I just watched the first thirty minutes, and I couldn’t take it any more. The bad acting, the horrible script, oh sweet Jesus, it burns!
Did you like it? Should I give it another chance in the hopes that it will redeem itself as it goes?
No it sucks.
Bad Idea + Bad Execution = Suck
I figured since it was a “cult classic” I’d be missing out if I didn’t watch it. Maybe not.
It is part of that period of Lynch’s career where his work didn’t really have anything to say, but people assumed it did and would struggle to one of the people who got it - when there was nothing to get.
See: Lost Highway
And Go Blue gets it in one. I love David Lynch, and I can’t stand either WAH or LH.
Wild At Heart- Does this movie suck or what??!
Tom Clancy… Is it me, or does he suck?
I think it’s pretty subjective.
Wild at Heart is one of my favourite David Lynch movies – and maybe even one of my favourite movies. Lost Highway kicks three kinds of ass.
Of course, they’re both just plain weird, and if that’s off-putting to you, you’re not going to like either of them.
Beyond that, Wild At Heart has a certain amount of intertextuality with Twin Peaks, so unless you’re up on Twin Peaks, there’ll be a lot of stuff in there that either makes no impression or at all, or leaves you wondering what the hell it was about, anyway – where nerdy and obsessive David Lynch fans’ reaction would be “Cool!”
Lost Highway is a goth wet dream.
Mulholland Drive is a hipster wet dream.
I have seen any other David Lynch movies, but I’d guess the rest of them are wet dreams too.
Wild at Heart is one of my favorite movies ever. Easily in the top 20, maybe higher. I love it.
So in answer to the OP: “or what.”
Or what.
It’s weak David Lynch, but weak David Lynch remains utterly fascinating.
And it’s not as good as Lost Highway, which is sort of similar in tone but works a lot better – and includes the exceptionally creepy pale bald guy played by Robert Blake. “Call me.” (shudder)
Of course, I love Mulholland Drive, so maybe I’m just a hipster with some wet, wet dreams.
Memo to self: When David Lynch does Tom Clancy, stay home and read Elmore Leonard.
Bingo. I love Wild at Heart. I like lots of weird movies. If you don’t, you’re not going to like it. But your taste is not an objective measure. And neither is mine.
I love Lynch, though I’m not a blind Lynch-worshipping fanboy (I know that Dune and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me are crap), and I love Wild at Heart and Lost Highway is my favorite Lynch movie, even above Eraserhead and Blue Velvet.
FWIW, Wild at Heart is the only film I ever paid to watch in a theatre and walked out on (and it only took 25 minutes).
Does anyone know how to contact Lynch so I can demand my money back?
I’m another “or what”. It’s not my favorite by Lynch, but I like it. I can totally see where other people wouldn’t like it though.
I’ve never managed to make it past the previews. One of the cable movie channels was running it last month, and the previews were absolutely sucktastic. So much so, that even though I was aware of its cult classic status, that I mentally filed it under “don’t bother.”
This came out when Lynch was very popular, because of “Twin Peaks”. It’s also very accessable to the public at large. He followed Wild At Heart with Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, which was not accessable, much more true to the spirit of his movies, and generally disliked by the public at large.
My impression is that because Lynch was riding on a huge wave of popularity with “Twin Peaks”, everyone wanted to at least say they liked this movie. And for many who were unfamiliar with Lynch until “Twin Peaks”, but liked the TV series, there were millions of new converts eager to embrace anything new of his.
So, Wild At Heart thus has a “cult” status because it was one of his most popular movies. This “cult” status is different than the status given to the rest of Lynch’s body of work. It also won the US Palme d’Or at Cannes, which people feel gives it a sort of “importance” (though I still think that importance was based on Lynch’s growing popularity more than anything.) It’s also a very violent movie, and very over the top and campy, which can be off-putting for its own reasons.
I love Lynch movies but I’m in the camp of fans dislike this movie. However I’m in the small camp of fans who likes Fire Walk With Me.
WAH is hard to take for a lot of people because it’s unapologetically Bigger Than Life. There are plenty of movies people will praise despite being hammy w/scenery-chewing acting, but it’s all in the pretense of being “realistic”. WAH isn’t any different except that it abandons these transparent pretenses. It’s absurdism of the highest order, which means some of it really doesn’t work, and some of it does even though it shouldn’t, and some of it is genuinely brilliant (to the point that you wished these parts were in a more tonally consistent movie).
To take a page from Giant_Spongess, WAH is a wet dream for kinky Wizard of Oz fans. I can’t say I’m the biggest advocate, but it’s a long time since I’ve seen it and it’s definitely the type of movie that you can hate one viewing and then completely fall for it years later.
I liked WAH when I saw it in the theater, but then about a month ago I saw it on cable and was really unimpressed by it. It just doesn’t hang together with the kind of thematic unity that Lynch usually pulls off. And by that I mean that Lynch at his best operates by a kind of dream logic, but it’s internally consistent dream logic. OK, so there’s a midget that talks backwards. That doesn’t make sense in the “real world”, but somehow it fits in with this world. But WAH seems all over the place, and not in a good way.
Plus, I hate Laura Dern.
I think most movies, and especially David Lynch movies work better in a theatre. A Lynch movie is something that you have to imerse yourself in to get the full expierence.
I like Wild at Heart, really like Blue Velvet and I love The Elephant Man.