Lost in the Movies: 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

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 listener suggestion fueled another Twin Peaks comparison to another 1989 film this November...but in most ways, the world of Drugstore Cowboy is pretty far from Field of Dreams (my "October" review, which didn't make it up till Thanksgiving). Or is it? Both films' protagonists, along with Cooper in Twin Peaks (and David Lynch in his own personal and professional life), are attuned to voices and impressions from beyond, which direct their behavior while appearing to seal their fate. The Gus Van Sant film's textual and even thematic connections to Peaks are oblique, but there are notable overlaps right on the surface: the Pacific Northwest atmosphere feels particularly acute when the Drugstore gang drives deep into the tall, misty woods to bury the wrapped-up body of a young woman. There are also connections to be found in character names - Diane, Bob, Nadine - and casting. Look for Sarah Palmer playing another wayward addict's mother, Annie Blackburn featuring prominently as another possibly doomed naif who is out of her league...and even Hank (no, not that Hank - I'm talking about the elusive South Dakota custodian who appears for a minute or two early in The Return, setting up a plot thread that never continues) as another sketchy dude on the margins of the story, enmeshed in a complex web of relationships. Hell, even legendary old beatnik William S. Burroughs, who (figuratively) towers over the latter half of Drugstore Cowboy, was at one point slated to play Dougie Milford in one of the more ridiculous season two subplots!

Speaking of season two, earlier in the podcast I explore some of the bigger opposing forces of good and evil in late Twin Peaks, along with some perhaps more trivial elements connected to that point in the series. And I wind the episode down with, again as in the last podcast, a reading from an essay I wrote in 2010, in this case reviewing another Van Sant film, Elephant. Obviously inspired by the directorial connection, this choice is also related to November's public podcast covering Alan Clarke's similarly shot and identically titled 1989 TV film about the Troubles. Sadly, however, this Elephant's subject - loosely based on the Columbine school shooting which shocked the nation well over a generation ago - proved relevant as ever within days of pulling it from the archive.

Podcast Line-Up for Lost in the Movies #85

INTRO
(brief mention of work on upcoming Patreon)

TWIN PEAKS REFLECTIONS
Gordon, Harry, Cooper / Airfields in Twin Peaks & Oregon / Audrey and JJW + Part 12

TWIN PEAKS CINEMA
Drugstore Cowboy

OPENING THE ARCHIVE
Elephant

OUTRO



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