JODOROWSKY IN CONVERSATION WITH ARANOFSKY... WOW!

NEW WES ANDERSON TRAILER HAS LANDED!

Wes Anderson is a singular talent, with each of his films being utterly unique and distinct from each other, and yet always stamped with his highly controlled aesthetic. It's been a couple years since his last, the triumphant Grand Budapest Hotel, and now we know that he's chosen to follow up that triumph with his second run at stop motion animation after 2009's underwhelming The Fantastic Mr Fox. Fortunately, if the trailer is anything to go by, Isle of Dogs seems like an altogether different beast; less Beatrix Potter meets Oceans 11 and more George Orwell getting the contemporary Anime treatment. It seems to be set in a near future dystopian Japan where all the dogs have been banished to a trash island, where they have apparently learned to speak English. It's definitely at the top of my Must See list for 2018!

NEW GIALLO FROM THE MAKERS OF 'AMER'

Fans of gorgeously baroque, violent grindhouse/arthouse cinema, rejoice! Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani have a new film coming out. It's called Laissez Bronzer les Cadavres ("Let the Corpses Tan") and it looks like a real humdinger!

MY PROBLEM WITH PEARL JAM

Although I can’t recall ever having been confrontational or evangelical about it, I have never been a fan of Pearl Jam... the early stuff in particular. In the main, I believe this lifelong beef was initially triggered by seven words: “Clearly I remember picking on the boy.”

Within the context of the song "Jeremy", it was a de facto declaration that Eddie Vedder--the band's lead singer, who also happens to have a perfect bully’s name--placed himself squarely on the side of the Normals, the Jocks, the Popular Kids, the In Crowd.

And the rest of the lyrics aren't much better. The song starts out with some dime-store psychoanalysis, chock-a-block with a teetering pile of hastily lashed-together cliches, to which the obviously expensive and equally embarrassing video adds a number that remain unsung.

At home
Drawing pictures
Of mountain tops
With him on top
Lemon yellow sun
Arms raised in a V
Dead lay in pools of maroon below

Daddy didn't give attention
To the fact that mommy didn't care
King Jeremy the wicked
Ruled his world

Troubled kid draws disturbing shit, yes. Daddy is a big empty suit, uh-huh. Yeah. Running shirtless through the woods. Yes, yes. "An affluent suburb", yes. "It is very relevant in America today", yes, of course. And yes, big angry wolf devouring sad lonely boy. And all, or most of it, is Mommy's fault. And Eddie behind it all, rocking himself back and forth as his eyes roll back, up into his skull, every muscle in his face a-twitch with dynamic tension, his hands flashing obscure signs in the air... Deep, man.

WOW, does that video ever suck. I'm sure Vedder must find it excruciating to watch today. Hell, maybe this video is what made the band decide to never ever make videos ever again (a promise they've mostly kept). What possible artistic justification could there be for the way Vedder contorts his face like that? He goes through a series of grimacing expressions, equal parts painful and goofy, that would make Jim Carrey cringe.

Anyway, back to the song, where we're just getting to the good parts...

Clearly I remember picking on the boy
He seemed a harmless little fuck
But we unleashed a lion
Gnashed his teeth and bit the recess lady's breast
How could I forget?
And he hit me with a surprise left
My jaw left hurting, dropped wide open
Just like the day, oh, like the day I heard 

Vedder puts himself at the center of the action, having the unmitigated audacity to make himself the subject of a song that is supposed to be about a boy who commits a brutal, public suicide in the middle of a packed classroom. This, after essentially confessing to being one of the bullies who causes Jeremy’s suicidal hopelessness!

Consider the casual cruelty implicit in the lyrics above. If Jeremy was such a harmless little fuck, then what possible reason could Vedder (or whoever Vedder is meant to be voicing for the duration of this song) have for tormenting him into killing himself?

Furthermore, Vedder seems to relish reliving his "fight" with Jeremy. He sounds almost prideful as he recalls how he helped to "unleash a lion", and indulges in a muscle memory re-enactment of the fight, swinging his fists and pulling angry faces in a way that is bound to be familiar to anyone who's ever run afoul of an angry jock in high school.

And finally, adding one final insult to a long list of injuries--which ends, we are again wont to point out, with a young man killing himself--Vedder has the gall to link the surprise he felt at Jeremy fighting back (his jaw dropped) with the surprise he felt upon hearing that Jeremy had committed suicide in front of his classmates (his jaw dropped).

And then, the song ends with the following verbal flourish:

TRY to forget this! (TRY to forget this)
TRY to erase this! (TRY to erase this)
From the blackboard...

It's not "think about Jeremy, what happened to him, what he did"; it's "think about this awesome, kick-ass anecdote I just laid on you, dude... TRY to forget that shit!" It's the prideful boast of a bully using the tragedy of his victim's ultimate act of self-negation to make himself seem cooler, more dangerous, in the listener's mind.

The lyrics to "Jeremy" are the ultimate expression of the kind of solipsistic narcissism that leads some people to try and make themselves the central focus of whatever public tragedy is going down.

Think back a couple decades, back to heyday of schoolhouse massacres. In "Jeremy", Vedder is the equivalent of all those telegenic teens who either sought, or were sought out by, local TV news cameras, whereupon they would tearfully relate their gripping (and frequently exaggerated) tales about coming face to face with the killers in the hallway, only to be saved by a miraculous gun jam, or about how a passing bullet came so close it combed a new part in their hair, or about how they calmly tried to talk the killer down only to be rebuffed with a diabolical cackle and a command to “SAY YOU LOVE SATAN!”

All this, even as the bodies of actual victims, dead children, are being carried out of the building behind them on stretchers, literal collateral damage for what will eventually become the war stories around which they will assemble the pieces of their public self image; their life’s story... their personal "brand".

It’s all about me, even when it isn’t.

And what of Jeremy? The kid about whom this song would really be, if Vedder were any kind of poet? Well... Jeremy shares more than a little in common with Vedder’s Pacific North West Grunge Rock competition, Kurt Cobain, doesn’t he?

Consider, for example, the slim literary virtues of “Jeremy” in comparison to the stark perfection of Nirvana’s “Something in the Way”. Cobain manages to convey so much with so little. Even the chorus, which consists simply of the words “something in the way” repeated eight times with a kind of call-and-response emotional counterpoint, manages to convey a sort of narrative drive.

Of course, Cobain is dead now, and Pearl Jam continues to tour. They were even inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year, by none other than David Letterman, a last minute replacement for Neil Young.

Ah, what do I know, anyway... Maybe Eddie Vedder is really a very nice guy. The band sure stuck to their guns in their fight with Ticketmaster, that's for sure. You can't really get the full measure of a band that's been around, and productive, for almost 30 years from just one bad song. It's not Pearl Jam's fault that "Jeremy" struck a chord in the popular imagination...

But jeez oh man, is it EVER a garbage song.

STREAM THE NEW GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR UNTIL SEPT 22

The latest offering from Montreal's legendary ambient multi-artist co-op (and long-time Jerky fave) Godspeed You! Black Emperor, evocatively titled Luciferian Towers, is a magnificent slice of drone-tastic aural majesty, and you can stream the entire project for free until the album's multi-format release on September 22, 2017.

Oh, and thanks to our pals at Noisey for the heads-up about this.

HARRY DEAN STANTON ENTERS THE VOID

Thanks to Ultraculture for bringing this to our attention, as well as for their touching, brief remembrance of one of the last living Beat archetypes.

IT'S COMING... BLACK MIRROR SERIES 4

The above video is excruciatingly short, but it's still exciting to see all the upcoming episode titles for the fourth season of Black Mirror, and little snippets from each. It's amazing how much information can be packed into such a compact bit of video, isn't it? I'd say there's even something a little bit "Black Mirror" about it!

SYD BARRETT'S "EFFERVESCING ELEPHANT" (NEW RETRO STYLE VIDEO)

Syd Barrett - Effervescing Elephant from Yoann Hervo on Vimeo.

TWIN PEAKS AND THE BLUE ROSE by Rocko Van Buren

We here at the Daily Dirt Diaspora family of websites are proud to bring you this illuminating Guest Post about some of the more obscure elements of the magnificent Lynch/Frost creation Twin Peaks by our brilliant friend Rocko Van Buren. Enjoy! - YOPJ

“Through the dark of futures past

The magician longs to see

One chance out between two worlds

Fire walk with me”

- Bob

TWIN PEAKS, BLUE ROSE, AND THE UFO PHENOMENON

In the first few moments of Part 12 of the ongoing Showtime television event, Twin Peaks: The Return, the audience finally learns definitively what “Blue Rose” means in the context of Dale Cooper, Gordon Cole and the rest of the FBI. This exposition comes in a scene with FBI deputy director Gordon Cole, Albert Rosenfield and agent Tammy Preston sipping fine wine while seated in a private room at a hotel in Buckhorn, South Dakota, surrounded by red curtains (reminiscent of the mysterious Red Room itself), Albert explains Blue Rose is a secret extension of the now-closed, real-world Project Blue Book conducted by the U.S. Air Force to investigate UFO phenomena.

As the Air Force describes in it's own documentation, some of which is now publicly available through the Freedom of Information Act and quoted here from Wikipedia:

Project Blue Book was one of a series of systematic studies of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) conducted by the United States Air Force. It started in 1952, and it was the third study of its kind (the first two were projects Sign (1947) and Grudge (1949)). A termination order was given for the study in December 1969, and all activity under its auspices ceased in January 1970.
Project Blue Book had two goals:
1 To determine if UFOs were a threat to national security, and
2 To scientifically analyze UFO-related data.”

Prior to this revelation in Part 12 of The Return, fan-favorite character Maj. Garland Briggs from Twin Peaks original two seasons was the show's clearest connection to Project Blue Book and how the classified Air Force investigation connects to the White and Black Lodges of Twin Peaks lore.

Following a mysterious disappearance in Season 2 in the original run, upon which we will touch in greater detail later on, Briggs tells Cooper that even though Project Blue Book was disbanded, “There are those of us who continue in an unofficial capacity, examining the heavens as before, or in the case of Twin Peaks, the earth below. We are searching for a place called the White Lodge.”

Back in The Return, Albert explains to Agent Preston that Blue Book was shut down in 1970 as part of a “cover-up” that concluded the UFO phenomenon was not credible, and there was no resulting threat to national security.

“A few years later, the military and FBI formed a top secret task force to explore the troubling abstractions raised by cases Blue Book failed to resolve,” Albert explains. “We call it, 'The Blue Rose,' after a phrase uttered by a woman involved in one of these cases just before she died., which suggested these hazards could not be reached except by an alternate path we have been traveling ever since.”

Albert goes on to name the agents involved in this secret task force created by Cole – himself, lead agent Phillip Jeffries, Chet Desmond and the original show's main character, Dale Cooper. All of the special agents involved in Blue Rose, excepting Albert and Cole, have since disappeared. All this exposition is by way of recruiting The Return's newest FBI agent, Preston, into the fold of the Blue Rose task force. And thus we have the first explicit delineation from Project Blue Book straight to Blue Rose and the strange, occult aspects that surround the FBI's investigation into the murder of Laura Palmer in the Washington town of Twin Peaks (in the original TV series) and the murder of Teresa Banks in nearby Dear Meadow (in the film Fire Walk With Me).

While the original Twin Peaks run of 1990-921 owes much of its nostalgic love to its soap-opera-style story-lines, Cooper's frequent references to “damn fine coffee,” “the best cherry pie in the tri-counties,” and scenes like Audrey Horne engaged in a strange and seductive dance to music composed by Lynch collaborator Angelo Badalamenti, it is the lore and mystery of Twin Peaks that always attracted me most. And while this aspect of the story was certainly included in the original run of the series, it was never as prominent on ABC prime-time as it was later on in the show's darker, stranger cousin, Lynch's 1992 film Fire Walk With Me (which was my introduction to the world of Twin Peaks). Nothing in the Twin Peaks ecosphere compares to the dark strangeness of Fire Walk With Me (which was originally intended as a series of three films; however, part two and three were never filmed because of the poor critical and financial reception to its first installment). While the inability of Lynch to continue the story in the 1990s was certainly disappointing to hardcore fans, without that failure, we may not have ever been able to experience 2017's revival of Twin Peaks via The Return, in which Lynch and Frost have continued their legacy of breaking new ground in television entertainment.

OUTSIDE OF TIME AND SPACE

Of the many oddities in Twin Peaks, the Black Lodge and its denizens, Bob, The One-Armed Man (aka Mike/Phillip Gerard) and The Man From Another Place (aka the arm) are it's most persistent and vexing. Where do they come from? What is their purpose? While there are many theories surrounding Twin Peaks culture about the meaning and origin of this place and its inhabitants, most of them ignore the connection to Project Blue Book, UFO phenomena and the possibility of alien life. My analysis will attempt to connect the line from Blue Book to Blue Rose, from the idea of UFO encounters and alien visitors to inhabiting spirits like Bob and his cohorts.

To understand this, we must first reconsider the popular conception of aliens – we are not speaking here about extraterrestrial beings in the sense depicted in Steven Spielberg's films E.T. or Close Encounters of the Third Kind. These are not little green men in flying saucers, nor necessarily “Greys,” “Reptilians,” “Nordics,” nor any of the other alien races promulgated by popular culture shows like Coast to Coast AM. (although some images in The Return do bear a striking resemblance to the alien “grey,” notably the being credited as “The Experiment/Mother” in Part Eight, the being in the black box in Part One, and the first scene in Andy's vision from Part Fourteen).

Instead, we are speaking of aliens as inter/extra-dimensional beings that inhabit our world and adjacent worlds unseen, the type of spirits discussed in dozens of Hindu and Buddhist legends, and, most eloquently in 'western' society, by well-known UFO researcher and PhD Jacques Vallée. Vallée, not coincidentally, was the inspiration for Spielberg's character Claude Lacombe, played in Spielberg's film Close Encounters by François Truffaut.

In an interview with Jeffrey Mishlove on the public television program Thinking Allowed, Vallée discusses his 1979 book Messengers of Deception:

ACD PICKS THE GREATEST COUPLES IN HOLLYWOOD HISTORY!

It is always a pleasure to bring readers of the DDD family of blogs the wit, wisdom, and verve of one of our oldest, dearest pals, the venerable A.C. Doyle! In this enlightening and entertaining survey, Ace provides lovers of classic Hollywood a solid month's worth of programming choices, at least. Enjoy! - Jerky

There are a few on-screen pairings this past generation who have generated some heat and some laughs. Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey, Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. Their oeuvres are largely somewhere between bad and forgettable–does anybody remember Joe Versus The Volcano or By The Sea or True Detective or Blended? Gere and Roberts have starred twice together, in pretty good films, Pretty Woman and Runaway Bride. And Brangelina became a pop culture term, but Mr. & Mrs. Smith–where they met on the set and she spirited him away from Ms. Aniston–and By The Sea, Ms. Jolie’s directorial debut, were fairly awful.

And most of these pairs have only starred in two or three films together. Compared to Loren and Mastroianni in 13, Taylor and Burton in 11, Hepburn and Tracy in 9, Astaire and Rogers in 10, Powell and Loy in 14, Farrow and Allen in 7 (plus he directed her in 6 more). Bogey and Bacall were only in four together, but what a four!

So it seems the Golden Era of paired actors and actresses across multiple films is largely behind us. Which is a pity, because there were some wonderful collaborations (on-screen and off, as often as not). Moreover, fine actors and actresses can develop a rapport and sense of timing, both comic and dramatic, that, like a fine wine, matures over time.

There’s also a modern conceit that showing a couple firing machine guns at bad guys then rolling around naked and sweaty in flagrante delicto is the only way to convey sexiness, desire, allure, magnetic attraction. Whereas Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert stringing up a line and draping a blanket over it in the fleabag motel so that they can’t see each other change into pyjamas and snuggle into separate beds (It Happened One Night, one of only three films to win the “Big Five” Oscars) is deliciously titillating and arousing.

So let’s take a walk down Memory Lane, and examine the great romantic/dramatic pairings. With the exception of a couple of Burton/Taylors when I was too young to see them, Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner, the Woody Allen films, and some Loren, most of these movies were produced well before I was born, and I’m in my mid-50s, so this nostalgic promenade will appeal to film buffs, but if you don’t watch anything before CGI and David Lynch, you might want to continue to the next article.

Let’s start with the flimsiest plots, and the least remembered movies nowadays, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

A MULTI-PURPOSE SYMBOL WITH MULTIPLE MEANINGS

FIRE WALK WITH JERKY ~ EP. 6: REALIZATION TIME

Uh-oh! Looks like the sixth post-pilot episode of Twin Peaks begins with a pretty serious continuity error. The first thing we see in this episode is a clear and beautiful half moon hanging up in the sky. Unfortunately, the previous episode kicked off with a giant, up close image of a clearly FULL Moon, as seen through some pines! The events of the previous episode took place no more than two days previous to the beginning of this episode, and not the six or seven days it would have taken for such a drastic change in lunar phase. Oh well... I guess that's bound to happen when a series has directors hopping on and off willy-nilly, episode by episode. That's why I think having Lynch and Frost oversee the entirety of Season Three is such a brilliant move... and I can hardly wait to get started on it! The few sneak peaks I've had are driving me crazy with antici....pation.

"So do you want me to leave or what?"

Back at the Great Northwestern, Cooper is dealing with Audrey’s rather forward propositioning (he arrived to find her nude in his bed) by dealing out some pretty definitive rejection. In fact, his rejection of Audrey seems sort of forced, in a way... far more Boy Scout than necessary.

We don't suspect Cooper of being gay, but his odd, conflicting behavior with Audrey, particularly in this scene, is jarring.

I mean, he can barely stand to even look at her. I mean, I know Cooper is... "special", but how prudish can a worldly, Big City FBI man really be? And he's going to fetch them both some fries and a malted--traditional 50’s fare--over which, presumably, they will have a girly "dish" session? Come on.

Once again, this whole "everybody in this town has secrets" business is hammered home with all the subtlety of a truck driving through a plate glass window.

Andy and Lucy – what’s up with these two?

The show has been teasing their relationship problems, without ever really establishing that they're engaged in a relationship, for long enough now, it seems to me. And now Lucy's having a health crisis?

Hmmm...

Cooper pops into the Sheriff's office with his hand-carved pipe again, piping a jolly tune.

Dr Hayward and Sheriff Truman are working with Waldo the Myna bird, studying the species and trying to nurse it back to health by hydrating it and feeding it some fruits (Dr Hayward calls for fresh apples, as "these grapes are right on the edge").

Why apples over grapes? Both are Old Testament fruit (Genesis for apples, Exodus for grapes). Probably no significance, though.

Speech being a form of play for the Myna bird, Waldo should start talking again as soon as he's in better health. Cooper doesn’t want to feed him. Doesn’t like birds for some reason. Really? To the point of saying so? What’s up with that? Seems out of character. Also, the Myna species' origins are in southeast Asia. Could this be significant?

Hawk enters the office with a bunch of forensic findings. It turns out Rennault’s cabin was recently party to three guests – Laura, Ronette and Leo.

The one and only exposed negative in the camera found at the scene contains an image of Waldo perched on Laura’s shoulder.

Cooper considers Waldo to be a witness, because it can talk. In order that the Sheriff's office can go and do field work, Cooper sets up a voice activated recorder, which will kick in when and if Waldo decides to start talking.

Forensics has also finally traced the "J" fragment found in Laura's stomach to the 1000$ chip from One Eyed Jack's. Hawk points out that Jacques Rennault is dealing blackjack there, so Cooper suggest they pay a visit to One Eyed Jacks. And seeing as it's out of their jurisdiction, over the border in Canada, Cooper enthusiastically suggests that this is a task tailor made for the Bookhouse Boys.

Meanwhile, on the sleazier side of town, Leo, whose left arm is wrapped in bloody bandages, is spying on Shelly.

Through a pair of binoculars, he watches as Bobby Briggs shows up to romance HIS woman.

JIM CARREY: I NEED COLOR

Jim Carrey: I Need color from SGG on Vimeo.

FIRE WALK WITH JERKY ~ COOPER'S DREAMS

We begin with a beautiful shot of a blazing full moon as seen through the pines. Perhaps an indication that this episode is going to be a “night side” episode, wherein dream logic, and symbolic messages, and intuition are all just as important, if not more so, than solid, tangible evidence, or verifiable facts.

There are actually two or three moments in this episode that underscore the unreliability of scientifically verifiable fact, or wherein synchronicity and coincidence are key to unraveling the show’s mysteries. I will point those out as they occur.

Cooper complains to Diane that he can’t sleep because Jerry has arrived with a large group of potential Ghostwood investors from Iceland, and they’re celebrating in raucous Viking fashion. He asks her to send him two pair of ear plugs that he uses when he’s in New York City. He figured he wouldn’t need them in pastoral Twin Peaks. Is this the show telling us that small-town America is capable of being just as evil as big city America?

As ever, Audrey waylays Cooper during his (coffee only today) breakfast at the Great Northwestern’s restaurant. She reveals her intention to help with his case.

Audrey sidles up close to Cooper and says: “I can’t believe you were ever my age.”

Cooper says he has the pictures to prove it, then asks: “How old are you?” 18, Audrey answers. To which Cooper replies, somewhat coyly: “See you later, Audrey.”

Jerry Horne, Ben’s Kubrickean amalgam brother, is back. He’s speaking fluent Icelandic with one of the investors. How does he know all these languages? Jerry is definitely an otherworldly type, what with his indefatigability and his access to countless useful skills.

There is something strange about Jerry's shirt. The pattern of the buttons—from top to bottom: backslash, dot, vertical line, double dot, dot—is altogether new to me. I’ve never seen their like before, although they did remind me of the old style of blazing for trails that I learned in my years of Scouting. Here is the patter on its side:

Ultimately, Jerry’s shirt almost makes him look like one of those white dominoes Hank plays with. I have a difficult time believing this wardrobe choice was purely coincidental. If you think you know what this could represent, please let us know in the comments section!

Jerry reveals that he’s in love with a Viking ice queen named Heppa, and that she’s given him a huge leg of lamb. “You crush some garlic, some fresh mint, that’s rotisserie heaven!”

Ben informs Jerry that he’s planned a big to-do, “a gala reception… all of Twin Peaks’ best and brightest” for the investors, to be followed, if necessary, by a little trip up to “you know where”, while giving the one-eyed sign.

FIRE WALK WITH JERKY ~ EP. 4: THE ONE-ARMED MAN

We begin with a shot of the Palmer house, a beautiful, shrubby slice of Americana if ever there was one. In the living room, we see that Deputy Andy is displaying a previously undisclosed skill: forensic artistry. He is helping Sarah to visualize her psychic vision of Bob. 

For a brief, disturbing moment, Bob and Laura share screen time, both in the form of reasonable facsimiles (school yearbook photo, police sketch).

Sheriff Truman obviously finds Maddy’s resemblance to Laura to be disturbing, as do so many other Twin Peaks residents.

For her part, Maddy seems, as with all things, somewhat oblivious.

Leland seems more together than usual, at least enough to be snide and condescending about Sarah’s visions about the necklace.  We already know her vision of a stranger retrieving Laura’s half-locket from a hole in the ground is accurate, which means that, as far as Twin Peaks reality goes, Sarah has some pretty substantial psychic powers.

Donna, having been present for the hiding of said locket, must realize that this is true.

A return to the soap opera Invitation to Love…

It begins with a necklace, carrying over from Sarah describing her vision...

...and continues with an obviously satirical take on the usual sort of soap opera business.