Regarding Lynch sharing the providence of his ideas, the Silencio story reminded me of seeing him speak at BAM probably ten years ago or so now, where Paul Holdengräber unsuccessfully tried many, many times to get him to talk about his movies (eg, he gestures towards a projected image of Blue Velvet's ear and asks "This ear. What is it? Why is it? What does it mean to you and where does this image come from?" "Well, uh, you'd have to watch the movie to learn that."), but the most illuminating aside came from Lynch discussing his love of Edward Hopper. He noted that many of his paintings have open windows or doors, and that Lynch just loves staring at them wondering what's on the other side. I'm fairly sure he described it along the same lines as the TV pilot quote above and that there's always a person, space, and an opening to somewhere else. Ever since that, I always think of his work, at least in part, about being on the threshold of another place.
Beautiful. Also reminds me of this great quote Isabella Rossellini offers in ROOM TO DREAM: "David is always dealing with some sort of mystery in his work. He once said something that really helped me understand his work. He said, ‘In life you don’t know everything. You enter a room and people are sitting there and there’s an atmosphere, and you immediately know if you have to be careful about what you say, or if you have to be loud, or silent, or subdued—you immediately know it. The thing you don’t know is what’s next. In life we don’t know where the story is going or even where a conversation is going to go in the next minute.’ David’s awareness of this is central to his films. He’s very sensitive to the mystery that surrounds everything.”
A very succinct explanation of his work from her, for sure. I often think that what makes him so unique as a filmmaker (and is partially where the imitations can't measure up) is that I believe he still thinks first and foremost as a painter and views his film work through a similar lens. There's a mode of intentionality to his work that's more common in painting or styles of photography that's different from the kind of intentionality that lots of filmmaking teaches us to look for. Recently read Tim Carpenter's To Photograph is to Learn How to Die, and in it he writes that one of the unique powers of photography is creating implied meaning through the juxtaposition of real objects that otherwise have nothing to do with one another. That kind of transformational meaning through adjacency and inference is what I think Lynch innately understands.
This isn't to say other filmmakers don't work in this mode, but it's rare for those kind of filmmakers to get, say, Showtime to give them 18 episodes of prestige TV money.
When I took my son to see Transformers One in theaters, they played the trailer for Red One. My first honest thought was: “is this one of those ‘play a Netflix film in theaters for one weekend for awards qualification’ situations?” Could not believe it was a ReAl MoViE (Harry Styles inflection).
Loving the current series, having seen zero Lynch films before and only ever knowing the “aura” of the man. Looking forward to The Return closing out the year. I also started the series from scratch (started listening in 2023 while doing a lot of driving for family medical issues), and it’s crazy how often the current episodes and the past miniseries will loop around to one another (the two friends truly do get around to covering everyone they say they will). I’m currently on Musker & Clements, deep into the pandemic days.
UFO 50 RULES YES JJ! Cannot believe how many games I've gotten super deep into and how much time I've spent on it overall. All the listed games are great, also love Paint Chase, Avianos, Hyper Contender, Attactics.......man
I really haven't spent too much time with the strategy games like Avianos and Attactics because I know I need to be in a certain mindset for them and it's also nice to know that after 40 hours I still have so much left to explore. Haven't even dusted off the gigantic RPG! Or the scary point and click adventure! AND WILL I EVER GET THE CHERRY ON PAINT CHASE? I don't know! I hope so!
idk how anyone gets a cherry on any of these tbh the golds have kept me sweating on their own.
i think this game is going to blow up all over again once it's on switch and i cant wait for that, but theres also been something kind of charming about the little subreddit community so far that exchanges game tips like it's a playground swingset in the 90s.
Very exciting about Nirvanna the Band the Show!! One of my favorite new discoveries of the last few years. Listening to Fennessey’s interview with Johnson on a Big Pic about BlackBerry was so artistically rejuvenating…such a fascinating and well spoken guy. I recommend seeking out some of the videos where he talks about how they filmed some of NtBtS, I think in particular there’s a great interview that…god…maybe Finn Wolfhard of all people did where he explains how they did the art museum heist sequence and it melted my brain.
Seriously, UFO 50 is great, and if you enjoy Party House don’t sleep on creator Jon Perry’s tabletop games (Spots, Scape Goat, Air Land & Sea, Tragedy Looper), they’re all fantastic.
it took me an unsettling amount of time to realize it was the same guy—I think the existence of John Perry from The Only Ones, another understated second banana, may have run some psychic interference. It actually wasn’t until this podcast forced me to put 2 and 2 together: https://spacebiff.com/2022/11/30/sbsc-24-jon-perry/
"I think we all can agree that the problem with Oppenheimer was that Cillian Murphy just wasn’t jacked enough, his bare chest was too narrow, too concave for the power of IMAX" probably the best sentence I will read today
Regarding Lynch sharing the providence of his ideas, the Silencio story reminded me of seeing him speak at BAM probably ten years ago or so now, where Paul Holdengräber unsuccessfully tried many, many times to get him to talk about his movies (eg, he gestures towards a projected image of Blue Velvet's ear and asks "This ear. What is it? Why is it? What does it mean to you and where does this image come from?" "Well, uh, you'd have to watch the movie to learn that."), but the most illuminating aside came from Lynch discussing his love of Edward Hopper. He noted that many of his paintings have open windows or doors, and that Lynch just loves staring at them wondering what's on the other side. I'm fairly sure he described it along the same lines as the TV pilot quote above and that there's always a person, space, and an opening to somewhere else. Ever since that, I always think of his work, at least in part, about being on the threshold of another place.
Beautiful. Also reminds me of this great quote Isabella Rossellini offers in ROOM TO DREAM: "David is always dealing with some sort of mystery in his work. He once said something that really helped me understand his work. He said, ‘In life you don’t know everything. You enter a room and people are sitting there and there’s an atmosphere, and you immediately know if you have to be careful about what you say, or if you have to be loud, or silent, or subdued—you immediately know it. The thing you don’t know is what’s next. In life we don’t know where the story is going or even where a conversation is going to go in the next minute.’ David’s awareness of this is central to his films. He’s very sensitive to the mystery that surrounds everything.”
A very succinct explanation of his work from her, for sure. I often think that what makes him so unique as a filmmaker (and is partially where the imitations can't measure up) is that I believe he still thinks first and foremost as a painter and views his film work through a similar lens. There's a mode of intentionality to his work that's more common in painting or styles of photography that's different from the kind of intentionality that lots of filmmaking teaches us to look for. Recently read Tim Carpenter's To Photograph is to Learn How to Die, and in it he writes that one of the unique powers of photography is creating implied meaning through the juxtaposition of real objects that otherwise have nothing to do with one another. That kind of transformational meaning through adjacency and inference is what I think Lynch innately understands.
This isn't to say other filmmakers don't work in this mode, but it's rare for those kind of filmmakers to get, say, Showtime to give them 18 episodes of prestige TV money.
Unsure if/when Griffin will see this, but I am currently working on the Nirvanna the Band movie, so very cool to see his excitement about it.
When I took my son to see Transformers One in theaters, they played the trailer for Red One. My first honest thought was: “is this one of those ‘play a Netflix film in theaters for one weekend for awards qualification’ situations?” Could not believe it was a ReAl MoViE (Harry Styles inflection).
Loving the current series, having seen zero Lynch films before and only ever knowing the “aura” of the man. Looking forward to The Return closing out the year. I also started the series from scratch (started listening in 2023 while doing a lot of driving for family medical issues), and it’s crazy how often the current episodes and the past miniseries will loop around to one another (the two friends truly do get around to covering everyone they say they will). I’m currently on Musker & Clements, deep into the pandemic days.
Gosh I am loving this newsetter! Thanks Marie and BC team!! Xo
UFO 50 RULES YES JJ! Cannot believe how many games I've gotten super deep into and how much time I've spent on it overall. All the listed games are great, also love Paint Chase, Avianos, Hyper Contender, Attactics.......man
🫡 🫡 🫡
I really haven't spent too much time with the strategy games like Avianos and Attactics because I know I need to be in a certain mindset for them and it's also nice to know that after 40 hours I still have so much left to explore. Haven't even dusted off the gigantic RPG! Or the scary point and click adventure! AND WILL I EVER GET THE CHERRY ON PAINT CHASE? I don't know! I hope so!
idk how anyone gets a cherry on any of these tbh the golds have kept me sweating on their own.
i think this game is going to blow up all over again once it's on switch and i cant wait for that, but theres also been something kind of charming about the little subreddit community so far that exchanges game tips like it's a playground swingset in the 90s.
Very exciting about Nirvanna the Band the Show!! One of my favorite new discoveries of the last few years. Listening to Fennessey’s interview with Johnson on a Big Pic about BlackBerry was so artistically rejuvenating…such a fascinating and well spoken guy. I recommend seeking out some of the videos where he talks about how they filmed some of NtBtS, I think in particular there’s a great interview that…god…maybe Finn Wolfhard of all people did where he explains how they did the art museum heist sequence and it melted my brain.
We need to know Griffin’s thoughts on the Disney World Muppets news in one of these.
PARTY HOUSE 🥳
Seriously, UFO 50 is great, and if you enjoy Party House don’t sleep on creator Jon Perry’s tabletop games (Spots, Scape Goat, Air Land & Sea, Tragedy Looper), they’re all fantastic.
Perry's games were the *very first* things I added to this year's Christmas list.
it took me an unsettling amount of time to realize it was the same guy—I think the existence of John Perry from The Only Ones, another understated second banana, may have run some psychic interference. It actually wasn’t until this podcast forced me to put 2 and 2 together: https://spacebiff.com/2022/11/30/sbsc-24-jon-perry/
Can confirm that UFO 50 is a big tiddied hit.
A Matt Johnson / Zapruder miniseries in 5 years will be delightful
"I think we all can agree that the problem with Oppenheimer was that Cillian Murphy just wasn’t jacked enough, his bare chest was too narrow, too concave for the power of IMAX" probably the best sentence I will read today