Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me at 20

by Tony Dayoub

Months before Twin Peaks' national TV premiere on ABC, its pilot debuted at the Miami Film Festival, where one reviewer correctly predicted its ultimate fate:

...the series may lay an egg on television because of its drawn-out and deliberate pacing, brutality, sex with violence and a hint of something else... something deadly, yet unseen and probably repulsive.

True enough in the long term. But short term, its first 6-episode season—in which FBI Special Agent Dale B. Cooper (Kyle Maclachlan) comes to town to investigate the murder of homecoming queen Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee)—managed to enthrall the nation. The season finale, a cliffhanger in which Cooper is shot in the chest at point blank range by an unseen assailant, was sufficiently newsworthy to prompt Saturday Night Live to invite Maclachlan to host the show's 16th season premiere and propel the show's co-creator, David Lynch, onto the cover of Time magazine in anticipation of Peaks' 2nd season premiere. What are the chances either of those occurrences might ever happen again?

DVD Review: Walk the Line: Extended Cut - Extra Features Illuminate the Man in Black

by Tony Dayoub

Just caught a preview copy of Walk the Line: Extended Cut, courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. It is the Johnny Cash biopic directed by James Mangold (3:10 to Yuma) which stars Joaquin Phoenix, as the Man in Black himself, and Reese Witherspoon, in her Oscar-winning performance, as June Carter-Cash.

The pair vividly embody the roles of the country singing performers, singing all the songs themselves. Phoenix's smoldering intensity suits the haunted Cash perfectly. Witherspoon's own history as a child performer no doubt informed her portrayal of June, who had sung in the public eye since quite young.