This week on The Never Seen It Podcast, we tackle David Lynch’s Inland Empire — a surreal, low-fi fever dream packed with identity shifts, haunted soundstages, creepy rabbits, and themes of abuse and trauma that are as disturbing as they are abstract. The story barely makes sense (even to the cast), but that’s part of the ride. We break down the chaos, the digital weirdness, and yes — Lynch promoting the film with a cow for Laura Dern’s Oscar campaign. 🐄 🎧 Tune in and let us know what you think it all means. 👉 Like, comment, and follow the show — it really helps us out!
This week on The Never Seen It Podcast, we enter the shadowy, hypnotic labyrinth that is David Lynch’s Inland Empire — and honestly, we’re still trying to find our way out.
In true Lynch fashion, this one’s a full-on fever dream: fragmented timelines, identity blurring, eerie rabbits, haunted Hollywood lots, and more emotional dread than you can shake a handheld digital camcorder at. We unpack the film’s lo-fi, almost ghostly aesthetic and how it heightens the surreal, nightmarish mood of the story.
We dive into the heavy themes of abuse, domestic violence, and trauma that bubble beneath the surface. Though even that feels like an understatement, because some parts are so abstract and experimental, they’re almost beyond analysis. Even the cast didn’t fully know what they were filming at times... and that somehow makes it even more Lynchian.
Oh, and we couldn’t talk about Inland Empire without mentioning David Lynch standing in downtown Hollywood with a cow and a sign campaigning for Laura Dern’s Oscar nom. Iconic.
🎧 Give it a listen, and let us know what you think this movie is about (we’re genuinely curious).
👉 Don’t forget to like, comment, and follow the show — it really helps us out and keeps the weird conversations flowing.
Bing, bok, boom, bok, bing, bok, bang.
Is that is that.
What the hell is that?
Who played that?
Is that James Vanderbeek?
No, that's exactly from.
Is that Dawson's Creek?
Where's that from?
You, I don't I have mine somewhere.
I don't.
James's, but I have it somewhere still.
Yeah, The The little sticky hand thing fell off.
I thought about
We did the voiceland thing at Comic-Con?
That's not Diplow?
No, it's James Vantor.
He looks like Diplo.
He looks I don't know why, but I always
confused James V Verbeek with Casper Van Diem from Starship Troopers.
I don't know why.
I think he's just generic white boy from their early
2000s, number 35, Alex.
All the Chrises look the same.
Chris Pine, Chris
Chris Swanson, Chris.
Chris Rock.
Yeah, exactly.
Chris Rock is Chris.
Christopher Lloyd, Christopher.
Marty!
That was pretty good.
Thank you.
That was.
I try.
I try on this show.
Welcome I've never seen it podcast, the
only podcast called I've Never Seen It Podcast worth listening to.
Today's episode is brought to you by Bristol Brand Cooked.
If you want a h to looks, tastes, and it smells like cat food
Bristol Brand has the stuff for you.
Is that just spam?
That would be an insult to spam.
Spam, I can stomach.
I tried I got two of these.
I tried one of them on Easter Sunday.
No, no, no dice.
Did you go to the commissary or what?
No dice for that.
No, it was donated to me.
It was donated to me.
Oh, yeah.
I figured.
It was donated.
Yeah, dude.
It seems to kind of like the kind of hand that would be donated.
Also, parent emergency bags or whatever.
Hey you doing, son?
I went to the commissary and got
now it's under my feet.
It's the kind that would be mailed to you. for sure.
s.
When we'd go to church and we had Sunday dinner there.
Arnold, remember?
That's the kind of hat that would be served to us.
Yeah.
But are in the bigger cans. gross.
It's so gross.am is the dick of Christ.
Spam is
if you thinly sice, if
you thinly slice spam and you cook it kind
of crispy with eggs and stuff, that's great with this.
And with rice.
Oh, yeah.
Spam and rice..
I had amate I had a roommate named John in college,.
All he ate was spam and rice, bro.
Was he thick?
Was he thick?
Oh, oh, boy, he was a thick boy.
Did he sweat a lot?
I think so.
His name was John.
I'd always be like, motherfucking John.
And he would hate that.
He fucking, one time his friend was like, okay, John's
here, but just do me a favor and just do whatever you do.
Don't say motherfucking John.
Because he hates that.
So what'd you say?
mother loving?
Mother.
More, actually.
Okay, but shout out to the ham company.
Shout out to the ham company, though.
Shout out to the ham.
Yeah.
Anyways, we're talking about the 2006
David Lynch movie Inland Empire.
Log line as a Hollywood actress begins to adopt
the persona of her character in a film.
Her world becomes nightmarish and
surreal, and that is an understatement, starring
Laura Dern, Jeremy Irons, Justin
Thoreau, Harry Dean.
So many people popped up in this, Terry Cruz, you know, William H.
Like, what?
Macy.
Like, not even a whole scene either, just like a snippet of a scene, William H.
Macy.
But yeah, that's the 2006 film Inland
Empire, directed by the great late David Lynch.
This was his last official feature film.
I don't know if you guys know that, because everything he did after that was like side projects.
He never did a feature film after this
Or was it the second to last?
He was supposed to do a Netflix animated show.
It was second to last, but I don't think we count
Twin Peaks, WC.
Oh, the show, right?
Because that's already an established thing.
So I think as far as like original screenplay and script, it was Inland Empire
Yeah, that's so interesting Because, I mean, 2000, I mean,
I was in college in 2006 And, uh, and it's just crazy to think.
I mean, that was so long ago, and this was literally the last movie he made, the last like a feature film
that he made.
But yeah, so, you know, I don't even know how how he unpack this movie.
This was a fever dream movie movie, which I
think is to be expected by David Lynch right?
right?
Like, I feel like all his movies are favorite Dreams.
I've only ever seen a Racerhead
and Mulhand Drive.
By the way, who picked this movie?
That was you, dude.
That was me.
Who picked it.
Hey, Adrian, who picked this movie?
Your choice.
Hey, did you pick this movie?
I did pick this movie.
Why did you pick this movie?
Because, idiot, it's interesting.
No, I don't know.
I think this movie because
Of all the movies you could have chosen.
Yeah.
In his like his filmography.
See, he died and I wanted to watch more David
Lynch stuff because I've already seen Mohand Drive.
I've already seen, like I said, to R Red.
I thought, um Inland Empire, because we're from the England Empire.
I know I am at least.
I thought, oh, I am for sure sure.
This was your first time watching it, Adrian?
It was my first time watching it.
And I thought
it was going to be set in the desert and riverside, maybe somewhere.
That's what I thought, too.
As it turns out, he only called it that because he thought it sounded
cool because Laura Durn was like talking to David Lynch and she was like, oh, I have family in England.
Oh, Inland Empire, I'm going to call it that.
The movie is called
and Lland Empire.
For real?
Well, this is also, this is also part of the LA trilogy.
So his LA. trilogy.
So Lost Highway,an
Drive, and then Inland Empire is the third in the trilogy.
I is that like nine hours of movies or what?
Well, I mean,
made close to it.
Close to, I'm sure.
Maybe a minute or two off.
But, yeah, what a movie.
I mean, I don't even know.
I mean, like I said, so I picked it because I wanted to watch more David Lynch stuff.
It was my first time watching it.
Who else?
You know what?
Let's do the opposite.
Who here has seen it?
Okay, just...
I start with you because you've already seen it.
Did you do a rewatch or are you going off memory?
I did a rewatch.
I had to.
It's been a long time since I watched it.
And I was like,, oh, yeah, this is this is probably way
why I didn't like go back to watch it again.
Not that I hated it because I love this movie a lot, actually, but
I just forget how fucking long it is, dude.
And there are some moments where I'm like, okay,
well, this scene is happening, so I'm going to spend the time doing some research on what I just seen.
And so it gave me enough like leeway to kind of like
be like, okay, well, I'm kind of listening and watching,
but I'm going to Google like what the hell this
means because I don't recall understanding, really.
So there's a few things that I, while I was watching the movie,
I just kind of pulled up my phone and just did some research because there was a lot of
not like, I don't want to say empty space in
the movie, but there's a lot of really long
drawn out scenes, but it's also like a David Lynch
thing where it's like, he even says in like
a video where he's directing and he's like, who gives a fuck
how long a scene is?
So that's like, that's that's his, that's his mentality.
So I'm like, okay, let me just, you know, do something.
And then, and when I walk back into it, I'm like, well, cool.
I'm, you know, I know just as much now as I did then.
So
Well, you know what's cool?
You know what's cool about?
You know, how we talked about earlier off
the show, how he used the sonony digital camera, Camcorder?
Yeah.
He liked it because
one of the reason why he liked it was you
could do 40 minute takes without like stopping, you know?
You don't have to worry about the film, the cost of the film or anything like that.
So he was able to be very David Lynchian.
The funny thing is that he chose what's called a prosumer camera.
And at that time, there were professional grade
HD digital cameras.
I mean, Lucas was using them for Star Wars, collateral,
if you guys ever saw that, was shot on a high-end digitalital camera at the time.
So it's funny to me that he chose
the proumer grade, Sony PD 150 to.
I mean, those are mini D. I wonder.
They're this big.
I wonder if it's like a cost saving thing.
If you think about it.
He's a, at the time, he
was this big name director who like was known for like doing being an autor
making these like grand films
of his own like art, right?
That probably took a long time.
Like he even said like the for the filming of
this movie, he didn't go in.
It was the first time he went into like filming a movie without a script.
So he'd write the, like, he'd come up with an idea for the
scene and he film film it right away, which was the beauty of also like doing it such low budget
with like a camera, that style.
And, you know, he could take his time with like the filming of it.
And obviously all those actors were probably already living in LA.
So if they needed to shoot, you know what I mean?
Like it's, it kind of makes sense.
Well, on top of that, to add on to that is
this movie was also, from what I read,
was shot over the course of a couple years as well.
So it wasn't it wasn't a short take.
It was, you know, a collection of shots
over a couple of years, which is pretty crazy dedication.
I can't think of another director that worked that works like that
or has worked like, I mean, who would come close?
Maybe, Alex, Jim Joush, maybe?
I mean Jim Jarou, maybe, but even him,
like, I feel like he comes with an idea and then he he
he like does pre-production and then he
he has like a writing team or like he writes the script and everything like that.
And even that, it's like they come
with an idea whereas was like, well, but this is actually the first time he'd
ever David Lynch had ever done that, where he came into filming of a movie
where he didn't have a script, you know, but it
makes sense that it took that long for three years.
But David Lynch takes a while to like produce films in general.
But so it kind of lent to
the style even more to be for him to be even more David Lynchian, you know?
Yeah, you know, normally when
you read about a movie that's shooting with an unfinished script, which does happen
on big budget movies, Jurassic Park 3 is a famous example,
normally that's bad news for the movie.
Yeah, and normally it's like, oh shit, this movie's going to be bad
But I feel like Lynch was one of the few people who
could get away with it because he really is that that high
level a tour of a filmmaker, you know?
But, yeah, lots of interesting behind the scenes facts, which I'm sure we'll get into as we go.
But I got I got I got to go around the room and say like, like, what
set piece in this movie stands out to you guys the most?
Arnold, let's go with you.
What's stood out to you of all the craziness in this movie?
What was like the one moment or scene or whatever that you're like, oh, fuck?
Because I'm sure there was something.
There were so many.
There were so many.
It was really confusing.
It just took me like four days to watch.
Almost as
as long as how he made the movie.
I fell asleep or was
struggling to stay awake during all each time.
Arnold, I did fall asleep a couple times too and I had you.
So you're not alone.
But it was also really late and I had a a long day of work.
Yeah.
I was dosing off during that scene with the girls,
those weird girls when she first moved.
No, go ahead.
Oddly, I did.
The one with the shoulder
Which one?
faces.
Did that wake you?
Did that perk you up, Arnold?
You know what?
Actually, when I was the next day when I was rewinding to
go to find where I left off, I was rewinding and I was like seeing, I was like, what?
I missed that.
So then I was like, I for sure didn't see that.
So I was like, okay, I got it was before that, so I got to make sure to catch that.
When we said Seth.
You were watching it just for the plot.
That's all you cared about.
You didn't care about it.
Of course.
Of course, plot and the meaning, the depth, you know, something a truew on, you know?
Cup size.
Oh, um, okay.
So one thought that I had, you know, because I was I went into it,
not even Googling or reading about, like, what is this movie about?
I, I thought it was about the Inland Empire, like, where I live, you know?
it, and when I think of Inland Empire, you know, there's,
it's like, uh, for people who are
Breaking Bad fans, you know, that Breaking Bad, um
oh, it was about to be set in the inland Empire, right?
And
and what was popular about Breaking Bad was
was meth and everything.
And so, but out
here, we have DHS or Desert Hot Springs, which is like
one of the meth capitals of the world.
You know, it's it's like, it's the perfect place.
Oh, perfect is not really a good word to associate
with meth, but um, uh Perfect meth.
It's perfect if you're a math dealer or a math user or the cook.
Because it's always breezy over there, it's's always
difficult to find which house is cooking it because
it's hard to pinpoint the smell.
Wait, why are you why are you so un invested in this?
Um...
He has a long history with meth, just just so you.
Yeah.
Here's my inland Empire reaction.
Okay.
The let paint stare.
That's good.
That was a lot of that.
I loved watching the whole movie.
Wasn't there a lot of that where like they would like the guy with
the glasses, like she would be talking, he's like,
yeah.
You really, I don't get that.
He wasn't a meth den type of deal going on there.
Who Yo, who was that guy?
I was confused.
Is he?
He was like some like marriage lawyer or what was he?
I thought he was a Are you talking about the guy when she's telling the story about like.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, so, okay.
That guy. you end up later on finding
out that he's the projectionist for the movie theater.
Right, right, right.
But, but he is actually a manifestation of the male bunny
in that room.
Wait, how did you make that connection?
Because I' Okay, yeah..
So he's the only one.
I need you guys help to like digest all this this.
Well, Arnold will yield this time to Alex.
Yeah, Alex, explain to us back because I did not..
I'll jump back to the DHS.
Yeah, we'll come back to that.
I didn't understand the whole bunny.
The bunny stuff intrigued me.
It was such a creepy fucking vibe
to that whole bunny fake sitcom.
So tell me.
So, yeah, it's definitely, so it was a sitcom,
but it was based off of that, you know, that story. that
they were talking about, a Blue Tomorrow or something like that.
Right.
It's And that that story is actually like a
Polish old Polish story, like an actual Polish story that wasn't finished.
And
that story
is what's being told in that sitcom, right?
And those bunnies are the characters in that story
but because it's an unfinished story,
they're cursed to keep religiousiving it until
somebody finishes the story.
Right.
So it's a metaphor for like what's going on in the.
So there's that whole thing like, um,
what is it?
I have it in my notes.
It's.
Oh, in the Inland Empire.
So, so the, like.
Construction.
The tagline for the movie is a woman in trouble, right?
Right.
So who's the woman in trouble?
Laura.
No, it's not.
It's the girl in the room watching the
sitcom..
She's trapped in that room and she's trapped watching that som.
And that's her, the ending, it makes so much more sense now.
Oh, my God.
I just had an epiphany
Oh my God.
Okay.
So they're all trapped.
They're all trapped.
And it's and it's also, so David Lynch is very into
transcendentalness meditation, right?
Very much into that.
And it's like seems like it.
The very beginning of the film, like when you see
uh the visitor, that that lady that walks up to Laura Dur's house.
She's like, um, like a messenger of sorts.
I have to see, I'm just kind of like, like..
You're talking about the old woman, right?
The old lady, right?
Yeah, yeah.
Exactly..
Exactly.
Fun fact, that's actually Laura Dern's mother, written in real life.
Oh, really?
Really
Yeah, yeah.
I could not get that.
A little bit alike.
Yeah, yeah.
That's so I see, I thought the old
lady from the beginning, because we see her again at the very end,
I thought she was reminiscing about
a lot of the events that took place earlier in the movie and that she
was the young girl trapped in the room watching the sick.
So, so what it is is like she's telling the story.
It's like a microcosm of
what the events that are about to come
about in the film, right?
But she's also talking about how to
like make it through.
She talks about like you're in the marketplace.
You're lost in the marketplace.
And that in transcendental meditation, there's this idea of the
he talks about like, there's levels to everything, right?
And you're just in the marketplace.
You're just looking at everything and everything is, all these vendors and everything are
just like, they have different experiences and like,
you're like, everybody's got something to sell you, right?
But, but your goal is to make it to the palace.
If she talks about
like, you need to make it to the palace.
And if you, if you notice at the very end of the film,
like everybody seems to, like, once they've
actually been able to break that cycle, that ending,
this ending sequence in the credits, they're in a palace
and all these characters who were trapped there, they're happy, they're joyful.
And they're like celebrating and smiles on their faces.
Yeah, exactly.
And so that's what happens.
That's that makes a whole lot of sense because I
had I thought it was just a random, hey, girls, let's
get in here and film all the pretty girls dancing.
Go ahead.
And then you know, the's what they do.
Oh, they all were able to break out of that cycle that.
I underestimate David legit.
Oh.
Yeah.
Thank you for clarifying that because I like, yeah,
that was going to be a few of the questions I was going to ask, but now
that you mentioned that, um, I'm like, okay, all of this makes sense.
And I also wanted to point out really quick
before we move on, is that, okay, you know how you said that there's
um, you know, all these, the trilogy, I guess.
You know, we have the, the last, was it last Lost Highway?
Lost Highway, Mahaland Drive, and Inland Empire.
Now, while we were talking, I kind of just came
up maybe with a connection in some sorts, but
there's a scene in the movie where they're on
the Hollywood star Walk of fame, right?
And it's that scene where, spoil alert, alert,
um, where she gets stabbed with the screwdriver.
Right.
So the screwdriver, she ends up taking it out and the screwdriver falls on one of the stars.
And I was like trying to understand like what the connection was to that specific star.
So the, uh, the actress
star that it lands on is, um, what's her name?
Dorothy, uh, goodness gracious.
I just like had it pulled up too.
I was trying to see the name, too.
It was D. Maybe it was like Dorothy something.
Dorothy Lamore.
And so I didn't really, I was actually going to ask this question
to you guys to see if like you, you guys knew.
And I tried doing some research on it and I just really couldn't pinpoint like why that was
like so significant.
And the only thing that I came up with on my research
was that she wasn't the first one,
but she was one of, she was the first one in a wave
of stars that were given, like the first walk of fame stars that were given.
But I don't think that was necessarily the connection that was made, but the connection I did
kind of make just now, while we were discussing
this, was that similar to David Lynch's
like LA like trilogy type of deal.
I noticed that her set of movies that
she's actually most known for are her
road movies at like Road to Singapore,
Road to Zanzibar, Road to Morocco, Road to Utopia, Road
to Rio, Road to Baliali Road to Hong Kong.
And I feel like there's.
Road cinematic universe..
There's a road cinematic universe taking
place from between the 40s and the 60s.
So I don't know.
I don't know what the connection is with that star
in particular, but maybe one of you guys did better research
than me because I was like, there's some significant,
and I know David Lynch is like a guy that loves like old Hollywood.
He's definitely an old Hollywood moviegoer type of guy.
He's very knowledgeable in old Hollywood.
And I don't know, maybe you guys know something that I'm still not connecting.
I think you might have hit it on the nose, though.
Like, I think he's
he's just a fan of cinema.
Yeah.
And maybe he just did that as an Easter egg
as like just like a shadow, hey, hey, Dorothy kind of thing.
It could be as simple as that.
And that's the whole thing about David Lynch.
He's, he does things with intention.
Like, don't get it wrong.
Don't Don't get it twisted that he's just putting stuff in there just to do it.
Right.
You know?
He has reasons.
And he may not even say them.
Like he he's like, there's an interview where he is somebody asks him about the rabbits.
He's like, I don't know.
But I don't think that's, but like, I don't
think any, he really wants to have to overe explain it to people.
Because that's the beauty of this thing in general.
He was talking about in an interview, he was like,
I did a little bit of research, but there was just a lot of cool little interviews and everything.
But one of the things he said was, you know, in
this world, you know, you, when things, you, you see a piece of art, right?
And when things get a little bit of that, a little bit of abstract
they start to taper off into like different
like theories of things, right?
And so what happens is, you know,
we all start to take our own ideas of what this film is.
And that's what's he goes like, you could tell him what
you thought of that film and what you thought
he was trying to say.
And he like..
It's beautiful, man.
I love it.
I tell you.
Yeah.
He won't tell you like you're right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's that's that kind of the cool thing about this film too.
He He was in that same interview, he was talking about like
how the writing style of this film where he was like writing a new scene every day.
And he said, I didn't know what was come of it, right?
What's going to come about of this film.
But as time went on
in those three years, as you said, like he
like started to see a narrative and he was able to piece together how he wanted to connect.
And I related it to like the way I used to write poetry when I was younger.
Like I did a lot of free association.
And whenever I did free association, I felt those were my best pieces
over the stuff that I came with an idea with.
Like, I want to write about this.
And whenever I wrote with a specific idea,
I always thought they were the worst that I wrote, you know?
But like, whenever I did Free Association, I'd write something and I'd look at it.
And also, and it's like one of those things where I feel our subconscious
has a way of telling a story that
we want to tell and the right way to
tell it, but if we don't just let
it do that, sometimes we just like we're too much in control.
Like if we let ourselves control things so much, it it
almost messes things up, but our subconscious has a way of like telling us the way to go
You know?
And I think that's like the beauty of like in an empire.
I think you're 100% right, Alex.
Thank you for that because that makes it more justified, I think.
It's not just like a bunch of random scenes strung together.
Like there's intent behind them.
Even if that intent was developed step by step, right?
Because
like they say in writing, like there's two kinds of writers, right?
There's pantsers, and plotters, plotters write
everything out, beat by beat, how the story's going to go.
That's the kind of writer I am.
And then you have Panters, guys like Lynch and George R.
Martin, where they sort of just, they figured out as they go, man.
You know, Pancers like, like you're panting somebody
Well, no.
You don't
know what's underneath area pants, you know?
Exactly.
also flying by the seat of your pants, right?
Flying by the seat of your pants, Arnold.
You should try that.
But yeah, but I wasn't
going to say, I wanted to ask you guys, I'll ask
the room, what was up with the girls, though?
I just, I didn't understand any of that with those girls
that kept like sort of mocking her kind of or whatever
Weren't they first when you first saw them?
Weren't they actually some of like the maids in her house?
Because I don't think so.
I didn't make that connection.
Because I would never forget those baddies.
I mean I'm pretty sure.
Um,
You might be right.
You might be right.
You might be right.
Yeah, here's the thing.
Go ahead, Justin.
Go ahead.
Go ahead.
They weren't dressed like mains, that's for sure.
Well, I don't know.
I don't like that's something that now I'm like want to like
watch specifically, like just the scenes with
the maids and the ladies and stuff to see that connectionction.
because I don't know.
That's an interesting theory, but I always saw
them as like the women that
that one actor, was it Justin Thau's character,
was just sleeping with a lot of women.
And it was kind of like, oh, you know, he's known for
because in the beginning they're like, oh, well, you know, be
good with this one because, or keep it in your pants.
So I'm assuming those those are just like the women he kind
of just tossed aside after he got his way with them.
They were probably women like v vulnerable women in Hollywood
that he was taking advantage of when he was like working with them on sets and stuff like that.
That's how I viewed them.
That's so interesting.
Yeah, I It's kind of like Ghosts of Christmas P type of deal.
Right
Yeah.
I'm just wondering what the hell the point of their
whole, you know, their whole plot.
I think they were more
or less a visual
warning more than anything.
Like, they know the path that she's going down
And that, and that's how I interpret it is that they're just
a representation of a warning.
They didn't necessarily stop her because
if they're just kind of like, like I said, so
somewhat like a ghost type of thing, they
are more of like there to warn her than to stop her because they could't stop her.
They tried warning her and they couldn't stop her from proceeding further.
That's how I. Were they the same group of girls she was with at the end when she got stabbed?
Or was that a different set of chicks?
Here's the, the woman in trouble, right?
The woman in trouble, the very beginning, the girl who's watching the sitcom.
Yeah.
She's the woman in trouble, right?
Laura Dern is the proxy for her.
Right.
In this whole thing.
What does that mean?
She's an actor.
A proxy, she's acting in place of
a certain person.
I know.
Right.
Because like what Alex was, like you were saying,
Alex, was that like, it's not Laura Dern's character.
It's that woman at the very end where she sees her husband and kid again.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
She's a woman in trouble.
She's the connection.
Exactly.
So what happens is Laura Durn is going
through the same kind of story that the woman in trouble was in.
But she's, they're trying to write the wrongs of what happened
in that thing.
See, if you notice, like the woman in trouble stabs
or gets stabbed, I's it's
it's still foggy to me, but but then Laura Dern gets stabbed, right?
You know?
So, but she, they, but they're all
she's going through these, she's Laura Dern is an actress, right?
So she's like the perfect proxy to take take
on this, like this mission.
If you notice, like she starts to, like as she's going through this whole thing
and she's getting these messages from the the woman in
trouble, she's starting to
like the blur of the lines of actually what's really going on
in the film that they're making
Like she was like, wow, this dialogue sounds like
the like something straight from the script that are writing, right?
And she's like, wait, what?
And then all of a sudden she's like, am I in real life?
Is this really happening?
Or is this the film or what's going on?
You know?
And so that's her kind of starting to
make her way, like in that transcendental sort of way,
like meditation sort of way where she's like, like
the woman in trouble is finally reaching her, you know,
and like, like, hey, help me out.
This, this, like, if you can help me out, this is
this stuff going on.
And so she had to like, like retrace
those steps almost, like She had to become a hooker.
But you think it's just like the part of the issue.
Because if you notice at almost at the very end,
when she gets stabbed then she dies, you know?
She like before that, there was all those girls, right?
So those are the same girls that were hookers
that were also prostitutes
during the time that the woman in trouble was a prostitute.
Oh,.
She had to herself, those were the same girls that she met.
So those were all the same girls.
If you look at them, they're all the same girls.
That's what I was
thinking and wondering if they were.
And it sounds like they were.
So, yeah, so there is the same same yeah.
What was, I mean, any ideas on what that
whole conversation between the homeless people meant, the whole like taking a train to Pomona?
Because that that felt out of place, but at the same time, I know it's David Lynchld.
Okay, this has to have some subtext, right?
It's an empire?
I just don't know what it is.
Does anybody know, does anybody have any ideas or interpretations
of that whole exchange of dialogue between the homeless people?
No.
The whole time I was watching that scene, I was like, is that Terry Cruz?
I was like, I was even.
That was like my fix
I was Yeah, that was super random.
Was Was that Pre-white chicks or No, that was after white chicks.
White Chicks was like 2003.
I looked that up.
I was like, wait, Is this before you was famous?
A little Terry Cruise for you.
And he hasn't aged
one iota since 2006.
He looks exactly the same.
That's crazy.
Exactly.
He got like more fit.
Yeah.
So, I wasn't, like, when they were talking like
about her sister and how she took the bus from there to Pomona,
like she started going into detail about
her sister that wore a blonde wig, right?
And then she talked about how she had like a
hole like in her vagina or something like that.
Yeah.
Vagina wall.
In the wall of her vagina.
In the wall of her vagina. and she was turning tricks and stuff like that.
So I don't know.
Is that a reference to one of the girls?
I don't have a movie talked about whole.es, right?
Like the silk with the whole cigarette.
There's a hole.
Well, that's right.
There's like that hole on fire that was in the corner where the rabbits were at that one time.
Yeah, there's a lot of holes.
The silk, yeah, yeah, the silk cigarette.'s definitely also c cigarette.
I know this.
Yeah.
Is it a rabbit hole?
Is it the silk?
I mean, see, that's that's the great thing about
this of David Lynch's stuff, man.
It's like, it's all to interpretation.
And I think that's like the. like the
way I see it is like, that's where
like the whole is. she.
Because if you remember, like there's that one scene where the
the girl who was like Justin The's wife, right?
Who couldn't or something like that.
I can't remember.
I can't remember the relationship.
But she shows up at Laura Dern's house and she's wearing the watch
that she, that Laura Dern was supposed to wear to like be able to trans.
Wasn that a different actress?
Because that's the mom and stepbrothers.
Yeah, so I was going to say Mary Steinbergen,
you know, comes in towards the end, but I don't remember her being the wife of Justin Thur.
I thought that was...
So, no, remember there's that one scene where
There's that one scene where like Laura Durham goes into
that, that house, right?
And I think that's part of a film.
Oh, where you're supposed to think it's part of
the film, but then that's the whole thing where it's like the
lines the lines are kind of blurred between reality.
That's where she realizes she's a part of the film that she's acting in.
Yeah.
She's like, I love you, Billy.
I love you, Billy.
And she's like, and then she's like, get away.
And then she's like slapping Laura Dern.
That's the same girl who travels, who like gets stabbed.
Remember she was in that, the police,
like interrogation room and she, she's like talking to
that police officer and she has that screwdriver.
That's the same girl and she's also the same girl who
is shows up at Laura Dern's house wearing the watch.
So they're all, I think, trying to like
help each other out to finish the break this cycle.
But about Mary Mary Steenbergen, why does Mary Steenbergen
show up at the end for that one scene?
And that was it?
See, I'm still confused about it.
This is obviously the first time I've watched it too.
So I really want to watch this again.
It sounds like you've watched it several times based on all this knowledge you have, by the way.
I mean, I went into it, like, I watched it and I took as much as I could in
And, like, I got what was going on.
I understood.
But once I watched the video, like
Davidish talked about the transcendental meditation.
That's when it kind of like made sense.
You know?
It's like, okay,.
So these are all like certain things like, like when
he talk, like I said, again, like the marketplace and how he
talks about in that video is like the levels of transcendental
meditation and we't like at the very bottom level
we were it's like the unified field.
I don't know if you guys have heard of that, the unified field.
What part of us was.
We're like, it's like, I guess guess scientists have proven
the existence of it, but it's not, it's an unmattered field where you can't really,
it hasn't, you can't bring it to existence.
You can't go to it.
It's just something in the mind.
But like in that plane, you can
We're all one.
Like, we're all the same, you know?
And so like, that's why he like, he's like when you get to that place and
you get, you can find bliss and joy and that's why like at the very end, you get to the palace and everybody's happy
you know?
So, but that's the whole thing with like, everybody's
in the marketplace and they're trying to make it their way to the palace.
And so that Mary Steen Burgeon is also trying to make her way.
She's like, but they, they realize that they're all there to help each other.
Like the gun
from, what's his name, Scrim or like It's
Or Durn's husband in real life?
Yeah.
But, like, he is, like, when they talk, he's in that room with all those three people
and then you see, like the woman in trouble.
She's justbing and crying at that table.
They're trying to convince him to like like bring a gun.
He's the one that puts the gun in that drawer
in that room.
They're like, lead the horse to the water.
And that's like what they're trying to.
Laura Dern is like the horse.
And they're trying to lead her to the water to like help finish this story
to like break the cycle.
Yeah, that's that's it's such a layer
cake of of storytelling isn't it?
Because yeah, I didn't catch any of that.
I didn't really catch it.
Like I said, I
I had to watch a video.
And that's one of those things where it's like, okay, you get into the mindset of like the director.
And that's when you really start to understand
where he's trying to come from.
I think this movie was for him.
You know what I mean?
Like everything he's wanted to do, he kind of threw into this film, and it was it was very deep.
Totally.
Totally.
A lot of respect for.
Isn't that how you should do approach chart and always do it for yourself first?
Ideally?
Yeah, 100%.
But I feel like he had like so much more control than this film.
I mean, he always does, right?
But like, I don't know.
Like he went, he went, he attacked this film like so, so freely.
Like you said, like, it's like the way he filmed it, the way he, uh, he just kind of built on it as it went along.
I don't know.
It was, yeah.
But you're right.
That is how you should approach art art.
100%.
Yeah.
He didn't compromise his vision, though.
I was just reading a fun fact that he refused to cut it down for
distribution reasons and all that.
And like also the fact that, that he didn't really
have a marketing budget, so he hung out in
the middle of Hollywood Square or whatever and with the cow and
a sign to promote the movie..
That was his Oscar
what is his movie?
It was like the Oscar campaign.
He would have done numbers on TikTok if it had been around back then.
Oh, my God.
Like he would have loved that shit.
Are you kidding?
Isn't there an extended version of this film, too, that ran like 30 minutes longer?
I'm pretty sure I saw this number.
Really?
I doubt it.
t doubt it.
I swore I read it where there was a three
hour, 17 minute version of this somewhere.
I didn't dig into that, but I mean.
But here's the thing.
Like being David Lynch being the person he is,
the kind of directors, do you think he'd like, director's cut?
No, this director's cut is the original cut.
That's how I want it.
Yeah, I think that's why it was hard for him to
do the Dune movie because he really had to work within the confines of like the studio system
And I think that was tough for him because he doesn't operate that
way and notice how he never really did a big IP.
Actually, that's the only IP movie he ever did was Dune.
And I think like they wanted him to direct one of the Star Wars movies back in that era, too.
And he's like, no, I'm not going to.
Damn, imagine a David.
I can't even imagine me.
It'd be interesting...
But like Alex said, like that's what art is supposed to be.
It's supposed to like, like artists should make stuff for themselves and then hopefully
people like it and then that's it, right?
But under.
That's true capital, though.
You can't do that, though, right?
You have to have to connection for the masses.
What's that?
But that's true connection, though.
Yeah.
When you make a piece of art
that is first and foremost for you.
And then somebody connects with you with that way, with your art that way.
I mean, I'm sure Justin, like when you,
like when you did the chalk, the chalk art walk, right?
That was completely 100% you.
I saw that piece that you made
And like, there's no, like, there there's influence.
I saw some influence, but it's not like you were trying
to like do a mashup or like some sort of like,
you know, like, like a, like a piece for,
like, like with like Captain America or Daredevil or whatever.
You did something that was 100% you.
So when people saw you were walking through checking out your art
they saw your piece and were like, and the people who like
really appreciate it and like loved it were probably like, damn, I get this guy, you know?
Yeah.
And that's true connection.
Yeah.
I just, I just thought of something, you know, that that kind of relates to that.
Like, well, with cooking
one of my clients, they
wanted a pasta dish and I was like,
okay, yeah, I'll do it with beef.
And
I know they don't like spicy.
So I was like mild Italian sausage.
But then a lot of times they they'll be like, oh,
we'll provide the beef and we'll provide the sausage.
So I'm like, okay, great.
I told him mild Italian sausage, but then every time I would mention sausage
they would get Jimmy Dean breakfast sausage.
And then I was like, ah, no.
I go there to cook it Jimmy Dean.
And I'm like, they don't listen to this podcast, do they?
Nah, no.
What a terrible decision that is.
No.
Well, that's when you know you don't really understand food
Yeah.
But you know, I actually, I tried it and and Carla
had, and she was like, oh, it's not bad.
Pretty good.
But that's also.
Buts's more of the opposite, though, Arnold.
That's like working within the confines of like, to
appease an audience, you're not really using to connection with the people.
It's like you're not showing your own person.
He didn't have that that much control.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
That's what made me think about it.
But then like, you know, if they were to just let me do it the way I would.
Trust the chef.
As they would say, It would have been like inland Empire.
I'm glad to know that Arnold will never make ceviche with hot dogs, by the way.
Thank you
You're a true.
So good.
So good.
Nathan?
Don't knock it till you try it.
Yeah, exactly.
That's the Inland Empire version of Seviche.
That's real?
Actually not.
Somebody on TikTok, it's one of those viral
trends where it's like, look at this person making ceviche with hot dogs
Oh, my God.
I don't even like cebvici.
And I'm like, what?
Why would you use a hot dogs?
It's like, come on, man.
That'ic tonight.
I mean, it might be good if it's a good hot dog, but if it's like bark.
I don't know.
I mean, I' I've had salsa on a hot dog.
No, that makes sense.
That was pretty good.
That makes perfect sense.
That's not bad.
You know, you want your hot dog with some salsa.
You don't want your. cevico with the side of hot dog.
You know what I mean?
Or how about a hotennials are calling hot
dogs glizzies now?
Oh, yeah.
Glizzzy?
Why?
Why?
What the fuck is that?
What's going on there?
What is, I'm curious.
What is the etymological?
ology?
Like I don't timeline or like a line with that, you know?
I'm not stem from.
I'm not sure.
I've never heard of them made with edamami.
I mean, yeah.
I don't know if I made ofami.
You know, skimb D toiletilet is like a big thing now.
It all started because there's some chippy guy advertising fast food in
Turkey using a song by a Turkish music artist
that, you know know, it's like, okay, but does, what is it?
Skeezies or what do they call them?
What are they call them?
Hot dogs now?
Glizzies?
Glizzzy.izzzy.
That sounds wrong.zies.
That sounds dirty almost.
We're showing our age, guys.
I know why.
Fuck it.
I will be the
unabashed elder millennial on this show..
I just clicked it up real quick.
It's a metaphorical association to the Glock, to the handgun.
I don't.
What is that through with the hot dog?
Put a gl in my mouth.
I know.
Shoot.
Basically, what do they say?
Every time you eat a hot dog, it takes how many months off your life or days off your life?
Oh, my God, I can't wait for the annual.
Lizzy eating contest
And I'm like, come on.
I saw it on like Instagram or something, some
guy, comedian was talking about how he was eating a hot dog and kids were laughing at it's eating a glizzy.
That's why I was like, what the hell is a glizzy?
Hashtag St.
Algo.
How How old is kid, Donnie?
He's He's almost 10.
He's He's.
He might get seven, so I feel like they're kind of in the same learning the same memes.
Yeah, he knows he was in that skippidity thing for a second.
We' How about Mia?
Oh, she's 10.
I't know How about Mia?
Does he see say, like, here?
Skib
Oh I think she's not Skibity.
Sheib.
My son's at the age.
I took him to the anime con and like I heard him say, lookick at that fat ass. want to go on?
I was like He was like, it was big.
I was just saying it was a fat ass.
And I was like, dude.
Your story really good.
I day.
He had a bad day at school and asked.
I was like, what happened, buddy?
Like, why did you have a bad day?
He's like, because the kids were treating me like shit.
I like, okay.
Time out.
Don't say that one.
And I had to keep my composure because I wanted to laugh, I died in my place.
We're treating me like shit.
Oh, my God.
I should have a high fivelist when he said that.
Yeah.
Anyway.
And that's when you go, you are a piece of shit.
W of the Year Award.
Stop crying.
Stop.
Here's a glizzy.
Shut up.
Here's a Have all the Kizzes you
want and all the skin you want.
You want to go to Costco and get a glizzy?
I did that today because we were talking about hot dogs at work.
So I picked up like two hot dogs.
Yeah.
One Hebrew glizzy, please.
And they did not scan my card at the cafe.
The whole reason why we were talking about it is
because they're like, it all started with
I don't know, they made some sort of joke and then they're like, okay,, how do you eat a hot dog?
And I was like, oh, easy.
I was like, like this.
Like that.
And I you know like that.
Or sometimes I like,
if you want.
And then they're like, I hope I'm like a piece of corn.
For those of listening, Arnold is making some very suggestive
gestures right now.
Just eating the glizzy.
If you can eat a hot dog in one bite, I guess' called a glizzyzy gladiator.
No, you know what I do?
I just cut out the middleman and I just shove it up my ass.
You'll get the cook, you go on faster from your system that way, just has a good job.
Thanks.
You in you it out.
Yeah.
On the I'm a mustard only kind of guy, by the way.
Same.
That's a spicy shit.
Only a linchman he could support this kind of conversation, by the way.
I's the benefit about a..
Oh, I was going to say, the benefit about taking the hot dog that way, you won't have hot dog breath.
That's true.
You'll have hot dog farts, though.
Yeah.
But then it'll just be one.
And then you go.
Oh, yeah.
There's one, yeah.
I' way, the.
It keeps its structure.
Okay.
And Requiem for a a dream, they use a hot dog at the end?
As.
That's what I remember remember that.
I forgot that movie.
Oh, such a great..
You should be able to forget that one.
Yeah.
Because I haven't.
I've never forgotten that scene.
No, never forget.
I know I've watched it at least like three or four times.
I know, but it's pretty, but I didn't bring it out for air.
I did watch it back in the day.
Jennifer Connolly, man.
Oh, got it, but she especially had it back then.
All right, guys.
I feel like I feel like we've
said what we want to say.
Donnie, I feel bad.
I hope I didn't, I didn't mean to skip you necessarily, but did you have any thoughts about it?
No, I didn't have.
I was just here to kind of observe.
Like, I was so lost in that movie, dude.
And I, I tried, I tried to watch an interpretation film of it and I fell asleep to that shit too.
So it just didn't work for me.
All right.
Now, that's fair.
Before we get to final thoughts, which we'll do as quickly as we can.
I just want to read a couple quick, popular reviews of this from Letterbox.
The first one, question mark.
That's it.
The second one.
And that's a top review, mind you.
The second one, I feel like David Lynch is directing my life because nothing makes anything fucking sense
And this is a gem right here.
Lynch on frequent collaborator Dean Hurley in
the DVD special features, I really don't like Dean
as a person, but he's a fantastic sound man.
So, there you go.
That's it.
That's really That's the top three reviews on on this.
Letterbox.
Speaking of Letterbox, we're on Letterbox.
I'm on Letterbox.
Boot's too big.
Follow me on Letterbox.
Have you ever watched it?
Me too.
I'm on Letterbox.
Me too.
What's up?
Me too.
We're all on Letterbox.
I'm on Letterbox.
I didn't know you.
You get a little Hey.
Somebody made a letterbox for me.
Who did that?
Hey, I did?
Yeah, I just discovered.
And I rated your favorite movie of all time, Barney the movie.
Yeah, What about Yeah.
You know me so well.
I know.
I had to, man.
I feel like.
You could actually come up with like a super in-depth take
on all the symbolism and stuff in the Barney movie.
I feel like if anyone could do it, it would be you.
Like, you'd be like, well, you know, the color purple represents
the oppression of the dinosaur and blah, blah.
You know what I mean?
Like, purple Purple represents royalty.
I take that as a challenge.
Maybe I will watch it.
By the way, there is a Barney movie out there just.
Oh, I know.
Oh, yeah yeah.
I've seen it.
It's my favorite movie to have it on VHS.
Yeah.
I don't know where TV movie or Is it a documentary
where's Did you send that to me, Alex?
For Pee Which one?
Paul Rubin?
Oh, yeah, the new one that's coming.
It's going to be coming out on HBO or something.
Does that start like every other Netflix documentary where someone's sitting down and putting it on their mic like, can we start the joke?
I Fucking hate that shit.
They always do that.
Well, the cool thing, the way they started that one
was like, they they made it
when they knew he was going to die.
I guess he made it during his, like his.
Paul
Yeah.
He even knew.
He was like, yeah, this is kind of weird.
Yeah.
But to document his life
when he knows it's going to end soon.
How did he pass away again?
Cancer.
Oh, really?
I forgot about that.
Yeah. was great.
And by the way, we have the Paul.
Peeee yeah, PeeWee's Big Adventure.
We reviewed that show with that movie, so check it out.
Check it out.
It's one of our episodes. not our back catalog.
Speaking of back catalog
and episodes, yeah, let's go around.
Let's do a quick final, final reviews of this movie.
Arnold, they'll start with you.
What's your quick final thoughts?
be the final?
Let me finish Let me finish the thoughts.
Oh, yeah.
So the way I understood nothing about this movie.
I did watch it, and I was like, the one thing I was like, okay
they did say that something about the script, like it didn't finish
and it was because it was like cursed and I was I
was going with that to try and piece the things together.
But then I was like Saturday night,
Sunday night, Monday night, Tuesday night, and then today
you know, before the show, I finally watched it,
I was like, well, uh, I kind of
get it, I think.
No, not.
Actually, no, I didn't I didn't get it.
I still didn't. all these discussions kind of help you understand it a little bit better?
Yeah, definitely now.
Yeah.
But but I'll tell you my feeling, my thought about it,
of all everything that I have watched and gathered, it felt like
methamphetamine in
the inland Empire, you know, when someone
is fing and they're like, they need some more, they're just kind of like crazy.
You're like, you know, out there, it's just, it doesn't make sense.
Nothing makes sense.
That's what the movie felt like.
But then
now when as we talked,
it's like, uh, then when you finally have meth and
then and then uh, it's like then things make sense.
And you're like, then you get the whole reason and you're like, oh yeah, that's why
they had the watch tape duct tape to her hand and the screwdriver wasn't her person and not her.
Really quick, really quick.
You know, like we like makes you like think
about stuff and like, you know, you know, understand things, but does meth kind of do that too?
Or does it kind of like make you
think more?
I mean, I don't know.
I mean, I've never done it, but I'm curious to know if that's a.
Yeah, me either.
Arnold.
Tell us.
Based on what you on your research, Arnold, you feel like you do.
And in your mind, it makes sense
But then, like, when you when you're.
When you're not high and you're like, what do you
call it, when you're coming down, like it just like, it's the worst.
And Yeah.
But things all't It didn't make sense.
That
s.
The movie felt like a whole come down to me.
Yeah.
See, that that's interesting.
That's That's a very individual
perspective that you have there. based on your history with certain things in this world.
So like that's kind of goes back to what we were talking about earlier about what it.
Art is art is, is, you know, individual, you know, right?
It's unique to the person.
So like that
makes sense, right?
Like it's, you're not right or wrong, you know, I mean, you just are.
So yeah.
And then, then having this discussion with you guys and and
actually learning and my eyes being open about it is
like going to, is like, what do you call that
an intervention or like, you have,
you have people like good friends who want to get you back on
the right path and then things start to make sense.
And and you don't need that stuff.
And
you don't need than understand in Lire?
Yeah, look how much you learn tonight without being high on meth.
I mean, that's a win in my book.
I don't know about yours.
I definitely knew that that there had to have been some
meaning to a lot of the things.
I was just like, oh, okay, this is one of those movies
where like, okay, I'm going to have to watch this a couple of times
do some research to make sense of it.
And I hope my facial reaction
as Alex was talking about like, you know, the
you know, explaining it all and making Alex and
the things that you were talking about, Justin, like
it really was like, yeah, it had epivhany
moments.
And then so
it brought my score up a little bit in my mind.
That's good.
It sort of felt almost almost like
a Siberian film, but not so much in like that I hated
it, but in terms of like after the discussion
it brought it up.
Which actually ends up happening with a lot of other movies.
Maybe just Siberian film was just traumatic to me, but.
my score.
Oh, my Z rating, I give it like a like a 12 out of 10.
Wow. 12 out of 10.
Because
Like my wife, she was upstairs, doing some crafts.
And then out like, what are you watching?
She was like, is that a scary movie?
And then I woke up.
I was like,
uh, no.
No, it's a porn.
Get out of here.
So many times where she would like yell something and she's like, are you done with the movie?
And she must have done like throughout
this past week, you know, like six hours of crafting and
it while I, while I tried to watch this three hour movie.
In the
last 50 minutes, she wasn't even here.
So yeah, 12 out of 10.
Okay, no, no.
Okay.
That's kind of offensive.
That's your C ring.
Yeah.
I fell asleep a lot during.
But I would say I was going
to give it like a one and a half, but I give it like a two and a half
letterbox rating.
It might go up if I were to watch it again and just like
pick up a little bit more on on the little Easter
eggs or jewels, or I don't know what you call it in the film industry.
Gems.
Gems.
Gems.
Gems?
Gems.
Glies.
Glizzies.
I like that.
How many glizzies do you g this movie?
I might tell you more later.
Hit me up on on my socials.
Arnie.
I'm doing an SIP after Dark with Arnold Kalingo.
Awesome.
So, sorry.
What was your plug your stuff again?
Oh, Arnie Calgo on all the socials.
You find me on there doing my thing.
Nice.
Holla.
We'll thank you for that, Arnold.
You really are a good cookbook.
I see the stuff you make.
I'm like, godd damn it.
I wish Arnold lived next door.
I just.
You think so, man?
I think I suck, man..
It looks delicious.
I don't think it sucks.
You know, it looks really good.
Hey, you have a paying client that's like willing to give you money to make them food.
So I think you're doing something right.
You know what I mean?
With Jimmy Dean sausage.
With Jimmy Dean, yeah.
See, the Jimmy Dean sausage
is like the Sony DV10 that David Lynch worked with to make this movie.
Think of it that way.
You know what I can?
Gives it that goody art feel.
Yeah, Jimmy Dean is your DB500, Arnold.
Just think of it like that.
DV Arnold, I've seen worse cooks who
are making a lot of money.
So you're doing something right.
Yeah.
You want to fail upwards, not downwards.
You know what I'm saying?
Not that you're saying, not saying that you're a bad, Arno, you, because you're not.
No, no, no.
Like I said, it looks delicious.
I mean, I thought I, I thought I suck.
You like that Kendrick Lamar song, Humble.
You know what I mean?
You' humble about it.
All right.
Well, no, thanks for that, Arnold.
Yeah, Alex, let's go to you any final thoughts and
your rating and where can people find you?
Okay.
So, there's a couple of quotes that I
really stood out to me.
There's a Let me see.
I love this one.
If you're looking for Shock value, I suggest you look in the mirror.
Got him!
That's pretty hilarious, yeah.
I love that one.
That was such a good line.
Another one that's kind of stood out to me was people
it was Lord Durn.
People don't change over time.
They reveal.
And I thought that was like such an interesting quote.
Like I was like,
I mean, I kind of agree and I kind of don't agree, you know?
That was like some of those things where like, I
feel people do change over time if they allow themselves that they open themselves up to it.
But they also like,
people do reveal themselves in time to themselves, to others.
And sometimes that's like that revelation is like
an awakening for themselves.
And I feel like that's kind of like what this movie is about.
It's like over time in this film, you're like watching it
and you, they reveal clues of
like who David Lynch is and who these characters are.
And it's like,
like anybody in the world, like if
you're open to it, you could like really try
to you could start to see what they're about, their story is about.
You just kind of sometimes.
There's this.
I have his friend who went to like college and he had like, he took a course.
It was like he was a lit major
And I can't remember the, Jay
the writer, but it was this writer who's like prolific,
but he's like also very complex.
And he was like, yeah, he's like, yeah, this is a textbook that helps you
understand what this writer wrote, right?
And it's like, so you need, you can't just read the book and understand it.
You have to read a textbook to understand that book.
And to me, that kind of felt so odd and like
really, like, didn't make sense.
But I think about it now, and it's like, no, that's kind of
good because you're looking at other people's interpretations.
And I think that's what, like, like in the Namp Empire is.
Like everybody has a different interppretation of what, like, you could go on YouTube, and that's what I did.
Like one of the first things like, okay, what are people's interpretations of this?
And the first video was like, obviously like the transcendental meditation one.
And I thought that was such a cool interpretation.
And that's like, and it made a lot of sense because he's he
started doing transcendental meditation when he started filming a racerhead.
So he'd been doing it for decades already.
And, you know, and it was just one of those things where
the theories.
I've yet to watch any other videos.
I only saw that one.
But the theories of this, I'm sure, are numerous, like
on what these interpretations are.
Like even like in the, in that, that, that video
I watched, they were like, there's a guy who was in the audience.
He was like,
when I first, when I first started
watching this movie, I felt, I found this very incomprehensible, you know?
But as time.
And then, but like as soon as he said that, he's like, David Lynch
is like, says, I get that a lot, you know?
He even knows that, that he's kind of hard to understand sometimes
but I feel like that's the beauty of like art in general.
Like this epitomizes like art
and art, critique and art appreciation
because like we could go in so many different ways
with what this means.
And you could go with no way at all and like and think this is garbage.
And then David David Lynch will be like, okay, that's cool with me too, because he didn't make it for you.
He made it for himself, you know?
And like, um, yeah,
like this, this is just just one of those films that
um, brings me back to why I appreciate film in the first place.
You know, like, we can take
so many meanings out of certain things.
But the meaning
that means the most is the one that you come away with it.
You know, like.
I think about this joke that Mitch Hedberg did
he was saying he was telling this joke.
He's like, you know when people take a
song and they have like a completely different meaning to it.
And he's like, you remember like, they're singing, you hear the song like, we are the world.
He's like, we are the world.
We are the children.
And he's like, you remember that song, girl
when I fucked you in the pet cemetery?
I was like, it's like that.
Like everybody has a different meaning to like certain art.
And that's fine.
Like Stephen King.
Like a word.
But yeah, for me, this movie is a four.
I love this film, and I'm definitely going to watch it again.
And I definitely need to go back and watch Lost Time.
I I remember watching that only once.
And like a lot of people
it came out at a time when I was really young and I was like, I don't get this.
I liked the David Lynch,
but it seemed like those last three films he made just
more and more became Lynchian, you know?
You know?
Is Kevin Bacon in Lost Highway?
I can't remember.
I can't remember.
I know Patricia Arquette was in there.
And I had a reallyular soundtrack.
Trica Arquette is enough reason to watch that, I think.
Oh, yeah.
She was that in that era of like between
true romance and Lost Highway, where she was just like a hot babe
like just like super like, I don't know.
I love I love.
I still love her.
I think she she's a cutie.
She's great in severance.
You haven't seen that.
Oh, dude.
She's amazing.
I don't need to watch season two.
But yeah, you can find me on on all the socials, Daily Dares.
Check out my DPop, Collectible Galaxy.
I'm posting some new stuff.
Got some new items to sell.
So yeah.
All right, Alex, thank you for those words.
As always, you always bring a whole new way
of thinking about things when we do these discussions.
So thank you for that.
Justin, let's go to you next.
Final thoughts and where can people find.
Oh, yeah.
Well.
What can I say?
It was it was a movie.
I enjoyed this film.
I felt like, you know, very
David Lynch, um, very long.
I think
one of my, there's like a few scenes
in the movie that that really stood out to me like at
the beginning where, it was like, she was like
warning her she was like, oh, you're going to be sitting
there tomorrow or whatever.
And then she goes like, and there's going to be a brutal murder.
And
I was, I kind of forgot about how
the murder happened, but
getting stabbed with a screwdriver, and it wasn't just any screwdriver.
It was like that flathead screwdriver.
I felt like that, I don't know.
I don't know if that's like necessarily a
brutal murder, but it definitely would suck to get stabbed by one of those, for sure.
I think so.
I think it would suck to get stabbed by anything.
Wasn't it rusty too?
Wasn't it rusty scr?
It.
I just go get a tech shot, you know?
Very dirty
Right.
That was interesting.
And then I think I think the key point of the
movie where it all kind of took out took off for me was
when she
is kind of repeating the
things that happened from the get-go when they were like doing the table. read.
And then they like turn around and was like, who's that back there?
And then they go looking for her.
And it's actually like Laura Dern's character.
And she's like running away.
I think at that moment, that was really good.
Yeah, I feel like that was a moment
where I'm like, okay, you know, this is something I
can get behind because that beginning was like,
like you said, it was it was a bit, much a bit drawn out.
And I think once it hit that point is when I'm like, okay,
I see where the path of this movie is going and I'm prettyfected.
So I think it was easy for me from that moment on to kind of like
invest myself into the rest of the movie and be like, okay, here we go again.
You know, now I understand why,
like I liked it the first time. because I I was a little concerned.
I'm like, did I did I really like this movie when I first watched it?
I had that in my mind for a bit.
I'm like, man, I don't remember it being like this, but like I remember the movie
but I don't, I didn't remember how long it was.
And I think that was something that kind
of like downgraded a star for me. was just like, oof,
it's a little bit of a tredge to get through at some points.
But it picks up and I appreciate the design behind it.
I appreciate the stylistic choice.
I mean, it may have been like budgetary,
a budgetary thing, but I also feel like him choosing
to film it in that way was definitely
although budgeted, it was a stylistic choice.
And I felt like it really gave the film personality.
I don't know if you guys notice it because we didn't talk too much about
it, but the sound design is fucking amazing
Like, not even like the music.
The music choices were great in all, but the sound design was insane.
Like the scene with the rabbits and it sounds like
the place is on fire.
And I'm like, where's this fire coming from?
And then like scenes later, the scenes with the rabbit
and then like the burning hole coming through the ceiling and everything.
I'm like, oh, okay.
So this is just kind of like, this is, this is happening
in the the middle of the actions
of her twisting the cigarette through the silk.
And, and, and then like that made, that all made sense.
It all came together.
I'm like, the sound kind of in a way
uh, made the movie make a lot more sense
as well, just based on like what it was
happening around it, like, whether it was, um, the, the laugh
track and going on in the background, whether it was the fire sounds in
the background, um, or even like the TV static
where it kind of made it feel like
um, you were just, it was like
an intense staticky, like almost
dreadful kind of sound design that made, made it into
a psychological thriller, which I think
this is, well, most David Lynch movies are like psychological
thrillers, but I feel like the sound design gave him more of a horror aspect
to it, which is that alone.
And then breaking it up with like some familiar
tunes here and there.
Yeah, I think the sound design is just on a whole other level.
I think they paid a lot of attention to what they were doing when it came to the sound.
The set designs are insane, the lighting, the use of like
Twin Peaks callbacks of like,
the red curtains, things like that, using like the deep,
deep reds and and the very light
tonal blues really setting the mood.
So I think
again, like this whole movie is just one big
thought out styleylistic choice.
I don't think there was no
moment where there wasn't like a
real, um, how do I want to say like,
like you can tell as far as like the writing in
scripting goes, it's like, yeah, you can kind of tell that
he kind of was just building off of that, but he
had a plan and an idea for how it looked, sounded and felt
whether the story wrapped it wrapped its arms around it or or not.
Those were the key things in this whole film.
I really like that discussing it tonight
made me kind of open my eye eyes a
little bit more on things that I didn't even know, even from
the first time of watching it or second time watching it.
Alex pointed out a lot of really cool things that
I didn't really think about or notice, even with the light research I did
So it really opened my eyes on
like, okay, a lot of the things in this movie are connecting.
I'm having trouble with these puzzle
pieces, to be honest, but I was, but with your guys's
help, I was able to put them together a little bit better, at
least when it comes to interpreting what this film means to me
And I think I have a better idea of what this movie means.
But with that being said, I enjoyed it.
I, and I would I hate to say this.
I don't want like David Lynch's ghosts coming up and strangling me over
it, but it's like, you know, maybe maybe, maybe just
maybe you can cut it down just a little bit, you know, maybe just a little bit.
I think there are there's some room to cut certain things down.
Please don't kill me.
But god damn, dude.
I think it could be broken down just a little bit.
I mean, it's his vision.
I get it.
Go for it.
Do your thing, man.
You know, more power to you.
But as a, as a moviegoer
that loves to consume film,
sometimes maybe just taking a little bit out would help
help a little bit.
But hey, who am I?
I'm not the director of this movie.
Anyway, I'm going to give a rating.
I'm going to I was going to give it a lower rating.
I''m not even going to lie.
My original rating was going to be like two and a half.
But I think after discussing it tonight
and just kind of having an aha moment on
a lot of things that we discussed, uh, I've bumped it up to
three and a half out of five.
Uh, That's my rating.
Wonderful movie.
Um, I think Laura Darn carries this whole thing on her back.
Um,
big time, uh, which is also probably why she's in most of his movies.
So, um, anyway, uh,
you can find me on social media, Shib a Zombie.
Find me on Instagram.
You can go to my link there and you can see all the other stuff that I do.
And that's my rating.
All right.
Thank you for that, Justin.
Really appreciate it.
Yeah, let's go to you now, Donnie.
What are your final thoughts and where can people find you?
Yeah.
Wow.
Just from the beginning, I think I wasn't I wasn't really like, it was hard for me to find.
And, you know, I I like movies that are
difficult nor kind of like a challenge, like everything everywhere, all at Once, Inception.
Like, I like those type of movies, but this one, I just wasn't, it just didn't
I was disconnected, I think.
And, it could have been my, I had a headache at the time, so maybe that had to do with it as well.
It wasn't really like focus focused, but I fell asleep a couple times.
I tried to rewatch it, but I just couldn't, I just couldn't get into it.
But, you know, with that being said, I mean, it's a very artsy film.
It was, as Alex pointed out numerous times
during the podcast, like there, there's intentions behind everything, and I do appreciate that.
It was it was it was really good.
I'm sure if I watched it again, I'd appreciate it more.
But it just, it just didn't connect with me.
And that's okay, right?
So the movie's connected with people, some don't.
So that's just how it is.
And, I think at the end of the day, it's like, if
this is your first introduction to like a David Lynch film as
somebody who's never watched it before, I think it would be like, oh, I
don't I don't think I could do any of his films, but that would be like the wrong approach, right?
Like this is just like one of his like the most, harder films to follow.
But if it don't get discouraged from watching other David Lynch
movies because there's there's some really good ones out there.
But for those diehard lynch mobbers,
uh, they're going to love this for sure.
But yeah, overall,
my rating, Z rating, I give it a 10 out of 10.
I fell asleep a couple times.
You know, it is what it is.
Rewatchability for me.
I don't know if I. You know what?
I would probably rewatch it.
I kind of want to watch this movie like, high and see what would happen or see how I interpret it.
Like, I think that would be kind of cool.
I did that with
Eternal Sunshine for a Spotless mine and it completely
like, you know, I liked it even more after I saw it like that.
So it might be one of those films right now.
I got to do that.
Overall score, I would give it a two out of five.
You can find me on Letterbox on Donnie Donnie Appleseed
and then Instagram underscore Donnie Appleseed.
But yeah.
Awesome for that To pickgyback off of Justin,
I think Laura Dern did an amazing job in this film as well.
I think she may have won an award for it.
I'm not sure, but
it was really good.
We will have our research supp and look into that.
But yeah, Another thing I wanted to bring up, like that
I liked what Justin said about the sound design.
I don't know if you guys noticed.
It was like, there were certain scenes that seemed like they were using the onboard
microphone.
I love that choice, that stylistic choice.
Like at the very beginning, it sounded like they were using the, like
when she was when they had those shots that were far away, it felt
felt like they were just using the microphone that was on the camera.
I don't know if guys noticed that.
Yeah.
I did notice.
I noticed a lot of that.
I mean, the sound design for sure.
Yeah, it'sood out.
I mean, sound is 50% of any visual medium, right?
Especially movies.
And, uh and I noticed, and I
noticed that the, it's called, um, what is it?
It's like the motor, like the internal motor of the camera
gets picked up by the onboard microphone.
If you ever, anyone that was old enough to have used mini
DV cameras back in the day, you know exactly what I'm talking about..
Yeah.
It was the bane of my existence when I was learning this shit.
I used VHS cameras.
What are you talking about?
VHD.
I definitely heard that tape.
I came up during the mini DV era, which is why it's
so funny that this movie by this major director
was shot on the same shit I was filming on as a kid.
Which is why my in my final thoughts are that I appreciate
David Lynch as an auteur director.
I feel like he's the last great aute director that there is, really.
I mean, I don't think someone like David, and I hate to say this.
I don't think someone like him could survive in the modern age because,
you know, it's just, there's no room for
for doing these kinds of films nowadays, right?
Like it's, everything has to be a big IP, you know, project or whatever.
And it's like, I don't know that a guy got like a Lynch could survive in the modern era,
but it is what it is, you know, and it doesn't matter now because he he is obviously deceased.
But
you know, we lost him.
I don't know about you, Adrian, but there's this,
because I'm actually thinking about purchasing a like
digital camera of some sort at some point in time, but it's
like, there's a resurgence of like digital.
And so I feel like you, you're wrong on that.
I feel like, I feel like it's it's coming back.
And you know what?
I'm just going to.
I'd love to see it as a compliment to you
is that you made some great stuff, comedy,
funny stuff using the equipment you had.
And that is the point.
And I think David Lynch is like kind of like this
pedestal guy of like, you can do it with what you
have, whether it's your phone, digital camera,
use something to make something.
He's always championed that idea.
He's like, you can do it.
He's like, there's no need for you to wait for me to make any films.
He's Rob in the water boy.
You can do it!
Yeah, exactly.
He was being the water boy for everybody when it comes to.
Never compare Rob Schneider to David Lynch. never.
But.
I also agree with Justin.
I think you're wrong, too, about the fact that this kind of film can't be made.
They can.
And I think it is coming back
we are independent cinema.
We want more independent cinema.
We don't I don't care to see more like big IP stuff.
It's in all that stuff is going away.
And in this, this climate, the political
co-climate that we're in, we need more of this kind of film.
We need more of you.
I hope to be proven wrong on that.
I hope to see that resurgence.
And honestly, after seeing this movie, I kind
of want to go back to California and dig up my old Canon ExL
2 camcorder and just fucking film everything on that.
Forget the forget the mirrorless, fancy camera with the exchangeable lenses.
Now, go shoot on three chip fucking, you know, mini DV camcorder, my friend.
I
I am inspired to maybe do this.
I mean, I've been filming stuff myself that
like, where it's just like those long drawn out shots because I love that.
I just love seeing the motion in the scenery.
I don't need to like have
always somebody in there talking and like having like
I love the subtlety of like seeing background stuff moving around.
I mean, look, and that's part of what I was going to say too, is that I'm
glad he shot it on this format because I feel like that aesthetic really lends to the creepy
surreal vibe of this story.
I don't think it would have felt as surreal
or creepy if it had been shot on 35.
I think it would have been a completely different movie, I think probably.
Most likely.
So I appreciate that he that he did that.
He pulled it off and he was just unap
apologetically, you know, just himself as an artist, as an auteur.
And, you know, fuck commercialism and fuck, you know, doing it for money and whatnot.
Like he did it for himself, right?
Like, like we said earlier, I think it was Donnie that said it, like he made it for himself, most likely.
And look at that.
We're still talking about it almost
almost 20 years later.
Like, it's still a movie that people are going to be talking about and
studying and making discussion videos and podcasts.
So like, obviously, he did something right.
So I do appreciate that a lot.
And, um, and the other I appreciate is also just want to say an
echo about what you guys said about Laura D. She really does carry this movie.
Like, holy shit.
Give her an Oscar just for being in this film because
what she probably had to go through behind the scenes, I mean, it seems crazy, you know?
It's funny that I saw an interview with
her in that video, and she was like, she
didn't even know what role she was doing.
She was They were talking at the premiere, she was like, I don't even don't like character..
I'd like to know what.. after watching it tonight that when I watch the premiere.
And it just shows you, right?
Because like, that doesn't even matter to a lot of these actors.
They just wanted to work with David Lynch.
Because look at all the people that were in this.
Like, oh, they just wanted to work with him.
Like, who cares what it's about?
Like, it's a David Lynch movie. fuck it.
Let's.
We'll work for Scale, and we'll do this movie with him. cares.
Who cares if it's weird?
Let it be weird, right?
That's this old brand.
So it was this old brand, unfortunately.
But yeah,
I enjoyed it.
You know, like I think I've said before, I had a, uh, uh,
a film instructor in college that said, you know, I don't care what
you do in a movie, if it's offensive or if it makes me
laugh or cry or cringe or whatever, just don't fucking bore me.
And this movie did not bore me.
I don't think there was
Even the scenes with those girls and the girl taking out her tits and all that, even that wasn't boring.
That was like, I kept like kind of turning those up and I was like, wait, what's going on?
And, you know, I wasn't really.
So, you know, I, I'm giving this movie a
3.5 out of five on Letterbox where you can find
me, you can find all of us on Letterbox on all social medias, all of our social handles.
And of course, you can find the show.
I've never seen a podcast, never seen a podcast.com
Instagram, TikTok, where everything. everywhere, fellas.
There's nowhere we can't be found.
And, you know, leave us a com and leave us a review.
Have you seen David Lynch?
Have you seen David Lynch's inland Empire?
What's your favorite Lynch movie?
And by the way, this makes you want to rewatch Mohand Drive
And Donnie, I think you should give Eraserhead a chance.
Eraserhead is like his first movie.
It's fucking weird.
You think this movie's weird.
Go watch Eraser, dude.
That movie's, that's something.
That's something else, man.
I personally love Eraserhead.
Oh, that movie's amazing.
That's one of those movies that will stick with you
after you watch it.
You're going to be like.
What the fuck is it?
Like, what?
With the girl in the thing and the weird baby and the blah, blah, yeah.
Yeah.
Is Arnold Schwarzenegger in that one?
No, no, no.
It's funny.
The first thing interesting, though.
I don't know why it's the same thing.
In. Sorry..
The first David Lynch movie
I ever saw was The Elephant Man.
And I think I watched it
in elementary school, which is so weird to me that the first David Lynch movie
I watched was in elementary school.
And that, like, watching it were your kind of
Sorry, go ahead.
Oh, no, I was just going to say that that film like scarred me a little.
I card me.
But, you know, it also kind of taught me like the whole, like that othering
idea, you know, like he's not, he's not inhuman.
Like, obviously, he's like, I'm not an animal.
I'm a human being.
That whole thing, that that line stood out to me and I was like, man, that's so impactful at a young age.
And I was like, damn.
What was it Elephantitis Men?
Yeah.
Elephant man..
Elephant Man's good, too.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, that movie That movie, the movie have fucked
me up where the Chucky movies as a kid and that nevering story
where that fucking horse dies in the water.
Like, godd damn, that fucking me up as a kid.
Yes.
Like, you know, who's letting me watching this shit, dude?
Like, come on.
Arts!
Artex, no.
And this was before Cobia Streaming
like, this shit was just airing on over the air, like over the airwaves.
Like, what?
Yep.
The one that stuck to me was the Land Before Time.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
That one.
Wow, yeah.
No, dude.
Mi, when the mom dies and shit...
Arld doesn't know anything about that.
All the doggies in that?
Yeah.
And I have to say, this movie...
This is a movie that Justin does not watch itself for you.
You have to watch it.
You actually have to watch it.
Yeah, yeah.
I' hard to understand it, yes, yes.
You were going to say something.
Oh, I was just going to continue on
with all the movies that potentially fucked me up as a kid.
Oh, yeah.
It's mostly the animated features.
I'm I'm not going to lie.
Like, for Fi in The Last Rainforest, like the ending single with
that fucking smokestack guy.
Yeah, that guy's scary as fuck.
What's the one with the toaster
the toaster that one of theaster?
Power toast Man?
Isn't there.
Powder toast man.
Yeah.
I know that reference.
You know, Arnold, I have a powdered toast man from I got from Comic-Con right up here, actually.
That's good.
Love.
I know which one you're talking talking about.
I didn't like it.
Yeah, that that brave little toaster, what's the scene?
There's a scene where like a character dies or gets or kills
himself or nice.
I painted Was I there when you bought that, Justin?
I think I remember you buying it.
That's why
You were there, yeah..
You were there.
That's why millennials were, that's where it was so fucking weird because we grew
up on fucking Ren and Stimpy and Rocco's Modernern.
Those sheets are weird, dude, when you go back and rewatch them as an adult, you're like, yeah.
Rocco's Modern Live had some stuff in it.
Dude.
I'm like, whoa.
R and Stippy's.
when you think about it, like, people like point out like, oh, Eon Flux
and Beavis and Budhead.
But like that stuff, like, it was just the simple things that seemed
like normal cartoons, like, that messed this.
Remember Rocco's Modernal Life?
Oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby.
Oh, baby.
This is this is big Rocco?
Oh, click.
You turn the page and then you wash your hands.
And then you turn the page.
You wash your hands.
Anyway, okay, guys.
Well, I think we did it.
Never seen a podcast.
We're everywhere.
Just follow us. comment, leave us a review, subscribe, L. We're omnipresent.
We're all Exactly.
We're everywhere.
St.
You can't get rid of us unless it's our TikTok account, in
which case you may, because, you know, you can't say anything on that platform anymore without getting a strike on your account.
But that's the story for another day
Any final words from the gentleman?
Hmm.
Maybe a question of the day.
How about a question of the day?
Yeah.
What David Lynch movie do you you recommend?
Hit us up.
Oh, okay.
I thought you were.
Okay, yeah.
You out there in the radio world.
Yeah, in the radio world, yeah.
All right, guys.
I love it.
I love it.