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The Art-House Horror of ‘Lost Highway’

“Funny how secrets travel,” David Bowie croons as the music thumps. The camera zooms down a dark desolate highway, illuminated only by the twin beams of a speeding car’s headlights. This is the beginning of David Lynch’s Lost Highway, and it sets the mood for the chaos to come. Lynch rose to auteur status with …

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The Conversation: Drew Morton and Landon Palmer Discuss ‘The Straight Story’

The Conversation is a feature at Sound on Sight bringing together Drew Morton and Landon Palmer in a passionate debate about cinema new and old. For their fourth piece, they will discuss David Lynch’s film The Straight Story (1999). Drew’s Take I am in the midst of my 1999 class and I assigned two films I had yet to …

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‘Eraserhead’: Consumed by the best of both worlds

Eraserhead Written and directed by David Lynch 1977, USA Midway through Eraserhead, David Lynch’s midnight-black dreamscape, the terror is momentarily interrupted by the hauntingly breathtaking song, whispered by the disfigured chipmunk-cheeked chanteuse, Lady in the Radiator (Laurel Near), as if to let the audience in on something indescribable, to give them an out from the …

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The Definitive ‘What the F**k?’ Movies: 10-1

10. Altered States (1980) Directed by: Ken Russell Is it a horror film? Many of Ken Russell’s films could be argued as such, but there’s enough in Altered States that makes it less horror and more science fiction/psychological thriller. Based on the novel by Paddy Chayefsky, Altered States introduced the world to William Hurt (and …

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The Definitive Kubrickian Films: 10-1

What’s difficult about making this list is finding a balance between a successful Kubrickian film that either predates or pays homage to Kubrick and, for lack of a better term, is a ripoff. Now that we’ve hit the apex, it’s clear that these are, regardless of influence, quality films. What sets them apart is their …

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‘Bad Milo’ Movie Review – laboured and ridiculous, but not altogether unfunny.

In an episode of Community, Britta (played by Gillian Jacobs) once said that an analogy is “a thought with another thought’s hat on.” It may be laboured, clumsy, and teetering on the gobbledygook, but what she said was not altogether incorrect. In fact, that’s pretty much the reason why the scene was funny. Jacob Vaughan’s Bad Milo, in which Jacobs co-stars, deals with a metaphor that, in its execution, feels very much the same way: laboured and ridiculous, but not altogether unfunny.

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‘Eraserhead’ a pneumatic experience that once seen is never forgotten

Picture the scene – a storm-swept, wintry night, with the hail and rain lashing at the flimsy, sodden windows. One hour beyond the witching hour and in a lightless living room the VHS player whirls into stuttering activity and a grainy image materializes, a floating head emerging out of the pitiless darkness to the sounds of a throbbing industrial score, and a trauma inducing title expands across the screen – Eraserhead.

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Catching up with a Classic: With ‘Eraserhead’ Lynch created a new cinematic language

Throughout January, SOS writers will be biting the bullet and finally sitting down with a film they feel like bad film buffs for not having seen already. Eraserhead Directed by David Lynch Written by David Lynch 1977, USA Watching David Lynch’s Inland Empire in a near-empty cinema one Tuesday afternoon, is still the most terrifying …

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Eraserhead

On a dark and rainy night a few years ago I attended an 11pm screening of Eraserhead at Cinema du Parc, my favorite source for late night cult classics. Afterwards I popped into the bathroom with a full bladder and made my way into one of the stalls. Two guys walked in while I was …

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