Back to the Future Part II as Twin Peaks Cinema #18 - Disordered Stories (podcast) + Back to the Future capsule

Tomorrow is the sixth anniversary of the future - the day that Marty McFly stepped into the 2015 version of Hill Valley as envisioned by the creators of Back to the Future Part II in 1989. The same year that Lynch/Frost Productions descended upon the Seattle area to establish Twin Peaks, Robert Zemeckis released the ambitious sequel to his 1985 hit Back to the Future. After spending all of his time travel in 1955 for the original film, Marty zips back and forth across the space/time continuum in this follow-up. He rescues his own son from catastrophe, returns to an alternate version of '85 run by a distinctly Trumpian Biff Tanner and finally winds up returning to the site of the first movie: spying on past events while trying to retrieve an item from the future which could threaten his own present. Got that? If Peaks can be perplexing and maddening due to its ambiguity and surrealism, Part II poses the opposite challenge. Its intricate interplay of meta-narratives and sci-fi concepts may make you either giddy or dizzy depending on your mood. While Marty initially travels to the year that David Lynch would film The Return, and his return to the Potterville-like alt-'85 resonates with Cooper's and Carrie's nocturnal sojourn in the season three finale, it's the third part of Back to the Future Part II that connects with Twin Peaks most strongly: a hero attempts to both alter and maintain the past and a filmmaker returns to his own earlier work, incorporating new and old footage into a new context, presenting the familiar from a skewed perspective.

After exploring the film in its own right as well as its Peaks connections, this podcast also incorporates some bonus material from my Patreon archives: a two-minute quickie capsule review of the original Back to the Future, a clip from my video essay comparing different eras in the town, an early tease for this eventual recording, and some memorable listener feedback which, unusually, scorns rather than praises the subject matter. This episode kicks off a new themed mini-season: "Disordered Stories", in which chronologically skewed films echo, amplify, and contrast with Twin Peaks' own narrative games.

Subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts

You can also listen on Pinecast and Spotify

(and most places podcasts are found)

LINKS FOR EPISODE 18

The Shanghai Gesture (LOST IN THE MOVIES podcast #46)

In an interlude between two omnibus film capsule episodes, I'm focusing on a single film for my October podcast: Josef von Sternberg's The Shanghai Gesture. Recommended by a patron back in 2018, in part for its Twin Peaks connections (which I touch on briefly), the film is an odd, fascinating fusion of Sternberg's precise, even ponderous direction and an eclectic, bustling scenario similar to Casablanca. Based on a scandalous play and set in a brothel barely disguised as a casino and featuring a tangled web of interracial romances, the film presented a challenge for the censors - contributing to the film's messy feel. Starring Gene Tierney, Victor Mature, Walter Huston, and Ona Munson, with scene-stealing supporting work by Phyllis Brooks and Maria Ouspenskaya, the ensemble offers so much to discuss that I didn't even find time to mention Eric Blore, one of my favorites from the Astaire/Rogers stable. This review forms a bridge between the prior and upcoming podcasts, as has been a consistent pattern all season. September's anthology ended with a discussion of The Angel Wore Red, about a prostitute in a tumultuous early twentieth century society, and November's round-up will begin by covering The Bitter Tea of General Yen (sampled at the end of this episode) which sets a disoriented Westerner against a Chinese culture she's both at home and at odds in, just as in The Shanghai Gesture.

Subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts

You can also listen on Pinecast and Spotify

(and most places podcasts are found)

LINKS

The Shanghai Gesture (1941) by Sheila O'Malley (Film Noir of the Month)

MY RECENT WORK

New on other podcasts

Twin Peaks Cinema - Bigger Than Life (Ray's Haunted Fifties)

New on YouTube

Twin Peaks Conversations w/ Ominous Whoosh author John Thorne, part 1

New on Patreon

(for $5/month)

Twin Peaks Conversations w/ Ominous Whoosh author John Thorne, part 2

(for $1/month)

Episode 95, part 1: Concluding the 80s... Red Dawn, Do the Right Thing & Hail Mary (capsules on Stranger Things, Top Gun: Maverick, The Goonies, Gremlins, Midnight Run, Scarface + feedback/media/work updates including Encanto & more)

+ EXCLUSIVE advance: TWIN PEAKS Character Series #74, 73 & 71

.

TWIN PEAKS CONVERSATIONS #14 w/ Ominous Whoosh author John Thorne (YouTube & extended PATREON)

With the publication of his new book Ominous Whoosh: A Wandering Mind Returns to Twin Peaks - whose concepts we've been discussing as far back as three and a half years ago (and which the author himself has been cultivating since the third season aired) - John Thorne becomes the first repeat guest on my Twin Peaks Conversations podcast. In the previous episode from Halloween 2021 we dove deeply into questions about Cooper's and Diane's identity and the purpose of Cooper's "mission" in the finale. We continue to trace some of those themes in this installment but also sketch out his approach to this book, in which he interspersed episode-by-episode breakdowns with meaty "interlude" essays exploring discrete topics like the Palmer house, the nature of Judy, and Audrey's unique storyline. I debuted this conversation last week, and there was also - unusually - a lively live chat accompanying the video premiere so check out that chat archive, as well as in-depth comments, on the YouTube page for more discussion (jump to the end of the video to see the full chat). And let me know what you think of these or other Peaks subjects and our interpretations thereof. John's ideas are often as challenging as they are illuminating, and I've long enjoyed grappling with the questions they raise and seeing how my own answers both overlap with and diverge from his own.

We begin by outlining the structure and style of what's on the pages of Ominous Whoosh (which is, of course, a fantastic title taken from the series' evocative closed captioning, alongside other parts of John's text...)

PART 1 on YouTube

Another hour-plus of discussion is exclusive to the $5/month tier on my Patreon, diving deeper into questions about the endings of season three and Fire Walk With Me, and following the curious thread of Sarah/Judy/Experiment (among other topics)...

Listen to...

PART 2 on Patreon

Purchase John's book Ominous Whoosh: A Wandering Mind Returns to Twin Peaks

Prior to our Twin Peaks Conversations episodes, I spoke to John over three print interviews in 2014 (about Wrapped in Plastic, The Missing Pieces, and the announcement of The Return), again when he published his 2016 book, and then over four Patreon podcasts in 2019 (first, second, third, and fourth).

Purchase John's earlier book The Essential Wrapped in Plastic: Pathways to Twin Peaks

Listen to his podcast In Our House Now

Check out his current magazine The Blue Rose

John's lecture & panel discussion in Twin Peaks | The Return Online Conference | Part V