Produced a few years ago, but released in January 2020, by Netflix, to mark David Lynch's birthday, "What Did Jack Do?" is a typically bizarre, stylish film Noir . . . parody, I suppose, that clocks in at around 17 minutes but sticks in the memory long after.
A Detective (David Lynch) sits down opposite Jack Cruz (playing himself) and begins a loose interrogation about a murder, in the confines of a train station café. The interrogation takes the form of a number of cliché's, almost like non-sequiturs, before Cruz bursts into song and then goes on the run. Oh, And Cruz is a monkey. . .
Cruz responds to Lynch's accusations via a human mouth that is (usually crudely) pasted over the monkey's actual mouth, occasionally though, it works really well, and the head movements match the mouth. Major credit to whomever picked and edited the film out of the monkey in action.
My relationship with Lynch is varied. I love some of his films, but couldn't make it through the most recent season of "Twin Peaks". I think I like it when the surreal is penned in slightly by some confines of logic. "What Did Jack Do?" starts very loose, there are long pauses between the back and forth and the lines are, as I said, often unconnected. It feels like two spies trying code phrases on each other looking for the right match. It did get better though, as we learned more about the crime Jack is accused of and eventually it won me over and I was smiling along with it by the end.
This is not going to do anything for you, if you don't know what you're getting yourself into. However, if you like Lynch, this isn't much of a time commitment for a decent reward.
A Detective (David Lynch) sits down opposite Jack Cruz (playing himself) and begins a loose interrogation about a murder, in the confines of a train station café. The interrogation takes the form of a number of cliché's, almost like non-sequiturs, before Cruz bursts into song and then goes on the run. Oh, And Cruz is a monkey. . .
Cruz responds to Lynch's accusations via a human mouth that is (usually crudely) pasted over the monkey's actual mouth, occasionally though, it works really well, and the head movements match the mouth. Major credit to whomever picked and edited the film out of the monkey in action.
My relationship with Lynch is varied. I love some of his films, but couldn't make it through the most recent season of "Twin Peaks". I think I like it when the surreal is penned in slightly by some confines of logic. "What Did Jack Do?" starts very loose, there are long pauses between the back and forth and the lines are, as I said, often unconnected. It feels like two spies trying code phrases on each other looking for the right match. It did get better though, as we learned more about the crime Jack is accused of and eventually it won me over and I was smiling along with it by the end.
This is not going to do anything for you, if you don't know what you're getting yourself into. However, if you like Lynch, this isn't much of a time commitment for a decent reward.