Not Quite Wilde at Heart, but it'll do.

3/300Wild at Heart
Dir. David Lynch

Alright, so, I'd like to start this with an apology for being delayed in these posts by nearly a week.  Just went to Austin to secure an apartment for a big move.  Very exciting, but very draining.  So, i come to you from the passenger seat of my car on my way back to Indiana from my new Texas home.  Which means for you, dear readers, soon enough these posts will be taking a nice turn to draft house cinema and South by Southwest indie flicks.  How very exciting. :)

Anyway, I have never been a fan of Nic Cage.  He does a good disgruntled human being (YouTube it, there are awesome montages), but other than this, I've always felt like he doesn't even know who he is enough to feel comfortable in his own skin, especially when trying to make his skin be someone else's.  This movie seemed to fit him in his identity issues.  I don't know how much of this was planned and how much can be chalked up to him just being weird.  Whatever, it works.

There is a lot to say about this film, most of which is kind of just random thoughts.  For instance, the fact that they used a roller coaster screaming track when he sings the Elvis music when they go dancing....  Maybe i was the only one to catch this though, having worked in a theme park and heard this on a daily basis for several years myself.  Anyway, it bothered me.  And Nic's Elvis voice is reused again when he did Ghostrider. Ick. That movie alone is enough to loose respect for m completely.

The biggest things that were interesting and helped this film really have a sense of self were completely Lynch related.  Having seen Eraserhead, i feel like Lynch really shows his inner thoughts and fears in his films.  Not knowing much about him as a person, as a viewer i can conclude that he is terrified of having children, maybe he doesn't know how to connect to them as a mother and child can, but his fathers def don't handle children well, and themselves are worried so much about being good fathers themselves, they actually become bad ones instead. Sailer does redeem himself in the end, but he still does acknowledge this fear.  

He also has a very strange take on sexuality.  It seems almost as if he cannot decide if it's beautiful or repulsive.  For instance, he has Lula wear red lipstick in a very passionate and suggestively sexually heated sense, but later we see her on screen after being raped with the same bright red color, but instead it's blood gushing from her lips.  It's this sort of mixed emotions about things that leave the viewer at unrest.  

Otherwise, this was a typical Lynch film.  A little more of a clear cut story line, but the same chaos of strange characters and random happenings.  Liked this more than Eraserhead, but that made me know I'll never be ready to have an alien-looking baby.


Run time 124min + 243 previously viewed = 367 min