David Lynch is something of an all-rounder - director, screenwriter, producer, painter, cartoonist, composer, video and performance artist. He started out as a painter, enrolling in the Pennsylvanian Academy of Fine Art in Philadelphia when he was nineteen. Interestingly, one of is first works combined visual arts with cinema in his Six Figures Getting Sick (1966), where he projected a looped animation onto one of his sculptures. It was off the back of this that he secured funding to make his first two short films - The Alphabet (1968) and The Grandmother (1970). These two works met with great critical success. After which he moved to Los Angeles, spending the next six years making his first feature Eraserhead (1976). Eraserhead polarised and baffled critics but it went on to become a cult classic, after seeing the film Mel Brooks hired Lynch to direct The Elephant Man (1980) and George Lucas requested him to direct Return of the Jedi but Lynch declined the latter stating that it would become more his own vision than that of Lucas’. The Elephant Man, a biopic of the deformed Victorian era figure John Merrick, was a huge commercial and critical success, been nominated for eight Academy Awards including Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. So the dark and unconventional independent director had astonishingly become the darling of Hollywood, would he be corrupted? Thwarted of his great vision? No fear, his second Hollywood feature would also be his last Hollywood feature. Dune (1984), an adaptation of the Frank Herbert cult science-fiction novel, was a commercial and critical disaster, though in fairness to Lynch he was denied the final cut and it was ultimately the studio’s film. And there was a silver lining, part of the deal Lynch made with producer Dino De Laurentiis when making Dune was that the producer would finance Lynch’s next feature.
About the Author:
Russell Shortt is a travel consultant with Exploring Ireland, the leading specialists in customised, private escorted tours, escorted coach tours and independent self drive tours of Ireland. Article source Russell Shortt, http://www.exploringireland.nethttp://www.visitscotlandtours.com
Catching the Big Fish: Meditation,
Consciousness, and Creativity
by
David Lynch
David Lynch's new book, "Catching the Big Fish:
Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity" is creative, charming, brief
and playful. Written in small passages that flow, despite uniquely
defined ideas, and seem to jump right off the page and dance and twinkle
in your mind as you continually turn the pages, Lynch takes the reader
through a deeply contemplative--though subtle in description--journey
into 'that which all things emerge.'
--
In season one, we are introduced to the residents of
Tree Hill. In a small North Carolina town, two estranged half brothers
carry on very different lives. Basketball prodigy Nathan Scott has
inherited the throne of high school popularity once held by his father,
Dan, while Lucas Scott, also a talented player, stays an outsider.
Spending nights shooting hoops on a riverfront court, Lucas remains the
son Dan never acknowledged. Now, Lucas' and Nathan's paths intersect for
the first time, and in the middle of the crossroads stands Peyton
Sawyer, Nathan's beautiful, edgy girlfriend who just may have more in
common with Lucas. Throw in the quiet animosity between Dan and his
brother, Keith, along with Lucas' mother, Karen--all of whom must cope
with the aftermath of their choices--and something has to give. As
Season Two unfolds, we see relationships change and characters evolve:
Aside from their love for hoops, Lucas and Nathan seemed to have little
in common. But the two young men are bound by the fact that they share
the same father. As Nathan is increasingly brought into the world Lucas
knew before he joined the high school team, the two boys begin acting
like brothers, not enemies, for the first time. Years in the making, a
deep and bitter conflict had slowly unfolded as the two boys struggled
to come to terms with a father who chose to live vicariously through one
son while ignoring the existence of the other. Now, Nathan and Lucas
have formed a unique bond based on mutual resentment of their father.
Meanwhile, the girls of Tree Hill explore their own interests beyond
romantic entanglements.
Take the Lead
Starring: Antonio Banderas, Rob Brown (VI)
Director: Liz Friedlander
The sensuous thrill of ballroom dancing collides with
the hip-hop world of self-expression in Take the Lead. Antonio
Banderas (Desperado, The Mask of Zorro) stars as Pierre
Dulaine, a dance teacher who--perhaps to fill a void in his own
life--decides to teach the foxtrot and the tango to a group of
inner-city high school students who've been put in detention. The kids
sullenly resist this intruder with his silly box-steps, but gradually
succumb to the allure of passion channeled into physical grace. It's a
lot of hooey, of course--the stories about the individual kids are
shallow melodrama--but a movie like this isn't so much about plot as
about dancing, and the dancing bewitches. The main problem of Take
the Lead is that there isn't enough dancing; at least half of the
personal struggle of the students could be jettisoned and happily be
replaced by fifteen minutes of a sleek and sexy rhumba. Still, Banderas
has a warm, ingratiating presence and can spout platitudes about dance
with conviction; Alfre Woodard (Crooklyn, Desperate Housewives)
has her usual charismatic authority as the school's hard-nosed
principal; and the dance competition at the movie's end gives the movie
the lift it's wanted for the previous hour and a half. --Bret Fetzer
Product Description
Inspired by a true story, Antonio Banderas stars as internationally
acclaimed ballroom dancer Pierre Dulane in the energetic and moving film
Take The Lead. When Dulane volunteers to teach dance in the New York
public school system, his background first clashes with his students'
tastes...but together they create a completely new style of dance.
24
Such a simple idea--yet so fiendishly complex in the execution. 24, as surely
everyone knows by now, is a thriller that takes places over 24 hours, midnight
to midnight, in 24 one-hour episodes (well, 45-minute episodes if you subtract
the commercials). Everything takes place in real time, which means no
flashbacks, no flash-forwards, no handy time-dissolves. Every strand of the plot
has to be dovetailed and interlocked so things happen just when they should, in
the right amount of time. Not that easy.
Creator Robert Cochran and his team of writers and directors have done an
impressive job of putting the jigsaw together and keeping the tension ratcheted
up high, as federal agent Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) runs around L.A. trying
to stall an assassination attempt on an African American presidential candidate
and rescue his wife and daughter from the clutches of the Balkan baddies.
Twists, turns, revelations, and cliffhangers are tossed at us with satisfying
regularity. It's not perfect: we get some hokey plot devices (instant amnesia,
anybody?); the final twist makes no sense whatsoever; there are altogether too
many huggy family moments; and as for Dennis Hopper's "Serbian" accent....
Even so, this is undeniably mold-breaking TV. Sutherland, rescuing his career
from the doldrums in one heroic leap, fully deserves his Golden Globe. Sets and
locations are artfully deployed, and Sean Callery's score is a powerful,
brooding presence. Like Murder One and The Sopranos, 24 is one of those series
that future TV thrillers will be measured against. --Philip Kemp
Genres: Action, Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Tagline: To the world, he's dead. But soon, he'll become the most wanted man
alive (Season 5)
Plot Outline Federal Agent Jack Bauer can't afford to always play by the rules.
As a member of the L.A. Counter Terrorist Unit, Jack must stop bombs, viruses,
assassination attempts, and usually save someone he cares about at the same
time. Every season of this series has 24 episodes, each unfolding in real time
following a consecutive hour in one very bad day.
Plot Synopsis: In this concept drama, each season takes place within one 24 hour
period. Jack Bauer is the head of an elite team of CIA agents who uncover an
assassination plot targeting Presidential nominee David Palmer. Meanwhile,
Jack's strained marriage to his wife, Teri, is pushed to the brink by the sudden
disappearance of their troubled teenage daughter. What will the next 24 hours
hold?
Amazon.com
Danny Boyle (Sunshine) directed this wildly energetic,
Dickensian drama about the desultory life and times of an Indian boy
whose bleak, formative experiences lead to an appearance on his
country's version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" Jamal (played
as a young man by Dev Patel) and his brother are orphaned as
children, raising themselves in various slums and crime-ridden
neighorhoods and falling in, for a while, with a monstrous gang
exploiting children as beggars and prostitutes. Driven by his love
for Latika (Freida Pinto), Jamal, while a teen, later goes on a
journey to rescue her from the gang's clutches, only to lose her
again to another oppressive fate as the lover of a notorious
gangster.
Running parallel with this dark yet
irresistible adventure, told in flashback vignettes, is the almost
inexplicable sight of Jamal winning every challenge on "Who Wants to
Be a Millionaire?," a strong showing that leads to a vicious police
interrogation. As Jamal explains how he knows the answer to every
question on the show as the result of harsh events in his knockabout
life, the chaos of his existence gains shape, perspective and
soulfulness. The film's violence is offset by a mesmerizing exotica
shot and edited with a great whoosh of vitality. Boyle successfully
sells the story's most unlikely elements with nods to literary and
cinematic conventions that touch an audience's heart more than its
head. --Tom Keogh
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