Inland Empire

OK, here we go, the big one, Inland Empire. This was the first film I ever remember bailing on mid-watch. It was many years ago, before I had a blog, and it was probably my first David Lynch film, watched purely based on a 5-star review in Empire magazine. All I can remember is a rabbit sitcom. I called it quits after about an hour of utter incoherence, but this time I’m trapped on a train, and the next episode of Alien: Earth is refusing to play so I’m watching this instead. I think the best way of me trying to keep track of everything going on is, like with my Twin Peaks re-caps, to keep a stream of consciousness style document going whilst I write, which I present to you now (slightly edited and tidied up after watching). Let’s get going!

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Wild at Heart

Sailor Ripley and Lula Fortune (Nicolas Cage & Laura Dern) are young, spirited, and very much in love. When a man (Gregg Dandridge) approaches Sailor at a classy function and accuses him of trying to sleep with Lula’s mother Marietta (Diane Ladd) and tries to kill him, Sailor defends himself and brutally kills the guy, and is sentenced to two years in prison for his trouble. Upon his release, he and Lula set out on a road trip, much to the chagrin of Marietta, who sends a selection of assailants out to put a stop to their escapades.

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Chinatown

Los Angeles, 1937. Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) is a private detective specialising in domestic cases. One day a woman (Diane Ladd) shows up at Jake’s office and hires him to follow her husband, Hollis Mulwray (Darrell Zwerling) who she suspects is having an affair. Jake tracks Mulwray and does indeed photograph him embracing a much younger woman. He gives the photos to Mrs. Mulwray, and soon sees them printed on the front page of the newspaper, only to discover that the woman who hired him wasn’t Mrs. Mulwray, and the real one (Faye Dunaway) is somewhat irked that her husband has been publicly humiliated and has now disappeared, and all this is just the start of a web on intrigue that leads further than Jake could have imagined.
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