JFC Double Stuff: Wild at Heart (1990)

Stuff a brand new episode of The Double Stuff into your Valentine boxes! Although our hearts are heavy, they are still filled with love for the recently-departed David Lynch.

So Brian and Weinberg reunite to celebrate arguably Lynch's most romantic film: Wild at Heart! 

We got some dancin' to do, peanuts. 

Support us on Patreon! 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
From David Lynch, the director of Twin Peaks, comes this
summer's wildest love story.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Newsweek calls it spectacular and funny.

Speaker 3 (00:10):
You got My Hotter and Georgias Wow.

Speaker 1 (00:12):
The USA Today says it's a must see.

Speaker 3 (00:15):
You really aren't English like I'm.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
A Chicago Tribune and calls it stunning, rocking good news.
David Lynch's Wild at Heart Late at Art starts by
the August seventeenth at Peter's nationwide.

Speaker 4 (01:02):
And if you can believe.

Speaker 5 (01:06):
It, it's a Friday once again.

Speaker 6 (01:09):
It is, in fact Friday once again. It also happens
to be a Valentine's Day. Happy Valentine's Day to all
of our beloved listeners. Our mics are hot, and so
are you. We're prepared to get very stupid to be
your cupid. Here on w J k oh Yeah, spinning
the slow Jams with my bro Ham Scott Weinberg, bringing

(01:30):
you the return of the double Stuff. And while this
day is typically marked with flowers and chocolates, our chalky
candy hearts are heavy today. As in this episode, we
will celebrate and eulogize the amazing, the fantastic, iconoclastic, the
weirdo supreme who haunts our dreams. Mister David Lynch wild

(01:54):
at Heart seemed the perfect selection for a double stuff Friday,
A runaway romance with passion and heart, happy ending even
and sprinkled with the requisite number of David Lynch loons
and goons all throughout. And if it were possible for
David Lynch to join us from the other side, I
would definitely ask him to be my Valentine. I would

(02:17):
get him a gift. I would get him all the gifts.
I wonder what he would want.

Speaker 5 (02:20):
I want a pet monkey.

Speaker 6 (02:21):
Oh, mister Lynch, I legitimately did not expect you to
be here. I also don't know that I can get
you a pet monkey.

Speaker 7 (02:29):
I mean, I want to give you the world.

Speaker 6 (02:30):
I want to give you everything for the hours of
splendid artistry and wild storytelling that you've given us. I'm
just not sure I can procure a monkey.

Speaker 5 (02:40):
Here's the thing with that champ that's short for champions.

Speaker 7 (02:44):
Okay, okay, okay, Well, no, there's no reason to get upset.
How about this. What if I got you a monkey
carved out of wood? Perhaps would.

Speaker 5 (02:53):
Wood is such a blessing for humanity.

Speaker 7 (02:57):
So I'm taking that as a yes, then I'm sorry.
I'm very confused.

Speaker 5 (03:01):
I love to eat cheese.

Speaker 7 (03:03):
Cheese platter perfect.

Speaker 6 (03:05):
I'm making a call to pepperg Farm right now, fucking
a man, And if you would like to give yourself
a gift this Valentine's Day, let me take this opportunity
to remind you that Cargill's new movie The Gorge is
available on Apple Plus to watch it home with that
special someone, mister Lynch. I'm sorry to pause our conversation
to do a shameless plug.

Speaker 8 (03:24):
It was a devastating yes.

Speaker 6 (03:28):
I know, but he's my co host. I felt it
was my duty to share his new movie.

Speaker 7 (03:31):
Bullshit, mister Lynch.

Speaker 6 (03:33):
And I'm just wondering, are you're you happy to be
my Valentine? How does it make you feel?

Speaker 7 (03:38):
Golden sunshine? Well, that's a good thing at least.

Speaker 6 (03:40):
I'm gonna go ahead and wrap this up because I
feel like this little scene we've been playing has been
going on too long.

Speaker 7 (03:45):
Who gives a fucking shit how long a scene is. Okay,
that's a fair point. That's a fair point.

Speaker 6 (03:50):
I'm very sorry, but I feel like I need to
wrap up this ambling preamble with a bit of trivia
you might not know?

Speaker 7 (03:57):
Did you know that?

Speaker 6 (03:57):
One late night in nineteen thirty six, Bob Wine, who
had just opened Bob's Pantry in la was asked by
a regular customer for something different. He split his legendary
buns twice through the middle, creating a middle bun, added
two burger patties, and the rest is history. The double
deck Hamburger was invented. Yan would later change the name
of his restaurant in homage to a six year old

(04:18):
by the name of Richard Woodruff who was doing some
odd jobs at the time. One day, Bob forgot Woodroff's
name and called out, hey, big Boy. Something clicked and
a name was born, Bob's Big Boy. Bob's Big Boy,
of course, becoming a favorite hangout for mister David Lynch,
and many years later the Bob's Big Boy in Burbank
would be a filming location for several key scenes of

(04:40):
Michael Mann's Heat. Mister Lynch, would you like to say
anything about your love affair with Bob's Big Boy.

Speaker 5 (04:45):
I used to go to Bob's Big Boy restaurant and
I went there for seven years.

Speaker 6 (04:50):
Yes, no, I'm aware. That's why I'm asking mobs.

Speaker 2 (04:54):
We're flipping and flying like frogs.

Speaker 4 (04:57):
Frog mons were pulling.

Speaker 5 (04:59):
Themse outside of the earth and flying up in front
of the stand.

Speaker 6 (05:03):
Ah Uh, should we should? I think we should. Let's
just get double stuffed.

Speaker 5 (05:12):
I had another Monica Balucci dream.

Speaker 7 (05:14):
Now we're on the same page.

Speaker 8 (05:15):
Hello computer, coming at you live.

Speaker 6 (05:51):
From Big Tuna, Texas. It's a very special and very
romantic edition of the Double Stuff. I am your host,
Brian Salisbury. Of course you know him very well as
the third leg of Junk Food Cinema back like he
never left. It's mister Scott Weinberg.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
Hi, it's me Scott Weinberg. All the things that he.

Speaker 7 (06:08):
Said, ah, the Big Tuna himself.

Speaker 2 (06:12):
I am. I am Scott Weinberg, former film critic, current podcaster,
parentheses over hated, and I am here to discuss a
David Lynch film with my friend Brian.

Speaker 6 (06:24):
Yeah, and also probably a purchaser of a lot of tuna,
A big amount of tuna as a cat dad right, Like,
there's probably a lot of tuna on your shopping.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
I am a huge fan of tuna my own self,
but I don't feed. I'll give him a little piece
if it falls out the sandwich. But I don't give
my cat a lot of human food or I'm kind
of anal about my pets. You know, I give him.
I give him good dry and then good wet and
you know, cat food, and I try not to give
him treats or anything excess.

Speaker 6 (06:53):
You could host the cat Fancy podcast. I know that
doesn't exist yet, but it very well could, and you
would be the host of that.

Speaker 2 (06:59):
They would probably sue me because that is a long
established publication.

Speaker 6 (07:03):
No, I just meant you would host their official Like,
if they had an official podcast, they should prepare you
to be the host of them.

Speaker 2 (07:08):
I could talk about lots of different animals, but yeah,
I only live with one, and that's a cat. I
love animals. I love animals, dude, I really do. I
always have.

Speaker 6 (07:19):
I just love the idea that you're like. I don't
subscribe to cat Fancy because I find it too limiting.
I love all animals.

Speaker 2 (07:24):
Yeah, I mean you remember every time I would see
you with one of your I mean your first time
I met you, guys, I went ape shit for your
beautiful black dog s eleven. Yes, one of the best
dogs I've ever known in my entire life. Rest in peace.
To that beautiful pup.

Speaker 7 (07:37):
And speaking of rest and peace.

Speaker 6 (07:39):
The whole reason we're doing, the whole reason we brought
back double stuff, is that you know, it's the fourteenth,
it's Valentine's Day, and while that does conjure you know,
big hearts and hearts in the eyes, and you know,
feelings of love and romance, we're sadden. Our hearts are
heavy this day because you know, just last month we
lost a one of a kind artist, a person who

(08:02):
really broke the mold and redefined what movies were and
was a singular artist. Nobody has ever really been like him,
and I would venture to say no one will be
like him, even though his name has become its own
term in film school textbooks. We're talking, of course, about
the great David Lynch, who we lost on January sixteenth.

Speaker 2 (08:21):
Unique is an often overused word, right, Unique. People say
it all the time, But there's that kind of casual
unique that people say when you know something's not entirely unique,
but it's original enough that you can kind of literally it.
You know, you can fake that word, and then there
are like you'r Erner Herzog's, your scorsesees. You know, David
Lynch filmmakers who, even if you don't know their films well,

(08:47):
their influence and their impact permeated other films and other
filmmakers throughout his career. So it would be impossible to
estimate the exact impact and influence that David had on
contemporary film. He was again one of a kind.

Speaker 7 (09:06):
And contemporary television. It's rare that you have an artist
who literally transforms both mediums.

Speaker 2 (09:11):
Oh, hell, yeah, I mean both. Yeah, I often do that.
But in many cases when I say film, I often
include you can include TV in that, but yeah, the
filmed arts, yeah, I mean his TV output is stunning,
even in comparison to his film work, which is amazing.

Speaker 6 (09:31):
In twenty eighteen, Scott the Oxford English Dictionary added the
term Lynchian into its collection, which is defined as characteristic, reminiscent,
or imitative of the works of David Lynch.

Speaker 2 (09:41):
How many other filmmakers have that have an adjective?

Speaker 7 (09:45):
I know, you know what? Very few? Very few.

Speaker 2 (09:47):
I can think of two off the top of my head.
Can you think of one or two?

Speaker 7 (09:51):
HITCHCOCKI in, yes, and think Canada, think Canada Hitchcockian, and
man I should really be able to think Canada this
month as we're doing our Go Connuct Yourself series.

Speaker 2 (10:05):
Uh yeah, I think Canada seventy eight. Yes, yes, absolutely,
yes there are I'm sure there are many many more
that we're not, but those are just the two that
popped into my head. Spielbergian, I guess is one.

Speaker 7 (10:16):
You could get there with Spielbergen for sure.

Speaker 2 (10:18):
In my universe. Joe Dante yee yen.

Speaker 7 (10:21):
Okay, now now we're just now we're just it's a
little bit Dante.

Speaker 2 (10:26):
Anything that is Dante ish Dante. I don't know what
they selfix, Fantastic Dante, dantastick don Dante, yeah, stick, whatever,
but it would be uh a film that illustrates a
clear and palpable and playful love for cinema and the
genre of sci fi. That's what I would put as

(10:46):
the definition of Joe Dante Yan all right, sorry, ahead.

Speaker 6 (10:50):
Well, the Oxford English Dictionary has for their definition of
Lynchian that lynch is noted for jextaposing surreal or sinister
elements with mundane everyday environments, and for using compelling visual
images to emphasize a dreamlike quality of mystery or menace.
I think that's a pretty decent summation, but maybe surface level.

Speaker 2 (11:10):
I would when one thing I've loved growing up in
the in the shadow as a movie nerd, in the
shadow of David Lynch, is it. Even when I would
see a film like Blue Velvet or Lost Highway and
not fully get it, I was somewhat moved, and I
don't even want to say not perturbed, but like rankled
a little because I didn't fully get it. And then

(11:31):
I would read articles and reviews and other perspectives, and
so film critics helped me love Lynch, and Lynch helped
me love reading about film. I could see that and
I do what I mean, like, yeah, it does like
Kubrick Kubrickian Aha, you know, like you know, in his heyday,
people were like obsessed with reading and talking about two

(11:52):
thousand and one at clockwork Orange. And then you know,
if you're a young, up and coming movie nerd, you're like, well,
you don't really have the insight to talk that much,
but you'll read articles or listen, you know, watch documentaries
and just you know, you want to like absorb what
makes this film so fascinating? And Lynch was a master
at that, what makes this film so fascinating.

Speaker 6 (12:13):
And I will admit something, jumping off what you said,
I don't necessarily fully get David Lynch. I'm I'm happy
to admit that right here now. I am fascinated by
his work. I find it incredibly compelling, and so many
elements of it I watching and disturb that fascinating.

Speaker 2 (12:29):
But sometimes it's hard to pierce in a narrative or
a human level. It is hard because some of his
sometimes his characters are ice cold and almost robotic, and
you know, but but you could still get drawn into
the story because it's just weird, but still, you know,
based in enough normal human world that you can follow it.

(12:51):
Like Twin Peaks is just so so weird to keep
you interested, but not so weird that it like falls apart,
you know what I mean, that's hard to I'm talking
about amorphous things now.

Speaker 7 (13:02):
Well, I mean, I'm morphous is a good word for it.

Speaker 6 (13:04):
I mean, this is a guy who liked to dabble
in the dream, Like this is the guy who liked
to dabble in the surreal and.

Speaker 2 (13:09):
It it goes back to the film critic thing Bran
and a lot of people, even our age, are like, well,
if I don't get it. I kind of don't like it,
and I don't feel that way. There are times like
you see abstract art and either you don't get it
fully or your interpretation is weird or different from everyone else's.
But so what that's part of appreciating art?

Speaker 6 (13:30):
Well, I think that was That was Lynch's other big
quality is that he never liked to talk about his movies.
Like they're countless clips online of him doing the talk
show circuit and being asked questions about the movies and
him just being like, you know, I really make movies
for audiences to determine for themselves what they're about.

Speaker 2 (13:47):
Yea, So he can kind of make a movie that's
sixty percent conventional and forty percent abstract. Why would you
want to sit on a talk show and explain the
strange parts that you put them in the film for
people to interpret in their own way. That's what you
put them in there for. If you made a plot
and people didn't understand the plot, then maybe you'd want
to explain it. But you made it weird on purpose.

(14:09):
So why would you expect a guy like David Lynch
to explain shit away? I don't want it. I want
it to be ambiguous, set up to my own interpretation.
If I want literal, I watch Romantic the Stone.

Speaker 6 (14:20):
Well, I mean, if you go back to the dream
quality of being dream like, dreams have interpretations that are
different for every person. So I feel like that's something
that Lynch reveled in, was being a little bit opaque,
a little bit cloudy with exactly what the movie was about,
in an effort to let people have an experience that
they defined for themselves. It's the reason why Scott David

(14:41):
Lynch never did a DVD commentary.

Speaker 7 (14:44):
He didn't want to.

Speaker 6 (14:45):
Tell people what his movies were about. He wanted them
to come to their own conclusions, which is why, especially
early in his career, he was also a very divisive filmmaker,
with some critics calling him a genius, some critics calling
him to commercial and too weird at the same time.
It's so crazy to me that he had eraserheads also.

Speaker 2 (15:03):
For commercial, right, Eraserhead is just just weeks of commercial
and popularity and four quadrant.

Speaker 6 (15:12):
I mean, but is that, to me is the epitome
of being an artist. That's hard to crack is that
at certain points in your career you've had people tell
you you're too commercial and that you're too artie like you
are somehow both of those things simultaneously.

Speaker 2 (15:26):
The weird thing is, and I know we're here to
talk about one of his specific films, but what's always
weird is that, I mean, I guess it's not weird.
It all just depends on what kind of films you
like the most. And I've seen all of Leech's features.
There is some TV work of his I've not seen yet,
but I've seen all of his feature films, and what

(15:47):
I like is that he even went at his most conventional,
which is, like I guess The Elephant Man or straight Story,
He's still dune, maybe conventional in narrative, yeah, I guess so. Yeah,
and wild at heart it is a perfect example. But
I was just gonna say The Elephant Man, I think
is for all his avant garde and strange, experimental films

(16:10):
and challenging themes, I still think The Elephant Man is
his masterpiece. It is so beautiful and heartbreaking and if
it's exactly the film he wanted it to be, I
truly love The Elephant Man. And you know when people
talk about Blue Velvet this and Mahalan Dry bad. I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah,
I get it. I get why people love him. Their
original and unique and strange and challenging. But the Elephant

(16:34):
Man breaks my heart. I just love it.

Speaker 6 (16:36):
I remember watching a lot of Saturday Night Live in
the mid nineties, like that's kind of my first memory
of like regular comedy on television, right, And I remember
distinctly seeing sketches about Twin Peaks where they would just
mercilessly lampoon how weird that show is and how nothing

(16:57):
made any sense, and.

Speaker 2 (16:58):
Oh it funny. They were funny sketches too. And that's
the beautiful part is if it's something that original, it's good,
and you it could make for a good spoof because
it's that unique. You know, you're not just you know
you're not gonna Beverly Hill's nine O two one oh
satire is not quite as funny as somebody who smart

(17:18):
writers who come up with a satire for Twin Peaks.
And I think it's a testament to the show that
that those sketches were funny. Is that where you were going,
that these are funny?

Speaker 7 (17:29):
No, no, no. I told that story specifically to put
myself on the couch because the other thing I need
to admit is that David Lynch is a filmmaker I
came to very late, even deep into my career as
a film critic. Something about his.

Speaker 6 (17:43):
Work always felt like it was at arms length for me,
and that was inaccessible.

Speaker 2 (17:49):
Inaccessible is a word. And if you're you grew up
on mostly not I know you, so you definitely have
always loved Indian foreign films. But if you up like
most of us, on mostly mainstream, conventional structure, It's gonna
take a little while for Lynch to permeate and get
under your skin. It's not gonna very rarely. If you

(18:10):
knew nothing about Lynch and just turned on Blue Velvet,
I don't know if you'd love it. You might, you know,
it's like your favorite albums don't click until you hear
them in the third or fourth time.

Speaker 7 (18:21):
Well, I think it was just it was sort of
because of those sketches and because of what I had heard,
and at the same time, like as I got a
little bit older, developing a real distaste for pretension, I
somehow in the back of my mind lumped all these
things together into I'm not going to like David Lynch
movies because they're weird, and they're inaccessible, and they're just

(18:41):
kind of pretension.

Speaker 2 (18:42):
Try it. Yeah, he's trying to confuse me. And I
don't want a filmmaker who's trying to throw me off.
I just kind of what a story, you know. I
don't need a puzzle, you know. Yeah, there are you
kind to do. Get a little bit of a chip
on your shoulder sometimes or if you feel like you're
not ready to appreciate it or not, you know. But

(19:03):
it took me a while to find the beauty in Lynch. Also.
I mean when I was young, I wouldn't have watched
any of his movies or because they're hard to grasp,
they're hard to decipher. And now as an old man,
I think Blue Velvet is a dark, twisted, fucking masterpiece.
But if you had asked me when I was twenty five,
I'd just said, no, that's not my speed. I saw it,

(19:24):
didn't really get it. Not my speed.

Speaker 6 (19:26):
But I mean this sort of falsity I had to
chip away at for years. Yeah, And for years the
only two Lynch movies I had seen were The Elephant
Man in Dune.

Speaker 7 (19:34):
Literally, he's two like commercial movies, right.

Speaker 6 (19:38):
Yeah, And I had a void, like even though my
dad was a huge fan of Twin Peaks, I just
always assumed it would be something that I wouldn't connect with.
And even though you know I have friends that swear
by Blue Velvet, I literally watched Blue Velvet for the
first time after Lynch passed away. I had never gotten
around to it.

Speaker 2 (19:57):
I had just no shame in that. Man, you are
a movie nut, and there's only there's almost not as
far as a human lifespan is concerned, eternal number of movies. Right, yeah, man,
you can't. You can't admire and know every filmmaker at once.
And I'll tell you another thing. I was a film
critic for twenty years, and if we were having like

(20:18):
a roundtable about David Lynch, I would bow out. I
would give my chair to someone else because I have
little bit of insights here and there, but as far
as like being truly well read and informed, I would
give my seat to another critic. So don't feel bad, man.

Speaker 7 (20:34):
Oh I don't. I don't feel bad.

Speaker 6 (20:35):
I'm not saying this as a confession to like I
do feel bad to flog myself. What I'm saying is,
when you hear me talk about these movies In this
movie today, specifically, I am not talking about Lynch as
an expert on the filmmaker, but rather somebody who is
just discovering the magic of David Lynch and starting to
maybe comprehend it. So if there are those of you

(20:58):
listening to this who are I had a similar starting
point in your Lynchian journey, I'm right there with you,
and I feel like there is something magical about like
first getting your hands on the formula of a David
Lynch movie, even if it's wrong, because again, the guy
would never tell us whether whether it was right or not.
But Wild at Heart is a movie I saw for

(21:19):
the first time. Let's see, it's about six years ago,
and I was going back and reading my letterboxed review
of it, and it's it's a movie that that did
connect with me. But this is a this is Wild
at Heart we're talking about today.

Speaker 2 (21:33):
I love this movie because it combines the two things
that we just talked about. It is conventional in a
A to B two C plot structure, but it also
veers off into the creative avant garde. I hate to
keep using the phrase, but you know, his his typical
lynchy and oddness in key moments. So you get mostly

(21:54):
a conventional story, but you also get strange deviations and
and cul de sacs that you wouldn't get with any
other filmmaker.

Speaker 6 (22:03):
Yeah, And that's the great thing about David Lynch that
I personally had to discover is he's actually making very
familiar stories. He's making film noirs. He's making in this
case of film noir that's also a runaway romance.

Speaker 2 (22:16):
He's making sixties biker story in a way. Yeah.

Speaker 7 (22:19):
Yeah, it's it's it's a Bonnie and Clyde.

Speaker 6 (22:21):
It's a you know what would later be natural born Killers,
Like yeah, it's it's a road movie about you know,
desperately a killer couple who's desperately in love, something that
again is not new, but the way that David Lynch
makes it his own is all of the weird memory
and dream like stuff that keeps you guessing, keeps you.

Speaker 2 (22:40):
Kind of odd characters, Like you know, in most conventional
movies like this, an odd character wouldn't exist for no reason.
If an odd character popped up at a motel at
three am, that character is going to play an important
part later, because that's just the economy of screenwriting. In
a conventional Hollywood movie. But in this movie, they're just
odd ball, weird characters who have five lines, and they

(23:02):
pop up and they vanish, and they just add to
the fucking salad, the beautiful salad of this movie. I mean,
it's not just that I love Nicholas Cage. It's not
just that Laura Dern is a force of nature. This
is absolutely in my top three or five Lynchians Lynch films.

(23:23):
I love this movie.

Speaker 4 (23:24):
We'll return after these messages.

Speaker 3 (23:31):
Blue Velvet is a masterpiece, a visionary story of sexual awakening.
David Thompson, California Magazine.

Speaker 2 (23:38):
It will be.

Speaker 3 (23:39):
Attacked, argued about, and cherished for years to come. David Anson, Newsweek.
Brilliant and unsettling. This is the work of an all
American visionary and a master film stylist, Stephen Schiff Vanity
Fair Blue Velvet raded.

Speaker 4 (23:55):
R see Bluevalve.

Speaker 6 (24:01):
Let's talk just very briefly about the plot of the film.
It's a It's described as a romantic crime comedy drama thriller. Like,
oh my god, could you throw more adjectives in there?

Speaker 2 (24:11):
I think that's kind of funny. I think that is
maybe Lynch telling his marketing team. That's what I want
to call it, you know, just throw them all in there.

Speaker 6 (24:18):
And it's about a young couple, Sailor Ripley and Lula Fortune,
who are on the run from Lula's domineering mother and
the criminals that she hires to kill Sailor when he
runs off with her daughter Oscar.

Speaker 2 (24:29):
Nominated Diane Ladd.

Speaker 7 (24:31):
Diane Ladd playing the mother of her real life daughter.

Speaker 2 (24:34):
Real life daughter, and what an amazing performance Diane Ladd.
We'll say it again, but I just have to preface, Oh.

Speaker 7 (24:40):
Yes, and playing the real life mother of her real
life daughter. Laura Dern, who.

Speaker 6 (24:44):
Is so so incredible in this movie, Like I think,
really somebody who can steal a movie away from Nicholas
Cage is formidable as an artist.

Speaker 5 (24:55):
Laura Dern is one of the all time great acts.
She could play anything.

Speaker 2 (25:03):
Man. What struck me watching this because I hadn't seen
this in thirty some years. I saw this in theaters
and never since, so that's a fact. And what struck
me this time around is that you can't trust the
sincerity or the veracity of anything in this film except
for the love these two characters clearly have for each other.
That's the only sincere thing. Anything else could be false

(25:24):
or put on, or a setup or brutal or unexpectedly dark.
But you never doubt that the Dern and Cage are
like madly crazily in love. And I like this movie.
If you were back in the day, I would have said,
I probably like Natural Born Killers more because this would

(25:44):
make a fascinating double feature with that film. But I
think I like this one more because I like these
characters more.

Speaker 6 (25:52):
And this just as we're talking, I'm starting to kind
of have notions of maybe what David Lynch is all about.
And like, for example, Scott's something you said triggered that
I think David Lynch's movies are out to are out
to make your own eyeballs unreliable narrators, like do you
know what I mean? Like there's a possibility that none
of this ever happened, like within even the context of

(26:14):
the world of the movie, like and the things that
you see in a David Lynch project, you can't really
be convinced is is real?

Speaker 7 (26:25):
Is it all?

Speaker 9 (26:26):
It?

Speaker 2 (26:26):
Could? You know, half of the wild stuff could be
in Laura Dern's mind. You know, it does take place
in kind of a hyper reality where just like strange
people wander all over the place and strange occurrences happen
in a typical lynchy in fashion. So yeah, you could
interpret it. I mean, and I think that's part of

(26:46):
the reason that Lynch fans love him so much, is
that so much is left up to interpretation of the viewer,
so much, not just a little bit here and there,
not just an ambiguous third act or something, but sometime
I'm you know, the entire structure of the film.

Speaker 6 (27:02):
Yeah, I mean, if you just look at the way
memories play into the story. I love the way that
they are. They just flash like it's almost like you're
driving on an overpass and you happen to look over
at a drive in movie theater and you're just seeing
like a few moments of what's on screen with no
real context. And then you have, on top of the memories,
the actual flashbacks two scenes we've just witnessed, which kind

(27:27):
of feel like the cover of a familiar song we
just heard so already, like I'm not trusting my senses
with anything.

Speaker 2 (27:33):
Right, but now you're getting the context of oh, when
did this happen? When did this take place? Like the
main plot is are they going to be able to
stay one step ahead of the guy of the criminals
tracking them? But an important b plot is why the mother,
Why the mother hates sailors so much? And that we
are offered along the way several flashbacks. So I don't

(27:55):
want to spoil too much because odds are I mean,
I would I bet a lot of your listeners haven't
seen this only because it's so hard to track down nowadays.
Oh yeah, now this is or at least haven't seen
it in forever like me.

Speaker 7 (28:08):
Yeah, it's a difficult one to get your hands on.

Speaker 6 (28:10):
But I mean, whenever you're talking about a David Lynch
movie at all or David Lynch TV show, you got
to talk about the cast.

Speaker 7 (28:17):
And this is what's.

Speaker 6 (28:19):
Crazy about Wild at Heart is this is a movie
that he took on right after or like right as
he's completing the pilot episode of Twin Peaks. So in
addition to just having an eye for casting, he's also
has this now this new well of people from Twin
Peaks to pull from to be in the film. And
you know, the stars of the movies, we said are

(28:39):
Nicholas Cage and Laura Dern, who are just Lightning together,
they're absolutely phenomenal. But I mean, on top of that,
you know Diane Ladd, of course Willem fucking Defoe.

Speaker 2 (28:51):
As Bobby Peru. I mean, if you ever just needed
an example of hey, am I not ear? Is Willem
Dafoe Always been seen Steeler number one? Nope, always, always, always.

Speaker 7 (29:02):
Always creepy as the day is long in this movie.

Speaker 2 (29:06):
With the nasty teeth in that voice, little arrow Flynn
mustache that he's gotten. Oh my god, is he just
he's one of the best. He's one of the best
to ever do it, and he's still kicking ass today.

Speaker 7 (29:19):
And then on top of that, we have Crisp and
Glover in a flashback scene being just fucking weird as
all get out.

Speaker 2 (29:27):
We also who comes up later? Am I nuts?

Speaker 9 (29:29):
Or?

Speaker 2 (29:30):
Did the guy who plays Marcellus Santos J E. Freeman?
Am I nuts?

Speaker 9 (29:36):
Or?

Speaker 2 (29:36):
It was like Dean Stockwell busy and Lynch couldn't hire
him for that. That really felt like the Dean Stockwell part.
And he's nowhere to be seen.

Speaker 6 (29:46):
Yeah, that's true. They didn't stock enough Stockwell, so instead
they got J. E. Freeman in this.

Speaker 2 (29:51):
Yeah, but Santos is the nemesis that the Diane Ladd
character may or may not be hooking up with to
track down our fugitive lovers. J. E.

Speaker 6 (30:01):
Freeman also appearing as the Dane and Miller's Crossing. He
was an Alien Resurrection, he was in Copycat. He's been
in a few movies.

Speaker 2 (30:09):
Actually, he looks like I mean, he looks like every
Dick Tracy villain ever born.

Speaker 6 (30:16):
I would love to read a Dick Tracy comic strip
set in the world of a David Lynch movie that.

Speaker 2 (30:21):
Yeah, no, or if Lynch got to direct the film
in nineteen ninety instead of or is it ninety I
think it was, Yeah.

Speaker 6 (30:27):
It is, he would have had to do that instead
of this. He would have been doing Dick Tracy right.

Speaker 2 (30:31):
Well, he's right off Blue Velvet, which came off I mean, everybody,
every critic, every you know, it was. It was a
huge critical and audience favorite Blue Velvet. So yeah, right
after that, he got on top of Blue Velvet and this,
and I had a ball that I knew I was
going to have a ball revisiting this just because of

(30:52):
my and your deep abiding love for Nicholas Cage. But
there's so much more in this than just him and
he's great, but there's like it's like a salad bar
of great stuff and he's just like the big bullo lettuce.

Speaker 7 (31:04):
Yeah, and this is the only time I'll allow myself
to go to a salad bar is to talk about
a David Lynch embarrassment of riches.

Speaker 2 (31:10):
My crazier. Did I see David Patrick Kelly in there
for like two scenes?

Speaker 6 (31:13):
David Patrick Kelly has drop shadow in this movie. Also,
someone who appears in Twin Peaks.

Speaker 2 (31:20):
Another phenomenal David Lynch stand by the late, great, flawless
Harry Dean Stanton.

Speaker 7 (31:27):
God, oh, I love it is Harry Dean Stanton in
everything He's ever.

Speaker 2 (31:32):
Every scene, you know, every scene. He's just got this
toughness and also a vulnerability because he wants to help
the Diane Ladd character who he pines for, but he
also knows he's in over his head. And yeah, he's
just the perfect hangdog character actor, just that you know,
flawed character you kind of wish you could like, but

(31:53):
you really can't. He's amazing. He's amazing As Johnny Farragut, Yes.

Speaker 6 (32:00):
The private eye that is hired by Diane Ladd to
track down her daughter and her daughter's boyfriend Sailor. By
the way, Roger Ebert loved Harry Dean Stanton so much
that he created something he called the Stanton Walsh Rule,
which states that no movie featuring either Harry Dean Stanton
or Mmitt Walsh in a supporting role can be altogether bad.

Speaker 2 (32:20):
Oh, I thought you were gonna say J. T. Walsh,
which I also would accept, But yeah.

Speaker 7 (32:23):
No, I'd be fine with that too.

Speaker 2 (32:24):
Actually, yeah, all right, I'll let you. I'm gonna you
want to talk about force of nature in this movie?
She shows up in the second half and Isabella Roussellini
like just takes over for a good portion of the movie.

Speaker 7 (32:37):
She is amazing, much as she did in Blue Velvet.

Speaker 6 (32:40):
I mean, she's just she is a fiery screen presence,
like she will burn your movie down to the ground,
and I love her for it.

Speaker 2 (32:48):
She can be quiet, demure, peaceful, very understated. But when
she gets a screen, a script that you know where
she can bite into it, she is amazing. I love her.
What did I just say? Oh, she's still doing it.

Speaker 7 (33:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (33:02):
And by the way, did you know that there is
a spinoff of this movie directed by Alex Delagalacia what Yeah,
that's about her character. I had no idea of this,
but apparently there is in fact a spinoff directed by
the great Alex Della Galacia about I.

Speaker 2 (33:17):
Love his I love his stuff, and I'm sure I've
heard of it, but I don't think I knew that
it was an unofficial spinoff.

Speaker 6 (33:23):
Interesting yep, yeah, it is called Perdita Durango.

Speaker 4 (33:26):
That is Oh yeah, I do know.

Speaker 2 (33:27):
That title, but I did not know that. How interesting.

Speaker 6 (33:30):
Yeah, that is about it. Just going back to Harry
Dean Stanton for a second. Something that turned up in
the research that I absolutely couldn't believe because it sounds
like a scene not only in a David Lynch movie,
but in this David Lynch movie. Is that apparently, during
a home invasion, Harry Dean Stanton was tied up and
pistol whipped in his La home. This was like back
in ninety six, and the thieves like made off with

(33:53):
his car, but they were later caught and he suffered
only minor injuries.

Speaker 7 (33:56):
But yeah, he was literally tied up and pistol whipped in.

Speaker 6 (33:58):
His own home in La Yikes, ninety six, Like, doesn't
that sound exactly like a scene in Wild At heart.

Speaker 2 (34:07):
Did I just glanced past it on the Wikipedia page.
But did you want to discuss how the film was
briefly threatened with an X rating.

Speaker 6 (34:14):
It was, and it was an X rating because they
had not they had not incorporated the NC seventeen yet,
so they Yeah, they told David Lange after he showed
the movie at cann he finished the movie one day
before it's can premiere.

Speaker 7 (34:28):
Which it's again. This is when I say divisive.

Speaker 6 (34:32):
He really was at the time of Device Filmmaker, because
the screening of the film. Apparently the first screening was
met with raved cheers and everybody was hooting and hollering.
But then when it was announced that it had won
the Palm d'Or, many of the critics were booing and upset.

Speaker 2 (34:46):
Sorry, Brian, I think it's Palm du oh named after
Homer Simpson.

Speaker 6 (34:50):
Come on, dude, yes, you're right, Palm doh uh.

Speaker 7 (34:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (34:53):
A lot of the a lot of the critics were
apparently booing and very upset.

Speaker 2 (34:57):
I don't get it. Even if you don't like this movie,
I don't see how it's boo worthy.

Speaker 7 (35:01):
Well, I was saying, Bourns.

Speaker 2 (35:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (35:05):
Now, apparently based on what the actual Barry Gifford, who
wrote the novel that this is based on Wild at Heart,
the story of Sailor and Lula, said that a lot
of critics at the time were kind of hoping for
Lynch to fail. I guess after everything that had gone
down on Dune and this and that and the other thing,
Like there was just this there was this weird atmosphere

(35:27):
of we're really hoping that this guy just finally goes away.
And in fact, he talks about Gifford talks about when
he was interviewed, people kept trying to get him to
say because Lynch made huge changes to the book, and
all of these critics that would interview Gifford would try
to get him to talk about his true feelings about
the changes, as if they wanted him to be like, oh,
he ruined my book or whatever. But he's like, no,

(35:48):
they're actually great. I love what he's done with the story. Yeah,
So it really does seem like there was a weird
bias against David Lynch at this period of time.

Speaker 2 (35:57):
It's yeah, over the course of a filmmaker's career, I mean,
you know, look at anybody, Look at Warren Batty, look
at Kevin Costner, you know, I mean, look at Spielberg.
They all have these periods where if they get something
that's not an A plus, then it's condeemed like a
D minus. And it's like there's a lot of grades
in between those two things.

Speaker 4 (36:15):
We'll return after these messages.

Speaker 9 (36:20):
Way back in the thirties, Bob's invented the double deck Hamburger.
We called it the Big Boy. Some folks called it
a meal in itself. A few years later we had
it even more and called it the Big Boy Combo
with French fries and a crispy green salad. Today you
can enjoy this famous combo at a special price of
only a dollar ninety nine. And isn't that good news?

Speaker 10 (36:44):
And Bob before.

Speaker 2 (36:48):
Just like but yeah, the movie was threatened with an
X because of one violent shotgun scene, and then they
made some minor edits and they got there. They got
the R rating. That's basically what I just read.

Speaker 7 (37:02):
The minor eds.

Speaker 6 (37:03):
Yeah, we'll get we need to talk about that shotgun
scene here in a minute. But that was really one.
I mean they toned down. I think there was another
sex scene I guess between two of the kidnappers, not
Nicholas Cage and Laura Dern who get their share of
erotic scenes in this movie.

Speaker 7 (37:19):
Don't get me wrong, but there was apparently.

Speaker 2 (37:21):
Don't say erotic on podcast.

Speaker 7 (37:24):
Per broadcast.

Speaker 6 (37:26):
No, no, no, but there was this other sex scene that
people found really disturbing after a murder two characters who
weren't central characters, and that got taken out and then yeah,
they just toned down this.

Speaker 2 (37:35):
Wait, which characters do you know?

Speaker 7 (37:37):
Yeah, the characters that performed the sacrifice of a certain character,
actor's character that we've been talking about.

Speaker 2 (37:44):
Oh oh oh in the hotel room.

Speaker 6 (37:46):
Yeah, okay, yeah, So there was apparently more to that
that got taken out, and then they were able to
get in our rating as he was contractually obligated to
turn in an R rated film for PolyGram. And the
other thing that's crazy is that David Lynch kind of
got dragged down into when Dido de Laurentis's company went
under and kind of got absorbed by Carol Co. Lynch

(38:09):
kind of got stuck in that black hole and found
it very difficult to work his way out of that.
And you know, this was one of the projects I
think that kind of set him back on the path
of being able to make his own movies again. But yeah,
I really enjoy the runaway romance of this. I think
Nicholas Cage and Laura Dern have this very like they're

(38:32):
both very youthful in this. They both are very naive
but very sweet and very much devoted to each other
in a way that is admirable.

Speaker 2 (38:39):
Right, sweet in a really fractured kind of way, but definitely,
like I said, you sense that in a film that
doesn't have much that's sincere, like you buy the love
of those two and their performances are like they almost
feel like something like from an archie comic plopped into
a very violent, nihilistic world.

Speaker 6 (38:58):
And what I love about Nick Cage, as Lynch called him,
the jazz musician of acting, and Laura Dern, for your
consideration in this, is that they are simultaneously rockabillies and
metal heads. Like I literally at the start of the movie,
if you had asked me what band they were going
to see, I would have said, obviously, like, you know,

(39:21):
you know, some Elvis impersonator or somebody.

Speaker 7 (39:25):
Who's playing something like the r the Ookredge Point something right.

Speaker 6 (39:29):
I would not have expected them to go to a
power Mad concert, which was a like thrash metal band.

Speaker 7 (39:36):
And I will tell you this. I will tell you
this right now.

Speaker 6 (39:40):
You have not lived until you have seen just exactly
how at home Nicholas Cage is in a mosh pit.

Speaker 2 (39:52):
Oh I buy that. I mean anything where he gets
to just like cut loose and be a little bit wild.
I mean, I yeah, wow, absolutely I could see him
being a mosh pitt Maven.

Speaker 6 (40:04):
I mean this, This movie starts off in Cape Fear
between the Carolinas, so you know we're we're already in
for a wild ride off. Cape Fear is the starting
point of this movie, and so much happens in the
first two minutes. By the time that metal riff drops,
you'd think you were, in fact watching a rock music video.

Speaker 2 (40:23):
I mean, it's a relatively simple narrative, but the way
the characters kind of their their backstories interlace, and and
the editor, whoever who cut this, I want to make
sure we get it. Dwyane Durrant, Dwayne Dunham and Lynch
do a masterful job of like inter cutting flashbacks, key

(40:44):
key short flashbacks, and you're like, oh, yeah, that's why
she hates him, right, Oh okay, got it, got it,
got it? Uh, and the revelations keep coming. There are
like little tidbits that arrive all the way through the film,
and they're all interesting. It really keeps you on your toes.

Speaker 6 (40:58):
It's not even a one at play necessarily, but like
a one scene play. At the beginning of this movie,
we're just slowly giving more and more information about like
f At the beginning of the movie, a guy tries
to stab Nicholas Cage because he claims that this you know,
Nicholas Cage is with this woman, Lula, this young girl Lula,

(41:19):
whose mother, apparently Nicholas Cage, is also trying to get with,
and so she's hired this dude to try and kill
Nicholas Cage. Nicholas Cage literally beats a man to death
and then metal drops, like that's that's how.

Speaker 7 (41:30):
The first to end.

Speaker 2 (41:32):
Yeah, you miss you just intersposed two different things. It
was because the Diane Ladd character came on to Cage,
who turns her down.

Speaker 7 (41:39):
No, no, no. At the beginning of the movie, we
don't know that, That's what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (41:42):
We see and then we keep going back and getting
more and more context for what actually happens.

Speaker 6 (41:49):
What's crazy is you think that this is a movie
like Nicholas Cage is like gonna be some hardened criminal
and the two of them are running away and she's
under age or something.

Speaker 2 (41:58):
It's not like that at all, and the mother is
just as a noble angel, and you're like no, and
it starts to unfurl that No, these motivations are completely
not what I thought.

Speaker 6 (42:09):
And it's very much the same kind of thing that
David Lynch was doing with Blue Velvet, where I'm gonna
take American society and not only that, but like nineteen
fifties Baby Boom like American society and show the yeah,
the suburban side of things, and show the darker underbelly.
Much to the point that in a story like this,

(42:29):
if it was made in the fifties, that mom would
have been chased, That mom would have had her daughter's
best intentions of heart, her daughter would have been borderline
under her. Yeah, and this guy who absconds with her
would have been an absolute, dark, degenerate usurper.

Speaker 2 (42:42):
Oh right, he's just yeah, he's turning all these conventions
on their head. You know that the mother would be noble,
then they want to get her back for pure reasons,
But no, it's they're shady people all down, all the
way down. Even our heroes are, you know, very flawed.

Speaker 6 (42:56):
And then the opening two minutes we also get what
I'm calling the point, the Nicholas Cage point that is
often memed but never duplicated. Often it is misattributed to
Vampire's kiss when in gift form, but it's where he's
just looking and then he points up and he's got
that great head of Elvis hair. I don't know if
you guys know this about Nicholas Cage, huge fucking Elvis fan,

(43:16):
and in this movie gets to actually imitate the man
and sing like the man, and it's just I love
the playground they give him in this.

Speaker 2 (43:23):
Yeah. Yeah, the two of them are great together, great
a part. The performances are amazing, and the chemistry is amazing.
I love. Yeah. I could have watched another hour of this.
Probably back in the day. I probably liked it, but
wished it had wrapped up quicker. It's like one hundred
and twenty five minutes. But honestly, I could have taken
another hour of this.

Speaker 6 (43:42):
I mean, did he ever tell you that that jacket
that he wears represents a symbol of his individuality is
belief in personal freedom.

Speaker 2 (43:48):
It's you know, it's beautiful, itat it's beautiful writing.

Speaker 6 (43:52):
And it's his jacket. It's Nicholas Cage's actual snake skin jacket.
To the surprise of absolutely no one.

Speaker 2 (43:59):
I don't think we talking about Willem Dafoe.

Speaker 7 (44:01):
Let's talk more about Willem Dafoe. I'm here for it,
I'm here, here, here for this.

Speaker 2 (44:06):
I just love that he can play any kind I mean,
obviously he could play anything. But some people are just
naturally predisposed to being villainous. Oh sure, it could be
the tone of their voice, it could be the size
of their nose, or their cheeks, or their you know,
has nothing to do with them as a person. But
some people just have a look or a sound or
a presence that wonderfully plays to villainy. And he knows it.

Speaker 7 (44:32):
He has said that he feels like he has missed.

Speaker 6 (44:34):
Out on more conventional roles because he's perceived as an
eccentric actor in dark little films.

Speaker 2 (44:39):
Oh wait, is that Willem Dafoe. You're talking about her
Nicholas Cage. Because they're both brilliant geniuses, was my point.
You know, like they'll go way way off base in
an indie weird film. But then they can also just
play a basic villain in Spider Man. They can do anything.
Your cages and your Dafos, they can do anything.

Speaker 6 (45:00):
Dafoe has described himself as a boy next door type.
If you live next door to a mausoleum.

Speaker 2 (45:05):
Just that voice, just the voice alone, you know, it
could be. It just has a natural sinister curl to it,
you know.

Speaker 7 (45:13):
Just oh man, oh yeah, oh yeah, absolutely, what did we.

Speaker 2 (45:17):
Just see him in Oh No Sparratu. He's amazing in
that he's like the only person who has like a
tension release in that movie, because it's very dense and
foggy and oppressive in a good way. I think it's
a great film. And then occasionally he gets to vamp
it up to borrow a pun and Willem Dafoe in
No Satu is like that tension release at least three

(45:39):
times that you need even in an artsy, fartsy, beautiful
horror film. You need some lightness, you need some fun,
and that's what Dafoe does a lot of in No Sparatu.

Speaker 6 (45:50):
By the time we get to Dafoe, we are in
this phase of the movie that really tickles a soft
spot for me. I am a huge fan of movies
that take place America but seems so remote and weird
that they're like set on planet America, like not the
like not actual America, but a world size zoo constructed

(46:12):
by aliens who heard about America via word of mouth
but haven't actually been there.

Speaker 2 (46:17):
I've seen videos on YouTube. I haven't delved much into this,
but there's a real Wizard of Oz connection to this movie.

Speaker 7 (46:24):
Oh yeah, all over the place there's Wizard of Oz.

Speaker 2 (46:27):
I mean, have you done any I think there's a
Wikipedia section and I've seen three or four YouTube headings
about it about how the you know, the various themes
and metaphors and underpinnings. There's something for your listeners to
check out if they want to after they watch the movie,
and obviously they've already watched it before listening to us.
Now go look up the Wizard of Oz connection to

(46:48):
Wild at Heart.

Speaker 6 (46:50):
Jack Nance is in this, Pruett Taylor Vince is in this.
France's Bay is in this. Like Frank Collison, the weird
hot dog guy from The Happening, which is how a
lot of people seem to know him, but he's been
in a thousand fucking movies and he's he's in this
and he's that.

Speaker 2 (47:08):
Lynch hired well more than once. Gray Sabriski, cheryln Sin
and Cheryl Lee. I'm sure we're leaving people out. I mean,
just just just a fascinating troupe. You know, there's something
great about like an altman Or and a Lynch that like,
obviously the casts don't always stay identical. You're gonna get

(47:29):
movie stars in and out all the time, but how
great is it? Hey, Joe Dante does it too. Yeah,
there's seven or eight character actors that like float in
and out of most of his movies, and it's beautiful.

Speaker 7 (47:40):
It's like a theatrical thing. It's like when you have
a troop of actors in a theater costany. Yes, like
there's something very old world about that that I desperately appreciate. So, yeah,
just a phenomenal cast.

Speaker 6 (47:50):
But yeah, and here's the thing about Cheryl and Finn
being in this movie is that she was a character
that Lynch actually added to the story. He added her,
who plays this girl that gets into a car accident,
is very it's a very weird turning point for Laura Dern,
who is very wide eyed, and you know, even she

(48:12):
has said that she had trouble getting into the mud.
She likes to play intellectual characters, so to play a
character like Lula who is just sex crazed and desperately
in love with this guy.

Speaker 2 (48:23):
Imagine if all you know Laura Dern from is Jurassic
Park and Star Wars, and then you watch this movie
what just like you? Your mind is going to be
blown at how raw and unfiltered and maniacal she I
mean not in a violent way, but just so human
and so vibrant, I guess is a way to put it.

(48:46):
You know, she does bounce off the screen.

Speaker 6 (48:48):
Imagine not knowing that the same year Laura Dern was
in Jurassic Park, her mother, Diane Ladd was in Carnosaur. Like,
there's something beautifully junk food kismet about that to me.

Speaker 2 (48:58):
Side bar, Yeah, Carnoisaur fucking rocks, and so does Carnosaur two.

Speaker 6 (49:13):
I must admit those are That's a franchise I've not
tapped into yet.

Speaker 2 (49:17):
All right, well, I would like to make a specific
request junk food Cinema Carnosaur at least part one, or
or we maybe we just do one long episode on
parts one and two. There's only four. There's Carnosour prime
three primal species, and then there was Raptor, which I
believe was like eighty footage from the other films. Okay,

(49:39):
we don't have to bother with that one. I have
to ask this question.

Speaker 6 (49:43):
Is Raptor about a dinosaur who also raps.

Speaker 2 (49:47):
No, it's just called Raptor Man. But Carnosaur one and
two we have to watch them.

Speaker 6 (49:53):
I was kind of hoping Raptor took place in the
same universe as that Whoopi Goldberg movie Theodore Rex, where
the dina source can like talk and like live like people,
and that there's just a raptor who is also a
fly smc and gets himself a record contract, because that's
a movie I would also watch.

Speaker 11 (50:10):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (50:11):
Carnoisaur is also noteworthy in that Roger Ebert gave it
an enthusiastic thumbs up like that reverse it.

Speaker 10 (50:20):
STEVENS. Friedelberg's Jurassic Park is coming out next month, and
it's going to feature high tech dinosaurs. It's going to
be interesting to see, however, whether he has any humans
as enjoyable as Diane Ladd's character and carnosaur so a
marginal thumbs up for me.

Speaker 11 (50:34):
Well thumbs down for me Jane, although I did enjoy
Diane Ladd's kind of mad intensity. She has that sort
of way of zeroing in on our lines, as if
everything in the entire future of mankind.

Speaker 4 (50:45):
I think what she's doing here, Wow.

Speaker 2 (50:49):
Roger Cormi production, And as I'm sure you know, I'm
a little surprised you had not seen the first one.
You love junk food, I do.

Speaker 7 (51:03):
And I love Rodger Korman, But the guy made so
many fucking movies. And I found this out after he
passed away.

Speaker 6 (51:08):
Roger Corman made so many movies that, despite the fact
that I've seen a ton of them and love a
ton of them, there were entire franchises of his movies
that I hadn't seen. That was one of them. Blood
Fist was another one. But I've finally gone back and
watched the blood Fist movies.

Speaker 2 (51:22):
And then you start digging between the lines and you're like, wait,
uncredited on Alligator. I've seen that, uncredited on blankety blank,
but he funded, he produced it, but he's he's uncredited
on forty fucking movies. I've probably seen. It's amazing his
body of work. But anyway, let's get back a sidebar
over Cornosaur coming soon.

Speaker 6 (51:40):
I mean, my final thought on that is, I don't
know why they called it Raptor when Carnifour was right there.
If you're gonna do a fourth Carnisaur movie, you gotta
call it Carna four. Anyway, wild at heart, that's what
we are, Scott. We are wild at heart about our
love for Carnoisaurs and for David Lynch films.

Speaker 4 (51:58):
We'll return after these messages.

Speaker 10 (52:03):
We found an alternative to Jurassic Park from B movie
producer Roger Korman.

Speaker 11 (52:07):
Carnoisaur is exactly what a dinosaur movie should be.

Speaker 4 (52:12):
Diane Ladd will chill you to the bone.

Speaker 3 (52:16):
Awesome.

Speaker 4 (52:17):
I think we can.

Speaker 1 (52:18):
Agree that I would hope that people would see two
dinosaur movies this summer.

Speaker 6 (52:24):
So they're on the road, they're staying at the CD motels,
they are having a whole lot of sex, like to
the point that Laura Dern actually violated her own no
nudity clause, like she would never she had been someone
who never wanted to do nudity in films, which makes
sense considering the first movie she was in that we've
covered on the show Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains.

Speaker 7 (52:45):
She was thirteen when she got that. She got that job,
So I.

Speaker 6 (52:49):
Mean, this is a woman who's been in movies since
she was a kid, who literally had to emancipate herself
from her mother, Diane Ladd in order to be a
beam Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stane.

Speaker 2 (53:00):
Sorry I didn't I spoke over you, but I just
wanted to underline that with Fabulous Stains is a film
I would never have seen or bothered to watch if
not for another podcast I did years ago. And it
is great.

Speaker 6 (53:11):
It really really Babe young Ray Winstone who knew who knew?

Speaker 4 (53:15):
Man?

Speaker 6 (53:16):
Yeah, it's an incredible movie. But she's someone who had,
because she started so young, was just very much against,
you know, doing nude scenes and films. But this, this couple,
this character that she is playing, who she had to
you know, to go back to my earlier point, she
found that chewing gum was a great Chewing bubble gum
specifically was a great way to kind of get into

(53:36):
the cadence and rhythm of a character like this that
she had never really played before.

Speaker 7 (53:39):
And again, Laura durn steals this movie.

Speaker 2 (53:42):
Yeah, she's amazing to me. Even if you don't connect
much with the movie, you'd walk away thinking, yeah, I
see why Laura during to Nicholas Cage became stars easily,
you know.

Speaker 7 (53:52):
And it's not exploitative, like even she has said.

Speaker 2 (53:55):
That, No, it's kind of tender. It's in an ugly world,
but the moments between the two of them heartfelt.

Speaker 6 (54:02):
I mean, the whole thing where he's you know, he
stops the speed mental show to get into a fight
with the guy that's kind of besmirched her honor and they.

Speaker 2 (54:09):
Did nothing really, He kind of just like stood next
to her and like was about to approach her or something.
And it's just this you know, macho sixties protectiveness and
it you know, it's in a way in a a
in a real world, it would probably be not very helpful,
but in a stylized movie world, he's super cool.

Speaker 6 (54:28):
Yeah, and he sings her in Elvis song, but he
tells her that, you know, she says, why didn't you
sing love Me Tender? And he basically says that he's
saving love Me Tender for is the woman he intends
to marry, Like it's this weird code of Elvis fan
honor that he only will sing love Me Tender to
his wife. It's just like, it's so weird. But at

(54:49):
the same time, if you get into the head of
a person like that and know what that song means
to them and what their rule is, if you buy
into those premises, the ending of this movie is actually
incredibly sweet.

Speaker 2 (55:03):
Yeah, it's just good writing period. The source material by
Gifford and or Lynch's good. It's just good writing, you know,
good character building.

Speaker 6 (55:14):
I think there's something about watching a hazy memory of
a man completely engulfed in flames stumbling through a smartly
appointed Eisenhower era living room that perfectly sums up a
David Lynch film, and that definitely happens at Wild at Heart.

Speaker 2 (55:27):
Yeah, it is, like I said, it's the best combination
for me for David Lynch. Maybe not my favorite David Lynch,
but it is a fascinating combination of conventional plot but
also just enough weirdness to make you think, maybe I
will watch muhalland Drive. Maybe I do want to see
Blue Velvet. You know, it's a great intro I think
to his weirder stuff, and I.

Speaker 6 (55:49):
Love the use of the only sound, the only like
pop song in this movie that isn't Elvis is Chris
Isaac's cover of Wicked Game.

Speaker 2 (55:57):
Oh yeah, that I remember was huge. When this movie
came out. This movie was not noteworthy for a lot
of things. It only made like thirteen million from a
ten million dollar budget. I always do that and overheted,
so I have to do it here.

Speaker 6 (56:09):
But I mean, if you want a song that reminds
you of a slowly burning, all consuming love affair between
two criminals, I don't know why, but that song definitely
is that.

Speaker 4 (56:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (56:18):
I don't know how long the connection between this movie
and that song lasted, but for a moment there in
ninety it was known that this came from Wild at Heart.

Speaker 7 (56:26):
Oh interesting.

Speaker 2 (56:27):
This song just became so huge that it kind of
became its own thing. I'm pretty sure there was a
heavy rotation MTV video too.

Speaker 7 (56:40):
I got to talk about one thing really really quickly.

Speaker 6 (56:42):
I think there is a direct connection between Wild at
Heart and con Air. And no, I don't just mean
because Nicholas Cage is in both movies. But what I
mean is, I think specifically whoever wrote con Air, is
a big fan of this movie because I'm just I'm
noticing weird little things on viewing that seemed to line
up perfectly with con Air. For example, Diane Ladd's character's

(57:07):
name is Marietta Fortune. And is that is the fact
that Garland Green, who Steve Bushimi's character in con Air
is nicknamed the Marietta Mangler? Is that a hidden nod
to Wild at Heart? Also is where does Marietta? Is
it a city in Georgia?

Speaker 9 (57:27):
Oh?

Speaker 7 (57:27):
Georgia? Okay? Think, But here's the other here's the other question.

Speaker 4 (57:30):
Though.

Speaker 6 (57:31):
So at one point in this movie, Sailor goes to
jail while it is you know, it's been revealed that
Laura deurn is pregnant with his child, and he goes
to jail and he doesn't meet that child for the
first time until after he gets paroled.

Speaker 7 (57:43):
And what does he do.

Speaker 6 (57:44):
He brings that child he's meeting for the first time
a stuffed animal. Which movie did I just describe? Did
I describe con Air? Or Wild at Heart?

Speaker 2 (57:53):
I think that we should talk to Scott Rosenberg, the
writer of con Air, and ask him, because here's the thing.
If you're a screenwriter, and you know that Nicholas Cage
is doing your action movie, wouldn't you also put in
a maltar going to take these pampers line? Wouldn't you
also throw in something?

Speaker 7 (58:08):
Oh? I would a thousand percent right over?

Speaker 2 (58:10):
I mean, based on his work, I think Scott Rosenberg's
probably a smart guy. So yeah, maybe it was on purpose.

Speaker 7 (58:15):
Put the plagiarism lawsuit back in the ball.

Speaker 2 (58:19):
Get it to mean more of an Easter egg than anything.

Speaker 6 (58:21):
Yes, absolutely, it's a giant, fat Easter egg that I
love so much.

Speaker 2 (58:26):
And who delivers the Easter egg the bunny? So put
the bunny back in the box?

Speaker 7 (58:33):
Is this season? Well?

Speaker 6 (58:34):
To get back to Willem Dafoe for just a second,
because we've got to talk about this robbery scene. It's
this moment where, you know, the most criminal thing that's
revealed that Nicholas Cage's character has ever done is that
he used to be this criminal Marcellus Santos's driver and
witnessed the death of Lula's father in a fire. But
he was a ghetaway driver. That's as much as he's

(58:55):
ever been involved in this racket. So when Bobby Peru,
the Roh's weird white trash cousin of Gomez Adams played
by Willem Defoe comes to him and says, you know,
I know this this feed store. They don't have much
security and on certain days they have a lot of money. Like,
he'd be an easy job. Let's knock him off. Nicholas
Case doesn't want to do it. He doesn't want to

(59:15):
disappoint Lula, Like he's like, that's not the life I
want to live. But I also am going to be
a father. We need money, Okay. He reluctantly decides to
go along.

Speaker 2 (59:23):
I also think I could be wrong, but I also
think he kind of he's afraid of Bobby and wants
and kind of wants to be in his good graces.
I think I couldn't. Really, there's lots of ways to
take it.

Speaker 7 (59:34):
Are you saying that Bobby Peru might have a couple
of red flags that people are picking up on.

Speaker 2 (59:38):
Well, yeah, I mean, but then you would also ask
why why wouldn't he just run away, run the other way?
You know?

Speaker 6 (59:43):
So he goes along on this heist, and it's it's
revealed that Bobby Peru might have been one of the
people that Marcella Santos has incorporated or deputized to help
take out Sailor during this robbery. Oh, it can look
like something happened during the robbery. Yes, that's what it's
kinda look like. And uh, dude, when that cop shows

(01:00:06):
up and things are starting to go to shit and
Willem Dafoe is in a shootout with a cop and.

Speaker 2 (01:00:10):
Don't spoil it, it's an amazing moment.

Speaker 6 (01:00:13):
It dude, Dude, that shotgun when it goes off and
you're just like, what the fuck just happened right now?

Speaker 2 (01:00:22):
That's a good impact. The character deserves it. It's a
good moment for the you know of tension release, you know,
and it signals like the beginning of the end and.

Speaker 6 (01:00:32):
The dark humor that David Lynch manages to bring to
this where at one point the guy in the feedstore
is like, where's my hand and the other guy's like, Oh,
don't worry.

Speaker 7 (01:00:39):
They'll be able to attach it. It'll be like it
never came off, and he's like, where is it? I
don't know. You just see a dog walking off with
that guy's hand.

Speaker 6 (01:00:46):
Yeah, just like the little moments of dark humor that
I absolutely appreciated this movie. So so weird and yet
so good at the same time. Much like a lot
of David Lynch's output, I'd.

Speaker 2 (01:00:57):
Be really curious to, uh, well, both see what I
think of a lot of Lynch's stuff revisiting it because
I haven't seen moholland Drive, Lost Highway or Blue Velvet
in twenty plus years. But I would be curious to
know if I like those a lot more than I
did back then. This one I definitely remember liking, and
I like it more now, So it was a good revisit.

Speaker 7 (01:01:18):
Was this a request, No, no, no, this is just
something I wanted.

Speaker 6 (01:01:21):
I wanted to find an opportunity to eulogize David Lynch.
And when it was revealed, When it was revealed, when
I looked at a fucking calendar and saw that Valentine's
Day would be on a Friday, and we hadn't done
a double stuff in a while, just all the pieces
kind of fell into place for me.

Speaker 2 (01:01:35):
Oh, it is a it is a twisted romance, so
therefore a perfect Valentine's movie.

Speaker 7 (01:01:40):
It really thought so.

Speaker 6 (01:01:42):
And you know, if you if you need to get
dressed up for a Valentine's date, I do not recommend
to get Ready with Me video with Diane Ladd in
this movie, who at one point has just covered her
entire face in lipstick out of guilt and rage.

Speaker 2 (01:01:56):
Yeah, and again she was nominated for an Oscar for
this really.

Speaker 6 (01:02:00):
Yeah, Oh that's fantastic. She is on the periphery of
this movie, just descending further and further into madness. And
I mean, that's kind of the whole overarching thing here
is that David Lynch has called this movie two people
that managed to find love in hell, and like the
romance is doomed, but they're essentially good people.

Speaker 7 (01:02:19):
They're drawn to each other.

Speaker 6 (01:02:20):
And what I think is so interesting is to go
back to the very beginning of this episode and talk
about my prejudices early on against David lynch movies and
what I thought they were and why I thought they.

Speaker 7 (01:02:31):
Would not connect with me.

Speaker 6 (01:02:33):
It's one of the things that I always thought his
movies were super bleak. I always thought his movies always
ended on a downloade and they were dark.

Speaker 2 (01:02:40):
But I wouldn't necessarily say bleak. But I was wrong,
and I think, no, no, I get it, But I
could see why you'd think that, because they are hard
sometimes hard to decipher and and they deal with a
lot of mortality and betrayal and darkness.

Speaker 6 (01:02:52):
Yeah, you don't necessarily associate David Lynch films with happy endings. Now,
That's why I find Wild at Hearts so fascinating because
the ending of the book is actually one of the
things David Lynch changed because in the book, Lula and
Sailor go their separate ways, they don't end up together.
And in this movie, for a moment it looks like

(01:03:14):
that's what's going to happen, and then he rushes back
to her and they have the happy ending, which is
both ironic and a little bit a of sort of
a send up, a satire satirical ending, but at the
same time, it's David Lynch fighting for a happy ending
in one.

Speaker 7 (01:03:30):
Of his movies. Yeah, which is not something you would
expect him to do.

Speaker 2 (01:03:35):
Those two characters they deserve it, so you know, and
that you know, you can be dark and you can
be challenging, but you can also choose to be merciful too,
as a create, as a film, as a writer director.

Speaker 6 (01:03:47):
He has said that the story just seemed like it
made more sense with the two of them ending up
together because it didn't seem like those two people would
be happy with anybody else, and he legitimately thought the
better ending is the two of them ending up together,
the happy ending, and that to me when you watch
the rest of this movie and just the fucking cab
ball of weirdos that exist in pockets all over this country.

(01:04:08):
According to a David Lynch film, the idea that something
can emerge from that finding that love in hell, a
rose growing out of the sidewalk, whatever you want to
call it, is so sweet and optimistic. And those are
two words that I don't necessarily attach to the ouvra
of David Lynch, and yet here it is.

Speaker 2 (01:04:26):
Oh, it is exactly right. The two of them are
the rose breaking through the asphalt or whatever, or whatever
metaphor you want to choose, but they're the glue that
holds the movie together in many in more ways than one,
not just in a narrative way, but in a thematic way.
It's a fascinating movie. I really love it and just go.

Speaker 6 (01:04:45):
For the go for the ride that ends with him
singing love Me Tender, like that's just what you gotta do.
You gotta strap in for the ride and just enjoy
the sights along the way, because there's a lot of
weird sights along the way for Shure.

Speaker 2 (01:04:57):
Okay, you got awards here. Diane Ladd, I don't know
who beat her that off the top of my head,
but she was nominated for Best Importing Actress. She was
also nominated for Golden Globe. Willem Dafoe was nominated for
an Independent Spirit Award. David Lynch did win the Palm

(01:05:17):
d oh at the Cannes Film Festival, and David Lynch
won the Bronze Horse at the Stockholm International Film Festival.
Should I keep going?

Speaker 7 (01:05:27):
No? I mean that's the movie again.

Speaker 6 (01:05:29):
Critically was so split down the middle, like just and
I think I think the writer of the novel is right.
I think there was a weird bias against David Lynch
at the time. People just wanted to see him fail.
I think Gifford nailed that. And yet the movie wins
Palm d'Or and you know there's nominations coming out. There's
other awards won for this, Like the movie clearly has
critical merit, but at the same time wasn't universally beloved

(01:05:53):
by critics.

Speaker 2 (01:05:53):
Now looking at Wikipedia here, USA Today gave the film
one and a half stars Lynch likes. Ebert likes Lynch
but did not like the film at all, said it
was offensively violent. But now it is, I mean again,
to borrow a thread from overheted, the film is much
more well regarded now, I think among you know older

(01:06:15):
film nerds who remember it, and you know any film
nerd who is just digging into Lynch's filmography. I find
it difficult to believe that like a young hardcore movie
nerd would not find something to appreciate in this movie.
I like this better than mohalland Drive, I really do.
Oh that's that to me is a difficult to penetrate movie.

(01:06:36):
It's hard. It's like to me, it's that word inaccessible.
I you know, certainly admire the crafts, craftsmanship and the artistry,
but sometimes art just doesn't speak to you. And that's
an Inland Empire is another one. I don't just didn't,
didn't doesn't speak to me. I get blue Velvet, I
see the art there, and it speaks to me. But
you know, some of Lynch's stuff just doesn't get either

(01:06:57):
over my head, which is great, or else to like
get me in the gut, which is fine. It's you
know not everything is gonna hit you right there. I think, Yeah,
I think, I mean, except for the Elephant Man, I
think this might be my favorite David Lynch film.

Speaker 6 (01:07:11):
Yeah, I'm like Elephant Man, Dune, Wild at Heart, now,
Blue Velvet, now, the first two seasons of Twin Peaks.
But I still haven't seen Eraserhead or Mulholland Drive. So
like those those are two of his big tentpole movies
that I have not I have not seen.

Speaker 2 (01:07:29):
Eraserhead is fascinating as a horror fan, You'll appreciate the
aesthetic definitely, but I don't know if you'll like, you know,
it'll be like your favorite, but it's definitely worth watching.
It is creepy, and yeah, Mulholland Drive just yeah, I
didn't get it. Didn't get it, which is fine, but
it you know, it doesn't work for.

Speaker 7 (01:07:49):
Me fair enough.

Speaker 2 (01:07:51):
But like I said before, I could watch it tonight
for a podcast and go what was I thinking? This
is a masterpiece. I truly could. Who knows. You know,
you know that sometimes certain kind of art hits you
at a certain stage of life and you it means
a lot more to you. That's all.

Speaker 6 (01:08:05):
Here's what I'll say about that, and just to put
a final bow on this whole thing. Yes, I do
wish that in my younger nascent film geek Stages, that
I had been more of a diligent student of the
work of David Lynch, and therefore I could have gotten
more out of not only his films, but his resurgence
has returned to twin Peaks on Netflix, and his online

(01:08:26):
presence and his interactions, the way that he managed to
kind of infiltrate social media, and for all of his
weird and at times nihilistic trappings, managed to make it
so charming and joyful and optimistic, and it would have
been nice to have better roots into that. At the

(01:08:50):
same time, I am so fortunate to be at a
place now where my mind and my heart are more
open to his work and his themes and his visual style,
and the joy that I now get out of that
discovery is unmatched. So I feel less like I missed

(01:09:11):
the boat on something wonderful. It's more akin to a
relative passing away and leaving a legacy in the attic
for me to learn from and connect with and grow
as a lover of cinema. So thank you, David Lynch.
Thank you for this legacy of cinema that I now

(01:09:35):
humbly get to ravenously devour and enrich my worldview and
my appreciation of the medium.

Speaker 5 (01:09:42):
I used to go to Bob's Big Boy restaurant every
day at two point thirty. I went there because they
I like to have a chocolate milkshake, and there was
a silver goblet shake. It wasn't really ice cream. It
was a thing they put into in a thing called
a tailor machine, and it would get cold and they
pulled a lever and it would come out in kind
of a tube of ice cream and fill this goblet.

(01:10:04):
And I like this chocolate milkshake. I had these things
for seven years with a cup of coffee, and I
would write on the napkins.

Speaker 7 (01:10:13):
And I think the junk food pairing for this is
pretty clear to me. I think what you gotta do
is you got to go out to La You got
to go to Bob's Big Boy, and you gotta get
yourself a cup of black coffee and massive quantities of pie.
In honor of the late, great amazing David Lynch.

Speaker 2 (01:10:27):
Yeah, the irony is that, like somebody is so amazingly
you know, there are no levels of unique. But when
someone is that unique, all you can help think is
you can't help but think. I wish we had more
filmmakers like him, men and women who could, you know,
break through convention and challenge us in ways. But if
we had a lot more than the ones we have,

(01:10:48):
wouldn't be quite so special.

Speaker 7 (01:10:49):
That would become the convention.

Speaker 2 (01:10:51):
Yeah right, right, So you know, thank you David Lynch
for all you've given film nerds of my generation and beyond.

Speaker 6 (01:10:59):
I mean, my feeble attempt to say something, you know,
kind about David Lynch. I said, you know, the world
just got a little less weird and a lot less awesome.

Speaker 7 (01:11:07):
And then you read Kyle McLaughlin's.

Speaker 6 (01:11:10):
Eulogy, and I just want to say, this be a
decent enough human being in your life that anyone comes
close to eulogizing you the way Kyle MacLaughlin eulogized David Lynch.
Highly recommend you go read it. It is one of
the most beautiful things I've ever read. And on top
of everything else, in that eulogy, he nails David Lynch's

(01:11:32):
very recognizable voice as a great planes honk, that great
planes honk of a voice that David had and I'm like,
oh my god, that's pitch perfect. Pitch perfect for those
of you who you know, are younger film fans that
came up knowing David Lynch as just a personality on
social media and his weather reports and all of the

(01:11:53):
kind of funny things that he would do online. You
know that voice, you know that, if you can believe it,
it's a Friday once again. Like that voice is so
much a part of the weird past these that is
David Lynch.

Speaker 2 (01:12:09):
Yeah, yes, let's hear it for unique, unconventional and yes
weird artists, especially ones who get their art out to
the largest audience possible. Raising a glass to the great
David Lynch.

Speaker 6 (01:12:22):
You love movies and you love love. Than this Valentine's
Day you will love wild at heart. That is absolutely
my recommendation. Thank you for listening to this Valentine's Day episode,
this Valentine's Day.

Speaker 7 (01:12:34):
Episode that was bereft of heart if you ask.

Speaker 6 (01:12:37):
Me, Okay, thanks David, I appreciate that. Scott, please tell
plaveeitle where they can find you on the interwebs.

Speaker 2 (01:12:43):
You can find me on Blue Sky at just Weinberg
w I N B E r G. You could find
Overheted my wonderful podcast that I love doing at patreon
dot com slash Scott Ewinberg. You can subscribe there a
dollar an episode you get five a month, or there's
also a free feed where you can go check out
the show see if you like it and then come
support it if you choose, or just listen to the freebies.

(01:13:06):
That's fine too, And that's that. Thanks for having me again, Brian.
Love that Cargill is back, Love that I get to
talk about David.

Speaker 6 (01:13:12):
Lynch, absolutely, And to wrap this up so nicely, from
Wild at Heart, from the man himself, if you are
truly wild at heart, you'll fight for your dreams.

Speaker 11 (01:13:22):
Ideas are so beautiful and they're so abstract, and they
do exist someplace.

Speaker 5 (01:13:28):
I don't know if there's a name for it, and
I think they exist like fish, and I believe that
if you sit quietly like you're fishing, you will catch ideas.
The real, you know, beautiful big ones swim kind of
deep down there, so you have to be very quiet
and you know, wait for them to come along.