Oh, god...Sunset Boulevard, to me, is maybe a bit overrated but pretty great anyway; Mulholland Drive is one the most self-parodic bits of claptrap I think I've ever seen (which I say as a big fan of Blue Velvet and much of Twin Peaks). It would never even occur to me to pair them in a poll, there's such a qualitative imbalance, although I can see where's a thematic connection.
― clemenza, Monday, 19 October 2009 22:48 (fourteen years ago) link
also they are both named for streets in los angeles!
― all yoga attacks are fire based (rogermexico.), Monday, 19 October 2009 23:10 (fourteen years ago) link
I like both of these, but SB is way better.
― Your heartbeat soun like sasquatch feet (polyphonic), Monday, 19 October 2009 23:12 (fourteen years ago) link
(suggest ban joke)
― iatee, Monday, 19 October 2009 23:13 (fourteen years ago) link
A pointless poll since ice cr?am officially ruled that old movies suck
― Your Favorite Saturday Night Thing (Dr Morbius), Monday, October 19, 2009 4:19 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
morbs otm
― Bobby Wo (max), Monday, 19 October 2009 23:16 (fourteen years ago) link
sb by a hair
― Nhex, Tuesday, 20 October 2009 02:00 (fourteen years ago) link
― Bobby Wo (max), Monday, October 19, 2009 7:16 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
^
― ice cr?m, Tuesday, 20 October 2009 02:04 (fourteen years ago) link
everyone should prob just go ahead and vote based on which street they prefer since this question has previously been answered by me
― ice cr?m, Tuesday, 20 October 2009 02:06 (fourteen years ago) link
mulholland drive. love sunset boulevard, but mulholland drive is fucking incredible.
― karl...arlk...rlka...lkar..., Tuesday, 20 October 2009 02:57 (fourteen years ago) link
MD one of my favourite films. So that.
― Lostandfound, Tuesday, 20 October 2009 03:07 (fourteen years ago) link
mulholland drive is a stunner. possibly my second favorite film ever. i love sunset blvd, but it doesn't compare.
― t0dd swiss, Tuesday, 20 October 2009 05:21 (fourteen years ago) link
is it time for me to ask ppl what they see in MD again?
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Tuesday, 20 October 2009 05:51 (fourteen years ago) link
it's so mysterious and confusing!
― iatee, Tuesday, 20 October 2009 05:56 (fourteen years ago) link
lesbo hate fucks?
― ice cr?m, Tuesday, 20 October 2009 06:03 (fourteen years ago) link
― dan138zig (Durrr Durrr Durrrrrr), Tuesday, 20 October 2009 14:30 (fourteen years ago) link
Sunset Boulevard. MD is nice, but I was kinda disappointed when I realized it had the same plot as Lost Highway (except with the genders reversed, and some lesbian action), which was a superior movie.
― Tuomas, Tuesday, 20 October 2009 14:34 (fourteen years ago) link
You folks are killing me here...When I think of Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire (and Lost Highway, and Wild at Heart), two things come to mind: a portentous movie-trailer voiceover intoning "From the mind of David Lynch," and the Simpsons episode where a mesmerized Homer watches a Twin Peaks knock-off featuring a sheriff dancing with a cow, and he solemnly announces "Genius..."
― clemenza, Tuesday, 20 October 2009 14:58 (fourteen years ago) link
I like them both, but Sunset Boulevard wins, if only for the "if the lady's paying, why not have the alpaca" moment.
― The Real Dirty Vicar, Tuesday, 20 October 2009 15:02 (fourteen years ago) link
hay everyone listen up - david lynch makes clemenza think of that time the simpsons made fun of david lynch - poll is null
― ice cr?m, Tuesday, 20 October 2009 15:49 (fourteen years ago) link
Lost Highway is not superior to MD Tuomas you crazy
― Jesus, the Czar of Czars (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 20 October 2009 15:51 (fourteen years ago) link
Yes, thank you for the translation--the poll is null. That's clearly what I was saying.
― clemenza, Tuesday, 20 October 2009 15:51 (fourteen years ago) link
Inland Empire is better than both, but I may vote for the old one out of misguided duty.
― cough syrup in coke cans (Eric H.), Tuesday, 20 October 2009 15:52 (fourteen years ago) link
I would have thought they were sufficiently of a piece for it not to be a mark of madness to prefer one to the other.
― The Real Dirty Vicar, Tuesday, 20 October 2009 15:53 (fourteen years ago) link
lol lost highway is ass
― ice cr?m, Tuesday, 20 October 2009 15:53 (fourteen years ago) link
it's basically a dry run for mullholland dr
i don't think it's ass but def. not as good
― well pull down my pants and call me swamp thing (latebloomer), Tuesday, 20 October 2009 15:58 (fourteen years ago) link
great zeitgeist-y cash-in soundtrack!
― well pull down my pants and call me swamp thing (latebloomer), Tuesday, 20 October 2009 15:59 (fourteen years ago) link
both are great,but because most ilxor's are between 20 to 40 years old - MD will win.
― Zeno, Tuesday, 20 October 2009 16:02 (fourteen years ago) link
i think SB is also one of Lynch's top 5 favourite films ever.
― Zeno, Tuesday, 20 October 2009 16:06 (fourteen years ago) link
I agree, if the average ilxor was 70 to 90 years old then SB in a landslide
xp
― 鬼の手 (Edward III), Tuesday, 20 October 2009 16:06 (fourteen years ago) link
even from 50 something
― Zeno, Tuesday, 20 October 2009 16:08 (fourteen years ago) link
ok,david lynch's favourite films,in this boring list of great movies:
8.5sunset boulevardMonsieur Hulot's Holidayrear window.
― Zeno, Tuesday, 20 October 2009 16:13 (fourteen years ago) link
I actually like Lost Highway a little better than Mulholland Dr myself, but yeah shut up Tuomas.
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 20 October 2009 16:16 (fourteen years ago) link
50 something film fans would've been 30 somethings when blue velvet came out. lol we old.
I took my girlfriend to go see blue velvet. we were 16, and she told her mother I took her to a porno movie.
― 鬼の手 (Edward III), Tuesday, 20 October 2009 16:25 (fourteen years ago) link
on the drive she said "don't you fucking look at me!"
― well pull down my pants and call me swamp thing (latebloomer), Tuesday, 20 October 2009 16:26 (fourteen years ago) link
*drive home
― well pull down my pants and call me swamp thing (latebloomer), Tuesday, 20 October 2009 16:27 (fourteen years ago) link
should've seen ferris bueller I guess
― 鬼の手 (Edward III), Tuesday, 20 October 2009 16:28 (fourteen years ago) link
I prefer Lost Highway over Mulholland Drive too...
― Moodles, Tuesday, 20 October 2009 17:24 (fourteen years ago) link
To me, Lost Highway wasn't a "dry run" for Mulholland Drive, MD was more like a rehash of of LH with more boobs. I guess you could argue that more boobs automatically makes a movie better, but I don't feel so. Don't get me wrong though, I think MD is quite good (the scene in the theatre where the woman is singing "Crying" in Spanish is one of the best things Lynch has ever done), but since LH already had the exact same plot, and since LH is aesthetically more pleasing and structurally tighter (there's some scenes in MD that would've made sense if the movie would've been a pilot for a TV series, as originally intended, but in self-contained film they feel extraneous), it's not hard to choose LH over MD.
― Tuomas, Tuesday, 20 October 2009 19:19 (fourteen years ago) link
Tuomas it's like you didn't see Mulholland Drive at all.
― all yoga attacks are fire based (rogermexico.), Tuesday, 20 October 2009 19:24 (fourteen years ago) link
the exact same plot?
― Ømår Littel (Jordan), Tuesday, 20 October 2009 19:26 (fourteen years ago) link
I liked MD more than LH by quite a bit, but I did notice similarities between them.
― Your heartbeat soun like sasquatch feet (polyphonic), Tuesday, 20 October 2009 19:26 (fourteen years ago) link
MD is about Hollywood. Lost Highway is not.
― Jesus, the Czar of Czars (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 20 October 2009 19:33 (fourteen years ago) link
they use some similar devices (like the big pivot point halfway through the story), but i'd say they use them differently and are about different things
― Ømår Littel (Jordan), Tuesday, 20 October 2009 19:36 (fourteen years ago) link
I can't be arsed to type it all again, but I tried to explain the similarities between LH and MD in this thread. Here's the more relevant post:
My problem with Mulholland Drive is that it has the exact same the story as Lost Highway. Here's how it goes:
The main character gets jealous of his/her wife/girlfriend.-> S/he kills her / gets her killed.-> S/he can't bear the guilt, and escapes into a fantasy world, where their love story is purer, resembling Hollywood fiction. Also, s/he losts his/her memory of what has happened, but glimpses of the past are still coming through.-> Ultimately, his/her fantasy won't last, and s/he returns to the the real world.-> S/he kills herself / goes mad / is executed because of his/her sin.
The fact that the "dream" part of the film is the first half in Mulholland Drive, and the second half in Lost Highway, doesn't change the fact that the plot is very similar.
― Tuomas (Tuomas), 12. tammikuuta 2004 15:03 Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
― Tuomas, Tuesday, 20 October 2009 19:38 (fourteen years ago) link
But yeah, I'm not saying MD and LH are totally similar, obviously there are some thematic and aesthetic differences, I just think they have the same basic plot, and LH did it better.
― Tuomas, Tuesday, 20 October 2009 19:39 (fourteen years ago) link
"Tuomas it's like you didn't see Mulholland Drive at all."
I'm not sure he saw Lost Highway (there are tons of boobs in that movie!!!)
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 20 October 2009 19:42 (fourteen years ago) link
Yeah, but not a lesbian sex scene.
― Tuomas, Tuesday, 20 October 2009 19:45 (fourteen years ago) link
You didn't specify more lesbian boobs.
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 20 October 2009 19:51 (fourteen years ago) link
in Finland, it doesn't count unless they're lesbian boobs
― the blackest thing ever seen (HI DERE), Tuesday, 20 October 2009 19:51 (fourteen years ago) link
Straight from the big book of finnish boob rules.
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 20 October 2009 19:53 (fourteen years ago) link
Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.
― System, Saturday, 24 October 2009 23:01 (fourteen years ago) link
both are overrated imo (i voted MD)
― johnny crunch, Saturday, 24 October 2009 23:57 (fourteen years ago) link
I Sunset Boulevarded you for that.
― Henry Frog (Frogman Henry), Sunday, 25 October 2009 04:27 (fourteen years ago) link
Gloria excelled at physical comedy in her 20s!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cgPrGgujb4
― ballin' from Maine to Mexico (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 16 June 2013 06:57 (eleven years ago) link
o wow I just saw SB for the first time last night and the whole time thought how it reminded me of MD though I couldn't give any tangible reasons why; like there aren't really any plot similarities, they're just, kind of weird batshit movies set in Hollywood? I guess?
― EMA Sumac (Stevie D(eux)), Sunday, 21 September 2014 16:05 (nine years ago) link
but I'm glad it's not just me
For me the thing that pushes sb into the lead is waxman's incredible score-- a stone masterpiece. Obv mulholland uses music very effectively too.
I wonder if there's anyone on ilx who would vote mulholland falls over mulholland drive?
― Gar Tooth (Jon Lewis), Sunday, 21 September 2014 16:50 (nine years ago) link
Plot similarity = dead main character
― Οὖτις, Sunday, 21 September 2014 17:52 (nine years ago) link
this thread gets hilarious
― imago, Sunday, 21 September 2014 18:01 (nine years ago) link
Big book of finnish boob rules
― Οὖτις, Sunday, 21 September 2014 18:08 (nine years ago) link
I have to say it just occurred to me the other day how Adam Kesher in MD almost plays the viewer in the sense that he is like totally weirded out by how bizarre his circumstances are, partic w/ the Cowboy; he seems to echo the audience's sentiment of "what the fuck is going on here" when everyone else in the film is kind of acting like it's all normal
Does any other Lynch character sort of break the 4th wall in this regard?
― EMA Sumac (Stevie D(eux)), Monday, 22 September 2014 16:25 (nine years ago) link
Sunset Boulevard is fantastic. I've never seen Mulholland Drive.
― example (crüt), Monday, 22 September 2014 16:27 (nine years ago) link
SB is p terrific, but all the 'good girl' Nancy Olson stuff (cept maybe her first scene where she delivers the bad review of Joe's script) is unbearable. And Manny Farber pointed out the sledgehammer obviousness of the store clerk's "WELL, IF THE LADY IS PAYING" leer as a bad moment.
― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Monday, 22 September 2014 16:32 (nine years ago) link
but you should see Wilder's Fedora when it gets unleashed on multi platforms next month -- a grimmer Hwood fairytale with a smarter Holden character.
― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Monday, 22 September 2014 16:34 (nine years ago) link
had never heard of that til I saw you mention it on the other thread. the dubbing thing sounds pretty odd
― Οὖτις, Monday, 22 September 2014 16:36 (nine years ago) link
that clerk looks like Thomas Dewey
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 22 September 2014 16:36 (nine years ago) link
but Fedora has no shots of Bill Holden emerging wet from swimming pool.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 22 September 2014 16:37 (nine years ago) link
he appears briefly in tighty whities tho!
― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Monday, 22 September 2014 16:40 (nine years ago) link
― Zeno, Tuesday, October 20, 2009 12:06 PM (4 years ago)
yeah, for sure. from an interview with Lynch in the book Lynch on Lynch (Lynch! Lynch!!!):
Q: I understand that you screened Sunset Boulevard for everyone before you began filming Eraserhead. Why that movie?A: Sunset Boulevard is in my top five movies, for sure. But there wasn’t anything in particular about it that related to Eraserhead. It was just a black-and-white experience of a certain mood.
A: Sunset Boulevard is in my top five movies, for sure. But there wasn’t anything in particular about it that related to Eraserhead. It was just a black-and-white experience of a certain mood.
― Karl Malone, Monday, 22 September 2014 16:48 (nine years ago) link
xp in 1978
― a guy named Christian White who represents the typical white Christian (Eric H.), Monday, 22 September 2014 16:56 (nine years ago) link
not sure any other Golden Age star did so... even at sixty
― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Monday, 22 September 2014 16:59 (nine years ago) link
^ RIP.
Morbs would be jovially disappointed in me for not ever having seen Sunset Blvd but I plan to remedy that in a couple of weeks - there's a 16mm print screening in Hackney.
― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 9 November 2021 12:42 (two years ago) link
Bill Holden? He’s been dead for…oh.I second his recommendation of the film Fedora, not to be confused with the erstwhile restaurant of the same name. https://www.nycgo.com/articles/fedorable-slideshow
― Exploding Plastic Bertrand (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 9 November 2021 12:50 (two years ago) link
well i finally saw it, in a glorious (actually not glorious) 16mm reduction print, with optical sound track, at the Castle Cinema. actually the quality was not terrible. What a film. Holden's curdled rejection of love at the end was genuinely shocking to me. and Gloria Swanson, i mean what is there to say. I get it now. All the amazing lines, sure ("we didn't need dialogue then! we had FACES!") but she travels across the lines like a spirit animal, just amazing. probably the greatest single moment for me is when she stands up during the private screening of one of her own movies, with the light flickering across her face, she holds up a claw-like hand, i don't even remember what she was saying, but that image, the memory of cruel command, still lingering like an aftertaste, the light washing over her.. sheesh
― Tracer Hand, Monday, 29 November 2021 09:47 (two years ago) link
Famous image, I think.
https://www.denofgeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/sunset-boulevard-1950-wallpapers-2.jpg?resize=768%2C432
― clemenza, Monday, 29 November 2021 15:11 (two years ago) link
yes, that scene but there’s an eerier shot where it’s just her and the light is actually strobing over her as she speaks, and the effect is like a horror movie, like the bride of frankenstein or something
― Tracer Hand, Monday, 29 November 2021 15:51 (two years ago) link
IIRC it's an "I'll show them all" moment as she's running up the Salome project.
― Milm & Foovies (Eric H.), Monday, 29 November 2021 16:07 (two years ago) link
she’d make such an incredible salome!!
― Tracer Hand, Monday, 29 November 2021 16:42 (two years ago) link
Her Chaplin impersonation was first-rate too.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 29 November 2021 16:50 (two years ago) link
^^^^ favorite part of Waxman's score there, too
― Milm & Foovies (Eric H.), Monday, 29 November 2021 17:17 (two years ago) link
yeah, incredible. she had it down.
i DIED during her parasol bit. in a bathing costume, standing on a side table, twirling and twirling and jumping into bill holden's disgruntled lap. oh she was so happy.
i'm sure acres has been written on holden's cynicism - 'pictures that mean something? oh, that was last year' and you're rooting so hard for him to snap out of it that you're even rooting for him to steal his friend's girl. but he's too honorable for that - or too cynical? that you don't know where one stops and the other begins is part of the genius of the ending.
paris review interview with wilder re: SB here: https://cinephiliabeyond.org/sunset-boulevard-billy-wilder-charles-bracketts-sobering-exposure-dark-side-hollywood/
as well as an early script where the first scene would have been set in a morgue, with holden's 'spirit' conversing with the other corpses.
― Tracer Hand, Monday, 29 November 2021 17:34 (two years ago) link