I AM GOING TO HAVE TO AT LEAST TRY FOR TWIN PEAKS FIC. I WILL TRY SO HARD.
MacLachlan was uncomfortable with the Audrey/Cooper direction he felt the show was taking
Huh. That explains a lot (and a bit of poking about on the internet seems to show it's the accepted version of how things went down). I can see why he was uncomfortable - I kept waiting to see how the show would handle the fact that Audrey was, well, a schoolgirl, and I thought they handled it really well until Zane came on the scene - I'd have been more than happy with the tension just singing along in the background after Audrey promised that, ok, she'd come and get him when she was older. Especially given how ... innocent a character they made her, I suppose? But the Billy Zane subplot was just wince-inducing, and I could have done without Annie being an unworldly ex-nun, talking of innocence.
And you're completely right that Audrey/Cooper would have worked fine thematically. Sigh.
What is hilarious about James is that he is Angel.
Ahahaha, that is SO RIGHT. Including the forehead and the somewhat gravity-defying hair! And you're spot on about Zuko and Batman (or at least some versions of the latter, I guess), and the need for shows to realise that their kind of, um, boy-scoutish, capslock EARNESTNESS is pretty hilarious. The trouble with James is that I feel as though they got far enough in the very first episode - oh, look, the sulky biker with a secret is actually a sweetheart - that they thought they didn't need to do much more with him for a while. So he just sort of sat there while the series unfolded around him, poor guy.
It was by no means realistic, but the experience of watching it felt more real.
Obviously, I really, really have to see Blue Velvet. And, hmm, I know what you mean about the messiness of Twin Peaks - I think my miniature-model description probably was a bit off. Or perhaps it was more a response to the cinematography - all those repeating motifs (that chorus-line of treetops) gave the whole programme a circumscribed feel, I suppose, though it certainly wasn't crisp all of the time. Much more like a dollshouse with a variety of mismatched dolls, to stretch a simile. Which is to say that, yes, I definitely got the feeling of seesawing scales, or genres, or what have you - and I'm not sure they ever really levelled it out. But, then, that has a realism of its own, I suppose? Rather like reading a Dickens novel (not in general, mind you, obviously) - Dickensian grotesques may be subject to a very different degree of, hm, narrative magnification than his Pips or Esthers, but then again the world really does have Micawbers and Log Ladies and Nadines, depending on what lens you feel like using. Mind you, I suppose it's something you can only really get away with in quite a sprawling format, as you say.
Oh, and, heh, I wouldn't say that Mulholland Drive exactly makes sense to me now - just that a lot of Lynch's preoccupations and visual tricks and so forth now seem a lot more familiar. As well they should, I guess. All those different levels of performance, for instance - now, there's somewhere that Josie could have really made her mark, thematically and acting-wise. But, alas.
Have you seen the Japanese MacLachlan coffee commercials?
I HAD NOT. Oh, wow, those were priceless. And they were for canned coffee, which is really just the cherry on the, uh, pie.
I know exactly what you mean about Fire Walk With Me, and seeing it in those terms does make me feel much more kindly towards it. I'm still not entirely sure I forgive it for not being a Movie with a capital M, or for putting its cards on the table quite so openly (did the Little Man From Another Place have to tell us he was the arm?), and I wish the opening sequence hadn't been quite so disjointed from the rest of the film (apparently MacLachlan would have been in it but asked for a smaller part? More fool him). But, yes, I'm glad we got to see all those in-betweenish parts, too, and I'm especially glad that Laura didn't just stay that dead girl on a beach or a fuzzy face in a flashback - especially as the internet tells me that that's all they initially intended for her.
And, hm, I do indeed have Sarahtales friended, because she seems to be awesome on a regular basis, but I've actually avoided reading any of her fic because I haven't read any of her published stuff yet, and I thought I'd save her fic for afters. I may have to rethink that, though, if it's as good as you say...
Especially as those off-duty bits are what I tend to crave, as well - though I agree that they probably do need to be sliced out of a novel with a fair degree of ruthlessness. It's certainly one of the things I enjoy about fic, that it can allow you to be guilt-free about appreciating the incidental. Well, that and the porn.
And, well, I wouldn't vouch for my taste in general, but Utena is absolutely fantastic - it has this wonderful (and very Japanese?) appreciation of how much adolescence can be soaked through with nostalgia for childhood as well as being all systems go-grownup, but it also has a big red car of sex n' death, a healthy amount of genderfuck, a greek chorus of shadow-pupppets, and it manages to weave some kind of allegory about the end of the universe through its everyday routine of schoolwork, crossdressing, and swordfights without being obnoxious about it. And it has a truly incredible soundtrack. Yep, recommended!
no subject
MacLachlan was uncomfortable with the Audrey/Cooper direction he felt the show was taking
Huh. That explains a lot (and a bit of poking about on the internet seems to show it's the accepted version of how things went down). I can see why he was uncomfortable - I kept waiting to see how the show would handle the fact that Audrey was, well, a schoolgirl, and I thought they handled it really well until Zane came on the scene - I'd have been more than happy with the tension just singing along in the background after Audrey promised that, ok, she'd come and get him when she was older. Especially given how ... innocent a character they made her, I suppose? But the Billy Zane subplot was just wince-inducing, and I could have done without Annie being an unworldly ex-nun, talking of innocence.
And you're completely right that Audrey/Cooper would have worked fine thematically. Sigh.
What is hilarious about James is that he is Angel.
Ahahaha, that is SO RIGHT. Including the forehead and the somewhat gravity-defying hair! And you're spot on about Zuko and Batman (or at least some versions of the latter, I guess), and the need for shows to realise that their kind of, um, boy-scoutish, capslock EARNESTNESS is pretty hilarious. The trouble with James is that I feel as though they got far enough in the very first episode - oh, look, the sulky biker with a secret is actually a sweetheart - that they thought they didn't need to do much more with him for a while. So he just sort of sat there while the series unfolded around him, poor guy.
It was by no means realistic, but the experience of watching it felt more real.
Obviously, I really, really have to see Blue Velvet. And, hmm, I know what you mean about the messiness of Twin Peaks - I think my miniature-model description probably was a bit off. Or perhaps it was more a response to the cinematography - all those repeating motifs (that chorus-line of treetops) gave the whole programme a circumscribed feel, I suppose, though it certainly wasn't crisp all of the time. Much more like a dollshouse with a variety of mismatched dolls, to stretch a simile. Which is to say that, yes, I definitely got the feeling of seesawing scales, or genres, or what have you - and I'm not sure they ever really levelled it out. But, then, that has a realism of its own, I suppose? Rather like reading a Dickens novel (not in general, mind you, obviously) - Dickensian grotesques may be subject to a very different degree of, hm, narrative magnification than his Pips or Esthers, but then again the world really does have Micawbers and Log Ladies and Nadines, depending on what lens you feel like using. Mind you, I suppose it's something you can only really get away with in quite a sprawling format, as you say.
Oh, and, heh, I wouldn't say that Mulholland Drive exactly makes sense to me now - just that a lot of Lynch's preoccupations and visual tricks and so forth now seem a lot more familiar. As well they should, I guess. All those different levels of performance, for instance - now, there's somewhere that Josie could have really made her mark, thematically and acting-wise. But, alas.
Have you seen the Japanese MacLachlan coffee commercials?
I HAD NOT. Oh, wow, those were priceless. And they were for canned coffee, which is really just the cherry on the, uh, pie.
I know exactly what you mean about Fire Walk With Me, and seeing it in those terms does make me feel much more kindly towards it. I'm still not entirely sure I forgive it for not being a Movie with a capital M, or for putting its cards on the table quite so openly (did the Little Man From Another Place have to tell us he was the arm?), and I wish the opening sequence hadn't been quite so disjointed from the rest of the film (apparently MacLachlan would have been in it but asked for a smaller part? More fool him). But, yes, I'm glad we got to see all those in-betweenish parts, too, and I'm especially glad that Laura didn't just stay that dead girl on a beach or a fuzzy face in a flashback - especially as the internet tells me that that's all they initially intended for her.
And, hm, I do indeed have Sarahtales friended, because she seems to be awesome on a regular basis, but I've actually avoided reading any of her fic because I haven't read any of her published stuff yet, and I thought I'd save her fic for afters. I may have to rethink that, though, if it's as good as you say...
Especially as those off-duty bits are what I tend to crave, as well - though I agree that they probably do need to be sliced out of a novel with a fair degree of ruthlessness. It's certainly one of the things I enjoy about fic, that it can allow you to be guilt-free about appreciating the incidental. Well, that and the porn.
And, well, I wouldn't vouch for my taste in general, but Utena is absolutely fantastic - it has this wonderful (and very Japanese?) appreciation of how much adolescence can be soaked through with nostalgia for childhood as well as being all systems go-grownup, but it also has a big red car of sex n' death, a healthy amount of genderfuck, a greek chorus of shadow-pupppets, and it manages to weave some kind of allegory about the end of the universe through its everyday routine of schoolwork, crossdressing, and swordfights without being obnoxious about it. And it has a truly incredible soundtrack. Yep, recommended!