than new Star Wars movies.  Still trying to wrap my brain around the idea... not that I ever got my brain wrapped around it in the first place but anyway...

David Lynch is producing and directing new footage for Twin Peaks.

In retrospect it is very difficult to argue with the impact that this series had, however brief it lasted.  Had there been no Twin Peaks, there would have been no Lost.  There probably would have never been a revived Battlestar Galactica.  A lot of series would never have been conceived much less taken root had Twin Peaks not broken the ground first.

Premiering on ABC in April of 1990, Twin Peaks was something that television had never seen before and nearly a quarter century later is still trying to figure out.  Part murder mystery, part soap opera... and all surreal as only the mind of David Lynch could evoke.  The death of Laura Palmer was just the beginning, as Special Agent Dale Cooper - and the rest of us - descended into the logging town of Twin Peaks, Washington: a place where nothing was ordinary.  A place where everyone had a secret.  A place where... "the owls are not what they seem".

I used to own every bit of Twin Peaks merchandise there was.  I even still have the soundtrack CD here somewhere.  Angelo Badalamenti's score alone made this show haunting like nothing before or since.

The chronology of the series took place in 1989.  The Little Man from Another Place told Cooper that he would see him again "in twenty-five years".  That would be this year: 2014.  Maybe it will wrap up some of the lingering mysteries left from the show's final episode.

I wonder if we'll at last get to see Diane...

(Hat tip to friend of this blog Paul Elledge for coming across this great bit of news!)

Through the dark of future past the magician longs to see

One chants out between two worlds. Fire, walk with me.

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