Despite my recently announced schedule, by the end of 2022 I'd failed to begin my long-awaited TWIN PEAKS Character Series (except for monthly patron advances), carry on the "Unseen" essay series beyond a handful of entries, find time for my nascent generation video concept, or finish season three coverage on Lost in Twin Peaks - let alone make it back to the skipped season two as planned. Amidst this record of failure, however, my podcast coverage did reach the penultimate episode of The Return and in addition to a flurry of invitations to other podcasts, I continued meeting or at least catching up with my own four monthly podcast deadlines. Indeed, the audio podcast became my near-exclusive release format in this period - what with the Mad Men viewing diary and Olympics series wrapped up, written character studies delayed, and various video projects perpetually postponed.
A paired decade-by-decade Patreon format climaxed with a nine-hour meditation on the sixties and zeroes featuring many films from the decade when I was in my twenties (and several from the decade I was obsessed with in my twenties), my guest appearance on a new character-themed show yielded a rich discussion on the complexity of Sarah Palmer, and I released a public podcast comparing The Sweet Hereafter to Fire Walk With Me in time for the Cannes anniversaries of both, while exceptions to the audio-only rule included a screenshot-stuffed illustrated companion to my Part 8 episodes with guests from Sparkwood & 21 and the belated epilogue to my 2012 - 15 Neon Genesis Evangelion coverage with a prose review of Evangelion 3.0 + 1.0.
This period, marked by accomplishment as well as frustration, is highlighted by the sprawling public audio re-packaging and visual presentation of LOST IN TWIN PEAKS #31: Fire Walk With Me (the film & The Missing Pieces) podcasts & illustrated companion - two full weeks of daily episodes climaxing in an in-depth breakdown of the film's own climax.
APRIL
Three months of "Traumatic Transformations" are initiated by the dark Japanese tale of a woman who uses the power of witchcraft to carve a space apart from the king who assaulted her
My plans to renew the character series result in monthly patron rewards
MAY
Resuming my written Unseen series for the Marvel movie on its tenth anniversary (whereas the last entry was published just six and half years after its premiere): for better or worse, one of the biggest blockbusters and gamechangers in film history
After a Campion duo and Aronofsky trio, my season of directors introduces Christopher Nolan as its final subject, beginning with his film about rival magicians
As the character series gets bogged down, and the Fire Walk With Me coverage struggles to catch up, I determine my schedule for the coming season
Fourteen daily episodes cover every aspect of the Twin Peaks movie on its thirtieth anniversary, from production to plot to mythology to deleted scenes to historical context (including a culture war speech in 1992 and a shaky economic recovery in 2014)
Continuing the "Traumatic Transformations" theme in one of the longest episodes, about a quiet Canadian town devastated by a tragic accident (whose only survivor harbors her own dark secret)
Status update on multiple fronts, but most importantly I resolve to continue with the Lost in Twin Peaks episodic podcast and delay the character entries
Andreas discusses his past and upcoming books as well as what it was like to grow up a Danish fan of this faraway world
JUNE
Five years after the season three premiere juggled New York, South Dakota, Las Vegas, and a certain Washington town, my patron rewatch goes public (re-formatted to fit the weekly/daily spoiler-free Lost in Twin Peaks structure including historical context like Trump's Middle Eastern orb)
The season of director pairings ends with Christopher Nolan's vision of space travel and planetary colonization
As I struggle to maintain multiple deadlines, I share an old piece featured on another site and offer progress reports on other projects
Another two-parter dips into extreme avant-garde fantasy and droll comic relief among other modes (historical context includes a monsoon in Sri Lanka)
On the twentieth anniversary of the characters' high school reunion in my short film, I re-share Class of 2002 and offer encouraging news on my podcasts
Dougie goes to work in Vegas while we meet many Twin Peaks residents for the first time (for historical context, Ariana Grande pays tribute to victims of a terror attack on her concert)
Between its #MeToo and Covid-19 topicality and its compelling parallels with the Laura Palmer story, the Apple TV+ series provides a strong center for this otherwise random round-up of topics
Completing the "Traumatic Transformations" trilogy, two young men grapple with the memory (repressed or otherwise) of sexual abuse in dramatically different ways
Bloodshed and grief haunt this episode (while historical context explores the life of the retiring Japanese emperor)
Indulging viewers hungry for the bigger picture, Lynch and Frost offer breadcrumbs back to the original series (and the podcast checks in on Jared Kushner for 2017 historical context)
JULY
The only guest discussion on Lost in Twin Peaks sweeps across the legendary Part 8's New Mexican opus (while in a grim coincidence, a Pakistani tanker explosion features as historical context)
After years of work on an epic, four-hour fan film about Annie Blackburn, Cameron is finally ready to present the finished result
The fifth season of my public podcast focuses on "Classic Hollywood" and begins with this bouncy Astaire/Rogers musical
As part of their yearlong Lynchography, I join several hosts to consider the prequel's merits and flaws
A message from a dead parent highlights this episode (and historical context covers an ISIS defeat)
Describing my ambitions for a video series covering different eras and generations, as well as deadlines for the end of the year
Brooding material for my last episode coverage until the fall, accompanied by Game of Thrones-themed historical context
New season explores Nicholas Ray's connections to Peaks, beginning with the noir in which a city detective arrives at a remote rural outpost to investigate a murder
Soon after he appeared on my podcast, I join Cameron Cloutier for a "Twin Peaks Thought of the Day" episode to talk about the recent losses of Lenny Von Dohlen and Julee Cruise (in a year full of such Peaks passings)
Stopping my episodic podcast coverage allows me to catch up with several other delayed deadlines
A virtual Twin Peaks conference included me among several podcast hosts for a group discussion
Adam Curtis' lucid, hypnotic breakdown of the War on Terror mythology relates to other political topics on my radar
AUGUST
Cary Grant, Marilyn Monroe, and Ginger Rogers share the screen with a chimpanzee in a Howard Hawks comedy as my Classic Hollywood coverage continues
The cross-section of weird fiction and Twin Peaks is a specialty of the Counter Esperanto podcast, whose hosts join me to discuss that nexus as well as their familiarity with the Washington region where the show talks place
Iconography and thematic echoes of Nicholas Ray's (and James Dean's) most famous work can be found all over Twin Peaks
belated July 2022 Patreon round-up: LOST IN THE MOVIES patron podcast #93: Coffee and Cigarettes (+ feedback/media/work updates including Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Russian Revolution, failures of the decadent right, history of malls, archive reading: Lady and the Tramp & more) + 3 TWIN PEAKS Character Series advances & Twin Peaks Conversations podcast
Jim Jarmusch's anthology of sketches is my film in focus for the last un-themed, simple Patreon podcast before I launch a more ambitious run to the 100th episode finish
TWIN PEAKS CONVERSATIONS #13 w/ Devil's Advocates - Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me author Lindsay Hallam (YouTube & extended PATREON) premieres tonight
Thirty years after Fire Walk With Me's American wide release, and four years after we discussed her book for the first time in a print interview, Lindsay returns for a podcast
August 2022 Patreon round-up • LOST IN THE MOVIES patron podcast #94: The 80s in August... Desperately Seeking Susan & Top Gun (capsules on Stranger Things, Poltergeist, Beverly Hills Cop, Witness, The Breakfast Club, Wall Street, Twins, The Hunger, archive readings on Fast Times at Ridgemont High, E.T., Muppet Babies, An American Tail, Brave Little Toaster, The Secret of NIMH, The Last Unicorn + feedback/media/work updates including Captain America: Civil War & more) + 3 TWIN PEAKS Character Series advances & Twin Peaks Conversations podcast
My decades project focuses on two eighties pop classics alongside a collection of capsules and archive readings covering the Reagan era
Melodrama, Crime, Fantasy, and War: 17 Classic Capsules (LOST IN THE MOVIES podcast #45) - brief reflections on Ah, Wilderness!, A Letter to Three Wives, Invitation, Morning Glory, Parnell, Little Caesar, Dick Tracy, Nightmare Alley, Gilda, The Woman in White, It Came From Outer Space, Pinocchio, The Devil and Daniel Webster, The Enchanted Cottage, The White Cliffs of Dover, The Fallen Sparrow & The Angel Wore Red
The Classic Hollywood coverage transforms into a daisy chain of capsules grouped roughly by genre
Bigger Than Life as Twin Peaks Cinema #17 - Ray's Haunted Fifties (podcast)
Finishing three months of Nicholas Ray/Twin Peaks exploration with the story of a megalomaniacal father in the throes of drug addiction
TWIN PEAKS CONVERSATIONS #14 w/ Ominous Whoosh author John Thorne (YouTube & extended PATREON)
Jim Jarmusch's anthology of sketches is my film in focus for the last un-themed, simple Patreon podcast before I launch a more ambitious run to the 100th episode finish
Thirty years after Fire Walk With Me's American wide release, and four years after we discussed her book for the first time in a print interview, Lindsay returns for a podcast
SEPTEMBER
My decades project focuses on two eighties pop classics alongside a collection of capsules and archive readings covering the Reagan era
The Classic Hollywood coverage transforms into a daisy chain of capsules grouped roughly by genre
Finishing three months of Nicholas Ray/Twin Peaks exploration with the story of a megalomaniacal father in the throes of drug addiction
OCTOBER
My first official Conversations repeat guest, John is back for an in-depth exploration of The Return as analyzed in his brand new book
The Shanghai Gesture (LOST IN THE MOVIES podcast #46)
After discussing films from the thirties and fifties, the Classic Hollywood season shifts to the forties where class, sex, and race mix in a Chinese casino under Josef von Sternberg's direction
Back to the Future Part II as Twin Peaks Cinema #18 - Disordered Stories (podcast) + Back to the Future capsule
Narrative twists and turns provide a throughline for the remaining three months of the year, starting with the lighthearted if at times dystopian time travel of Marty McFly and Doc Brown through 1955, 1985, and 2015
The Vulnerable Throne: capsule on The Bitter Tea of General Yen + brief reflections on Knights of the Round Table, Land of the Pharaohs & Rasputin and the Empress (LOST IN THE MOVIES podcast #47)
NOVEMBER
With most of the focus on Frank Capra's portrait of Oriental intrigue, this Classic Hollywood episode also includes tangents on three other films in which rulers fall due to seductive interlopers
The Many Faces of Sarah Palmer • discussion w/ the Creamed Corn and the Universe podcast (+ status update: Lost in Twin Peaks returns)
Stretching chronologically from the New Mexico girl to the last words of the season three finale, host Colin and I consider the broad spectrum of Sarah's contributions to Twin Peaks, often forgotten but always crucial
LOST IN TWIN PEAKS #40: Season 3 Part 11 (The Return - "There's Fire Where You Are Going") podcasts & illustrated companion
Action-packed in its first half, focused on a single Vegas storyline in its second, this unique episode provides a comeback for the podcast after a long break (historical context resumes with the simultaneous premiere of Dunkirk)
belated September 2022 Patreon round-up • LOST IN THE MOVIES patron podcast #95: The 90s in September (& beyond) + 70s bonus & Concluding the 80s ... Pulp Fiction, Klute, Red Dawn, Do the Right Thing & Hail Mary (capsules on Stranger Things, Top Gun: Maverick, The Goonies, Gremlins, Midnight Run, Scarface, Thelma & Louise, Scream, Gremlins II, Romeo + Juliet, Set It Off, The Firm, Exotica, Network, Superman, Magnolia, Saturday Night Fever, Reality Bites, Boogie Nights, Nashville, The Pelican Brief, The Client, The Ice Storm, Dangerous Minds, archive readings of The Conversation & Enemy of the State + feedback/media/work updates including Encanto & more) + 3 TWIN PEAKS Character Series advances & Twin Peaks Conversations podcast
Wrapping up the eighties with the diverse trio of John Milius, Spike Lee, and Jean-Luc Godard, my decade series moves in two directions at once - into the seventies with a thriller about a troubled call girl and the nineties with a zeitgeist-defining postmodern crime film
The Vanishing as Twin Peaks Cinema #19 - Disordered Stories (podcast)
A mystery told out of order, with frontloaded reveals and deeper questions beyond "whodunit"
LOST IN TWIN PEAKS #41: Season 3 Part 12 (The Return - "Let's Rock") podcasts & illustrated companion
Several female characters have notable parts to play in an otherwise male-dominated season (meanwhile, a Venezuelan political controversy anchors historical context)
TWIN PEAKS CONVERSATIONS #15 w/ Colin, host of Creamed Corn and the Universe (YouTube & extended PATREON)
Following my recent appeareance on his podcast, Colin joins me for a wide-ranging discussion - including what it's like to be a post-Return fan who discovered the entirety of Twin Peaks in recent years
LOST IN TWIN PEAKS #42: Season 3 Part 13 (The Return - "What Story Is That, Charlie?") podcasts & illustrated companion
Confrontations both passive and physical face Cooper(s), plus a Tulsa tornado marks my historical context discussion
belated October 2022 Patreon round-up • LOST IN THE MOVIES patron podcast #96: Halloween Special / Continuing the 90s... Bram Stoker's Dracula (+ archive readings of Dracula, Frankenstein & The Wolf Man, feedback/media/work updates including Cooper's identity, the Professional Managerial Class & more) + 3 TWIN PEAKS Character Series advances & Twin Peaks Conversations podcast
Holiday and nineties theme meet in the form of Francis Ford Coppola's gloriously flamboyant vampire myth
LOST IN TWIN PEAKS #43: Season 3 Part 14 (The Return - "Who Is the Dreamer?") podcasts & illustrated companion
DECEMBER
The mystic flavor of late season three blossoms with Monica, Sarah, Freddie, and Andy (aired in the wake of Charlottesville, which is covered here as historical context)
TWIN PEAKS CONVERSATIONS #16 w/ The People's Joker director Vera Drew (YouTube & extended PATREON) premieres on Wednesday
This podcast's first guest from outside the Twin Peaks commentator community, Vera is a big Peaks fan whose recent film The People's Joker went viral when Warners and DC disapproved of its high-profile festival debut
LOST IN TWIN PEAKS #44: Season 3 Part 15 (The Return - "There's Some Fear in Letting Go") podcasts & illustrated companion
Joyous reunion and sorrowful death dot an episode that coincided with the historical context of Jerry Lewis' passing
belated November 2022 Patreon round-up • LOST IN THE MOVIES patron podcast #97 coming this week: The 00s in November (& beyond) + 60s bonus & Concluding the 90s & 70s... Godard's Weekend & Southland Tales w/ guest Andrew Cook (w/ his feedback & my capsule on 300, more capsules on Bonnie & Clyde, The Graduate, Midnight Cowboy, The Swimmer, Dr. Strangelove, No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Zodiac, A History of Violence, Brokeback Mountain, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Darjeeling Limited, The Dark Knight, Gangs of New York, 500 Days of Summer, The Ring, Donnie Darko, The Box, Dog Day Afternoon, The Muppet Movie, The Muppet Christmas Carol, The Witches, Heat, The Blair Witch Project, Edward Scissorhands, Election, Groundhog Day, Total Recall, Dick Tracy, archive readings of my reflections on the 00s decade, To Kill a Mockingbird, Breathless & much, much more including feedback/media/work updates) + 3 TWIN PEAKS Character Series advances & Twin Peaks Conversations podcast
My decade series reaches its apotheosis with a couple apocalyptic auteur visions rooted deeply in their respective eras, as well as two archives of my own work on the sixties and zeroes
Temporarily resuming the Unseen series for one last Marvel, a self-consciously nostalgic throwback to World War II
Marie Antoinette from 1938 (LOST IN THE MOVIES podcast #48)
Continuing the "fallen royal" theme from the previous episode, this 1938 biopic concludes a season of Classic Hollywood
LOST IN TWIN PEAKS #45: Season 3 Part 16 (The Return - "No Knock, No Doorbell") podcasts & illustrated companion
As always when this pre-finale comes up, my eye is on the Cooper and Diane storylines (while historical context incorporates a marquee boxing match)
TWIN PEAKS CONVERSATIONS #17 w/ Twin Peaks: Evangelion hosts Craig & Vinny (YouTube & extended PATREON) premieres on Wednesday
A concept right up my alley - not just viewing the Lynch/Frost mystery and the Hideaki Anno anime side by side but also out of order, starting with The Return and the Rebuild films
Neon Genesis Evangelion - Evangelion 3.0 + 1.0
Seven years after (temporarily) concluding my Evangelion series, it's time to say our final farewell to Shinji and the gang with a written review of the recent Rebuild
Rashomon as Twin Peaks Cinema #20 - Disordered Stories (podcast)
The "disordered stories" season finishes with the granddaddy of them all, Akira Kurosawa's recollection of a crime told not just out of order but from wildly inconsistent perspectives
December 2022 Patreon round-up • LOST IN THE MOVIES patron podcast #98: Holiday Special / Continuing the 60s... The Apartment (+ capsules on How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, A Charlie Brown Christmas, 00s archive reading of A Christmas Tale, Andrew Cook's further reflections on 300 & 00s cinema + my plans for the 3 big Twin Peaks projects, feedback/media/work updates & more) + 3 TWIN PEAKS Character Series advances & Twin Peaks Conversations podcast
Christmas and New Year's continue the decade theme with a warm-hearted sixties satire and a trio of capsules on classic animated specials from a few years later
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (The Unseen 2010)
Digging into a quintessential turn-of-the-decade film which captures the millennial ascension by paying tribute to comic books and video games
2023 on Lost in the Movies: Finally the Characters, Pausing the Podcasts, and the Final Journey (status update)
Having failed to reach several crucial deadlines, I lay out my plans for the upcoming year
(in which the Twin Peaks character series reboots to incorporate season three)
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