New On Netflix: Blue Velvet

David Lynch dealt with the various frustrations and tribulations of working on the disaster that was Dune by following it up with a movie made his way or the highway… and the world of cinema really hasn’t been the same ever since. Lynch’s dangerous, surrealist tale of hell in suburbia (or hell is suburbia, perhaps) stars Kyle MacLachlan as a nice young man who really shouldn’t be spying on his mysterious and beautiful neighbor (Isabella Rossellini); his pokings and proddings (in more ways than one, heh heh) get him on the wrong side of Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper, delivering what might be a career-best performance), a raving psychopath who introduces the poor kid to a dark and twisted world beyond the white picket fence. It’s most definitely a warm-up to (and perhaps a trial run for) Twin Peaks, but Blue Velvet stands on its own as one of the Lynch’s most accessible and yet uncompromising creations.