We’re at the end of another week here at BCB After Dark: the coolest club for night owls, early risers, new parents and Cubs fans abroad. So glad you could join us before we go dark until Monday. Wherever you’re from, you’re welcome here. The dress code is casual. We’ve still got a few tables available. Bring your own beverage.
BCB After Dark is the place for you to talk baseball, music, movies, or anything else you need to get off your chest, as long as it is within the rules of the site. The late-nighters
are encouraged to get the party started, but everyone else is invited to join in as you wake up the next morning and into the afternoon.
Last night I asked you how worried were you about Jameson Taillon’s poor Spring Training. You are all quite worried as 29 percent of put your worry level at “4” and another 26 put it at “5”, the highest level possible. Personally, I think you’re all a little too worried. Although I do think a reasonable amount of worry is wise. I generally don’t vote in my own polls, but I’d probably be a “3” although closer to “2” than “4.”
Here’s where we listen to jazz and talk movies. You’re free to skip ahead if you want. I won’t judge you.
Tonight we’re having a 1975 performance from Rahsaan Roland Kirk as we watch him play two saxophones at the same time. He’s joined by bassist Stanley Clarke, pianist McCoy Tyner and drummer Lenny White.
Tonight I’m continuing to count down my thoughts on the top ten movies in the 2022 BFI Sight & Sound critics poll of the greatest films of all time. I knew that today’s film, which is number eight, was going to be a problem for me because it’s one that I hold near and dear. I fear that I can’t speak to it objectively. But I tried my best and I hope you appreciate the film and what I wrote about it as much as I do. But if you don’t, that’s OK too.
8. Mulholland Drive (2001). Directed by David Lynch. Starring Naomi Watts, Laura Harring and Justin Theroux.
If Hollywood is the Land of Dreams, Mulholland Drive is the film of those dreams, or those nightmares. Maybe literally. Mulholland Drive is director David Lynch’s masterpiece. It’s been called “Vertigo on Valium” and “Raymond Chandler does Alice in Wonderland.“ If that sounds appealing to you, you’ll love it. But if you’re put off by Lynch’s off-kilter approach to filmmaking, you’ll probably hate it.
Mulholland Drive started as just a title for a never-made spinoff of Lynch’s Twin Peaks television program that would have starred Sherilyn Fenn as Audrey Horne. A few years later, Lynch pitched a different project with the same title as a TV pilot to ABC. A young ingenue arrives in Los Angeles full of dreams of becoming a star. She meets up with a beautiful amnesiac with a bag full of cash and some gangsters looking for her. ABC commissioned the pilot on the basis of that pitch.
ABC hated the resulting pilot and unceremoniously rejected it. Lynch thought he was done with the project until a French producer asked if Lynch could save it as a feature film. While Lynch never revealed what was in the pilot and what footage he shot two years later, it’s pretty clear that he tacked on an ending that completely overturned what we thought we knew about the rest of the movie. Or did it?
There’s no way that I can tell you what Mulholland Drive is about because its a surrealist piece of filmmaking that is about both nothing and everything. Lynch never explained his films because he thought that was your job. Lynch’s approach was something like a jigsaw puzzle. He gave you all the pieces but no instructions on how to put it together. The clues are there if you want to look, but there’s no right answer. Everyone is expected to come up with their own interpretation. He loved nothing better than for someone to come up to him and give their thoughts on his work. He would listen and say something like “That’s interesting. I’m glad you got that out of it. That’s not what I was thinking, but it’s great.” Conversely, he hated it when someone tried to definitively say something symbolized “x” and then tried to get Lynch to agree or disagree with that theory.
Mulholland Drive is about Betty Elms (Watts), a young woman from Ontario with big dreams of being a star in Hollywood. She’s staying at her aunt’s house while her aunt is working at a film shoot up in Canada. She meets up with Rita (Harring), who lost her memory in a car accident on Mulholland Drive. Betty finds Rita hiding in her aunt’s apartment with no memory and a bag full of money and a blue key. She can’t remember her name, but goes by “Rita” from a movie poster of Gilda in the apartment with Rita Hayworth on it. Then there is Adam Kesher (Theroux), an obnoxious film director who is about to have the worst day of his life because he crossed the mobsters backing his current film.
Or maybe it isn’t. Maybe that’s all a dream. Maybe Betty is actually Diane Selwyn, a failed actress with substance abuse problems and Rita is Camilla Rhodes, a highly-successful Hollywood star. On the other hand, perhaps Diane and Camilla are the dream. Or the nightmare.
It’s also possible that, like in Sunset Boulevard, all of it is a tale of Hollywood told from beyond the grave and that Betty/Diane has been dead all along. (Lynch denied thinking of Sunset Boulevard during the making of Mulholland Drive, but he did admit it may have influenced him subconsciously. If you’re a Twin Peaks fan, you know the character Lynch played was named Gordon Cole, which was also the name of a minor character in Sunset Boulevard.)
There are also several characters and stories that are introduced and dropped. One assumes these are leftover fragments of the pilot, but with Lynch, you can never be sure. In any case, Lynch left them in because he found them interesting even if they don’t “mean” anything. Or maybe they do. Again, that’s up to you. Lynch did say that one scene was influenced by his belief that one of the booths at the Denny’s restaurant by his house was Satanic. If you’ve seen the movie, you know the scene.
So if Mulholland Drive is about everything and nothing, why is it so good? For one, it has drama, humor, love, hate, music, horror and mystery. All of this is shot with Lynch’s eye for both beauty and the absurd. It’s one of the great films about Hollywood. The scene in Club Silencio is pure movie magic, with Rebecca Del Rio signing a Spanish-language version of Roy Orbison’s “Crying.” Or is she singing it? Cinema is the art of illusion, and nowhere does Lynch drive that home better than in that scene.
If you’re the type of movie goer who saw 2001: A Space Odyssey and asked “what the hell was that about?”, you’re going to hate Mulholland Drive because Mulholland Drive makes 2001 look like an Indiana Jones movie in the straightforwardness of its plot. But if you love Lynch’s off-kilter look and combination of humor, mystery, music and horror and don’t worry yourself about what it’s all supposed to “mean,” this is the film for you.
Would I put it in my top ten? This is a tricky question because if you asked me to list my favorite ten films, Mulholland Drive would certainly make the list. But if somehow I was given a real vote in the BFI Sight & Sound critics poll, I’m not sure if I’d vote for it. I feel that to be one of the greatest ten films of all time, a movie should be both personal and universal. Mulholland Drive is definitely personal, but I’m not sure it’s universal. I suppose the fact that other critics ranked it as the eighth-best film of all time speaks for its timeless qualities, but there seem to be a lot of Lynch fans in that poll. They voted Twin Peaks: the Return as the 152nd greatest movie of all time and it’s not even a movie! It’s a television show, for Pete’s sake!
So would I vote for Mulholland Drive as one of the ten greatest films of all time? That’s a tossup, but I’d have reservations either way I voted. I certainly want to.
Here’s the trailer for the restoration of Mulholland Drive.
Welcome back to everyone who skips the music and movies.
Al wrote an article earlier this week about the new rules that they are trying out in the minor leagues this year. So tonight we’re going to ask how you feel about them?
In the article linked to, Al explains the rules changes pretty well, but if you’re still confused, Jayson Stark in The Athletic goes into more details. (sub. req.) So I’m not going to go into all of them here. But I will offer a quick blurb on most of them. Some of them aren’t really worth going into—MLB is never going to allow starting pitchers to re-enter the game in a regular season contest—but others are ones that might be adopted if they work out. So which one do you think is the best idea?
The rules are:
Check-swing challenges. Sounds good in theory, but MLB has set what counts as a check swing far beyond what is normally called. That seems like it would decrease strikeouts and increase walks. I’m going to have to see how this works in practice before I offer an opinion on it, but they could always tweak the check to make it more or less restrictive.
PitchCom issues count as a mound visit: This is meant to keep teams from faking PitchCom issues to gain some extra rest for their pitcher. I don’t think it would really work. Most teams don’t use up all their mound visits anyways. I’m also not sure it’s really necessary.
More rigid enforcement of time rules on mound visits: This calls an automatic ball if a mound visit is slow to break up and makes sure play is ready to go after 30 seconds. This is designed to speed up the game. I’m sure coaches and pitchers will hate it. Otherwise, it seems good.
No time outs for hitters with the bases empty: Obviously designed to speed up the game some more. There’s a more rigid version of this rule also being tested, but let’s stick with this one. I just don’t think it’s necessary. Let hitters get that second to brace themselves with two strikes. Speeding up the game is a good thing, but I think this one might decrease offense, which is not a good thing. But it’s worth testing in the minors.
Reducing the number of pitcher disengagements from two to one: Again designed to speed up the game and increase the number of stolen bases. Personally, think the current system is a good balance on risk/reward on stolen bases and there’s no need to change it. But I guess it’s worth trying in the minors.
Moving second base in: This is the most controversial one and flows from the fact that second base has been in the wrong place all these centuries. I’m not going to explain why it’s in the “wrong” place, but Jayson Stark wrote a big article on it four years ago. (sub. req.) In any case, it’s not, and never has been, 90 feet from first to second or second to third. This proposal would move the base in and cut down the distance between second base and first and third from 87 feet 9 inches to a straight 87 feet.
Obviously this would increase stolen bases and the ability of runners to go from first to third. It might also, ironically, increase the number of double plays.
I don’t know how I feel about this, but I feel it’s a solution in search of a problem.
So let’s hear what you think now.
Thanks for stopping by. We’ve enjoyed having you all week. Please get home safely. Stay cool or stay warm, depending on where home is. Tell your friends about us. Recycle any cans and bottles. Tip your waitstaff. And join us again next week for more BCB After Dark.
