Hello and welcome back to The Dana Gould Hour. Your brief audio respite from the world’s worst reality show, reality. Samm Deighan is here. She is a film historian and author and has written such books as The Legacy Of World War 2 in European Art House Cinema and a study of Fritz Lang’s child murder romp M. Her new book, written with Andrew Nette is entitled Revolution In 35 MM, Political Violence And Resistance In Cinema, From The Art House To The Grindhouse 1960 to 1990. It covers everything from The Battle Of Algiers to Coffin Joe to Zabriskie Point.
Harry Medved and Bennet Yellin are here. Harry Medved wrote the book the 50 Worst Movies of All Time when he was in high school! He was 15 when he wrote that book. And that was in the late 70’s before VHS tapes. He also wrote, with his brother Michael, the Golden Turkey Awards, which, as you know, is what helped put Ed Wood back on the map in the mid-eighties.
He has a series now on PBS called Locationland, where he takes audiences on a tour of famous film locations, this was back when films had locations, as opposed to standing in front of a green screen at a warehouse in Atlanta. I recently had the pleasure of joining Harry on a tour of the locations for a little film you may have heard me talk about, Plan 9 from Outer Space.
Bennet Yellin is an author and screenwriter, he’s written, with the Farrelly Brothers, There’s Something About Mary, Dumb And Dumber, Dumb And Dumber Two. Bennet and Harry have been friends for eons and they are here to talk bad movies, good movies and Ed Wood movies which are, of course, an alchemic mixture of the two.
True Tales From Weirdsville tells the tale of the place both wonderful and strange, Twin Peaks. Like everyone else I was super bummed out by the passing of David Lynch in January. I think it was a combination of things. The election, we were in the middle of these catastrophic fires and then, just when things couldn’t get worse, they did. As much as I love David Lynch and his work, and have back to…I guess Blue Velvet, what he stood for meant more to me than any particular film or television show or what have you.
He was uncompromising in his vision, you could like it or not. That wasn’t the point. That’s a rare thing these days, when studios and networks seem to be operating under the belief that the only audience worth getting is everyone alive, and anything less is a failure. Twin Peaks, it’s origins, success, fall from grace and resurrection is a terrific microcosm of how Lynch’s refusal to compromise created something far greater than the sum of it’s parts, it flew against convention, challenged audiences. In the case of Fire Walk With Me, it really challenged audiences. But in every instance, time has proven Lynch’s instincts were right, so we’re going to do a two, possibly three part series on Lynch’s career through the lens of Twin Peaks.
And NOW, it’s on to our filthy business.
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