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bleak

This was the most hyped film of 1990. It was considered one of the coolest films of the 90's. I saw it once when it came out and the only things I remembered was the car accident with Sherilyn Fenn and the angel at the end. That's it. I saw it again for the first time in 19 years and I understand why. It's not very memorable because it isn't a very good movie. Sure, there are some cool crazy characters (all right, they're all crazy!) and the photography of the bleak landscape is beautiful. David Lynch has also a cool way of using sounds and music which makes the film very eerie. Apart from that, the film is dangerously close to being a B-movie, almost laughable. It doesn't hold up.

I'm making my lunch!

WILD AT HEART on DVD. I've been waiting on this day for a long, long, long time.


The first time I saw this movie, I was floored. Few movies excel in creating such an atmosphere of heat and humid drama on screen so well (DO THE RIGHT THING & STRAY DOG come to mind). Mr. Lynch brings the raw, kinetic lives of Barry Gifford's characters to the screen in his own particular way & everything about this movie just screams rock and roll and dangerous things. The design of the film recalls elements of film noir, motorcycle and B-movies from the fifties and even a dusting of the gritty seventies. As for the cast? Diane Ladd can wear puke & fly on a broomstick with sparkling brilliance. Harry Dean Stanton ain't nothin' but a hound dog; Willem Dafoe, rivaled only by Dennis Hopper, draws a wicked flame of evil as Bobby Peru - his scene with Laura Dern is incredible; Nicolas Cage channels alot of the same power that E had & Laura Dern fills her red ruby slippers with a delicious, trailer trash sweetness. Marcello Santos, Drop Shadow, Reggie, Mr. Reindeer, Uncle Pooch - characters all, shipwrecked on planet Earth. If you enjoy film noir, trashy romances - then say no more - this is just the one for you. The DVD transfer looks spectacular, the extras are juicy and the only thing lacking would be a commentary track, I guess. But the movie is certainly good enough to speak for itself.


OK - in reference to another reviewer (ixta coytl) - David Lynch guilty of plagiarism? A dog with a hand in its mouth is most certainly, most definitely taken from YOJIMBO. So what, it doesn't warrant "borderline plagiarism"? At the end of GOODFELLAS, the very last image of Joe Pesci shooting at the screen is taken from a silent film called THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY (Edwin S. Porter). GOODFELLAS is now an imitation of that film? Artists borrow and steal from each other constantly; the above examples are hardly suggesting plagiarism. Also, checking your characters into a motel isn't grounds for plagiarism either - even if it is from the great TOUCH OF EVIL. The "seedy motel" has a long tradition in films that fall under the genres of film noir, southern gothic or the classic road movie. Everyone needs to stop somewhere for the night sooner or later.


So, keep on kickin' (...) on the dance floor & tellin' EVERYONE what's on your almost perfect mind...

Incorrect analysis of sexual power

Director David Lynch's mix of violence and eroticism look critical but
on closer examination they eroticize violence, to turn the audience
on -- with a touch of titillating horror at itself -- at the sight
of wimmin's sexuality being molded and dominated by violence. Wimmin
are socialized to enjoy their subordination. What better an example
of the twisted capitalist patriarchal construction of gender than a
woman who, despite struggling against it, orgasms as she is raped? No
matter how real, the bottom line is to glorify sexual power.

Additional Cast

In addition to the above mentioned cast, the band performing in the movie is called Powermad and the song they are performing is titled "Slaughterhouse" from their 1989 release Absolute Power. The album itself was a cross between Metallica and Overkill but was very well written and performed. Powermad was one of the bands that signed on to Combat Records for their so-called Bootcamp Series, releasing a self-titled EP that managed to win them a major label contract with Warner Bros. Records, rare for thrash metal bands at that time. A second Ep titled "The Madness Begins..." was released shortly thereafter that included a cover of the Ramones track "Gimme, Gimme, Shock Treatment". Unfortunately, the band went their separate ways shortly after their debut was released and has not resurfaced since. Here's the line up: Joel DuBay - Vocals and Guitars, Todd Haug - Guitars, Jeff Litke - Bass, Adrian Liberty - Drums

Violent, Rauchy Romance anyone???

AWESOME MOVIE!!!
Im a huge David Lynch fan! I own all his movies and most everything he's ever touched/helped work on. THIS IS ONE OF MY FAVORITES!!! Even those who don't know or like David Lynch films... will LOVE this movie. Totally Violent, raunchy, campy, dark, comedic (dark), and noir. This is a totally CARNAGE CLASSIC that needs a place next to PULP FICTION!
In the tradition of TRUE ROMANCE, its a totally mash up of Tarantino, John Waters, and David Lynch's signature style. TOTALLY RECOMMENDED to the select collector!
Oh, and Nicholas Cage sings 50's rockabilly music including an Elvis song... and Im not a Huge Nicholas Cage fan, but he does pretty damn well... I was shocked!

take a bite of peach

superb, sublime, sadistic. have you ever had a nightmare that you actually enjoyed? imagery so powerful and suggestive it would haunt your mind for days? if so, this film is for you. and if you enjoy this film, then you might also enjoy u-turn.

Joltingly violent, shockingly erotic retelling of `The Wizard of Oz'.

Upon hearing the words `David Lynch', dozens of words spring to mind. `Weirdo, bizarre, insane, articulate, violent, erotic, and above all else, crazy'. Such is the case with the cult classic `Wild at Heart'- the movie which epitomises his very existence. The styles and characteristics rank to a very acquired taste. If you are the slightest bit squeamish, then give this film a miss. But if you can take it, then you'll find `Wild at Heart' to be one of the oddest cinematic experiences in history.The plot may seem simple enough, but there are plenty of surreal and indefinable elements thrown in, to make sure that you will not forget this movie for a long, long time. As he has done in the past, the notoriously perverse director explores the underbelly of sex and violence that lurks in southern America. He definitely succeeds in what he sets out to do – single-handedly destroy the American dream. Not only that, he tramples over it several times and then shreds it up in a lawnmower. The end result is a bleak, over-violent road movie given the extra surreal touches along with far too many ferociously explicit sex scenes. This is a very loose retelling of `The Wizard of Oz', and one that certainly won't have you look at the former the same way again. Our two main characters – Sailor and Lula are the star-crossed lovers who travel across the country (the road supposedly representing the Yellow Brick Road), much to the chagrin of Lula's mother (the Wicked Witch?). By the end, they've encountered many deranged psychos and even a delightfully odd visit from Glinda the Good Witch. For the most part, this is a guilty displeasure (if such a thing exists). One receives a voyeuristic sense whilst watching the movie. Instead of being compelling, this is more often mind numbing, but as the scenes become increasingly insane, you can't stop watching it. And by the end, it leaves a surprisingly good taste despite all that proceeds.Never funny enough to make you laugh, never realistic enough to leave you shocked but never boring enough to have you repelled. It continuously dizzies the mind enough to make you believe that through all the blood and perversity, there is an invigorating story. Effectively eccentric performances all round from a good cast. Nicholas Cage, snakeskin jacket in tow, is always believable as the parolee- turned criminal. And what a beautiful singing voice (hee-hee). A 35-year-old Laura Dern doesn't for a second pass for a 20-year-old. But the accent is top-notch and the white-trash characteristics are exemplary. An Oscar nominated Diane Ladd makes for a thoroughly engrossing character. But Willem Dafoe steals the show as ultra-psycho Bobby Peru- intimidating, odd and psychotic. Underused support is generated from a supporting cast including Crispin Glover, Issabella Rossellini and Harry Dean Stanton. The abnormal bravura styles of David Lynch leave their mark, bringing the movie style, violence and surrealness, but no heart. A captivating, often insane and consistently shocking cinematic experience, this bleak oddessy through a hellish landscape is audacious and deserving of its status of a cult-classic. While it will probably only appeal to about 6% of the world, this is a dazzling, dark and strangely vivid movie. My IMDb rating: 7.4/10.

The Emperor is Naked

David Lynch is a great filmmaker, the Samuel Beckett of cinema, but he is a terrible storyteller. His images and mindscapes are some of the most fascinating visuals put on film, ever, but they never seem to add up to much, especially in this movie.

Where as "Lost Highway," leaves you with a mind-bending mystery to uncover, and "Mulholland Drive," leaves you forever creeped out by its climax, "Wild at Heart" does neither. Rather it gives a million and one teases of possible things to happen, and doesn't deliver on any of them. There are so many loose ends, and halfway developed characters and ideas, stuff that leads nowhere, or is left behind two thirds of the way through, when the film begins to focus solely on Lula trapped in a ratty motel, smelling of puke.

If you want to watch films that handle this movie's themes more properly, watch "True Romance," for the crazy, on the road love story, and "Freeway," for the surreal, reworked, and severely disturbing fairy tale.

Don't get me wrong, as a visual artist, Lynch is an unmatched genius, and his efforts to turn absolutely nothing into a movie merits acknowledgement, but ultimately, his movies never add up to much more than a showcase for his talent. They are incoherent, absurd messes that critics praise simply because they feel like it is above their heads. The truth is, nobody knows what a David Lynch movie is about except for MAYBE Lynch himself.

All in all, for a better Lynch experience, watch, "Lost Highway," and then "Mulholland Drive," they at least give you something to think about.

Pure Lynch

I'm still trying to figure out what's going on inside the head of David Lynch. If there really exist such weird people or if they're just a metaphor of whats inside Lynch himself. Very similar to his latter film Blue Velvet, two young lovers' affection is spoiled by an endless parade of perverted psychos who never seem to give up. The cast is as Lynchian as it gets (Although Kyle MacLachland is missing), with Laura Dern, Diane Ladd and Sherilyn Fenn. Willem Dafoe is hideous enough as the top villian (If you can't get Dennis Hopper or Christopher Walken), and Cage and Dern also performs neat. The films contains every kind of perversion and violence you can think of so you better be prepared!

A typical Lynch film - I'll leave it to you to decide if that's a good thing or bad thing

Almost two years after beating a man to death in a fight, Sailor is released from prison and restarts his relationship with Lula - much to the disapproval of Lula's mother. When Sailor and Lula break parole and head for California, she hires a hitman after them to kill Sailor. Unaware of this, Sailor and Lula continue west, encountering all manner of weird and wonderful people on their way.I first tried to watch this when it first came on television, but I was watching it with family and felt uncomfortable with the nudity and turned it off. Years later I have seen many other Lynch films, have loved Twin Peaks and looked forward to a chance to watch it. I sat to watch it aware of the basic plot and that it was to be full of references to Wizard of Oz, but I wasn't prepared for the biggest surprise - that it just wasn't that good a film. I am not adverse to Lynch's universe of weird characters but I don't like it when I get the feeling that he is simply being weird for the sake of it.Certainly that seemed to be the case here: the plot is so loose and meaningless to almost be pointless even as a frame for weirdness - which is what it really is. The references to Wizard of Oz are all there but, rather than being part of the film, they are stuck in with clumsiness all the way - they seem like a gimmicky afterthought rather than a carefully scripted part of the film. The plot is more a collected of the usual Lynchian weirdness and gore. Sometimes this works really well when it is framed within an engaging film, but here the characters, images and action are all just left drifting in a relatively empty film. It's a shame because I really like many of Lynch's films and was looking forward to this, but even I am forced to admit that this film just isn't that good.The cast features many of Lynch regulars, but many seem to be lost due to the fact that they haven't got the material to do their stuff within. Cage is really quite good despite his simple character. Dern is given more to do but comes across rather hammy with it - her character should have had the emotional buy in to the film but she can't deliver it. Turns from Dafoe, Stanton, Rossellini, Fenn, Glover and others are all good but they exist as free floating weird characters rather than part of the film in the way I would have liked.Overall this is a typical Lynchian film in it's imagery, weird characters, strange story and violent/sexual content. Usually these would be good things in this context but here they aren't put together very well creating a film that, although worth seeing and weirdly fascinating, is not actually that good a film.

Terrible !

hi..
I have no idea where the positive reviwes came from, i mean this movie was terrible, it was pointless!
I think it is highly over rated, very very boring, drags alot and pointless movie.
people speak of surrealizm and bizzarness, and that it made the movie worthwhile, well, it sure is bizzare, but in a really bad way.
Violence ? what violence ? just one or two scenes of shoot outs and they call it violence !!! i've seen much more before !!
And whats with the repitive sex scenes, again pointless !!
its basically a story of two couples enjoying themselves and running and going on a poitnless road trip, nothing more or less, no plot !!

And whats all the hype about the wizard if OZ reference, it didn't add anything special to the movie !!!
Sorry, but i can't see what is good about this awful movie !!!
i want my money back please !!!

This whole world is Wild at Heart and crazy on top

Wild at Heart begins with an arresting scene of bloody violence by one of the two lead characters, Sailor Ripley, and this immediately grabs our attention. After this he hooks up with his lover, Lula, who he fiercely protects, and goes on a bizarre road trip into the deep south of the states, while avoiding Lula's mother, played with passion by a deservedly Oscar-nominated Diane Ladd, who has an obsessive hatred for Sailor. They meet an assortment of weird people, especially Bobby Peru, and also Perdita Durango, who has appeared recently in a film with her name as the title, also written by Barry Gifford. It is classic David Lynch, with a homage type theme to the Wizard of Oz. It has the sensuality and eroticism later seen in Lost Highway, the violence and gore, the head sequence after the bank robbery being graphic, and a general uneasiness throughout. But it is a darkly humorous and transfixing piece.

Take a wild ride on the David Lynch express

"Wild at Heart" is probably the last of David Lynch's truly great films. With a career that has since plummeted with "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me" and "Lost Highway," Lynch's "Wild at Heart" is a great ride on the dirty road of the human soul. For Lynch fans like myself, it's those bizarre, quirky characters who perform odd and unusual acts which have causde repeated viewings over the years. A few examples include a contractor-mafia type who does business over the phone while on the toilet with two nude girls at his side and Crispen Glover's brief appearance as a man obsessed with Christmas and Martians who vanishes after developing strange habitats for cockroaches. "Wild at Heart" has superb casting with Nicholas Cage, Laura Dern, Harry Dean Stanton, Isabella Rosselini and Oscar-nominated Diane Ladd. The most convincing performance, however, is Willem DeFoe as the haunting Bobby Peru. His presence is upsetting, grotesque and at the same time hilarious. Lynch proves, as he did with "Blue Velvet," that his stories are character driven. "Wild at Heart" is a wild ride, but not intended for the lighthearted. It's got everything to merit a hard-R rating which makes it such an unforgettable David Lynch film.

Pretty average sex, violence and romance movie - with some cult appeal.

A sexy young lady (Lula) and a young man (Sailor) formerly convicted of manslaughter hit the road - much to the disgust of the young ladies' mother who was rather he was dead!David Lynch's work has covered the full spectrum of cinema and has gained marks (from me) from the high (The Elephant Man 9/10) to the low (Dune 2/10) so maybe this is the perfect one for the middle.Here Lynch does his usual act of peppering the proceedings with bizarre, unstable and off-beat characters that you either love, hate, or love to hate. This is clearly a bit of a make-weight given that the plot is pretty thin (almost a standard road movie with bells and whistles) and not altogether life affirming. One of these movies that presents the 9-2-5 world as boring so "why not go out and rob a bank instead?"I was very forgiving when I first saw this movie because it has enough plot and action to let you slide along with it, but it fails to hit the heights because I didn't really like anybody all that much, even the sexpot Laura Dern turned me off after a while with her smoking and yack-yack-yack. It gets sillier and more immoral as it goes along, but it had to because it had said everything it had to say pretty early in the piece and had no where else to go.As I said before - not good, not bad, somewhere in the middle...

One of lynchs underrated classics

The thing with this film is that even some die hard lynch fans don't like it (i'm not a die hard fan, but I still can't figure out what why the hell he made dune). Too mainstream? hardly. This is definately a weird period in lynchs career, he was trying formal narratives, and using storys, unlike "Eraserhead", a great film, but essentially it goes nowhere. He made that, completely surreal, then tried this, which has a moving story, then decided it would be best to stick with surreal and did Lost Highway. I'm saying I like all these films, just this one doesn't get the respect it deserves. It's not as weird as all his other films, but weird nonetheless. Great performances all around, and in the end when cage is beat up by the gang for calling them homosexuals, his apology is one of the greatest lines he's ever delivered.

good movie, a little rough around the edges

I definitely enjoyed this movie, this is my first true David Lynch film (I saw Straight Story and enjoyed it) and it was all that I expected it to be- Shocking. However, the movie was somewhat rough around the edges, the transitions were a bit abrupt and sometimes the music was not in tune... However, this may be the intention of Lynch in his movies. Personally the transitions may be a little too abrupt for me... One question, did Lynch influence Oliver Stone or Stone influcence Lynch? Oh well, good movie

Happy days of David Lynch

David Lynch finally supplies enough real energy and humor to make a picture work. This is the most wonderful film he's directed (through 6/03). A funny sort of mystery surrounds a young pair of lovers, Sailor and Lulu (Nicholas Cage and Laura Dern). They've gotten in with a bad sort of crowd. They both come from wild lineage, and strange beginnings. Despite a lifetime of dangerous relationships and happenings, their love, and the good energy that gives to them. . . .drives them to overcome all the bad things in their midst. Because they remain true to their love, and are wild at heart, they come out OK, though the world should crumble around them. Some of the dark and crazy characters around them reflect our own potential for buffoonery and disgrace, very darkly, yet humorously so. The satirical theme of the film is highlighted by a brilliant musical score throughout, that seems to supply a perfect tempo for the film. Special kudos to the whole brilliant cast for carrying out the directors theme throughout.

Good movie...don't watch if you're squeamish or easily confused...

This movie is aces. It's everything you could ever hope for in a Lynch film. We've all come to know and love his work, and the different ways he looks at things and portrays life. Wild At Heart is definitely one of those films where you can't stop watching until it's over and the credits are rolling. While I'm not a real big fan of either Laura Dern's acting in this film, and Nick Cage's acting doesn't really strike me well either...all around it's a good movie that is fast and furious...and in the end it's a great love story as well. I highly recommend it to anyone who is looking for a good time.

Wild at Heart: A postmodern experience

Nobody can talk about an aesthetic phenomenon and a successful film at the same time, before Wild at Heart. Rhythmic and fast, this film captures the essence of postmodernity. David Lynch use his creativity and talent to express new ways of love by breaking old fashion rules, exploring a new camera language and turning to literary intertextuality. Naturely, Wild at Heart is a love story which was constructed over normal concepts of love. After this film, movie directors must obviously accept that this is a cinematographic masterpiece.

MARJORIE ELJACH COLOMBIA SOUTH AMERICA

One of the strangest movies I've ever seen.

This was one weird movie. Must have been a lot of symbolism that I just failed to get. Or, maybe it was just plain weird.