Seth Harris

The Revisit – Frailty

The Revisit is a place for me to rewatch films I love but haven’t seen in years or films that didn’t click with me the first time. Through The Revisit, I reevaluate these movies and compare my original thoughts on them to how they feel in this more recent viewing.

Frailty (2000)
Written by Brent Hanley
Directed by Bill Paxton

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It’s a rainy night in Dallas, Texas when FBI Agent Wesley Doyle (Powers Boothe) is called into the office to speak with Fenton Meiks (Matthew McConaughey), a strange man who claims to know secrets behind what authorities have dubbed “The God’s Hand Killer.” Mainly, he tells Doyle that his brother, Adam is the killer. The film becomes a series of flashbacks to Fenton and Adam’s childhood wherein their father (Bill Paxton) claims to have been visited by an angel that tells him which people are truly demons in disguise. He brings the two boys along with him as he hunts down and murders these false humans, but Adam grows increasingly fearful of his father’s actions. Their father begins to see Adam as a threat and takes drastic measures.

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PopCult Book Club – June 2017 Announcement

This June, Pop Cult’s book club choice will be Universal Harvester by John Darnielle (Mountain Goats).

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The official blurb for the novel reads: “Life in a small town takes a dark turn when mysterious footage begins appearing on VHS cassettes at the local Video Hut. So begins Universal Harvester, the haunting and masterfully unsettling new novel from John Darnielle, author of the New York Times Bestseller and National Book Award Nominee Wolf in White Van”

Hopefully a nice companion piece to the small town horror of Twin Peaks. Join me, won’t you?

Movie Review – Alien: Covenant

Alien: Covenant (2017)
Written by John Logan, D.W. Harper
Directed by Ridley Scott

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Ten years after the events of Prometheus, a colony ship named The Covenant is traveling from Earth to a new planet carrying over 2000 colonists in cryosleep. An ion storm forces the crew to wake and deal with ship repairs. In the fracas, a crew member dies, and the rest are less than excited about going back under. Just their luck they intercept a faint transmission from a planet that never seemed to come up in any company surveys. The captain makes the decision to investigate, and thus the crew of the Covenant crosses paths with the aftermath of the last film and the beginnings of a new franchise….I guess.

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Movie Review – Raw

Raw (2017)
Written and Directed by Julia Ducournau

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Justine has arrived at veterinary school, like her parents before her and her sister, Alexia, who is in her second year. The family are devoted vegetarians, and Justine attempts to uphold this tradition at the school. However, the hazing of first years leads to her being forced to consume a rabbit’s kidney and being doused in buckets of animal blood. Something begins to change in the young woman, and she finds herself overwhelmed with a hunger for meat, even consuming it raw from the fridge. At momentary slip of scissors beings Justine to a new precipice where she develops a taste for human flesh.

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Movie Review – David Lynch: The Art Life

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David Lynch: The Art Life (2017)
Directed by Jon Nguyen, Olivia Neergaard-Holm, Rick Barnes

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For some strange reason, David Lynch is not the household name it once was in the early 1990s. And those who do know the name think of him primarily as a filmmaker. He has some pretty major works of cinema attached to his name: Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive. Twin Peaks is likely the most major work he’s ever released. But Lynch views himself as a visual artist and painter who also makes films. The images he has imported from his paintings into his film work are some of the most stunning, surreal things put on the screen. He’s also an incredibly cryptic director when it comes to talking about his work, preferring not to publicly analyze and dissect it, going to far as to give simple yes or no answers when asked about details in discussion with film critic Mark Kermode.

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Movie Review – The Lego Batman Movie

The Lego Batman Movie (2017)
Written by Seth Grahame-Smith, Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers, Jared Stern, John Whittington
Directed by Chris McKay

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Batman (Will Arnett) is living the life. He fights villains every night, drives and flies around in amazing machines, and hangs out in his comically huge mansion. Everything changes at Commissioner Gordon’s retirement party when the new police boss has plans to phase Batman out of the picture. Bats also meets orphan Richard Grayson (Michael Cera) who, through a series of misunderstandings, ends up Bruce Wayne’s adopted son. Alfred the butler (Ralph Fiennes) is concerned about his employer’s lack of personal relationships and hopes Grayson can remedy that. Meanwhile, the Joker (Zach Galifianakis) has big plans to solidify his reputation as Batman’s greatest enemy.

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Twin Peaks: The Return – Episode 4 Breakdown, Thoughts, and Analysis

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Episode 4
Written by Mark Frost & David Lynch
Directed by David Lynch

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The fourth episode, which ends up being one of the most comedic things I’ve seen Lynch direct (yet still terrifying in its final moments), begins at the Silver Mustang Casino where Cooper is racking up the winnings. A slot junkie who has befriended Cooper, so he’ll he point out the machines about to pay out nicknames our hero “Mr. Jackpots”. The management of the casino is less than pleased about Cooper’s streak, but there is no evidence he is cheating or rigging the machines. In between playing the slots, Cooper runs into Bill and Candy Shaker (Ethan Suplee and Sara Paxton), friends of Dougie Jones. Bill remarks that “Dougie” is “taking a walk on the wild side” while Candy seems to pick up on the fact that something is very wrong with Cooper. In passing they mention that “Dougie” lives on Lancelot Avenue at the house with the red door, just around the corner from Merlin’s Market. These Arthurian name drops to go along with the location of the gate to the Black Lodge in Twin Peaks, Glastonbury Grove. As Cooper stumbles out to the bay of cabs, he’s stopped by a casino employee who takes him to the manager so that he can collect his winnings. The manager gives an air of annoyance about the winning streak and grudgingly asks Cooper to come back and visit soon

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Twin Peaks: The Return – Episode 3 Breakdown, Thoughts, and Analysis

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Episode 3
Written by Mark Frost & David Lynch
Directed by David Lynch

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It’s becoming increasingly apparent that this isn’t just a new iteration of Twin Peaks, but a revisiting and refining of all David Lynch’s themes and motifs. I also believe he and Frost are using this platform to revisit their unproduced scripts One Saliva Bubble and Ronnie Rocket. Both are very surrealistic films and Albert Rosenfeld quotes the subtitle to Ronnie Rocket at the end of this episode: “The Absurd Mystery of the Strange Forces of Existence”. Ronnie Rocket features the lead character traveling through surreal landscapes and electricity as a powerful representation of life and the energy of otherworldly beings. The more I reflect on these first four episodes the more it solidifies that this is Lynch’s magnum opus.

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Twin Peaks: The Return – Episode 2 Breakdown, Thoughts, and Analysis

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Episode 2
Written by Mark Frost and David Lynch
Directed by David Lynch

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Part Two of the premiere takes us back to Buckhorn, South Dakota. High school principal Bill Hastings is stewing away in a jail cell when his wife Phyllis comes to visit. Bill insists he was never at the deceased librarian Ruth Davenport’s home, but that he dreamed about being in her apartment the night forensics say she was killed. Phyllis spits back that she knew Bill was having an affair with Ruth to which he replies that he has been aware of Phyllis ongoing relationship with their lawyer, George. Bill also mentions that he is aware of “someone else.” The marriage gets a very definite period on its sentence when Phyllis lets him know he’s going to rot in jail and leaves.

Then events take a very strange turn: Bill sits in his cell coming to terms with the fact that his life, as he knows it is over and the camera moves down the row of cells. We find a man, clothes and skin pitch black, with a black beard sitting silently in a cell, mouth agape. After a few seconds, he fades away, except for his head which floats out of the top frame. Phyllis, meanwhile, returns to her home only to find Bob (as Cooper) waiting for her. She recognizes and smiles, explains that Bill is finished and Bob remarks that she followed human nature just as he expected. He draws a gun, which belongs to George, the lawyer. She attempts to run and blows her brains out from behind and leaves the gun, presumably to implicate George.

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Twin Peaks: The Return – Episode 1 Breakdown, Thoughts, and Analysis

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Note: Due to the density of the material in the two-hour premiere, I’ll be reviewing each part separately. Look for Episode 2 tomorrow, Episode 3 on Wednesday, and Episode 4 on Thursday.

Episode 1

Written by Mark Frost and David Lynch
Directed by David Lynch

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First, let’s just think about the fact that we have new episodes of Twin Peaks on the air. I never imagined this would ever actually happen, so just that alone is worth celebrating. I will admit I wept three times during the premiere. As the Season 2 finale wrapped up on Showtime, I began to realize that I was about to see new Twin Peaks. I started to think about being nine years old and watching what was, up until last night, the last episode of the series. The next time the show got to me was Catherine Coulson’s appearance as The Log Lady and the return of Sheryl Lee as Laura Palmer.

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