Jeremy_Urquhart So Inland Empire was a movie.If David Lynch's film career was a video game, then Inland Empire would be both the really difficult final level that goes on for much longer than most of the other levels, and the final, nearly impossible to beat boss battle. It's his trickiest film. I don't even know how to begin to wrap my head around it.Maybe I could watch it a dozen times and begin to understand it, but with each day that goes by, my life gets shorter, and time gets more precious, and I just don't know if future me will ever feel like devoting three hours to this again.Still, as pointless as a numerical rating kind of is to a film like this, I guess I could almost settle on a 6? Maybe? There was more here that I liked or didn't dislike than stuff here that I didn't like, so... It still deserves a better than average score? I think?It lacks the prettiness and visually appealing cinematography of many of Lynch's other films, thanks to it being shot on some really ugly digital format, but I guess that's the style it was going for. Intentional. Or something. Don't even know if I should complain about it.Performances were good. I think. Sometimes I didn't know what the actors were trying to do or emote, so I can't always say for sure.Freaked me out quite a bit. If you're often affected by surreal horror, then you'll probably find something within this film's three hour running time to give you nightmares.Yay.

cesaroi Most people consider "Mulholland Dr.", David Lynch's Masterpiece. I can see why they would say that, but I think this film is hugely underrated, and most people dislike it, probably because of the way this was shot, the run time or maybe even the context. But for me David Lynch's content just gets better and better with each movie you see, and this is no exception, this could be Lynch's Masterpiece, not just because of the really surrealist quality to this film, because of the message, the way this was put together, and how it came to be. I recommend first experiencing this film, and then analyzing it if you are into deconstructing stuff, so you can get the message or anything. But, if you're just in it because it just "mindfucks" you, then you still won't be disappointed. If you didn't like the movie because of the aesthetic or anything, I urge you to give it a second chance. And if you're a David Lynch fan, let's just hope that he makes a new film soon.

agprestwich Exhaustingly ambitious, mind-bending and deliberately ugly-looking 3-hour Hollywood satire/horror epic, shot on super cheap digital video by madman filmmaker David Lynch and starring Laura Dern in complex dual roles, is the kind of once-in-a-lifetime movie that seems to have been crafted in another dimension entirely, where traditional narrative rules don't apply and basic visual language has been vomited up into nerve-wracking anti-cinema. It is a truly maddening, singular experience, and one most audiences would never want to subject themselves to. But it is fascinating, filled with bizarre thrills and an incredible lead performance that somehow manages to anchor the entire film, even when it is impossible to logically comprehend.Laura Dern plays Nikki Grace, an aging Hollywood actress with a sinister Polish husband who is cast in the lead role (alongside Justin Theroux) in a corny drama about adultery that is discovered to be a remake of a Polish film based on a cursed gypsy folktale that was never completed because the lead actors were mysteriously murdered. It's not too long before Nikki is confusing herself with her character Susan Blue and the film essentially free-falls into intense insanity for two straight hours. Nikki/Susan become trapped in some terrifying, unstable version of the film she's making, where time collapses in on itself and its story (which is never even made completely clear) winds and twists around itself endlessly, yet with new details and narrative strands constantly emerging, as if its own plot has become a cancer. Sometimes she can witness previous incarnations of the story set in Poland if she burns a cigarette hole through a piece of silk. Other times she sees or runs into other versions of herself. Her shady husband, who remains her spouse in the movie universe, seems to be up to no good, but is he actually helping in some way? She hangs out with a group of young prostitutes at her house, two of which act as guides through this terror. In an inter-cut future time line the film eventually catches up with, she sits in a dank interrogation room clutching a screwdriver, talking about her life and making even more of a narrative mess out of the head-spinning story in stunningly performed, foul-mouthed monologues that prove Laura Dern is an acting powerhouse. Also people keep getting murdered with screwdrivers. And there's a sitcom with people in rabbit costumes spouting non sequiturs (laugh track and all) relevant to what is going on only in the most abstract way. And there's a scary Polish man, The Phantom, or maybe his name is Crimp and he's Susan's neighbor, or maybe he's a man who once worked at the circus, who seems to be controlling all of this for nefarious and unexplained reasons. Oh and there's a crying woman trapped in a hotel room watching all of this on a TV.That's about as coherently as I can describe the plot, and that still doesn't touch on like half of the mammoth thing. It is dense and gnarled and unhinged in exhilarating ways that modern cinema rarely strives for. With crude tools, game actors and endless imagination, there's a freedom present that is refreshing, even when it's a debilitating experience. Lynch, continuing his fascination with unanswerable mysteries (see also Lost Highway and Mulholland Dr.) has crafted his purest expression of narrative implosion, in which the fearful and confused feeling of being lost in a terrible waking nightmare is more important than piecing together its myriad threads (which is frankly impossible). That being said, there is an easy tendency to throw ones hands up and declare the thing to be random nonsense, when it really isn't. It actually sticks rather close to itself and its premise all of the way through; this sense that it is nothing but random scenes and images ignores the connective tissue running between every sequence, even when it isn't progressing in order. And in a dazzling third act, after its chaotic ever-changing middle hour, the film adopts a sort of real time perspective that follows Susan/Nikki, almost like a video game, as she fulfills her requirements in her "role" and breaks the cursed story chain. It doesn't necessarily make "sense", but there's a progression here, a story that runs forward even as it's concurrently running in every other direction. It is an amazing cinematic feat, about the power of stories and the performances inside of them. It's often hideous digital video photography, at odds with all of Lynch's previous gorgeously shot films, works when you consider he is attempting to literally break free from cinematic constraints. To make a film about film and Hollywood storytelling shot in a deliberately un-cinematic style and breaking all storytelling rules creates something truly transgressive and unique. When it was released 9 years ago, it was criticized for its murky, often hideous photography, but it actually seems kind of ahead of the curve now, considering the prevalence of sloppy looking hand-held digital films now on the mainstream market. And even with such low resolution and clearly cheap production value, it can still sometimes look rather beautiful in a harsh, unpolished way. It's one of the most experimental and thought-provoking American films of the 2000's and worth watching from any serious cinephile or adventurous film-goer. Having seen Lynch's previous films certainly helps, otherwise you're really in for a shock.

beetleborgs69 So you have the director, played by Justin Theroux, who is obviously supposed to be Cameron Crowe, and you have the actress, longtime Lynch companion Naomi Watts, who is obviously supposed to represent Cameron Crowe's ex-wife, Nancy Wilson. Cameron Crowe writes a film for her, to win her over, and casts her in the lead role. Pretty straight forward where this leads off to, some interesting twists, paranoia, a couple of Jungian dream sequences, maybe a dance interlude, I can't remember. Then at the same time, a victim of the sex-trade industry in Poland is kept captive in a motel room for the night, and the film playing on the television is the same film that is being filmed by Naomi Watts. Through Lynchian logic, the Polish girl summons Naomi through her image on the television into the room, and the two of them attempt to solve a murder mystery that has a peculiar similarity to another case going on back home in LA. It's all very easy to follow, though byzantine, Lynch has struck gold with his ability to tell a cohesive story and still be sadistically erotic. A good Hollywood meta-thriller, with great production values all the way across the board, from Lynch, who is filming on a hand-held camera, to Lara Flynn Boyle, who some might say reprises a "version" of her role from "Twin Peaks", even down to Terry Crews from "Everybody Hates Chris", making his dramatic role debut as a clever conman on the streets of paradise in the film within the film. Look no elsewhere for a solid block of fun, a little long in the expositional dialogue, but it's so snappily edited and framed you'll look back and go, huh? How could I not have seen that coming? Sort of thing. 10/10 A+ murder mystery