patron podcast continues "Twin Peaks Cinema" & "Twin Peaks Reflections" (plus political reaction to 2020) • Mark Frost video concludes Journey Through Twin Peaks Part 5 • Mad Men seasons 4 - 7 viewing diary (plus full series podcast episode) • sprawling Blue Velvet & Eraserhead coverage on public & patron podcasts • Mirrors of Kane video for 80th anniversary • Olympic Series launches • Twin Peaks Unwrapped podcast final episode/film ranking & Ronnie Rocket bonus - plus first guests on my Twin Peaks Conversations podcast • other guests includes David Bushman, John Thorne & PeaksChatz hosts (plus my guest appearance on their podcast for "killer's reveal" episode) • Lost in Twin Peaks concludes for patrons & season 1 goes public • public Twin Peaks Cinema theme: "What's in a name?"
JANUARY
Direct parallels between David Lean's faithful forties British adaptation and Alfonso Cuaron's nineties American re-telling, a coda to the Ethan Hakwe series in images rather than audio
Miyazaki's gentle yet abundant anime masterpiece kicks off a fresh season of random subjects for my public podcast
After accidentally posting entries from a not-nearly-ready Twin Peaks side project, a correction was in order with a teaser from upcoming videos as compensation
A teenage girl's corpse found alongside a body of water ties Tim Hunter's most famous film directly to the series he'd later direct, although his portrait of amoral adolescents is much more firmly anchored in the early Gen X zeitgeist, overseen by aging Silent Gen eccentric Dennis Hopper...
FEBRUARY
Hopper can also be found among the original disenchanted teen ensemble in this fifties classic, whose sensitive, brooding adolescent aesthetic is in some ways much closer to Lynch's vision for Peaks
Knowing little about this avant-garde sci-fi going in, I decided to record my immediate thoughts before taking a break to research different theories, then returning to share those too
Picking up from the previous four parts by tracing the path to season three, my full presentation of this passage was finally ready after wrapping "Chapter 35 - The Bookhouse Boy (Mark Frost's Fiction and Nonfiction)" which I'd been editing consistently since November and shared for the first time as part of this line-up
On "Twin Peaks Day" (the anniversary of when Agent Cooper arrived in town in 1989) I offer the public its first glimpse of what I've been up to on my patron podcast for two years with eight different clips covering episodes ranging from the pilot to the 2017 finale
MARCH
A wry surreal "romantic comedy" (sort of?) in which relationships are either forbidden or enforced, with animal transformations as the consequence for breaking the rules
Although covering material from just three Journey Through Twin Peaks chapters, this screenshot collection is far bigger than any previous round-up: the latter half of Part 5 contains an unprecedented range of manipulated visuals
Forty weeks/nine months later, to the day, I decide to bookend this period by observing my (mostly) caught-up backlog and cautiously anticipating what lies over the horizon
Holding onto or even expanding his status and power as partner at an up-and-coming agency, Don struggles more than ever with his identity as a bachelor in his late thirties
At a time of growing labor struggles, I share my review of Boots Riley's surrealist, iconoclastic workplace satire with an added coda about what has changed in the few years since its release
An office Christmas party incorporates humiliation into celebration, as both Don and his daughter stumble in uncomfortable games with would-be partners
Catching up with my long-delayed "big episode(s)" by finally addressing a dark small town drama starring Ronald Reagan - alongside capsules discussing that president and his ideological opposite Franklin Roosevelt, plus a Jordan Peele thriller and a stately British miniseries (itself an icon of eighties conservatism); I also cast my own view back over the political tumult of the past year including Covid-19, Black Lives Matter, the 2020 campaign, the Capitol on January 6, and the disappointments of Biden's relief bill
APRIL
A visit with an old friend in California reveals just how much has been and will be lost as '64 gives way to '65
In conjunction with a Patreon theme, my public episode explores this Lynch classic's sense of place as well as the bigger picture of its deleted scenes
While Don has a falling out with his secretary, Peggy and Pete show the silent generation split in two - one drawn toward bohemian experimentation, the other toward conventional domesticity
Digging deeper into the connection between the film and series which are back-to-back in Lynch's canon, I also find as much to explore in the avant-garde documentary about Blue Velvet's production
When Roger lashes out at Japanese clients, is he honoring his fallen comrades or simply guarding his own territory from Pete?
Ken Burns' documentary fuels a meditation on the zeitgeist(s) of nineteenth century America amidst its subject's personal/professional ups and downs
An award leads to a lost weekend and an embarrassing new hire, while a fifties flashback reveals parallels to how Don got his own job
Lynch's most old-fashioned slice of Americana makes an interesting companion piece to his most popular work but also, specifically, the odd Civil War storyline from the show's (rather less popular) middle period
MAY
At the exact center of Mad Men's seven seasons, a grieving Don and a frustrated Peggy bond during a long night of boozing and brainstorming before, after, and (briefly) during Muhammad Ali's knockout of Sonny Liston
Features directed by Todd Holland, Graeme Clifford, Uli Edel, and Diane Keaton provide fascinating connections to their season two work and Peaks more broadly - especially Clifford's poignant biopic of fallen star Frances Farmer
Here is where I laid out my grand plans for the coming year and a half - the last time I'd attempt a schedule of this scale and intricacy, it now stands as monument to a dream (or delusion)
Betty and Peggy both struggle and revel in their new social roles, while a sobering-up Don's diary reveals his own insecurities
Don's preteen daughter and elderly secretary divide his attention while the women of the office reflect grimly on a panorama of feminine defeat
This quasi-anthology provides a prism to view changes in film technology and the gig economy over the past few decades, as well as a funhouse reflection of the acting profession
A Pentagon background check, Lane's tyrannical father, and the disloyal head of Lucky Strike attack the fledgling SCDP agency from three angles at once - all while Joan experiences one of her greatest personal crises
Walter P. Thatcher, Kane's acerbic, old-fashioned guardian, gets his own chapter on my ongoing Kane video essay series
All of life (and death) becomes a pitch meeting as SCDP scrambles to limit the damage from Lucky Strike's unlucky blow
JUNE
My frustrations with this J.G. Ballard adaptation produce a fruitful discussion (including dialogue with an admirer of the film), capped with a 2021 postscript exploring what has and hasn't changed in UK politics
Several seasons of of tobacco corruption provide the rich soil, Don's drinking waters the roots, and a heroin addict offers the essential seed from which this episode's epiphany blossoms
We rank past picks for best Lynch film and best episodes of seasons one, two, and three on this climactic podcast, timed for the thirtieth anniversary of the original series finale
As Don and Faye draw closer together, a trip to California offers a surprise for everyone involved
This shaggy noir provides my first public discussion of a Paul Thomas Anderson film, recorded a few years earlier and revived to close off my second season of podcasts before big changes later in the year
A rich double episode finds Don in a new apartment overlooking the city (where he "celebrates" his "fortieth" birthday) as the office is embroiled in a civil rights conflict
A daring, dazzling Otto Preminger noir that inspired one of Peaks' most despised subplots - plus I offer more brief takes on an eclectic set of films viewed in the past year
Checking in to promise a busy summer...
A newly overweight Betty has a health scare, Peggy questions her judgement after interviewing the eccentric Michael, and Don ponders the generation gap backstage at a Rolling Stones concert
JULY
Wrapping up my patron coverage of the original Twin Peaks, I also draw connections to another L.A. noir, alongside some unusual documentary capsules and a reading of my old essay on the two most famous pulp detectives
One of the most cleverly and provocatively structured episodes uses the brutal murder of young nurses in Chicago to explore several characters' crises in New York
My first prose essay on a film in over a year (the longest break in the history of this site) digs into the unusual implications of Danny Glover's trickster villain in Charles Burnett's slow-burn character/ensemble study
Mad Men - "Signal 30" (season 5, episode 5)
Pete's move to Connecticut provides a loud-sports-jacketed dinner party, a dreamy but disappointing Driver's Ed flirtation, and ultimately a subject for Ken's literary contemplation
Pete's move to Connecticut provides a loud-sports-jacketed dinner party, a dreamy but disappointing Driver's Ed flirtation, and ultimately a subject for Ken's literary contemplation
I offer my broad thoughts on the series in podcast mode in a nod to my behind-the-scenes activity (having spent the past month writing viewing diaries for seasons six and seven while publishing my earlier work)
A trilogy of quintessentially mid-sixties stories - Peggy's metropolitan wanderings, Roger's psychedelic self-discovery, and Megan's disappearance from a Howard Johnson's - recall the narratives of Michelangelo Antonioni in what may be Mad Men's most adventurous outing
Coming off an exhilarating professional victory, Don and Megan expect further success at an awards ceremony but things go sour before long
After a bumpy July, held up by my Mad Men deep dive, I move my podcast to a weekly basis in order to catch up
Mad Men - "Lady Lazarus" (season 5, episode 8)
Megan's dreams run headlong into her job while Pete has an unexpected encounter with a neighbor's wife
AUGUST
Megan's dreams run headlong into her job while Pete has an unexpected encounter with a neighbor's wife
Supernatural visions (embodied by an Eartha Kitt-voiced stop motion wood sprite) infuse the day-to-day horrors of a slave ship as I write about Amistad's gonzo doppelganger - both were released in 1997 and star Djimon Honsou
After the Mad Men bonus, my third season of public podcast officially launches by examining the ever-shifting legacy of Facebook, and its abnormal yet quintessentially millennial founder, through the lens of different eras
A toxic fog, literal and figurative, settles over the city for Thanksgiving '66
My final Peaks collaborator round-up features as eclectic a mix as any with theatrical features or TV movies from James Foley, Jonathan Sanger, Stephen Gyllenhaal, and writer Robert Engels
Inspired by the recent summer games in Tokyo (the first delayed event in Olympic history due to Covid-19), I lay out my plans for a monthly round-up of capsules on all the official documentaries
As SCDP lands Jaguar, Don struggles between a sense of newfound maturity and re-discovered immaturity while Harry Crane tangles with Hare Krishna
High and Low (LEFT OF THE MOVIES podcast #5/LOST IN THE MOVIES podcast #27)
In what proved to be my last "Left of the Movies" episode (at least for a while), I surround my discussion of Akira Kurosawa's two-tier crime classic with the contemporary context of American inequality and the post(?)-pandemic economic fallout
In what proved to be my last "Left of the Movies" episode (at least for a while), I surround my discussion of Akira Kurosawa's two-tier crime classic with the contemporary context of American inequality and the post(?)-pandemic economic fallout
The sleek Jaguar and a sleazy Jersey salesman force Joan - and her colleagues - to contemplate how far they'll go to get ahead
My first Olympic round-up (before this series too would stall) encompasses the earliest winter and latest summer games - stretching all the way from the cautious postwar optimism of the 1920s French Alps to the carefully quarantined determination of 2020s Tokyo
Posing questions we can't necessarily answer - just asking is intriguing enough - we dig into the mysteries of Stanley Kubrick's ever-more-topical tale about an elite sex cult
The stirring subject, structural ingenuity, and existential anxiety of this eighties Dutch thriller (as well as the timing of its release, capturing a liberatory but unsettling international zeitgeist) make it prime "Twin Peaks Cinema" material - especially alongside my discussion of Peaks' tangled Josie storyline and my archive reading on an Alfred Hitchcock film about another ghostly female presence
Lane's triumphant morning turns into a disastrous day after a fateful confrontation about his finances
The long return to Journey Through Twin Peaks: a behind-the-scenes essay (pt. 3 of 4)
SEPTEMBER
Finally putting a capper on the past year and a half - perhaps much longer than that - I detail the process that led to and through Part 5 of my video series
August 2021 Patreon podcasts: LOST IN TWIN PEAKS #31 - Fire Walk With Me and LOST IN THE MOVIES #82 - Twin Peaks Cinema: Bigger Than Life (+ Twin Peaks Reflections: Randy, Jones, Great Northern Hotel, Fat Trout Trailer Park, Windom Earle's scheme/My Life My Tapes, Afghanistan withdrawal, Nina Turner loss, other recent political developments & more)
My main podcast is dominated by the Peaksian subversion of a Nicholas Ray domestic melodrama and the quick dissolution of any modest hopes for the Biden era (with even his rare bold gesture inspiring a backlash); however, most of the material gathered here belongs to my sprawling, twelve-part coverage of Fire Walk With Me which concludes the Lost in Twin Peaks podcast for $5/month patrons
My main podcast is dominated by the Peaksian subversion of a Nicholas Ray domestic melodrama and the quick dissolution of any modest hopes for the Biden era (with even his rare bold gesture inspiring a backlash); however, most of the material gathered here belongs to my sprawling, twelve-part coverage of Fire Walk With Me which concludes the Lost in Twin Peaks podcast for $5/month patrons
A season of limbo closes with an unforgettable closing line and shot, after Don struggles with a toothache, a ghost, and a choice about where his relationship is headed
JOURNEY THROUGH TWIN PEAKS: Season 3 in pieces (a summer of mini-chapters from the chapter 36 video)
Okay...one more postscript to the Journey Part 5 project (though to be fair, the last of these repackaged video essays went up the same day as that behind-the-scenes essay)
10 Connections between David Lynch's Eraserhead and Inland Empire + connections to Twin Peaks (LOST IN THE MOVIES podcasts #29 & #30, parts 1 and 2 + a patron podcast)
Lynch's first and last feature, linked by the avant garde, personal narrative, intense psychodrama, family, infidelity, Los Angeles, hidden spaces, long productions, climactic killings, and concluding embraces in light; for good measure and to close off this period, I also link to my brand new "Twin Peaks Cinema" episode on Eraserhead, which will not be officially cross-posted until later
Lynch's first and last feature, linked by the avant garde, personal narrative, intense psychodrama, family, infidelity, Los Angeles, hidden spaces, long productions, climactic killings, and concluding embraces in light; for good measure and to close off this period, I also link to my brand new "Twin Peaks Cinema" episode on Eraserhead, which will not be officially cross-posted until later
Finally, another guest appearance on a podcast's episode 14 coverage before the next, much-heralded chapter of my online activity begins...
Chapter 39: Rise and Fall of the Grand Plan (September 2021 - January 2022)
An uneasy holiday in Hawaii bridges '67 and '68 for a new season of Mad Men
Boldly announcing a few of my many new projects (but the political podcast will be cancelled before it can even begin)
The Dick Whitman flashbacks return after several seasons, as Don appears to abandon any last pretense of a moral code
My first brand new review for the public podcast, on an eerie, provocative, and moving sci-fi film from Denis Villeneuve in the mid-teens
As summer ends, I optimistically (if a bit nervously) lay out my ambitious schedule for autumn
A new podcast endeavor: interviews with other Peaks commentators, half on YouTube and half on Patreon, launched by podcasters who had me on their own show many times
The late sixties cultural shift is virtually a fait accompli, with even Joan visiting a psychedelic nightclub - but Don ping-pongs between progressive sophistication and reactionary domineering
My Villeneuve coverage continues by re-presenting an already twice-released discussion (the planned podcast trilogy will be aborted next week when I realize that I miscalculated Dune's release date; by the time it does come out, my schedule is already disintegrating)
OCTOBER
The public premiere of my in-depth Twin Peaks podcast opens with dozens of screenshots and details on a week's worth of episodes covering the pilot, each dealing with a different aspect of the moody whodunit (and the historical context, including celebrities mourning Ryan White)
Looking back on Bushman's great series of interviews with Peaks co-creator Mark Frost, as well as forward to his upcoming true crime mystery about the murder that inspired Laura Palmer, we also discuss the complicated Lynch/Frost relationship in season three
Martin Luther King is assassinated, and the show's almost entirely white ensemble stumbles through a series of complex and conflicting reactions
In the first of many compromises, I curtail some of my projects to share thoughts on a meat-and-potatoes (or pumpkin?) holiday classic
A new week, another seven podcasts on a single episode - this time the first regular hourly (and non-Lynch) entry, with the surrounding TV context including the wacky cop show Max Monroe: Loose Cannon
Belatedly rounding up the previous month's Patreon podcasts (already shared piecemeal on the site) - including extensive study of Lynch's debut
A competition turns into a collaboration and Peggy finds herself at the center of yet another agency re-shuffle
As Twin Peaks Cinema gets its own public feed, the "What's in a name?" series kicks off with the film noir that inspired Lydecker, Waldo, Jacoby, and of course Laura herself
The legendary dream episode gets its due with an aside for historical context including a basketball brawl
Power dynamics with dramatic reversals play out in bedroom and boardroom alike in the days before another Kennedy is taken down
In one more desperate attempt to maintain a crowded itinerary, I lay out my priorities
Laura's funeral centers this episode, which aired on ABC the same night as a news special about U.S. involvement in Cambodia
One of the most memorable episodes of the series sends the agency on a speed-fueled lost weekend in which Don navigates a current crisis by re-tracing past traumas
An underrated midseason gem launches the investigation in earnest as Cooper and the cops follow clues to different locations (meanwhile the top-rated Cheers ends its season as NBC's counterprogramming)
NOVEMBER
Despite a notable if temporary re-kindling, relations are strained or broken between numerous duos (romantic, professional, and familial)...even Megan's soap opera performance splits in two
Offering up not just my own reaction to this avant-garde TV film about the Troubles, but also discussions with a listener and between other critics
Into the woods for Laura's mystery and off to a Great Northern party for the town's intrigue (while the historical context episode dips into Howard Stern's contemporaneous antics)
Los Angeles is caught between Reagan conservatism and Hollywood hashish while battles over clients preoccupy New York, but there's also a third city on everyone's TV sets: Chicago, where the Democratic convention dissolves into a police riot
Finally I officially abandon the "Path back" schedule which was crumbling for months, in order to set a simpler approach going forward (although one last collapse is forthcoming)
In my last consecutive week of Lost in Twin Peaks, the top-notch penultimate episode crystallizes three investigations into Laura's life - Cooper's criminal, Audrey's social, and Donna's psychological (and in my historical context coverage, the long-running soap Falcon Crest comes to an end)
The Draper neighbors try to keep their son out of Vietnam, and Sally is shocked by what she sees in their apartment
"What's in a name" continues by using Madeleine, Ferguson, and, of course, Judy as springboards into one of Twin Peaks' richest connections and this podcast's longest episode
Rosemary's Baby inspires Peggy but her ad concept is caught in the crosshairs of Ted's infatuation and Don's manipulations; meanwhile, Pete gets Bob Benson'd
Finally even the Twin Peaks podcast falls apart (for the moment), re-defining my goals one last time and forcing a slower, less ambitious pace to wrap up long-awaited work over the coming year and a half
A Hershey meeting provides Don's moment of truth (brutally and memorably so) as Peggy rides a romantic roller coaster that hinges on that breakthrough - or breakdown
DECEMBER
Pairing a couple genre pieces - a posh sixties horror movie and a grungy twenty-first century prison flick - to round out a tumultuous season of podcasts
Cross-posting a chat uploaded back on Halloween, in which I tangle with the great Peaks scholar's theories about what's really going on in - and outside of - season three
A flashy premiere sends Don to Hollywood, but he doesn't stay long: he's determined to do his job, even if his job is not so determined to have him
Iowa cornfields meet Washington woods as I link these two mystic works from the same period (alongside a discussion of the Peaks mythology) for my first entry in this patron podcast after two and a half months of distraction
Mad Men - "A Day's Work" (season 7, episode 2)
Valentine's Day '69 reveals racist reshuffling at the workplace and, perhaps, the makings of a father-daughter reconciliation on the road
Valentine's Day '69 reveals racist reshuffling at the workplace and, perhaps, the makings of a father-daughter reconciliation on the road
The last of the "What's in a name?" trilogy seeks Peaks parallels in a movie star's delusions, which may have given Lynch's work a Norma and a Desmond, as well as a Max Von's and, of course, one Gordon Cole
Returning the favor from a few months back, I invite these podcasters to discuss their ongoing work on season three and their reflections on the earlier seasons/prequel film they'd just covered
A return to the office captures a phenomenon I'm not sure I've ever seen captured so palpably before: the feeling of no longer belonging to a place or an experience or a group where you were once completely at home
Just under the wire at year's end, I return to wrap up the first season with Mark Frost's solo finale (and the last pre-Gulf crisis historical context discusses Bush's Chief of Staff Sununu)
Twin Peaks Unwrapped - A Very Ronnie Rocket Holiday Special (w/ John Thorne)
Guest appearance on a returning podcast to discuss this strange Lynch artifact - a never-produced screenplay about an electrified Franken-teen and a seemingly unrelated detective's odyssey (Ben and Bryon also invite "unseen players" to re-enact many scenes)
November 2021 Patreon podcasts: LOST IN THE MOVIES #85 - Twin Peaks Cinema: Drugstore Cowboy (+ Twin Peaks Reflections: Windom, Maj. Briggs, Airfields in Twin Peaks & Oregon, Audrey and John Justice Wheeler romance /Season 3 Part 12, Elephant archive reading & more) plus TWIN PEAKS CONVERSATIONS
Another '89 classic fuels patron Peaks comparisons - this time closer to home than Field of Dreams, since Gus Van Sant's junkie opus unfolds in the Pacific Northwest too (and shares a few cast members)
Clever riffs on 2001: A Space Odyssey surround a supercomputer's arrival at SC&P and Roger's visit to his daughter's hippie commune
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