Thighs Wide Shut

1982 Japanese Fast Times at Ridgemont High poster

Fast Times At Ridgemont High schoolers Jennifer Jason Leigh and Phoebe Cates

photos by Douglas Kirkland, August 1983

the cast of the new Twin Peaks series is INSANE, and endless – click here to read ALL 217 names

it’s udderly nice to see soooo MANY familiar names on the roster – included our beloved Harry Goaz as Deputy Andy Brennan + Catherine E Coulson as The Log Lady – even though Catherine sadly left earth and logs behind in the fall of 2015.  Heck, even the front desk receptionist from The Great Northern is back!!!

however – absent from the list are – The Man from Another Place (really???) Sheriff Harry S Truman, his girlfriend Jodie, Piper Laurie, Leo ‘New Shoes’ Johnson (WTF),  any version of Donna Hayward, David Lynch’s son, Heather Graham, Dick Tremayne (one of my personal favorite characters), and even Van Dyke Parks!!  not sure if they are gonna cameo or it aint happening at all or what.  lettuce truss in Lynch/Frost and see where it goes

anywho, there are a fcukload of newbies, so lets take a guess as to what characters these actors are playing, and who they are (spoilers from Twin Peaks past may lie ahead… but shame on you if you’ve somehow never watched the greatest TV show that ever was)…

 

Jane Adams as Pepper Patterson

Pepper is The Great Northern’s concierge, a job she learned all about from her aunt Julie, who held the same position 25 years ago

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Monica Bellucci as Countess Valentina Bianchi

a mysterious Italian woman who has taken over the affairs of Thomas Eckhardt.  she smokes more than she talks

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Jim Belushi as John Aykroyd

long living in the shadow of his deceased brother and his brother’s business partner, he’s ready to step into the spotlight and make a lot of noise – with his loud mouth and wisecracks, which may end in his own demise

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Michael Cera as The Blog Lady

The Log Lady will die (it sadly has to be), and in her place, all the town’s mythical wisdom will come from her long lost son, who dresses as a woman and blogs about all the visions he has of the woods – THE BLOG LADY!!!

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Richard Chamberlain as Chamberlain Richárd

with the Renault Bros out of the picture, someone needs to run the drugs, women and every other vice from Canada down into Twin Peaks.  Chamberlain Richárd is that man, and he’s twice as malicious and twice as Canadian as the Renaults ever were

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Frank Collison as Stooby Jensen

the town’s preacher, who is also the town’s rabbi

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Jeremy Davies & Balthazar Getty as Duffy and Daffy McScrappy

The McScrappy Brothers are the town’s biggest troublemakers, and drunks.  They’ve spent more nights in the sheriff’s overnight jail cell than they have on the outside.  No wonder – their uncle is Hank Jennings

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Laura Dern as Dorna Loone

after Nadine goes blind in her other eye, she needs more help than ever – and in comes her doting niece Dorna Loone – but she has her own issues – she has three ears!!

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Francesca Eastwood as Arnolda Palmer

wait, Laura Palmer had MORE cousins???  Man, I fear for poor Arnolda Palmer.  Whatever you do Arnolda – don’t visit the town.  Bad things will happen.  And stay away from plastic or from people who like to wrap

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Patrick Fischler as The One-Eyebrowed Man

remember the One-Armed Man?  well, now there’s the One-Eyebrowed Man – a man who’s a body to a spirit.  Good or evil – time will tell, but there aint no shaving or stopping this unibrow

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Robert Forster as Sheriff Richard M Nixon

strange that they’d replace honest Sheriff Harry S Truman with mischievous Sheriff Richard M Nixon, but he’s not a crook, is he?

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Ernie Hudson as Spin Williams

There were TWO black characters in the original series (BARELY), and now there’s at least one in the new series.  Spin William’s is the town’s #1 DJ on radio station WTIN (get it – it’s like TWIN, but spelled wrong!).  Yep, Twin Peaks is town that still values radio, in an age of Spotiwhatever

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Ashley Judd as FBI Agent Wynonna Naomi

the FBI knew it had lady trouble when their only lady was Denise Bryson.  No more – Georgian peach agent Wynonna Naomi is a no-nonsense lady who can pack heat and create it.  BAD GUYS BEWARE!!!! AND AGENT COOPER TOO!!!

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Jennifer Jason Leigh as Marguerite Meade

rivalries are a big part of Twin Peaks culture, and there’s no rivalry going that may be more delicious than the one going on between the Double R Diner and the one Marguerite Meade owns – The Triple Q Diner.  TOAST WILL BURN!!!

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Matthew Lillard as Gilbert Gottbaked

Twin Peaks is a town of full of nutjobs, and none may be nuttier than the guy in charge of the TP’s marijuana dispensary – Gilbert Gottbaked.  His original last name was Gottesbergfeld, but he changed it to increase business sales

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Trent Reznor as Pavel Puree

first it was the Icelanders, then the Norwegians, and now come the Bulgarians looking to invest in Twin Peaks real estate.  But long gone are the nice and sweet blonde Northern Europeans, and in are the dark, brooding and shady Eastern Europeans, led by Pavel Puree, who has more than plots of land on his mind – like burying people under them!

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Tim Roth as Ace Asimov

ruthless Canadians aren’t the only dirty dealers dealing in Twin Peaks – in comes one of Russia’s biggest and baddest oil barons – Ace Asimov, who likes his vodka warm, and his murders cold

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Amanda Seyfried as Poppy Hewitt

there is, and will always be, only one Laura Palmer – the center of it all, but that doesn’t mean there can’t be a new object of everyone’s affection – like what happens when Dale Cooper finds out he has a daughter, who juss so happens to come to town looking for him.  Poppy Hewitt will light everyone’s F-I-R-E, but can Twin Peaks survive another blonde with endless ambition???

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Ethan Suplee as Theo Johnson

Leo Johnson is missing, and his brother Theo wants to find him… and a pair of new shoes along the way

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Lauren Tewes as Mildred Ambers Horne

it’s about time Jerry Horne stopped being horny and settle down, especially with a woman his own age.  happy homemaker Mildred Ambers Horne has changed Jerry’s life for the better, but is he a better man, or still up to his old tricks?

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Eddie Vedder as Otis Skunkmeyer

Big Ed still has a gas farm, but he aint getting any younger.  With his nephew James Hurley leaving the family business, that leaves mechanic Otis Skunkmeyer to help Ed out with this and that

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Naomi Watts as Tilly Ivers

we told you Coop had a long lost daughter, right?  well, what about a long lost mother to that daughter?  welcome Tilly Ivers – Coop’s high school sweetheart who’s come to find him and reclaim his heart, and soul

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Twin Peaks 2017 is so on.  I’m jazzed – hope you are too!!

The Spectacular Now
Collapse Into Now
Official Website | Trailers & Mo 
R | 95 min

I wanted it, I got it… for the most part

What did I want?  More movies like The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which are movies more like John Hughes movies, you know, awesome teen movies from the 80s with heart and soul and humor!

What did I get?  Director James Ponsoldt + writers Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber (The 500 Days of Summer dudes)’s cinematic take on Tim Tharp’s novel The Spectacular Now

For the most part?  Ok, so you can’t call your movie Spectacular and be anything but, but Spectacular is not full-on spectacular, but the movie certainly has the elements to be, and is closer to it more than not, and is certainly closer to it than a majority of the garbage teenage movies handed to us over the past decade

So what is this movie?  It’s the story of a popular, funny-mouthy, easy-breezy, Big Gulp with liquor swilling kid named Sutter Keely (Miles Teller).  Sutter has no real direction, unless that direction is headed toward fun.  He’s recently single (not by choice, and of course no one would choose to ever be apart from Brie Larson), and one hungover morning wakes up on the lawn of socially clueless Aimee (Shailene Woodley), and the next week they’re sorta blossoming into item, much to everyone’s surprise, including their own.  She seriously gets into him, but he’s kinda loosy-goosy on her, but he’s that way about everything – like his part-time job at the haberdasher (his boss is Bob Odenkirk, cause why not?), dealing with his stressed-out mom (Jennifer Jason Leigh, cause why not?), and with his future (he’s soon to graduate, but college schmollege?).  Maybe what he needs is a dose of reality, from his poshed-up sister (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), or estranged drunken father (THE Kyle Chandler), or perhaps Aimee can smack some sense into him, and if she can’t, who can????

Where it all ends up isn’t exactly some well-drawn out conclusion, but heck, we fell for Sutter Keely and would follow his hit or miss-adventures wherever they did done do roam!  That Miles Teller as Sutter Keely, I tells yea, that performance feels so mad mad mad real (and kinda reminds us of ourselvesz at that age, hence the attraction), and Woodley’s Aimee – even more more more genuine (she’s quite a talent, and it’s a shame the fanboys hated her out of Spider-Man reboot 2), and their coupling – even more than faux real, it’s like five real/reel!!!  Can we be their third wheel, six reals?  Hmmm, maybe this affair was spectacular after all, just not now.  Maybe then?

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Spectacular is NOW today in NY & LA and elsewhere elsewhen

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…