THE BUS: SEXIN' UP THAT OLD BOX ON WHEELS

Often times, we cling to things not just for what they can do for us but also what they say about us.  The spirit of director Damon Ristau's light and fun investigation into the culture of the Volkswagen bus is far more swayed by rhetoric of the latter variety, even with numerous testimonials littered throughout The Bus pointing to the vehicle's unrivaled utilitarianism.  The folks interviewed here claim to enjoy, among other things, freedom, solidarity, and self-sufficiency, all due to their fervent love for and ownership of one of the boxiest vehicles this side of a train car.

To Ristau's credit, the love is contagious.  The Bus traces this miracle of German engineering from its factory origins; why yes, that is a photo of Hitler smiling unashamedly at a mockup of a VW bug, to the incredibly effective advertising campaigns of the 1960s (recently referenced in this season's premiere episode of Mad Men), which helped spread the notion that what the vehicles lacked in elegance was more than made up for via a distinctive ownership experience.

Clever graphical inventions throughout The Bus (a vignetted frame to convey the view from the driver's seat, a speedometer that shows the sales per decade, etc.) quickly and playfully relay info, keeping the pacing brisk and allowing it to always return to the backbone of the piece: its subject's love of this car/lifestyle.  Speaking of love, Ristau introduces us to a couple whose very union was founded upon their affinity for the bus; she was enamored with how easily one could learn to repair them, he was drawn in by both her beauty and skills as a bus mechanic. 

 

The film takes us on VW-powered excursions to Burning Man and other hard-to-reach locales, out on tour with a traveling musician who's been living and working in his bus for over 5 years, and beyond, really hammering home the bus equals freedom concept that so many of its subjects espouse.  In its own modest way, The Bus might very well be the most sexy sales pitch ever for the American association between motor vehicles and rugged individualism.  The perverse twist being that the seductive technique is piled upon inducing adoration for a decades old box on wheels.

 

The Bus plays one-night-only at the Hollywood Theatre on Wednesday, April 25th.  Director Damon Ristau will be in attendance for a post-screening Q&A.  More info available here.

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THAT GUM YOU LIKE IS GOING TO COME BACK IN STYLE @THE HOLLYWOOD THEATRE

David Lynch and Mark Frost's early 90s series Twin Peaks certainly qualified as event television during its first season.  It's a phenomenon that rarely occurs nowadays; a mass audience gathering around a single show, now that seemingly endless options on cable, audience time-shifting (via dvr, streaming options, etc.), tv on dvd and video-on-demand (VOD) have significantly fractured the way in which we view content, thereby reducing a given show's possibilities for the level of water-cooler potential (keep in mind that even something as critically celebrated as a Mad Men or Breaking Bad is, as far as Nielsen ratings are concerned, more of a cult-hit than a commercial success) that 20th century shows enjoyed.

But back to Twin Peaks; a show that, when it premiered in April of 1990, seemed to possess limitless potential for expanding notions of what television could do but, by the time of its cancellation just over a year later, ended up frustrating the majority of its initial fan base.  Plenty has been written about the mishandling of the show by ABC, so I won't waste time or energy detailing how both the creative and marketing teams behind the series failed to fulfill audience expectation.

Far more interesting is the show's continued influence on how television operates as a medium.  There's a phrase that's invoked quite often in critical circles to describe the current state of the tv landscape: a new golden age of television.  What's usually being referred to here is not the countless permutations of reality shows being hocked by the networks but the popular movement away from episodically-driven series to a more serialized form of scripted content.  Shows like The Sopranos and Lost (as well as the aforementioned Mad Men) are regularly cited as high water marks within this revolution in televisual storytelling.

 

It's difficult to imagine the current climate existing without the groundwork laid by Twin Peaks.  The show effectively showed how a series could break out of the self-contained episode trap that plagued much of tv before it.  Lynch and Frost also taught creatives like J.J. Abrams/Jeffrey Lieber/Damon Lindelof (Lost), David Chase (The Sopranos) the value of injecting soap opera tropes into prime-time dramatic fare.  But, beyond that, Twin Peaks helped usher in the notion that television could strive to be as good (and sometimes better) than cinema.  After all, what are the best shows of today other than extended films that just happen to be exhibited via television?

Watching Peaks now it's possible to appreciate the struggle between the creative, the commercial and the audience reception during its short run.  Lynch has stated on numerous occasions that he never intended for central mystery of the show ("Who Killed Laura Palmer?") to be resolved; a question for which, quite understandably, the average viewer wanted an answer.  Despite never really returning the heights of the initial 10 or so episodes, there are only a few truly awful missteps (this episode is a particularly stinky one) once that struggle was in play.

I'd even argue that the series finale is a brilliant slice of surrealist cinema smuggled into the average joe's living room; I can't personally think of a more subversive hour in broadcast television history (outside of, maybe, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour).

The pilot episode of Twin Peaks will be screened at the Hollywood Theatre tonight (3/7) at 9:30.  Beginning next Wednesday (3/14), the Hollywood will screen two episodes on Wednesday nights until "we find out 'who killed Laura Palmer.'"  More info available here. 

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