So I saw Inland Empire this weekend. (some spoilers) →[More:]Well, like the film's plot can be spoiled.

I veered between wanting to walk out on it and thinking that it's his best movie. But whatever the case, David Lynch has lost his goddamn mind. Scattered comments:

--The guy next to me in the theater became increasingly irritated as time passed. The movie's three hours, and at about the ninety-minute mark he started to shift around restlessly in his chair, mumbling, "Fuck. What a piece of shit. Fuck." Every once in a while an image like a chicken gratuitously running across the screen would set him off. People started to walk out on it here and there after two hours.

--I do not like his use of digital video. There are shots in it that it seems he couldn't have gotten otherwise, but there are so many shots in it that made me think, "This would have looked so much better if he'd shot it on film." Lynch movies are so good with color (Mulholland Dr., especially), and the same techniques he uses here don't come off as well. I think it'll actually look better on DVD than it does in a theater.

--Most of the music is from Penderecki.

--The scenes with people in rabbit suits are the best parts, and in general the first hour holds together well enough, though it seems like something of a retread of Mulholland Dr. The end credits are entertaining.

--Laura Dern gives the best performance she's ever given in a Lynch movie.

--I'm not sure that repeated viewing of the movie would yield the impression that it makes sense, and I'd argue that even Mulholland Dr. and Lost Highway make a kind of narrative sense. At least Lynch's weirder movies give you a way in near the end, a key that'll unlock new meanings in successive viewings. I don't get that sense here. There are things and people that will be familiar to you if you've seen other Lynch movies--red curtains; Grace Zabriskie acting crazy; etc. But it never really comes together, and if you've seen those things in other movies, not much new comes of them here.

I think I want to see it again at some point (to be fair to it, my mind keeps drifting back to the movie, which is at least a sign that it's at least an interesting movie, if not exactly good). But not now, and not without a stiff drink in hand.