Comic Con Report, volume 1, Twin Peaks Edition

One of the episodes most satisfyingly reminiscent of the first two seasons, last night's Twin Peaks, "There's Fire Where You're Going", also continued Lynch's discussion of the relationship between violence and children. It also showed how the forces for good are slow, misdirected, and mysterious, sometimes tragically so. I saw the episode on Friday at a screening at Comic Con--David Lynch had requested that no-one in the audience discuss the episode on social media until after it had aired and I was certainly willing to take direction from him. All the same, I'm glad I can talk about it now.

I'd caught the panel for Twin Peaks in Hall H on Friday afternoon, despite knowing most of it would likely end up on YouTube anyway, which it has:

My favourite moment is in around 20:10 in the second video where Everett McGill talks about Lynch's "sharp edge" after everyone else had been talking about how warm and comfortable the experience of working with Lynch is.

There are a couple things not in the videos, though. The panel was moderated by Damon Lindelof, the creator of The Leftovers and co-creator of Lost. It's unusual to see someone like Lindelof moderate a panel, which in itself speaks to the nature of Twin Peaks' influence, but to make it even clearer, Lindelof began with a speech in which he listed off the variety of great television shows, mentioning The X-Files, True Detective, The Sopranos, and Stranger Things among others, that wouldn't exist without Twin Peaks, concluding by saying that Lost would most certainly not have existed if not for Twin Peaks.

After this, a video David Lynch recorded for the panel was shown. It looked like it was filmed at the same time as his promos for the Japanese station, Wowow, that's airing Twin Peaks in Japan--Lynch sitting, talking to the camera with a black background. But this was much longer than the Wowow promo with Lynch pretending to do multiple takes of his Comic Con message, each time getting interrupted by something absurd--a man off camera jumping out of the window, someone evidently riding into the room on a horse. It was a funny video in an anachronistically corny way but also slightly disturbing. I'm glad I saw it.

When I found out that there was going to be a screening that night at 10pm of episode 11, two days before it aired, I wasn't sure I wanted to go. Did seeing it two days early really matter and did I really want to see it in a crowded room with uncontrolled potential distractions? Not to mention I had left my apartment at 7:30am and leaving Comic Con at 11pm meant I wouldn't get home until at least 1am. But I finally decided I wanted the experience of seeing an episode of the new series with an audience of fans reacting to it for the first time. Apparently David Lynch thought the same thing because we were informed that he was watching us watching the show. I suppose there hasn't been a screening for the show since Cannes and this would be Lynch's chance to gauge the reaction of a completely different kind of audience.

The screening started a few minutes late because some "talent", we were informed, were unable to get into the building. It being so late, a lot of doors were evidently locked. But finally we were surprised to see walking into the room Kimmy Robertson, Everett McGill, James Marshall, and Don Murray who plays Bushnell Mullins on the new series, Dougie's boss. Before they arrived, I found myself in agreement with someone I overheard sitting behind me who said he hoped people would avoid too much cheering or applause during the episode. But as it turned out, I felt really good when the audience broke out into applause when Don Murray appeared on screen, doing little push-ups on his desk. It must have felt good for him to hear that.

None of the surprise guests spoke except a woman whose name I didn't catch who told us that she had just face timed with Lynch, informing us that Lynch could see us, and saying that Lynch had instructed her to recite a poem and asked those of us who could to speak it along with her. I wish I'd had more memory left on my camera by that point to get more than this brief clip:

She started it quickly but many people in the room did catch up and start saying it along with her.

I felt sort of worried that people were going to laugh at the wrong moments during the screening and I hoped people wouldn't respond in a way that would disappoint Lynch. The screening was held in Room 6A, one of the larger rooms upstairs and I sat through several panels before it. Any asshole could've walked in but the Con crowd is generally pretty cool and civil to one another. That and the fact that it was held so late, I think, ensured that it was a screening blessedly free of distraction. "There's Fire Where You are Going" turned out to be a particularly good episode for the occasion, featuring as it did several crowd-pleasing moments.

Spoilers after the screenshot

The episode begins with a rather old fashioned scene of three little boys playing catch. One of them is older than the other two and seems to be using his higher rank responsibly, encouraging the other two, complementing a successful catch and saying it was okay when a catch was missed. When he ran out into the street to get the ball, worried sounds from people in the screening audience told me everyone was thinking he was going to get hit by a car. But instead we see Miriam (Sarah Jean Long) who has managed to survive her encounter with Richard and crawl away. The sweet pie lover from the RR now looks pretty horrific.

I guess she doesn't have a phone--this would explain why she chose to report Richard via letter and why she couldn't call for help. Why doesn't she have a phone? Why can't Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) wake up? The paths to safety and effectiveness are mysteriously blocked.

Except Dougie seems to be getting by on pure instinct. When Dougie's meet up with the Mitchum brothers concluded in the desert with Rodney (Robert Knepper) and Bradley (Jim Belushi) ecstatic over the 30 million dollar check, the audience applauded widely and it occurred to me how the episode was broken down into little stories and how masterfully Lynch orchestrates the telling of them with sound and editing. Dialogue, too, but I think what Twin Peaks is showing is how many aspects of cinematic storytelling are being neglected for the fact that the star of this modern age of television tends to be the writer. I can see this being related to the joy in experiencing Twin Peaks without the spoilers of trailers and synopses--audiences who are used to getting all the material via language might see little difference between getting the description of an episode plot from Wikipedia and actually experiencing the episode itself. Obviously I'm a great lover of writing but Twin Peaks is highlighting the other methods of storytelling.

The episode features two instances of guns being fired but failing to harm or kill--Becky (Amanda Seyfried) firing a gun into the apartment of Donna's sister, Gersten (Alicia Witt), and the little boy who finds a gun in his parents' car and fires off two shots. Where the first seasons of Twin Peaks began with the horror of a child murdered by an adult, Lynch is now writing for a world where the horror often comes from the fact that kids are murdering kids. Neither Becky or the little boy ought to have had access to a firearm, I think that much is clear.

The one point where I felt like the audience had an inappropriate reaction was when they laughed at this shot of the little boy. I think Lynch meant for it to be a little more disturbing though I think laughter is sometimes provoked by nervousness and fear. Lynch tellingly juxtaposes the kid with his father, both looking like hunters in their camoflage--or one could say woodsmen.

This sequence, beginning to end, is in itself a masterpiece. From where it starts in the diner to where it ends with the sick girl in the car, Lynch strings along surprising pieces of information with the instincts of a great orchestra conducter. I want to point out again how much mileage he gets from the briefest shots of Peggy Lipton.

This actress has become a genius at communicating with subtle facial expressions. I'd also be surprised if Dana Ashbrook doesn't get a lot of phone calls for cop roles after this.

We finally get filled in on the details of the new Briggs family dynamics and we see Shelly (Madchen Amick) has once again fallen for a bad boy, Red (Balthazar Getty), though he seems to be a lot worse than Bobby ever was. It was nice to see the brief look of sympathy Becky gives to Bobby, as was her sudden realisation that she'd very nearly killed her mother in one of the show's most effective stunt sequences.

Becky does love her parents and, like Shelly's love for Red, Becky's love for Steven (Caleb Landry Jones) seems misguided though one is given pause when one considers the same might have been said for Shelly's love for Bobby in the original series. Like those gunshots, things never seem to hit the mark.

And I can talk about all this and I still haven't mentioned Gordon's (David Lynch) encounter with the woodsmen and the death of William Hastings (Matthew Lillard). That was wonderfully done and I loved the compositions in the police station afterwards--I mean, jeez, look at this, where do you see anything like this in film or television?

Laura Dern is making Diane a strange and beautiful femme fatale.

And after all this greatness, the episode ends with a scene that might be the best of all, the Mitchum Brothers and Dougie dining on cherry pie and champagne with the piano tune that magically switches from heartbroken to mysterious and playful at just the right moments. I loved how Candie (Amy Shiels) seemed about to break into a song about the traffic on the strip.

Seeing her with Dougie, and their similarly spaced out personalities, made me feel more and more that, if the question this season is "Who is Laura Palmer," my money is on Candie.

Twitter Sonnet #1016

In future darkness dreams of pie await.
In space magicians long to see a play.
Between two worlds of dawn and night we ate.
In steady step with fire I assay.
In dough began the sign of coffee smoke.
In dreams the special box directs the heat.
Tobacco dragons saw the fated stroke.
Forensic cats ascend the hotter seat.
In turning skies the stairs descend on Earth.
In barrels ev'rywhere the shots'll miss.
Beneath enclosing air's encrusted worth.
A fighting bull awaits in quiet bliss.
The lights on asphalt crashed into the toad.
Electric stones begin to burn the road.

Sunday, So the Sun Sets on Comic Con

Here's the last photo I took of Comic Con 2017. A few people were still lined up under those white tents for Hall H even though the last Hall H panel had ended already. It is a nice shaded spot, anyway. It was around 4:30pm--I don't usually leave so late on Sunday but I felt like lingering this year, I really didn't want it to end. Normally I know better than to leave so late because the trolleys that are already packed like sardines throughout the Con are packed at the end like the contents of two cans of sardines crammed into one. With the heat, it was exactly like the bus scene from the beginning of Stray Dog, and I mean exactly like that--sweating people trying to stand nonchalantly with their heads in strangers' armpits. It occurred to me I was wearing a linen sport coat almost exactly like Toshiro Mifune's and that my camera was in the same pocket as the one the pick-pocket takes his pistol from. I thought about how much it would suck to lose my camera to-day. I'd have lost this photo of me with Gigi Edgley, for example.

It was really nice to meet her. I told her how much I loved her performance in Farscape, how I liked the physical mannerisms she came up with for her character, Chiana, an alien woman belonging to a race called the Nebari. She talked to me about how she didn't want to play a human woman wearing alien makeup and so she came up with alien mannerisms.

If you haven't seen Farscape and you like fantasy or sci-fi or just good television or movies, you'd be doing yourself a big favour checking it out.

Edgley and I talked about how much influence Farscape has had on modern television and movies, most obviously on Guardians of the Galaxy, which resembles Farscape a lot more than the comic it's based on. Chiana is one of my favourite characters in the history of television due in no small part to Edgley's performance so it was nice to meet her.

To-morrow I'll start making longer, proper entries about the Con. If I don't sleep all day. I can feel all four days catching up with me.

Sharks and Aliens at Comic Con

I haven't been taking many cosplay photos this year. Too many sites are doing a more exhaustive job of catching every interesting and halfway interesting costume than I can. So far I've only stopped two people to ask if I could take their picture.

I loved this woman's hat. She told me the costume is normally meant to be a storm but she added the sharks because of Sharknado and Comic Con. I wonder at what occasions she dresses as just a storm.

I was surprised to see a Lum costume, and this woman was very surprised I recognised it.

She explained to me she had sewn the bikini bottom too but that her husband wouldn't let her wear it because it was too small in the back.

Yesterday was one of the longest days I've spent at the Con, leaving my apartment at 7:30am and not getting home until after 1:00am. But it was worth it. I'll have to wait til Monday to write more about it. To-day, more Con . . .

Comic Con Crab and Doctors

This crab was on the rocks watching everything outside the Indigo Ballroom yesterday where it turned out there was a panel I wanted to see, a Doctor Who panel, which I'll be posting more about when I have time. For now, here's Peter Davison, Sophie Aldred, and Colin Baker responding to the casting of Jodie Whittaker as the 13th Doctor:

Twitter Sonnet #1015

As minty buttons pop the cream of ice,
The grace of ploughing bows impressed a thaw,
Invoked a chasing ray to spark it twice,
The northern lights, a body's moving law.
Excessive spinach fell beside the ore,
The veins exposed in pick and shovel wrath,
Absorbing drops of sandwich, tea, and more,
Awash in chips and ale, its dinner bath.
An ogre's pants upset the drawing man
Beside the storm that brought to hats a fish
Unsuited sharks adorn the festive pan
Outside the pit of bats it was a dish.
The rocks outside uphold the chitin queue.
A coat can be a dress or nightgown, too.

Preliminary Comic Con Post

This was outside Comic Con yesterday. I don't know what it's for but it seemed to say something about dedication.

Yesterday, Wednesday, was Preview Night, I generally just go in to pick up my bag and programme on Wednesday. In previous years I went in that day to pick up my badge but for the past couple years they've been mailing this out. I still had to follow a special route inside, though, because it looks like they're cracking down on people who try to take multiple bags and programmes--the security card system they use at the entrances now is also used at the bag pick up. So if you were planning to make a dress out of just this year's bag (as some do), good luck, it's kind of small this year.

It was more crowded than I'm used to seeing it on a Wednesday. I took a chance and got on the trolley closer to the Con than I normally do but there was still standing room only. I actually live relatively close to the Con but this counts for nothing if you don't actually live downtown. To give you an idea:

After that trolley station people are packed like sardines inside. Even going that far out I'm not guaranteed to get a seat.

There are no panels I want to see to-day so I'm going in relatively late. I plan to just roam the floor to-day. Entries here should be short until after the Con, though, when I'll give fuller Con reports.

Here are a few more pictures from yesterday:

Nylon Stockings and Samurai Armour

As difficult and strange as cultural change can be, it tends to manifest very close to home, if not in the home, as in the case of Yasujiro Ozu's 1950 film The Munekata Sisters (宗方姉妹). Two sisters, an older and a younger, have different personalities, one shaped more by pre-World War II Japan and the other shaped more by U.S. occupied Japan. Like Kurosawa, Ozu shows in his film that western conceptions of democracy and personal liberty were in many ways healthy new influences on the culture but, while this film isn't quite as eloquent as his better known films, Ozu does succeed in suggesting there are some things lost in such cultural changes because their value cannot be explained in simple logic.

Ozu makes it crystal clear which culture holds sway over which sister. The elder, Setsuko (Kinuyo Tanaka), always wears kimonos and is generally more reserved in her manners while Mariko (Hideko Takamine) always wears western style blouses and skirts. But as with cultural change in general, it's hard to see how much is due to Mariko's youthful rebelliousness and how much is due to Setsuko being set in her ways.

Certainly Mariko seems in many ways still a child. Her father, Ozu's usual face of tranquil wisdom, Chishu Ryu, chides her for her habit of sticking her tongue out.

Mariko's unsure herself if she's behaving properly and needs reassurance, despite her outward assertiveness, and she explains this is why she reads her sister's diary without her permission, to find out if the elder sister was like Mariko when she was her age. And Mariko is surprised to find Setsuko was in love at one time with a young man named Hiroshi (Ken Uehara) but their affair ended when Hiroshi left for France and Setsuko married Mimura (So Yamamura).

We find out that Mimura also read Setsuko's diary and that's why he's out of work and slowly drinking himself to death. Setsuko runs a bar and supports Mimura, just one of the reasons Mariko thinks she should divorce him. When Hiroshi comes back to town, Mariko makes it her personal mission to get Setsuko and Hiroshi back together.

Mariko has no doubts about her quest but it's hard to say how unhappy Setsuko really is since she has that reserved demeanour, seeming perfectly happy to do the household chores for Mimura, though she does stick up for herself when Mimura's drunk and says unreasonable things to her.

At the bottom of the basic philosophical struggle seems to be a conflict between whether it is better to assert oneself to attain happiness and achievements or whether one should take others into consideration and sacrifice for them--and this dichotomy doesn't always match up with the Japanese and Western dichotomy, sometimes one valuing sacrifice more than the other and vice versa. This makes things all the more confusing as Western ideals of sacrifice set off Japanese conceptions of self-denial.

Being young and championing a very firm point of view of right or wrong, however much she might be insecure secretly, Mariko doesn't understand why it's so hard for people to change their lives, why it's so hard for Setsuko to simply get a divorce and reunite with Hiroshi. One character has to explain to Mariko how difficult it must be for the kamikaze pilot who now works at the bar whose life was once about giving everything up for Japan but is now about just being a waiter.

A quote from Don Quixote with a jaunty Johnnie Walker statue at the bar become less and less funny the more they're shown and the more Mimura drinks and this seems a poignant symbol of the unforeseen consequences of dropping aspects of one culture into another.

Finding the Best Seat

Well, it's time once again to play the Game of Thrones. Sunday's premiere got season seven off to kind of a meek start. As usual for a first episode of the season, a lot of time was spent refreshing the viewer on the previous season but even for that it seemed like it waffled quite a bit.

Spoilers after the screenshot

The splashiest moment came at the beginning when David Bradley turned out to be Arya Stark, following up her turn as Titus Andronicus with a simpler mass poisoning. It was fun watching Arya's glee on David Bradley's face but Maisie Williams soon resumes Arya duties.

Once again I get the sense she would be the world's most inept assassin if she hadn't stolen magic powers. She doesn't even have a story ready when she's asked why she's going to King's Landing and her encounter with Ed Sheeran's band of Lannister soldiers seems to indicate this is the first time she's even thought about the fact that the common footsoldiers are just regular people unattached to the machinations of Lannister nobility. I guess that's the kind of thing she was supposed to be learning when she was posing as fish monger. But, no thanks, Arya wants the good grades without having to actually learn anything.

I always used to say the Starks were the dullest characters on the show except for Arya. But after her dramatic seaborne departure from Westeros a couple seasons ago she's done her best to take over the legacy of Stark dullness.

Meanwhile, Sansa (Sophie Turner) and Jon (Kit Harrington) are squabbling in front of a full council. Sansa wants to massacre the whole families of traitors, Jon wants to leave them in charge, no one suggests imprisoning them. I am still so on Team Cersei (Lena Headey).

I feel especially bad for her now that Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) is constantly whining. When she says the Freys were untrustworthy allies, Jaime argues it's better to have untrustworthy allies than none, nevermind Cersei wasn't saying anything to the contrary. Then when Cersei brings in Urine (sorry, Euron) Greyjoy (Pilou Asbaek), suddenly Jaime's complaining they're not good enough. You want to wait for a perfect ally now, Jaime? Can Cersei do anything right with you? Why not try being supportive?

My favourite section was Samwell (John Bradley) having to do menial chores in maester training. I've always said I wanted to see more of the mundane stuff in Westeros and here it is. I love how the food he serves is almost indistinguishable from the stuff in the chamber pots he collects. Of course, the plot doesn't make much sense--if Samwell can't look at the forbidden books, what's the harm in someone else looking up how to defeat the White Walkers, like Jim Broadbent's character, who says he believes Sam? It seems like a pretty artificial roadblock to draw things out. It is nice seeing Jim Broadbent. After Jonathan Pryce and Peter Vaughan I wonder if eventually every cast member from Brazil will appear on Game of Thrones. I'm looking forward to seeing Katherine Helmond, if that's the case.

Once again, the show has some amazing costumes and locations.

Twitter Sonnet #1014

The cherry fish in chambers parsed for rice
Upheld the pickle yard, contorted keys
Involved in island growth assort the mice
From small to smaller graces make the trees.
Domestic pop imports a soda can,
In quarters clamped to pin machines affirmed
In shining blue or red or metal tan,
Though some say copper, bronze, or gold's confirmed.
No fleece affronted fifty clicking claws
Impounded by the stalks of dreamy crabs
Collecting coin for church's certain law
Or buying frames to make the metal cabs.
The sounds of mallets make the hollow beat.
In storms, the lounge has grown the softest seat.

Lost Hunters

David Lynch's ability to blur the line between comedy and horror was on admirable and fascinating display last night on the new Twin Peaks. Moving to a meditation on abuse and disjointed affection, last night's episode, "Laura is the One", continued the show's exploration of the basic problem arising between innocent love and jaded selfishness.

Spoilers after the screenshot

More and more, I think Jerry Horne's (David Patrick Kelly) statements on his ongoing odyssey in the woods are reflections or distillations of the whole episode's themes. This time we see him frustrated that his phone is getting no signal and it prompts him to scream, "You can't fool me, I've been here before!" If we distil this moment to its basic meaning, we can see that it is repeated in different ways throughout the episode--Jerry, who's lost, doesn't have what he desperately needs, a phone signal, which would allow him to communicate his need for help. His response, prompted by his distress, is to make a display of strength along with a denial of the apparent reality, claiming false or irrelevant knowledge ("I've been here before"). There's the assumption that, because there was a signal there before, there ought to be one now, based on Jerry's feelings more than anything else.

Richard Horne (Eamon Farren) is lost in another kind of woods, guilty of killing a child, his display of strength is physical violence. He goes to his grandmother, Sylvia Horne (Jan D'Arcy), and when he doesn't receive the aid he did in the past, he shows strength and asserts a right to what she has. Then we see this pattern reflected again when Sylvia calls Ben (Richard Beymer) and she expects more money from him while he considers it unreasonable. This is similar to the situation with Frank Truman and his wife who seemed irrationally aggressive but our reactions to her are tempered when we find out what happened to their kid. So now we see Sylvia, who throughout the first two seasons barely had a presence except as a nag to Ben, has her own reasons for being emotionally distressed and aggressive. And who can blame her.

Poor Johnny Horne (Eric Rondell). That bear with the distinctly Lynchian replacement head is like an instrument of torture but is clearly meant to be some kind of therapeutic device.

Carl (Harry Dean Stanton) has his gentle love song interrupted by a mug thrown out of a trailer window by an abusive Steven (Caleb Landry Jones) who's screaming at a cowering Becky (Amanda Seyfried) about his needs. I guess he is as bad as Leo. He concludes by asserting "I know what you did." Again, a violent assertion of a perceived right based on possibly false or irrelevant knowledge.

My favourite thread in the episode was Candie's (Amy Shiels). Wow, was that strange and intriguing. It starts with a bit that seems like a repeat of Lucy (Kimmy Robertson) chasing a fly in the sheriff's station from the original series. Candie hunts the fly with a red handkerchief but, in what should be little more than a moment of broad slapstick, she smacks her gangster employer, Rodney Mitchum (Robert Knepper), in the face with a remote control.

It's funny except Candie is bizarrely devastated. Still crying about it later, she wonders, "How can you ever love me after what I did?", much to the confusion of both Rodney and his brother Bradley (Jim Belushi). Her reaction is out of proportion for several reasons, for one because no-one really believes she meant to cause him harm, and another because their relationship doesn't seem to have been on this emotional level. She's one of three girls who seem basically to be living ornaments or errand girls. The Mitchum brothers clearly don't seem ready for her to actually put emotional investment like this in her role, it's as though she's been bewitched by the superficial details. When she muddles a simple task later it's because she seems, like Dougie (Kyle MacLachlan), to have become a sleep walker. The episode's title, and the Log Lady's (Catherine Coulson) message near the end, refer to Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee). But aside from a vision of a scene from Fire Walk with Me witnessed by Gordon Cole (David Lynch), we don't see any reference to Laura. Since Leland tasked Cooper with finding Laura, I've wondered if this meant Laura has become an inhabiting spirit like Bob or Mike. Could she have taken possession of Candie? Or maybe we're meant to be looking for her in the characters and thereby scrutinising them differently for that reason.

And where does Dougie fit into this? He has a visit with the doctor, in fact Doctor Phlox, of all people, from Star Trek: Enterprise, John Billingsley. The casting is odd for how not odd it is. We learned in the previous episode that people are used to Dougie having lingering effects from a car accident, so that explains why people haven't been more alarmed by his recent behaviour. It doesn't prevent him from bonding with Janey-E (Naomi Watts) on a physical level. So at least one couple is happy in this episode, though, again, it's a relationship based on a misunderstanding. I loved how Watts is lit in the sex scene:

Of course, I should point out I was right about Albert (Miguel Ferrer) and Constance (Jane Adams), who seem to be on the right track.