QUOTE: my rampent vagina-lust. I HEARD ABOUT YOU!

 I think the offending pixles are pretty prominent, and I don't really consider myself a pedant. I didn't spot it on first viewing, but I wasn't aware of it or looking for it when I did spot it. I'm not one of those people who sits there logging continuity errors for sport. In fact, it bothers me when people get hung up about things like Maddy's cherry coke at the diner etc etc. For me, these are meaningless unless they're particualrly glaring, like the big hole in the forehead of the guy who's about to be shot in the car in LA Confidential. But that's a bad film anyway.

The blurry vah-jay-jay is really in a different catagory. It's not a continuity error; a casualty of the complex construction of a filmic text. It's something that's been added. It's something that has nothing to do with the film that has been super-imposed on to the text. Consequently, in that moment, my mind is not on the narrative or the aesthetics, but on the sexual politics of censorship. It's bad. It's a problem. Does a bad moment in a good film make it a bad film? No. But, if you're constructing a canon of the last decade in film (not necessarily a good idea), does this flaw disquallify the film from heading up the list? I think it probably does, particularly when the film directly beneath it has no such flaws.

I gotta make myself a list of best films of the decade but I don't think Mulholland Drive would make it to top ten anyway. I like it a bit more than a few years ago but still consider it to be one of Lynch's weaker films. I'd call it "very good" instead of "great" or "outstanding".

Yet, in the past decade I can think of quite a number of films I could call really great.

Even in the year 2001 itself, I definitely place No Man's Land and Moulin Rouge higher than Mulholland Drive. And probably Monsoon Wedding, too.

PS. I hope Gordon reads this post and makes an appropriate comment about Attack of the Clones

Bobi 1 Kenobi

B. Beware
O. Of
B. BOB 

IT SUCKED MONKEY'S BALLS!! Actually, it didn't, at least not so much, but I know that's what you wanted to hear...

I appreciate Star Wars more than before, my friend, and I see you slowly begin to like MD... We're getting old Jeevesy old boy...

That felt quite good :-)

You forget, however, that I always liked Mulholland Drive. The sole fact that I'm not crazy about it and that I like most of other Lynch films more, doesn't mean I don't like it.

Yet, with the guess that "it wouldn't make it to my top ten of the decade" I was faaaar out . . . I tried just to make a top ten of 2001 and yes, it made it, but scarcely:

1. No Man's Land - that is one of the best films of the decade and one of the best war films ever. Stunning, shocking and deeply deeply moving, and in all that - as far from overdone as possible. Absolutely marvellous piece of cinema.

2. Fellowship of the Ring - whatever one could say, I can't help loving it; it made my dreams come true and this reality was not disappointing (even if in places it was. but not altogether)

3. Moulin Rouge - a magical film, very very poetic - I realise of course that to many this kind of poetics might seem pretentious and difficult to swallow (it is one of those films where "I hated it" doesn't surprise me) but I got totally into this story

4. The Shipping News - there is something about the mood in this film, that island at the end of the world, that cold and wet climate so unwelcome for the human race that captures me for good and I can't help feeling a Newfoundlander ;-) And Kevin Spacey makes the man's drama so real and convincing.

5. Elling - don't know if anyone's seen it? it's a Norwegian film, plain wonderful and very very Scandinavian in its feeling. Not too emotional but not cold at all, either, it seems to go on with a unexagerrated frinedly smile. Funny and witty, sometimes slightly ironic but not too much. And those characters, aaaaaa! great film!

6. Monsoon Wedding - and this one on the other hand totally emotional, as different from the cool moderate Elling as Indian weather is from the Scandinavian. Wild emotions going outside in an instance, hot tempers, and great loves, laughter and tears, beautiful women (!!!), music in the air all the time and passionate dancing. I am a big fan of this film and I'm very happy the jury in Venice appreciated it too!

7. Mulholland Drive - a very good film full of secrets and hidden meanings, puzzling and mesmerising, and designed like a jigsaw to set your mind at work if you like it, or let your feelings flow if you prefer it this way. I prefer the first way but that's where the film doesn't fully satisfy me, I complete the jigsaw  but it's not as fascinating as it seemed to begin with.

8. Black Hawk Down - another great war movie about events very fresh, that took place when I was a teenager and I hadn't even heard about them (shame!). A riveting action movie but with some flaws, first of all I could never make a difference between characters, hence it didn't arouse the emotions that I expect it should.

9. Amelie - a sweet film that comes in delicious like chocolate and goes out about as fruitlessly as chocolate, too ;-) But chocolate is great nevertheless, isn't it?

10. Shrek - I find it kind of overrated but of course yes, very amusing, very witty. Perhaps too witty (making jokes for the sake of saying "hey, haven't I just made a great joke" is kind of empty) but let it be, I still like it.

There, I made it :-)

Bobi 1 Kenobi

B. Beware
O. Of
B. BOB