Blue Velvet: '50s Dreamworld Gives You Nightmares

BLUE VELVET (1986)
Directed by David Lynch
(buy on Amazon, freak out yer mom)
Reviewed by J. Kane
Trip-o-meter: 8 out of 10

Anyone who knows anything about David Lynch can see where this is going. As far as weirdo directors go, Lynch is a giant among leprechauns. His films push the envelope so far that if anyone could be outmatch Lynch, the sun would explode five billion years early.
Compared to Inland Empire or Lost Highway, at the very least, Blue Velvet has a somewhat discernible plotline. Well, even that's debatable.
When his father has a stroke, innocent little college dweeb Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) returns to Lumberton, his picture perfect hometown. Because suburbia is incredibly boring, Jeffrey goes hunting for trouble, uncovering a severed human ear lying in a field. Somehow, this spells a Hardy Boys mystery, so Jeffrey recruits prissy pretty girl Sandy (Laura Dern, best known for Jurassic Park) and the couple break into the home of sultry nightclub singer Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini).
Things are getting incredibly weird already but by the time Dennis Hopper inhales helium and rapes a girl (*spoiler!*) that rape begins to feel done to your mind.
The dialogue is sometimes so clichéd and dated it's like watching every episode of Leave It To Beaver at once. But it has it's charm, like how things such as tootsie roll pops or hippie music can make you nostalgic for time periods you've never experienced. You feel trapped inside a 1950's dreamworld, where Grease meets American Psycho.
Lynch is a master of symbolism, lighting every scene like an acid dungeon and throwing in incredibly obscure, repetitive metaphors (play a drinking/smoking game - take a hit/shot every time someone says "Blue Velvet" or "Candy-Colored Clown") but the result works ingeniously. Afterward, your mind will feel the relief of a good brain orgasm -- all those nerves finally relaxing, finally getting it, releasing endorphins because (thank God) your life isn't like Lynch's nightmare cellophane orgies.
See for yourself. One of the most indulging scenes is when Dean Stockwell lip-syncs Ray Orbison's "In Dreams": (no spoilers)