FeedDune
November 20 2009, 7:00pm
Dune! It seems obvious in retrospect but I wasn't really thinking "greatest Steampunk movie of all time" before I went into the theater. Hadn't seen it since I saw it in the theater when it came out in December '84.
The plot actually wasn't that hard to follow at all, compared to some of the convoluted overplotted disasters I've seen lately. It's still a disaster from an editing & character-development standpoint. It's just cut-cut-cut & Lynch made this crazy decision to have nearly everyone doing voice-over of their thoughts nearly all the time, which I suppose is better than nothing character-development-wise but I would've preferred actual, you know, acting.
But the sets & costumes are fantastic, and some of the scenes (primarily those involving the crazy pustulous Baron Harkonnen) are utterly unforgettable. Big thumbs up from me. Unfortunately it sounded like most folks around us were enjoying it as Le Bad Cinema rather than as a tour-de-force of Lynchian nuttiness. Fair enough, I guess, but I feel like I enjoyed it genuinely from a visual perspective.
I did find it particularly amusing that he was forced, in the final third of it, to basically compress time to the point that we couldn't even begin to care what was happening -- the classic "a year passed and their love grew" type thing -- and yet throughout the movie Lynch managed to make time for endless montages of water, moon, etc, and Kyle intoning "Arrakis . . . Dune . . . Desert Planet" over & over again. Which is also a really Lynchian thing to do.
Huge thumbs up for the eyebrows on Brad Dourif as well. All the supporting characters are pretty great (except Sting, of course). Kinda cool to see so many Twin Peaks folks onscreen, including Pete as one of Harkonnen's goons, and Big Ed as the leader of the Fremen. Plus Max Von Sydow! And Linda Hunt! It's a grab-bag of awesomeness!
So I'm actually fairly serious in giving it an 8.
The plot actually wasn't that hard to follow at all, compared to some of the convoluted overplotted disasters I've seen lately. It's still a disaster from an editing & character-development standpoint. It's just cut-cut-cut & Lynch made this crazy decision to have nearly everyone doing voice-over of their thoughts nearly all the time, which I suppose is better than nothing character-development-wise but I would've preferred actual, you know, acting.
But the sets & costumes are fantastic, and some of the scenes (primarily those involving the crazy pustulous Baron Harkonnen) are utterly unforgettable. Big thumbs up from me. Unfortunately it sounded like most folks around us were enjoying it as Le Bad Cinema rather than as a tour-de-force of Lynchian nuttiness. Fair enough, I guess, but I feel like I enjoyed it genuinely from a visual perspective.
I did find it particularly amusing that he was forced, in the final third of it, to basically compress time to the point that we couldn't even begin to care what was happening -- the classic "a year passed and their love grew" type thing -- and yet throughout the movie Lynch managed to make time for endless montages of water, moon, etc, and Kyle intoning "Arrakis . . . Dune . . . Desert Planet" over & over again. Which is also a really Lynchian thing to do.
Huge thumbs up for the eyebrows on Brad Dourif as well. All the supporting characters are pretty great (except Sting, of course). Kinda cool to see so many Twin Peaks folks onscreen, including Pete as one of Harkonnen's goons, and Big Ed as the leader of the Fremen. Plus Max Von Sydow! And Linda Hunt! It's a grab-bag of awesomeness!
So I'm actually fairly serious in giving it an 8.
