Surprise! Blank Check has started a newsletter! Your favorite connoisseurs of context are gonna go on even more tangents, commit to even more bits, and share opinions on even more pieces of entertainment industry news because - hey, why not. Thanks for joining us!
IN THIS WEEK’S EDITION:
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THE BARDI PARTY REPORT
Happy Thanksgiving, Blankies. I hope you stuffed yourselves silly this year and that dinner conversations with Facebook-brainwashed relatives weren’t too painful. Did you go to the movies this holiday weekend? Seems like much of America did - a five day domestic total of $420M (heh heh), an all-time record! And which film topped this record-breaking box office? The Mulholland Drive of Disney Animation - Moana 2.
Like Mulholland Drive, Moana 2 was intended to be a TV (well, streaming) series that got reworked into a feature film. Like Mulholland Drive, Moana 2 follows a plucky female lead on a quest to understand the meaning behind a mysterious location. Like Mulholland Drive, Moana 2 introduces a supporting cast of eccentric old people, lesbians, and a cucked storyteller dude. Like Mulholland Drive, Moana 2 includes several sequences that may or may not be dreams. Unlike Mulholland Drive, Moana 2 is NOT A GOOD MOVIE.
I saw it this weekend with past and future guest David Ehrlich and future guest Asa Ehrlich-Maezono, who is getting more into movies lately (he just turned five). Asa has not seen Mulholland Drive yet, but his review of Moana 2 is recounted here.
Marie: So, Asa, what did you think of the movie?
Asa: I loved it and I hated it.
David: We call that a mixed review.
Marie: What was your favorite part?
Asa: Um, I liked at the end when all the people came together.
Marie: Who was your favorite character?
Asa: Moana.
Marie: Obviously. Why did you say you hated it?
Asa: Because I hated it.
David: That’s not true, you were dancing in your seat during some of the songs.
Asa: Yeah, because I loved it.
Kind of like Griffin’s review of West Side Story (2021).
As for my review of Moana 2, it was a snooze. The absence of Lin Manuel Miranda was deeply felt, as was my annoyance at Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s attempts to give Maui a catchphrase. “Chee Hoo” is apparently a celebratory cheer in Samoan culture, but I wouldn’t be surprised if The Rock tried to trademark it for merch. I liked the creature that was like a blobby guy who sneezes out neurotoxin and poops out antidote slime. I also liked the joke about kidney stones. I did not like Moana’s new outfit, and I REALLY didn’t like how David, Asa, and I got stuck behind a burning car on the Brooklyn Bridge for an hour trying to come home from the movie. We call this a mixed review.
LET’S CRACK OPEN THE DOSSIER
As detailed in a 2007 interview with Twin Peaks Archive, in September 2006, artist Matt Haley had an idea: with the second season of Twin Peaks finally on the verge of an official DVD release, wouldn’t it be cool if the box set were paired with a graphic novel that detailed what a third season of the show may have looked like? Despite receiving a warning from Paramount Pictures Senior Director of Licensing Paula Block “that there was a 'trail of broken hearts' where Twin Peaks licensed products was concerned,” Haley forged ahead with the project, soon contacting original series/Fire Walk with Me writer Robert Engels, who said that he would serve as the graphic novel’s writer if Haley “could secure Lynch and Frost's blessing.” Though Frost signed off on the project, he told Haley that Lynch would probably be less welcoming towards the idea. Thinking that Lynch might approve the project if Haley “had all [his] ducks in a row,” Haley engaged Engels in a series of discussions centered on what a third season of Peaks might have entailed. Haley says that Engels told him that the creative team “really wanted to get away from the high school setting,” so once the “Cooper-BOB-possession plot” wrapped up, there would have been a decade-spanning time jump, after which Cooper would have “quit the FBI” to “become the town pharmacist” and Sheriff Truman would have “become a recluse.” Sheryl Lee would have come back to play a third character, “this time as a redhead,” and she would probably end up having “her character killed by BOB again.” Haley remembers that there were “also some vague ideas about BOB and Mike being from a planet made of creamed corn,” as well as “something about Truman driving Mike backwards through the portal into the Black Lodge.” Of course, in the end, Haley ended up getting the answer everyone told him he would get: “I sent the proposal and the art to Lynch's assistant Jay [Aaseng], and when Jay showed it to David, I was told ‘While David respects the artwork and the effort put into this project, he just does not want to continue the story of Twin Peaks in any way.’” But there were no real hard feelings on Haley’s end: “[I]t was just Lynch deciding not to continue the story and I have to respect that, as an artist. I think he probably likes the idea of not resolving the story, and I have to admit, so do I.” (Twin Peaks Archive, July 2007)
The cast of Twin Peaks: The Return is sprawling: according to a 2018 Deadline piece, it comprises around 235 people, with perhaps the most surprising inclusion among them being Everett McGill, who portrayed Big Ed Hurley on the original series but retired from acting following his appearance as Tom the John Deere dealer in Lynch’s 1999 film The Straight Story. As McGill recounts in Room To Dream, when he left the business, he “didn’t maintain ties to anyone in L.A.,” making it difficult for Lynch to reach out to him about The Return. So Lynch, on the suggestion of Frost, turned to Twitter on August 13, 2014, mysteriously tweeting, “Dear Twitter Friends, do any of you know where Everett McGill is? I'd really like to talk to him. Thank you.” According to the blog Welcome to Twin Peaks, a man by the name of Steve was able to send a phone number for McGill to Lynch, who soon reported, via email, that he had “had a GREAT talk with Ev this morning !!!!!!!” But the full story is a little crazier: the number Steve had given Lynch was, according to McGill, “for a little house down the street that belonged to my father-in-law, who passed on years ago.” McGill would check on the house from time to time—about every few weeks or so—meaning that the chances he would be in the house at the exact moment Lynch called were, as he says, “slim.” But in the house he was, and despite the long gap between 1999 and 2014, he and Lynch spoke with great ease, according to McGill: “We started talking as if we were picking up a conversation we’d left off the day before. We talked about the good old days and his Packard Hawk, which is an odd-looking car he had that he loved, and as our conversation was winding up he said, ‘If I need to be in touch with you, is this a good number?’ I said, ‘This is not a good number,’ and gave him a different one, and then I got a nondisclosure agreement in the mail and a call from Johanna [Ray].” And even though McGill had been retired for a decade and a half, he was more than willing to come out for The Return. He had a promise to keep, after all: “Long ago I said to David, ‘Anytime anyplace you need me, you just call and I will be there.’ He knew he didn’t need to ask if I wanted to be in the show.” (Kristine McKenna & David Lynch, Room to Dream)
I promise I’m not trying to restart that age-old discussion: Twin Peaks: The Return was shot like a film. As cinematographer Peter Deming told IndieWire, that meant that when the production “went to a location, [they] shot all the action that took place at that location.” Which means that, yes, all of the roadhouse sequences were shot like one glorious single-day music festival, per Lynch: “[A]ll those bands were organized and shot in one day. … A band would go onstage with all the things they needed. They’d record, it would be shot with three cameras and all the different things they needed, and then off they’d go. Stage would be cleared. New band would come in, all the stuff they needed. It was just one long, beautiful day.” (Hollywood Reporter, November 22, 2017)
WHAT IS THE TEAM INTO THIS WEEK?
Griffin Newman, Host: “Wicked in 4DX might be the best showcase yet for my most beloved film exhibition format. Why bother with audience sing-alongs when you can experience the choreography first hand through the miracle of “dancing” mechanical chairs?!? You’ll recoil as every blast of water to the face, just like Elphaba herself!!! Plus Jon M. Chu feels like one of the only filmmakers still putting thoughtful intention toward designing sequences for 3D!!!!
(I thought the movie was fine.)”
David Sims, Host: “I recommend All We Imagine As Light! It’s in theaters! Lovely Indian Cannes winner with 90s Wong Kar Wai vibes. Lovely little tale of connections and longing and life, man.”
Ben Hosley, Producer: “The Nymphet Alumni podcast is so good and cool. It’s a culture and fashion show that deep dives into different aesthetics, trends and subcultures. Hosts Alexi, Biz and Sam curate such fascinating topics and are really knowledgable. Listening makes my old ass feel like I still have an ear to what’s happening rn.”
AJ McKeon, Editor: “I recommend the London Underground. This is not David pandering. It’s just great and easy to use.”
Marie Bardi, Social Media: “I was in South Texas this past week, and I highly recommend the documentary Going Varsity in Mariachi on Netflix as your introduction to the Rio Grande Valley.”
JJ Bersch, Researcher: “Why make 1 recommendation when I could make 101? The 2024 edition of The 101 Songs—my annual playlist of my favorite songs of the year—is now live on Spotify and Apple Music. No repeat artists. Extremely ranked. Bangers only. I work way too hard on this each year, but I’m proud of it and I hope it helps you find some new songs and albums to listen to on repeat.”
Alan Smithee, Pseudonymous Editor: “Oddjob Hats. Hats for the larger-headed man. I don’t think I’d ever worn a hat that fit me before these hats. And every time I put one on I feel like I’m having some essential hat experience that I didn’t even know I was missing out on.”
THIS WEEK ON THE PODCAST
We return to Twin Peaks with our first of four episodes on Twin Peaks: The Return. This episode covers Parts 1-7, and all the Dougie you can handle:
And the gang continues their journey through the cinematic adaptations of Andrew Lloyd Webber with a Phantom of the Opera commentary:
COMING SOON:
Just here to say that Asa's review of Moana 2 is chaaaaaar-miiing.
I know it's on brand to wax poetically about it, but that Everett McGill story is one of those things that just makes it feel to me like everything lined up magically for The Return to happen at the last possible moment it could truly happen. I'm sure Lynch could've figured out ways around many of the other cast members being gone, but it's much easier to accept the crazier inclusions of deceased cast members when so many of the original were able to come back for one last go.
Plus who would want to live in a world without hearing Albert say "Fuck you, Gene Kelly, you motherfucker."