Lost in the Movies: February 2023

*Link to Andrew Packard (TWIN PEAKS Character Series #69)

Visit the TWIN PEAKS Character Series directory for all entries as they are published or re-introduced.

The previous entry argued for Carl Rodd as the stoic soul of twenty-first century Twin Peaks while today's entry presents the town's twentieth century public face. If Carl preserves deep integrity beneath his weary facade, the esteemed patriarch Andrew Packard rots within from petty greed and personal vengeance. Unrevised since its original 2017 writing, thanks to Andrew's explosive death in the original series, this study provides a great opportunity to dig into Twin Peaks' socioeconomic complexities. Introduced offscreen as an already deceased local legend in the pilot, Andrew's surprise appearance halfway through the second season reveals him to be both a charmer and something of a villain. At one point in the "Impressions of TWIN PEAKS" section, it's even noted that his trajectory could be taken as a microcosm of the neoliberal turn amongst the American elite, away from any lingering sense of noblesse oblige toward the singleminded pursuit of financial gamesmanship at the expense of the communities they claimed to lead.

Andrew Packard (TWIN PEAKS Character Series #69)*

(*update 11am: the link has now been fixed)

The following entry will flip this script, featuring characters who are only in season three. Their personal mannerisms place them very far from Andrew's world, though their criminal activity suggests they have more in common with him than meets the eye...

belated January 2023 Patreon round-up • LOST IN THE MOVIES patron podcast #99: The 10s in January (& beyond) + 50s bonus & Concluding the 00s & 60s... Under the Skin & All That Heaven Allows (capsules on Jailhouse Rock, Sweet Smell of Success, Shane, From Here to Eternity, Bell, Book, and Candle, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Manchurian Candidate, The Departed, Mystic River, The Descent, Saw, Idiocracy, Anchorman, Zoolander, Fahrenheit 9/11, Fahrenheit 11/9, American Sniper, The Big Short, Fruitvale Station, Snowden, Mad Max: Fury Road, Jurassic World, The Great Gatsby, Uncut Gems, Straight Outta Compton, The Witch, 13th, Gravity, Hereditary, It Follows, The Phantom Thread, Looper, Knives Out, Birdman, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Bridesmaids, The Love Witch, Joy, Personal Shopper, Mother!, Carol, Baby Driver, John Wick, Disney cartoon shorts, archive readings of The Force Awakens, Some Came Running, Kiss Me Deadly, Funny Face + feedback/media/work updates including A Goofy Movie & much, much more) + 3 TWIN PEAKS Character Series advances

The Patreon episode intended for the previous month was released in two main parts plus an archive prologue and epilogue.

Listen to PUBLIC Episode 99 prologue - Zeitgeist Fiction (10s Archive)

(readings on Lady Bird, Get Out, The Dark Knight & Frozen + excerpts on Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Captain America: The First Avenger, The Avengers, Her, Guardians of the Galaxy, Inside Out, La La Land, Black Panther)

Listen to Episode 99A: 50s bonus / Concluding the 00s & 60s...
All That Heaven Allows (capsules on Jailhouse Rock, Sweet Smell of Success, Shane, From Here to Eternity, Bell, Book, and Candle, The Manchurian Candidate, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Departed, Mystic River, The Descent, Saw, Idiocracy, Anchorman, Zoolander, Fahrenheit 9/11, archive readings of Some Came Running, Kiss Me Deadly, Funny Face + feedback/media/work updates including A Goofy Movie & more)

Listen to Episode 99B: The 10s in January (& beyond)...

Under the Skin (capsules on Jurassic World, Knives Out, American Sniper, Mad Max: Fury Road, It Follows, Personal Shopper, The Phantom Thread, Fahrenheit 11/9, Uncut Gems, Gravity, Straight Outta Compton, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, The Big Short, Joy, Mother!, Fruitvale Station, Carol, The Witch, Hereditary, The Love Witch, Looper, 13th, Snowden, Birdman, Bridesmaids, Baby Driver, The Great Gatsby, John Wick, archive reading of The Force Awakens & more)

Listen to PUBLIC Episode 99 epilogue - A Decade of Olympics (10s Archive)

(readings on documentaries about 2010 / 2014 / 2018 Winter Olympics & 2012 / 2016 Summer Olympics + 2022 Winter Olympics broadcast)

Introducing the episodes

Six months after initiating the decades series on my Patreon podcast, the project has (mostly) concluded. Begun with the eighties, it spread out to encompass capsule reviews in either direction - with light offerings from the earlier eras and heavier catalogues from the later ones. The episodes also incorporated archive readings and films in focus, at least one for each decade. These included: the eighties for August (anchored by Desperately Seeking Susan and Top Gun); finishing the eighties and beginning the nineties and seventies for September (anchored by Red Dawn, Do the Right Thing, Hail Mary, Pulp Fiction, and Klute); continuing the nineties with a Halloween special in October (anchored by Bram Stoker's Dracula); finishing the nineties and seventies and beginning the zeroes and sixties in November (anchored by Southland Tales - in discussion with guest Andrew Cook - and Jean Luc Godard's Weekend); and continuing the sixties with a Christmas/New Year's special in December (anchored by The Apartment). Along the way I added over a hundred titles to my library of podcast capsules - nearly doubling the total. You can browse all of my capsules in these directories, organized several different ways. This is the last time I'll be offering podcast capsules...but more on that in a moment.

Like earlier entries, my January podcast was delayed into the following month and presented in multiple parts (a couple of those parts were longer than any single audio file I'd uploaded previously). This collection concludes the zeroes and sixties, while taking us into the teens and fifties. From 2013, it's anchored by Under the Skin, Jonathan Glazer's riveting, avant-garde sci-fi starring an unforgettable Scarlet Johansson as a disguised, van-driving extraterrestrial hunting men in Glasgow and the surrounding countryside. (My discussion of the film expands to include the very different novel on which it's based.) And from 1955, it's anchored by All That Heaven Allows, Douglas Sirk's moving, old-fashioned romance between a lonely widow (Jane Wyman) and her free-spirited gardener (Rock Hudson). A record forty-five capsules further explore these and other themes: five dabbling in the fifties, a whopping twenty-eight recalling the recently passed teens, eight to round out my previous zeroes coverage, and a couple to wrap the sixties. And then there were a couple random Disney viewings with my nephew which tie into their own zeitgeists, with Mickey Mouse lionizing Lindbergh in the very twenties Plane Crazy and Goofy's road trip leading his moody teen son to a rock concert in the very nineties A Goofy Movie. (I also, after this was published, added a few more details to a discussion of Daisy Visits Minnie which make it a full-length capsule instead of just a fleeting mention.) Between this post's full title, the individual episode titles, and the line-ups listed below, the rest of the capsules are already laid out three different times on this page, so I won't repeat myself any further. Episode 99 is bracketed by archive prologues and epilogues as well, the first sharing full and partial reviews written by me about (and often during) the past decade, while the second dips into my Olympics documentary coverage which ended a year ago (plus a bonus covering that year's winter broadcast).

Aside from the enveloping decade theme, nearly an hour and a half of the episode ties up my five-year update system, where I'd offer podcast recommendations, recaps of my general TV/film viewing, and listener feedback. I'm ending this main Patreon podcast with the next episode - #100, a free-floating non-monthly reward which will probably publish in mid-March. However, that will consist almost entirely of full-length film in focus reviews, so this is the last time I'll be checking in on other topics, at least in this format. I would like to continue updating patrons on my work behind the scenes in the coming months and even years, but those audio offerings would probably just run ten minutes or so. This and the next episode represent the end of an era, one which began back in 2018 (you can explore all the subjects covered on the Politics and Random Topics directory pages). Throughout the spring, the main $1/month reward will be the advances of the TWIN PEAKS Character Series. Speaking of which...

The January previews round up three women, each a bit mysterious in their own ways. As always, their identities will remain a mystery - the public pieces aren't scheduled until late March and early April - for those who are not patrons. You can unlock their names and the full entries on each for $1/month...

EXCLUSIVE advance: TWIN PEAKS Character Series #55, 54 & 52 (#58 - 56 & 53 already published)

(become a patron to discover their identities)

(Meanwhile, the next advances actually went up in the midst of the belated January podcasts; I'll wait to link those in the February cross-post in a couple weeks, though you can find them on Patreon - update 3/6: they were accidentally linked here in lieu of the January rewards, but I've now corrected that above.)

Finally, February saw me join forces with Blue Rose Task Force host John Bernardy for the first time, aside from a panel we shared with several other podcasters last summer. I used the opportunity to survey the history of both his own and the more general Twin Peaks fandom, a journey included in the exclusive Part 2 of this podcast, for the $5/month tier...

EXCLUSIVE: Part 2 of Twin Peaks Conversations w/ John Bernardy

Podcast Line-Ups for...

The TWIN PEAKS Character Series surveys one hundred ten characters from the series Twin Peaks (1990-91 on ABC and 2017 on Showtime as The Return), the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992), and The Missing Pieces (2014), a collection of deleted scenes from that film. A new character study will appear every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday although patrons will have immediate access to each entry a month before it goes public. There will be spoilers.
• indicates passages added or revised since 2017, if you want to skip directly to fresh material; this is a revision of an earlier piece written before the third season.

•Grouchy but gregarious, Carl is much more attuned to his surroundings than he would like to be - and very late in life, he's made his peace with this by helping others.

The TWIN PEAKS Character Series surveys one hundred ten characters from the series Twin Peaks (1990-91 on ABC and 2017 on Showtime as The Return), the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992), and The Missing Pieces (2014), a collection of deleted scenes from that film. A new character study will appear every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday although patrons will have immediate access to each entry a month before it goes public. There will be spoilers.
• indicates passages added or revised since 2017, if you want to skip directly to fresh material; this is a revision of an earlier piece written before the third season.

Denise's professional acumen and pleasant personality keep those around her focused on the job, even as they adjust to her transition as a female.

Visit the TWIN PEAKS Character Series directory for all entries as they are published or re-introduced.

By sheer coincidence, today's entry covers the third character in a row whose name begins with "B" and ends with a vowel. There the similarities end, at least between Blackie and Betty; like Becky, Blackie has issues with drugs and the men in her life but the older character weaves webs as well as getting caught in them: she's a malicious power player within the community. Blackie of course died way back in season two, so there was no need to update her entry. The actress' offscreen trajectory, incidentally, remains a mystery as much as in 2017 when I wrote this piece. A quick Google reveals an interview with Galyn Görg, who played Nancy O'Reilly, yielding only this cryptic exchange: the interviewer notes, "Victoria Catlin, who plays your sister, is someone I haven't been able to find much about since Twin Peaks," and Görg simply responds, "Yeah."

Black Rose "Blackie" O'Reilly (TWIN PEAKS Character Series #72)

The entry after this will catch up with a character whose performer not only kept busy but showed up again in season three, however briefly...

Betty Briggs (TWIN PEAKS Character Series #73)

The TWIN PEAKS Character Series surveys one hundred ten characters from the series Twin Peaks (1990-91 on ABC and 2017 on Showtime as The Return), the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992), and The Missing Pieces (2014), a collection of deleted scenes from that film. A new character study will appear every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday although patrons will have immediate access to each entry a month before it goes public. There will be spoilers.
• indicates passages added or revised since 2017, if you want to skip directly to fresh material; this is a revision of an earlier piece written before the third season.

Betty is a family woman, almost unnervingly pleasant but harboring a deep, abiding love and concern for her husband and son.

A couple years ago, I published a couple episodes on my Lost in the Movies podcast comparing David Lynch's first feature, Eraserhead, to his last, Inland Empire: one episode described each film and the next offered ten connections between them. Now, as a kind of sequel to that endeavor, I'm sharing my episode connecting Eraserhead to Twin Peaks. This is a theme I've often explored, in written reviews as well as video essays - especially the connection between Henry's actions in the film's ending and the murder of Laura Palmer (most notably, in Take This Baby and Deliver It to Death, a non-narrated piece that opens with the juxtaposition of Eraserhead and Fire Walk With Me). This time, however, I focused on season three of Twin Peaks, in which Lynch returns to his earliest roots; the work of his seventies and his twenties connect through the character of Cooper/Dougie, the supernatural space of the Red Room and Radiator, and the climax of both the film and the new series. I'm also including a section comparing the dark, surreal world of Eraserhead to one of the soapiest Peaks plotlines: Donna Hayward's investigation into why Ben Horne is visiting her mother (that section begins at 40:35). Like last month's episode on Mulholland Drive and the upcoming month teased at the end of this installment, my exploration of Eraserhead traces the way that Lynch's work, for all its variations, has remained consistent.

Subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts

You can also listen on Pinecast and Spotify

(and most places podcasts are found)

LINKS FOR EPISODE 22

•

Inheriting her mother's judgement and her father's temper, Becky holds a mirror up to parents who love and fear for her in equal measure.

•

Who knows what's going on in the dark booths of the Road House?

•

Not exactly bumbling but not exactly perspicacious, the Fuscos are more interested in damaged tail lights and Sunday dinners than the vast criminal, cosmic enterprise whose edges they're sniffing around.

•

Darya doesn't say much until it's too late, and then no amount of talking can save her.

•

Beverly does her job well and is quite aware of her practical needs, but she also longs for something more and senses that perhaps her sad, wistful boss could provide it.

John Bernardy and I first crossed paths in 2015-16 when the Sparkwood & 21 podcast covered the original series with spoilers (an approach that John himself would eventually adopt for season three). Both of us wrote feedback from the middle of the second season on and were eventually interviewed by hosts Em and Steve. From then on, John proceeded to develop a number of in-the-weeds theories inspired by The Secret History of Twin Peaks and eventually season three, culminating with his "Navigating Between Worlds" series of essays. In 2022, he premiered the episodic rewatch podcast Blue Rose Task Force which is currently at about the spot he began writing in to Sparkwood & 21. Like that podcast, he considers the entire series when discussing a given episode, although in his case he can consider everything The Return brought us. In addition to this work, John meticulously covered dozens and dozens of Peaks podcasts on the 25 Years Later website - echoed later when he recorded a Blue Rose Task Force episode surveying the podcast scene as of 2022. In this conversation, we spend the public part discussing his dualistic theory of the third season as well as his approach to his current podcast...

PART 1 on YouTube

(premieres at 8 pm Monday, February 6)

On the Patreon back part - about twice as long as what I'm publishing on YouTube - we dig into the whole history of Twin Peaks fandom through John's eyes - stretching from his viewing of the series in 1990 to his current work as apart of the community he waited decades to join...

Listen to...

PART 2 on Patreon

(also premieres at 8 pm Monday, February 6)

Listen to Blue Rose Task Force: A Twin Peaks Obsessive Podcast

(including reading of his "Navigating Between Two Worlds" essay)

& read his work on 25 Years Later

PODCAST: John's interview episode on Sparkwood & 21 (and my own)

Twin Peaks Grammer interviews John Bernardy & John Thorne to compare their theories (video)

Gersten Hayward (TWIN PEAKS Character Series #79)

•

A prodigy as a child, a mess as an adult, the fleeting Gersten pops in and out of others' lives in both memorable and mysterious fashion.

An experimental documentary as much imaginative memoir and meditation as study of certain times and places (including New York in the wake of 9/11), Laurie Anderson's Heart of a Dog is a fascinating tour de force. I covered it originally for patrons in 2018 as one of my earliest podcasts (so please forgive the echo-y sound quality and the different vantage point on the passage of time). This was a few years after its release and a few more years after the death of Laurie's husband, legendary Velvet Underground leader Lou Reed. His presence haunts the film without ever being made explicit; instead, Anderson focuses on the passing of her beloved pet dog. Among the fascinating themes and subjects onscreen are Anderson's recollections of childhood accidents including a horrifying diving disaster (as well as the consequent stay in the burn ward of a children's hospital) and a fall through thin ice; the different vibes of War on Terror-era Manhattan vs. coastal Northern California; the storage of NSA spying information in massive desert facilities compared to the pyramids; and the formal approach to a dazzling visual experience with and without the accompaniment of storytelling narration.

Subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts

You can also listen on Pinecast and Spotify

(and most places podcasts are found)

• indicates passages added or revised since 2017, if you want to skip directly to fresh material; this is a revision of an earlier piece written before the third season.

•Clad in a leisure suit, sporting a pompadour, and eventually whispering through a tin machine, the rambling Jeffries appears to be traveling through space and time.

*Link to Andrew Packard (TWIN PEAKS Character Series #69)

Carl Rodd (TWIN PEAKS Character Series #70)

FBI Chief of Staff Denise Bryson (TWIN PEAKS Character Series #71)

*Link to Black Rose "Blackie" O'Reilly (TWIN PEAKS Character Series #72)

Betty Briggs (TWIN PEAKS Character Series #73)

Eraserhead as Twin Peaks Cinema #22 - The Lynchverse (podcast)

Becky Burnett (TWIN PEAKS Character Series #74)

The Road House Patrons (TWIN PEAKS Character Series #75)

Detectives T., D., and "Smiley" Fusco (TWIN PEAKS Character Series #76)

Darya (TWIN PEAKS Character Series #77)

Beverly Paige (TWIN PEAKS Character Series #78)

TWIN PEAKS CONVERSATIONS #18 w/ Blue Rose Task Force host John Bernardy (YouTube & extended PATREON) premieres tomorrow

Gersten Hayward (TWIN PEAKS Character Series #79)

Heart of a Dog (LOST IN THE MOVIES podcast #50)

FBI Agent Phillip Jeffries (TWIN PEAKS Character Series #80)

Search This Blog