Welcoming Jennifer Lynch Back with Open Arms

No problem! I figure anyone who finds a good article about Surveillance at Cannes can post it here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT2dy7WogTI (trailer for those who missed it elsewhere on this site)

I just watched Boxing Helena for about the 100th time. I love every frame of that film, hang the critics.

http://www.festival-cannes.fr/en/mediaPlayer/9476.html  (accompanying video/interview)

From AMC Blogs:

leads ganked from Dugpa.com:

May 22, 2008

Cannes. Surveillance.

"Fifteen years after the career-killing debacle of Boxing Helena, Jennifer Lynch dares to raise her head above the parapet once more," writes Allan Hunter in Screen Daily.

 

"Eccentric thriller Surveillance shows no signs of any lasting impact on her self-confidence as it mixes together a lurid cocktail of jet black humour and bloodshed with a startling, left field plot twist."

Updated through 5/23.

"Think Rashomon meets The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in Twin Peaks, and give lots of leeway for the gooniest improv overacting, and you may get on the warped wavelength of this semi-comic parable of social anarchy," writes Time's Richard Corliss.

"A twisty thriller with an unabashedly nasty streak and an almost theatrical taste for excess, the movie stars Bill Pullman and Julia Ormond as FBI agents investigating a massacre in the flatlands of Nebraska, where they must contend with the dim local cops and a host of highly unreliable witnesses." For the Los Angeles Times, Dennis Lim lunches with Lynch and notes that "Magnet Releasing, which acquired the film just before Cannes, is set to open it later this year."

"With a high splatter quotient and many scenes of deviant humiliation, the film will have its fans even if the eventual twist hardly comes as a surprise and probably isn't meant to," writes Ray Bennett in the Hollywood Reporter.

Screening Out of Competition.

Update: Ben Kenigsberg, blogging for Time Out Chicago, finds Surveillance "just as unwatchable as Boxing Helena, albeit lacking in the gender-warfare pathology that made that film marginally interesting."

Update, 5/23: "Ooh, this one is a real dud," declares Charlie Prince at Cinema Strikes Back.

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http://www.festival-cannes.fr/fr/archives/ficheFilm/id/10798251/year/2008.html

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US Press Kit: (thank to dugpa user Herve Love)

http://www.festival-cannes.fr/assets/Image/Direct/024754.pdf

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And Germany's poster (sweeet):

  

Festival Central's review.  :

"Did they scoff the whole damn Smörgåsbord?" (Audrey) 

"Gimme a donut!" (Coop)

So I just saw the news that JL will be directing a horror movie in India starting next month, Nagin.
(I very nearly made plans to visit India in October for part of a Film Arts credit.  We were going to spend time on the soundstages there.) I guess that means she won't be at the Fest, :))  It sounds like a good one, hope it goes smoothly.

Does anybody else not care in the least about Jennifer Lynch or her movies?

I don't know, she's made one mediocre movie, and she has the last name "lynch". I really don't see the appeal. 

 
Your opinion is the popular one, goes without asking. There is, however, a minority that thought Boxing Helena was great. But don't forget she also wrote the Secret Diary of Laura Palmer. 

"Harry, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don't plan it, don't wait for it, just let it happen. Could be a new shirt at the men's store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot, black coffee. Like this."  -Dale Cooper

"Harry, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don't plan it, don't wait for it, just let it happen. Could be a new shirt at the men's store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot, black coffee. Like this."  -Dale Cooper

"Harry, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don't plan it, don't wait for it, just let it happen. Could be a new shirt at the men's store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot, black coffee. Like this."  -Dale Cooper

I think she did a great job with Laura's voice, from 12 to 17.  The entries were the essentials. It wasn't a novel. If you don't like reading a girl's diary, you're not going to like it.
BH might not be your cup of tea, either.
But show some excitement and support for the woman. She was involved in creating the Twin Peaks mythology, and was the inspiration for Eraserhead.
 

If by "involved in creating the mythology" you mean she wrote the diary, then I agree. However, I consider the diary to be outside the mythology, it contradicts both the series and FWWM in content, and I consider those two to be more canonical, and I don't think many would disagree.

 For me, the diary is on a level with fan fiction, and she deserves as much commendation as those folks do for contributing to twin peaks, i.e., very little.

As for eraserhead, obviously she had nothing to do with it, being only a small child at the time. If the fact of her existence was an inspiration, I don't see why she deserves credit for that. Just as I don't give the entire city of Philadelphia credit for Eraserhead, even though Lynch has cited it as a major source of inspration.

I saw an advanced screening of Surveillance and loved it. There were some really cool scenes in the film and I can see it doing well when it is released.

Tonally, it reminded me of FWWM at times as there were a lot of small town Sheriff station scenes very reminiscent of FWWM's Dear Meadow. The ending has a pretty crazy scene and the movie is really well done. Don't want to spoil it but I think a lot of people will probably dig it.

I recently decided to rewatch Boxing Helena and it is just amazing how far Jennifer has grown as a filmmaker betrween oing Helena and now Surveillance. While for me, Boxing Helena was a fun movie, I think the editing and sountrack really detracted on what could have been a really great film. I did like the cinematography, but then again, it was the all too familiar Frank Byers.

Anyway, I think when Surveillance is released, most of you will probably dig on it.

-B

1. The diary was a Twin Peaks Book. The writers of TP were closely involved with her writing of the diary, including DL. A pretty far cry from fan fiction.  Jennifer Lynch knew who the killer was before anyone else.  

2. Her birth was the inspiration for Eraserhead.

1. Not closely enough.

2. You deleted the portion of my post that addressed what you say:

Really? How so?

Without Jen's (or Philadelphia's) influence on DL, there would be no Eraserhead. And you don't have to give either credit for inspiring it-- they are clearly credited by the creator in their depiction.