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Blue Velvet (1986)
Lets toast to Frank's Pabst Blue Ribbon....
Blue Velvet sure scared and repulsed me on my initial viewing. I was so absorbed by it, I had to give it a re-watching. So what is it about, I hear you ask? Blue Velvet is a gritty film about the dichotomy of everyday life. You have your tranquil, suburban existence full of normal folk. And then you have your deranged, violent, and perverted neighbors who like to terrorize the others. Let's get to know both groups a bit better through the course of this unsettling but wonderful film.
Blue Velvet is set in a town that closely resembles the town at the centre of his cult television series 'Twin Peaks'. Its a woodsy, amiable close-knit town associated with the logging industry. Jeffrey Beaumont has returned from college due to his father's sudden illness. While walking home from the hospital, Jeffrey discovers a severed human ear in the thick grass of a field. He brings it to the police, where he meets his neighbor, Detective Williams, and later visits him at home to find out more about his gruesome discovery. Jeffrey is told to keep quiet about the ear & then he meets the detective's pretty high school senior daughter, Sandy (Laura Dern), on his way out of the house. She tips Jeffrey about an ongoing investigation into a woman singer who lives in an apartment building near the field where the ear was found. Soon, Jeffrey and Sandy are conspiring to investigate the woman singer, Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini) by having Jeffrey pretend to be a bug exterminator & sneak into her apartment to have a look around. What Jeffrey discovers is something that seems totally out of place in there amiable, friendly hometown. Dorothy is being held captive by the sadistic drug-addicted pervert Frank Booth -- he also has a knack for blue velvet and beer, namely, Pabst Blue Ribbon. And so begins a timeless tale of good vs. evil. However, Blue Velvet is set apart from being just one of those films.
Blue Velvet is the thoughtful and controversial work of several creative people at the top of their game. David Lynch has masterfully directed a film that is both compelling and repulsive at times. Dennis Hopper brought to life the evil and sadistic Frank Booth without going over the top, as top-notch actors portraying screen villains often do. Kyle MacLachlan and Laura Dern make an engaging pair of would-be detectives and believably naïve counterpoints to all the darker elements of the film. And then there's the wonderfully lush cinematography of Frederick Elmes coupled with the atmospheric soundtrack by Angelo Badalamenti that make this a film experience not to be missed. Lets toast to a nice Heineken, err, sorry Frank, a Pabst Blue Ribbon.