R.I.P. David Lynch (Jan. 20th, 1946 - Jan. 15th, 2025)

David Lynch was my cinematic come-to-jesus moment. I've written about it for MovieJawn before, but I was getting into filmmaking via the Quentin Tarantinos and Kevin Smiths of the era, whose filmographies and careers were accessible in both a real sense-- you could find copies to rent or buy anywhere-- and an intellectual one-- they made movies set in recognizable worlds and influenced by popular culture. And I began to hear about David Lynch.

Everyone was so excited to ask me if I had seen any David Lynch yet. And I hadn't. Until Mulholland Dr. I left that film completely baffled. I was in high school, had never had a film class, and wouldn't have an internet-compatible computer for another 5 years or more.

I was, to put it mildly, unfamiliar with the concept of deciphering a work. Movies were about what they were about; subtext was shallow if it was present at all. Comparatively, Mulholland Dr. might as well have been delivered into my mind from the moon, backwards.

Everyone knew I was going to see it too, so I received many calls throughout the week from friends and family who wanted to ask me what I thought, and that was what did it. A week of explaining to people what the movie was about and why it "made no sense", being forced to think about it over and over, finally led me to some modicum of understanding. It hit me in a very intimate, emotional way-- which in hindsight I realize I was avoiding thinking about-- and suddenly, and forever after, art was changed for me.

In the wake of his passing, I've seen some Netflix CEO saying that they were working on something together, but obviously that will never materialize in a finished form if at all. It makes me very angry. We should have had so much more David Lynch. His filmography should only have been limited by his interest. Hollywood should have backed dump trucks full of money and Cokes into his driveway every year on principle. He should never have had to pitch any goddamn thing. There are so few true originals, and the fact that some of them don't get to work because of how commerce interacts with (read: fucks) art is an actual crime.

But. I don't want David Lynch's passing to bring any more anger into the world, especially not from me. After all, we DO have many works to experience, and they're all pretty easily accessible now. As the man himself said:

"Keep your eye on the doughnut, not on the hole."

Goodbye, David Lynch, and thank you for everything.

HALLYUWOOD: THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO KOREAN CINEMA by Bastian Meiresonne (Black Dog & Leventhal)

Hallyuwood: The Ultimate Guide to Korean Cinema
Written by Bastian Meiresonne
Published by Black Dog & Leventhal
Available for purchase HERE

by "Doc" Hunter Bush, Staff Writer and Podcast Director

Korean cinema has arguably never been hotter than it has in the last few years. Since its boom into wider awareness in the 2000s, up to Bong Joon-ho's Oscar wins for Parasite in 2020, it has never been easier to encounter Korean films, so I was really excited to dive into this hefty tome. Ultimately, I really enjoyed the reading experience, but it was not what I was expecting.When Hallyuwood describes itself as "The Ultimate Guide to Korean Cinema", the word cinema is referring more to the industry or the art form than it is to the films themselves.

I grew up in an age where film guides were still reasonably prevalent. You could find compilations of reviews from specific critics, or divided up by era or sub-genre. This is what I was expecting from Hallyuwood; a comprehensive guide to Korea's cinematic offerings that would perhaps give me better or more insight into the cultural differences from what I'm familiar with, and as always, I was hoping to maybe be exposed to a filmmaker I'd never heard of before. Who among us isn't looking to find a new fave at every turn?

That is not exactly what Hallyuwood is. It still manages to do those things, but along with the occasional film summary, what this book is most concerned with is providing an insightful and thorough history of the Korean film industry. A history that is genuinely fascinating. Above, I mentioned the Korean film boom of the 2000s; it's not as if they weren't making movies before then. In the book's introduction chapter, author Bastian Meiresonne casually drops that Korea has produced over 8000 films since 1919, and one of the main reasons they weren't more widely available was an ongoing struggle against censorship under Japanese occupation.

Hallyuwood is presented in chronological order, first divided up by eras: “1903-1919 The Origins of Korean Cinema”, “1961-1971 The Golden Age of Korean Cinema”, “1992-1998 The Dawn of Renewal”, and so on. Each era is likewise chronological with the occasional diversion for brief overviews of a filmmaker, examinations of socio-political changes, or other relevant asides. For instance, the Byeonsa-- Korean narrators introduced to accompany foreign silent films, for which the largely rural audiences had no cultural context, and could not read the inter-title cards-- who were so ubiquitous that certain Byeonsa became stars in their own right.

This approach, this structure, necessitated a lot of doubling back to check on the names of stars, filmmakers, studio heads, government officials, and the like as their individual stories evolved over each cinematic epoch, giving Hallyuwood a more academic feel than the guide book I was expecting. But the experience overall is incredibly rewarding. Learning of all the times censorship guidelines changed, usually to protect a government from criticism, and the ways in which filmmakers circumvented or outright battled them, I felt inspired.

I recently reviewed the documentary Scala!!! about the Scala Cinema in London (1978-1993). Learning of that theater’s importance with regards to the underground film scene, concurrent with my reading this book and learning about groups like Jangsangot-mae-- a film collective who led an eight year legal battle that ended in the dissolution of the censorship board, directly leading to another boom era in Korean film-- felt like a call to action. As the kids say "Let this radicalize you"; film at its best is an art form built on expression and we should always stand and fight for it as such. What better way to champion an art form than to learn as much about it as you can?

During the period I was reading Hallyuwood, I watched Park Chan-wook's The Handmaiden (2016) which opens with text explaining that the subtitles for Japanese dialogue would be one color, and those for Korean dialogue, another. Normally, I'd have presumed this was perhaps for clarity, or at the very least had a less keen understanding of the societal implications that this adds to the haves / have nots dynamic already present in the film. But due to being immersed in the country's film history, that divide was called into an even greater contrast.

If you're interested in learning more about Korean cinema beyond a simple listicle of modern stand-outs, Hallyuwood is for you. This deep examination of cultural roots and artistic struggles put so many films and filmmakers on my To Watch list (the book even has a list of Selected Film Titles in the back, to get you started!) and as described above, has already enriched my viewing experience! The world is an enormous place that only gets more complex the longer you look, and being well-informed is the best way to understand what it is you're seeing.

"Without memory, there can be no retribution" : POPCORN (1991) and How the Past Informs the Horror Genre

"Without Memory, There Can Be No Retribution" :
Popcorn (1991) and How the Past Informs the Horror Genre 

by "Doc" Hunter Bush, contributor and podcast czar

Popcorn (1991) is a love letter to the horror genre on both textual and metatextual levels. The plot involves an all night horror-thon, the setting is a classic movie house scheduled for demolition, and the killer utilizes movie magic to do his nasty work. But there’s a deeper appreciation for horror’s history on display as well.

Aspiring filmmaker Maggie (Jill Schoelen) and her pals put on the horror-thon to raise money for their high school film department. With the help of film historian Dr. Mnesyne (Ray Walston), they're screening three (fake) classic cult b-movies that all have their own gimmicks. The giant mutant bug attack film Mosquito is being presented in project-o-vision (which means a huge remote controlled mosquito on wires will fly out above the audience at key moments), something called The Stench presented in aroma-rama (where packets of powder are dissolved in water and the resulting scented fog is filtered into the theater), and The Amazing Electrified Man about a death row inmate who survives the electric chair, presented in shock-o-scope (where the theater seats are electrified in order to give shocks to the audience).

This being the Slashers issue of MovieJawn, there are obviously some murders afoot! A short film called Possessor is found mixed in with the film spools and gimmick materials, and screened shortly thereafter. The short is surreal, and bears resemblance to some spooky dreams Maggie has been having, and once the horror-thon kicks off, she begins to think that the man from Possessor is haunting the theater, killing her friends off one by one! The man operating the RC mosquito gets impaled on its huge proboscis; the guy operating the shock-o-scope board is tied to his seat and terminally zapped; one of the kids is locked in a bathroom stall and gassed with toxic aroma-rama pellets (why he doesn't just flush I'll never know) and the audience is in danger of meeting the same fate.

Popcorn taps into a reverence for the past that runs through a lot of the horror genre, while also paying homage to William Castle, one of the greatest carnies to ever work in film. Without going into too much detail, some of the gimmicks in this directly correlate to some of Castle's ideas to drum up audience interest. Look up Castle's films The House on Haunted Hill, The Tingler, 13 Ghosts, Macabre, Mr. Sardonicus, Homicidal, and probably others - and their associated promotional tricks, if you're unfamiliar. They're very fun. You'll thank me.

Beyond that, horror has a rich history of paying homage to what's come before. Things like meta-casting genre mainstays, naming characters after actors or directors from earlier eras, to giving small shout-outs within the films. For instance, there's a torn poster for Wes Craven's The Hills Have Eyes (1977) in the basement of the cabin in Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead (1981). Craven responded by having the character Glen (Johnny Depp) watching The Evil Dead on TV before being killed in an appropriately Evil Dead-y, messy fashion by Freddy Kruger in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). Raimi then had a replica of Freddy's glove hanging above the doorway of the cabin in Evil Dead II (1987).

Sometimes these nods are shout outs, broadcasting a love and respect for an inspirational work. Sometimes they're call outs, telling audiences "If you thought that was scary, wait until you see this". Sometimes they hint at some shared horror DNA that audiences might not be instinctually aware of. In John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) for instance, the kids are watching The Thing From Another World (1951) on TV at one point, underlying the it-could-be-anyone paranoia of his film's masked killer.

By adopting parodies of William Castle -style gimmicks onto pastiches of '50s and '60s cheapie b-movies, the filmmakers are more than just tipping their hat to film history. Mosquito, The Amazing Electrified Man, and The Stench aren't purely wallpaper for the events of the film. The promotional gags and equipment are what is used to rack up the majority of the film's bodycount. Popcorn is saying in no uncertain terms, that these ideas, these genres, these concepts, though having fallen out of fashion, are still valid. Still vibrant. Still killers.

I've been a big fan of Popcorn since I first saw it (only a few years ago!) because, on top of being a fun and lively flick, I enthusiastically agree. Too many filmmakers seem to drop references in their work more as a sign of their own bona fides, designed to say more about how cool or knowledgable the filmmaker is than to say anything about the works they're nested into. But horror history is jam packed with great ideas worth interrogating, and concepts worth dragging into the light in front of new eyes. As Toby (Tom Villard) says in Popcorn: “Without memory, there can be no retribution”, which I interpret as horror’s version of “Those who don’t learn from the past are doomed to repeat it”. Someone has to show the audiences everything they’ve been missing.