Recently had a redemptive rewatch of Lost Highway. Somewhat maligned by mainstream critics and Lynch acolytes alike, Lost Highway's reputation as a low point in Lynch's oeuvre is undeserved. Lost Highway begins Lynch's LA-phase; his works are no longer autobiographical musings in which he situates the artist-self as dream-detective. This phase of Lynch is even more focused on desire, guilt, and the fungibility of identity - a mid-life reckoning, maybe? The most frequent complaint about Lost Highway is the music,…

Slyly humorous and terrifying at times, Eggers wisely steers away from jump scares and contemporary horror sound design in his adaptation of this tried-and-true. Playing Ellen Hutter, Lily Rose-Depp channels Isabelle Adjani - not her performance in Herzog's earlier Nosferatu (1979) but her portrayal of a woman's descent into mania in Andrzej Żuławski's Possession (1981). Eggers' Nosferatu is a similar study of feminine jouissance - "hysteria" - here historicized along with the rising tide of secularization in the 19th century.…

A successful exercise in pantomime. Chalamet impressively captures 60s Dylan, costumes and sets were uncannily on point. Ostensibly about Dylan’s electric turn, there were really three stories here: Dylan’s tempestuous romance with Baez/Rotolo, his friendship with Seeger, and his struggles with his own artistry and identity, But “A Complete Unknown” fails to really tell us any of these stories, which makes Dylan’s actions feel not compellingly enigmatic but childish and irrational. Norton’s portrayal of Seeger goes some way towards giving…