Is Hollywood really the Protagonist of Mullholland dr or the big evil entity...or neither...confusing

So Mullholland Dr was a stunningly beautiful and dark movie that confused the crap out of me until I decided to just let it go and enjoy the ride rather than thnk too hard about what my eyes and ears were taking in. So in that way it is alot like Last year at Marienbad and even to some extent like the Daren films we checked out. Lynch was very, very clearly an artsy person and Mullholland makes much more sense to me as a mysterious moving painting than a narrative Hollywood movie.
So once I got my head to stop saying "WTF mates?," it was alot more fun.
So what were the images and sounds I enjoyed? The creepiness that comes up in the strangest places. Like when "Rita"/"Camilla" is stumbling around the city at night with no memory of who she is and she is just staggering around under these looming ominous palm trees, I was like whoa thats so weird. Those trees are normally used to show how fun and sunny and nice California is, and yet here they are so menacing. Same thing when the two gentlemen leave Winkies to go investigate the alleyway out back, there is something freaky going on and the viewer isnt even sure why they are on edge, but they are. The way the camera and the music work together, it transforms the simple act of walking in the street into a really on edge sequence. How does he make so much tension just moving around and pointing the camera at harmless things like a pay phone or a cappucino? Pretty great film making. And thats just the tip of the ice berg, because the ENTIRE movie works this way, subtle yet powerful emotions being conveyed through what are normally simple images or scenarios. Even when we cant be sure of anything that we are actually seeing and there are eighteen different weird and apparently disconnected things happening, we still get completely submerged in the film and the atmospheres that Lynch creates.
This sort of ties in with what really struck me from the reading and our class discussion, and that is the power of Hollywood and of film to affect people and create these dream worlds. I think we called Hollywood the "Dream Factory" at one point, which is so fitting because not only does it give people all these allusions that we love to latch onto (even when they make no sense *see above paragraph lol*) but it also represents a place where peoples dreams can come true or turn into nightmares. For the actress Betty, it was the land of perfect dreams where she instantly is recognized as stunning and wonderful and has no problems at all save for a thrilling mystery/love affair with an amnesiac. Thats a good dream. Not so much for the actress Diane, whose trip to Hollywood is quite literally a nightmare that only ends in terrible silencio. So, Hollywood, as a character, clearly has an immmmmeennnnse amount of power. The reading talks about this as being a reason for its rejection from ABC as a television program because it is a pretty ugly picture of the town with all of this absolute power over peoples lives. Heres the quote to show you what I mean....
" the contempt he heaps on its ludicrous power structure conveys the
heinous absurdity of the entire entertainment industry,
and with such vigor, that it is no wonder that ABC,
seeing its face in this dark mirror, pulled away from it"
The funny thing to me is that this is a movie. Its an Illusion. There is no band. Lynch is using this power of the dreams of Hollywood to show the power of the dreams of Hollywood. Kinda cool, sort of ties to postmodernism like we were talking about.
So yea, good movie. Wanna check out more Lynch now. Is Twin Peaks good? Worth checking out or will my head definitely explode after that?

Teen Suicide, Dont do It!.. but alas, Que Sera Sera

I really enjoyed the movie Heathers, but Im the type of person who enjoys dark, ironic humor which is so satirical its shocking. In class and in the reading, we talked about what postmodernism is and what makes Heathers postmodern. I didnt realize just how empty the film is while watching it, but it really is comprised of nothing but references and allusions to other things. There is no overarching moral purpose in the film; the characters dont really learn a valulable lesson like teen-movies from John Hughes. In class, some people were amazed by how much this movie reminded them of their own highschool experience, which doesnt really surprise me for some reason. Heathers shows ( in a really cutting and over the top way) what high school is like, more than other films where lessons are learned and things are better than at the beginning of the film. The point is that there is no point, its all senseless and monotonously monstrous. Or should that be monstrously monotonous? Eh, either way I guess.
Que Sera, whatever will be will be. That pretty much sums it up.
Kill the queen bitch, another steps up to take control. Life goes on. If thats what you can call what these people have. I think that is the greatest irony of the film, suicide as a joke because the peoples lives are based on nothing but references to other things and dont have anything there of their own. In class we sort of decided (after great struggle to make him a hero in a variety of ways) that JD is really an empty and meaningless character. I think that all of the characters are really hollow and meaningless, and that is the meaning. Everything is meaningless. The power of the film is that many people see it as a good mirror of reality. I think it displays that no matter how much we want to attach signifigance in everything around us, like with Red hair scrunchy things or games of croquet, we are sadly mistaken in doing so. We had a good example of people doing this when we were talking about people blaming video games and people with trenchcoats in films for the tragedy at Columbine.
Or something like that. I dunno Im really sleepy, I probably missed the mark on the significance of postmodern ideas in this movie. I liked it alot though and thought it was really witty. Someone said it reminded them of Fight Club, which I didnt really see the same way myself but I must agree just because of the sense of really morose hilarity that entertains me so much.
One thing I brought up in class was whether this film would ever get made today? Would any mainstream filmmaker be able to do what Heathers does in this day and age? Personally I dont think anyone would because it seems so inappropriate now, but im interested to see what you guys think. Is America desensitized enough by violence to shrug the teen murders and high school bombings off? or is it a very sore area that no one will dare touch for a while? I dunno

Masculinity and Emotional Disconnection

In class and in the reading, one of the main focuses (Foci?) of the discussion was what has changed in society today to lead to our masculine heroes being so different. On one hand you have the suave seventies Shaft, and on the other you have Samuel L Jackson laying down the law by bitch slapping gangstas and shooting it out with druglords. We talked about how much more violent movies are today and tried to figure out what was different then that we enjoyed such a different style of man as our action hero and particularly such a different style of black man. Our focus was on how much things have changed.
To me this is interesting, because throughout the movie I sort of payed attention to and noticed a lot on the similarities that persist through all of the masculine heroes. The main point of this being the idea of what a man is suppose to feel and how their emotions work.
Shaft cant or at least wont tell his girlfriend he loves her. Of course he cant be pinned down to anything or feel anything for a woman such that he could admit to loving her. He tries to make the pain of being shot as superficial and mundane as possible, and while he is probably kidding when he says he couldn't even feel the bullet being pulled out, the point is to show that a real black man laughs and makes jokes about the pain of getting shot and having the bullet ripped out of his belly by an amateur surgeon. There is a level of disconnect that the masculine character has to have on an emotional level. I guess the root of the idea is that emotions are feminine and showing them is queer. Showing that the world can have so much effect on you as to make you jump for joy or cry in anguish shows a lack of control, and Shaft is displayed as a character who demands control, as we discussed in class with examples of him looming over dangerous pimps and drug dealers.
Do we still see this today? I believe the answer is undoubtedly yes. Male characters who have emotions which rise to the surface are more girly than the ones who strictly guard their feelings and bury them such that they are able to blow the heads off their foes without the remorse. The idea is not a old or new but an ever pervasive idea of masculinity, be it black or white or any race. We like and have always like the idea of men who are not only physically strong and capable but willing and able to shrug off unimportant things such as their own feelings of sorrow and pain. The one thing they are allowed to have drive them is anger at certain points (it isnt really seen as one of the "bad" or "feminine" emotions), and too much of that is even a bad thing, as it violates the idea of self control.
I just found it interesting that while many aspects changed in how people see their masculine heroes, somethings always remain the same. Wether he is shacking up with some sweet thang like Shaft or blowing up a building full of terrorists, the masculine heroes we adore are never allowed to show too much of what lurks behind their good looks and blazing guns.