Lynch is certainly a darling of the critics which has become tiresome over the years but then he makes films like Elephant Man and Straight Story which are fantastic films in their own right and you would never guess that Lynch directed them if you don't have any background on them.

He IS overrated I agree but I would still rather have him making movies than not.

Dune should always be excused if you read up on the studio interference and the complexity of the novel ( many books should never be made into films) and Lost Highway is an admirable failure.

Blue Velvet however is one of the most subversive American films I have ever seen. I am not a huge fan of the film but I massively appreciate the juxtaposition he creates in the movie without telegraphing it.

A director that can give us something as emotionally charged as The Elephant Man ( this was only his his second feature film) whilst still staving off the dreaded sentimental ending that the producers of the film wanted deserves big bonus points for me.

^

I agree with pretty much everything jackhammer is said.

For me, David Lynch ranges from breathtakingly genius to average...ok I'll throw bad in there as well just because I really don't like Dune. Still, most of his work is at least worth one viewing. I think the key to his films in knowing the perfect balance of what should be taken "as is" versus knowing what you should be reading further into. At the very least, I think most people can respect how he doesn't compromise. I think about that whenever I watch Blue Velvet. For when it was released, I'm amazed some of those scenes were able to stay in the film. Even in Twin Peaks there is material that even by today's standards could be seen as pretty graphic.

I honestly don't know, to this day, what people's problem is with Lost Highway. I thought it was fantastic.

i thought it was ok

great soundtrack, though

http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:A...lAkwh-9T3CXoLg

I like 80% of John Carpenters output and I genuinely loved many of his films upon first (and subsequent) viewing that took their time to be appreciated : The Thing (obviously), Big Trouble In Little China, Prince Of Darkness etc but I read so so many bad reviews of Ghosts Of Mars that I didn't give it a chance.

I bought it about 3 or 4 years ago and watched it once but turned it off after half an hour because nothing happened. I then gave it away to my father in law who never watched it so I reclaimed it about a month ago determined to sit through this 'crapfest' and at least have a much more informed opinion for me to bemoan the work of the man.

I watched it around 3 or 4 weeks ago and guess what? It really isn't all that bad at all. Once again it's a disguised Western film that JC adores and despite some bad acting here and there it is damn decent. The claustrophobic setting of a small 'frontier' town is well realised, the cinematography is well utilised and the film score works perfectly well (it's composed by JC and performed by Anthrax, Steve Vai and Buckethead).

Like many JC films, time is definitely on his side and his films generally age well and get better and more appreciated as time goes on. I can't wait to watch it again to be honest!

I feel like the progressive development of sexuality in Lynch's work is a paramount example of how compromises abet his film's accessibility. No, it's the development of romanticism in his work that disturbs me most. His early work is so bleak and despotic; Blue Velvet seems to me like an adaptation of a David Lynch film by a producer who watered down his metaphysical schema with a trite motivation.

I simply feel David Lynch respects too many other aesthetics of filmmaking to make for an effective storyteller. He's messy, he really is.

Well, the problem maybe he's not trying to be a good storyteller. He tends to profit off ambiguity too much sometimes. In a sense, it's what killed Mulholland Drive... It's like... The first half hour establishes 18 side stories that magically disappear...

Then again, I think that's why Twin Peaks worked, he was allowed time to tell a story, and Twin Peaks is quite well put together considering how many substories go on at once in it.