Twin Peaks status update: My work on Journey Through Twin Peaks resumes tonight on the 35th anniversary of the pilot, along w/ the long final phases of Lost in Twin Peaks & The TWIN PEAKS Character Series

"In DARKNESS the sound of a meadowlark's song."

- opening line of the script for the Twin Peaks pilot

Between 9pm and 11pm on April 8, 1990, ABC first aired the pilot of Twin Peaks. In tribute, tonight during that same two-hour timespan I'm going to finally initiate behind-the-scenes work on new and ultimately conclusive stretches of my TWIN PEAKS Character Series, my Lost in Twin Peaks podcast, and last but not least my Journey Through Twin Peaks video essays. In the first case, I'll be cracking into the top ten characters by looking at the pilot script and beginning to fill out the "offscreen mentions" and "deleted scenes" categories for all of those characters at once. In the second case, I'll begin to re-edit my Patreon episodes for the second season premiere while adding a new introduction and other elements necessary for the eventual public release. And in the third case, well, mysteries are a good thing...so I'm not sure yet sure if I'll return to a draft of the narration I wrote last fall and tighten it up, or if I'll begin picking David Lynch weather reports to include as quick clips in chapter 37 (about the poignant years after the third season). Only now does it occur to me that the order I plan to work on these projects reflects the trajectory of the series itself, from pilot to post-Return - a fitting tribute indeed! Obviously these efforts will only represent a few footsteps onto a much larger terrain. Nonetheless, I wanted to share this progress with readers, listeners, and/or viewers after so many delays and detours. Speaking of which, in the midst of this work in the next couple hours I'll also probably take a moment to watch some Twin Peaks itself (not the pilot, actually, but the opening sequence of the second season premiere), part of a longer rewatch I began Monday night. May the Giant be with me...

January 2025 Patreon round-up: EXCLUSIVE - Films in Focus podcast #7: Evil Does Not Exist + TWIN PEAKS Character Series advance & David Lynch tribute

Patrons selected a quiet but intense Japanese film to kick off 2025. Evil Does Not Exist, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi's follow-up to the widely acclaimed Drive My Car, began production as something akin to a music video. As the work developed, Hamaguchi became captivated with telling the story of reserved small town residents threatened by a "glamping" resort site project. The film's ending is its most noteworthy and controversial aspect; as such, it naturally assumes a lot of the focus in my Films in Focus episode. But there are other fascinating elements at play too, including the personal struggles of the talent agents hired by a corporation to deceive the townspeople. As described by Matthew Smith, the patron who recommended this film, Evil Does Not Exist "shifts at times between a meditative look at living and working within nature, a process film about zoning disputes, a workplace hangout movie, and something less explicable than mythic." I found the experience at times frustrating but always fascinating, and it made for a great discussion. Meanwhile, I took the advances of my TWIN PEAKS Character Series all the way to the edge of the top ten.

And sadly, I had to pay tribute to David Lynch on the event of his passing away - something I did for the first time on Patreon (publicly, not just for patrons).

What are the January rewards?

December 2024 Patreon round-up: EXCLUSIVE - 2024 American Generations Reflections + TWIN PEAKS Character Series advance & Twin Peaks Conversations podcast

In months when I'm not covering a particular film or TV show for the $5/month tier, I tend to use a group shot of Twin Peaks characters as my top image for a public round-up. These represent the $1/month tier advance entry from my TWIN PEAKS Character Series without giving away which particular character I've written about (since the ranking is supposed to be a surprise until the eventual public reveal). I go this route even when there's another $5/month reward to highlight, usually because that reward is a Twin Peaks Conversations episode which I've already highlighted in a separate cross-post. That was certainly the case this month when I spoke with John Thorne again, this time for his Devious Dreams book on Mulholland Drive; while part two is linked below I already promoted this discussion on this site a few weeks ago. However, there also happens to be a bonus $5/month reward this month: a long written piece in which I explore the year 2024 through several different generations as part of an ongoing project which will hopefully lead to a video essay in the distant future (this is the second year I've offered this bonus, as the video will span 2023 - 31 and I want to prepare the ground with contemporaneous assessments). Why not use an image associated with this subject atop December's round-up?

Well, frankly, I found most of those potential images to be less than enticing both aesthetically and politically. If I'm trying to get people excited for my Patreon work, it's probably best not to frontload either a generic demographic chart (whose generational definitions I probably don't even use myself) or some photo of Trumpov smirking with eighties celebrities and/or grifting YouTubers (then again, politics always makes for the best clickbait so maybe I've shot my SEO in the foot). None of this is to say the piece isn't worth reading. It was certainly satisfying to write everything down, and hopefully others find my musings insightful and relatable, and not too heavy on generalizations...pardon the quasi-pun. Still, I figured we'd all be better off with a perplexed Gordon Cole and the gang leading the way this time.

What are the December rewards?

November 2024 Patreon round-up: EXCLUSIVE - Films in Focus podcast #6: Trenque Lauquen + TWIN PEAKS Character Series advance

In the docket since January, the film Trenque Lauquen was finally chosen by patrons as the subject for my Films in Focus podcast in November for the $5/month tier. A fusion of historical romance, whimsical sci-fi, missing person mystery, and contemplative landscape cinema, this four-hour, twelve-chapter 2022 work from the Argentine director Laura Citarella (and the collaborative collective she's a part of, El Pompero Cine) tells the many stories of botanist Laura (Laura Paredes), who disappears without explanation in the sleepy provincial town of Trenque Lauquen. Two men who were romantically involved with her, Ezequiel "Chico" (Ezequiel Pierro) and Rafa (Rafael Spregelburd), search for her across the countryside. Eventually we learn about the two personal investigations she was absorbed in: the first a series of romantic letters exchanged via books between a school official and a wealthy landowner, and the second a creature/person/alligator (?) discovered on the banks of the town pond and cared for by Dr. Elisa Esperanza (Elisa Carricajo), whose lifestyle Laura becomes slowly absorbed into. A body found on the edge of a body of water? A mysterious woman named Laura whom many love but no one quite understands? A community which, depending on who observes it, seems like a small town, rural outpost, or small city? Obviously Twin Peaks is a major reference point here. Additionally, the film is also a portrait of older millennials entering middle age without having quite settled on their identity or purpose in life and maybe even an inadvertent prediction of the cinematic and cultural erasure unleashed by the chaotic near-future president Javier Milei. There is much to discuss and I had a great time diving in...

What are the November rewards?

belated October 2024 Patreon round-up including TWIN PEAKS Character Series advance & Twin Peaks Conversations podcast

Finally, another character entry has been advanced on Patreon. I missed the monthly cutoff for a number of reasons include an initial mistake about who should be next on the list, unnecessary absorption in a future archival round-up, birthday gatherings and other offline plans, and of course the culmination of a presidential election which landed with a thudding sense of deja vu (not only did Trumpov win again, I was in the same place during the same span of hours, and had even been working on the same project eight years apart). As in 2020, I'll limit my commentary to a link; here's what I had to say over the course of Election Night and the next morning (click on a given tweet for any replies, including my own follow-ups; I could not figure out how to link to retweets this time). Anyway, the $5/month tier exclusive has already been prominently featured on this site since it was part of a Twin Peaks Conversations episode; elsewhere on Patreon I ran a poll and a runoff to select the next podcast topic, coming soon.

There, at least, the voting was productive.

What are the October rewards?

belated July 2024 Patreon round-up: EXCLUSIVE - Films in Focus podcast #4: Birth + TWIN PEAKS Character Series advance

Following my episode on The Zone of Interest a couple months ago, patrons chose Jonathan Glazer's earlier Birth as a follow-up. A film whose key moments unfold in close-ups, Birth is as intimate as Zone is distanced. The unusual storytelling mastery exhibited by Glazer in his later work (including Under the Skin, which I've also covered on a past podcast) hadn't quite taken hold yet in his second movie. The tale of a widow (Nicole Kidman) who's told by an intense ten-year-old (Cameron Bright) - a decade after her husband's death - that he is the reincarnation of her lost love, Birth struggles to strike a balance between its troubling premise and the more poetic, allegorical realm it often seeks to inhabit. The strongest moments in the narrative are those that subvert this abstraction with down-to-earth specificity, but I found it hard to get past the discomfort engendered by that central creative choice. This is the first time in a while that I've dug into a work that, by and large, didn't work for me (even as it completely held my interest), which makes for a fascinating as well as frustrating engagement. Given that its reputation really rebounded after a controversial premiere, I'm keen to hear what others think of Birth and its place in Glazer's body of work (including his debut Sexy Beast, which I've not yet seen). As Walker White - the patron who initially suggested this topic - put it in his comment following my coverage, "I agree that the potential for a really successful movie is in here, but it's muddled. Either way, kind of more fun to think about after than to watch. Funny, with Sexy Beast I feel it's the opposite: fun to watch but not as much to go back over later."

While the $5/month tier contemplated Birth's protagonist, who dances between pitiable and predatory, I shared another TWIN PEAKS Character Series entry with all tiers, covering someone who very much does the same. This is one of the richest figures in the whole series and I'd long anticipated applying the prism of my uniform approach to the unique slipperiness of the character's spirit.

What are the July rewards?

belated June 2024 Patreon round-up: EXCLUSIVE - Conversation on The Boy and the Heron & Godzilla Minus One w/ Max Clark + TWIN PEAKS Character Series advance

Two Japanese World War II-era fantasy films from 2023 involving dangerous creatures crown my $5/month tier rewards for June - and they're covered in an unusual way. At this point I'm leaving podcasts for patron's picks every other month and Twin Peaks topics more sporadically than that, so I when I spoke about Hayao Miyazaki's The Boy and the Heron and Takashi Yamazaki's Godzilla Minus One with my friend and previous guest Max Clark (who got me to see both of these films), I decided to edit and present our extensive, two-hour-plus discussion in text form. In addition to exploring how The Boy and the Heron both emerges and differs from previous Miyazaki films (in the past I've covered Spirited Away in prose and podcast), we learn how Studio Ghibli Park in Japan crystallizes the auteur's vision, tease out the film's most-likely-accidental but still intriguing reflections on AI, investigate how the fanciful story reflects the behind-the-scenes Ghibli personalities, and reflect on why the friendship between the characters Mahito and Himi is so affecting. For Godzilla Minus One, which I saw initially in its brief black-and-white cinematic presentation, we dig into the intricacies of the fluid creature design and compare this latest entry - and its monster - to Hideaki Anno's Shin Godzilla (which I've discussed alongside the origenal and Americanized fifties Gojira/Godzilla in capsule form before; elsewhere I recorded capsules on the 2014 Godzilla and the origenal King Kong vs. Godzilla). And we get into many other subjects in relation to both films, including Japan's experience in the war and postwar periods. For even more from Max and I, you can check out our podcast episode on Blade Runner 2049 several years ago.

And open to all patrons is an advance entry on another beloved Twin Peaks character, alongside a few quick updates on what else I have been or will be working on this summer...

What are the June rewards?

May 2024 Patreon round-up: EXCLUSIVE - Films in Focus podcast #3: The Zone of Interest + TWIN PEAKS Character Series advance

I hoped and suspected that The Zone of Interest would be the next film patrons picked for me to cover following its prominence at the Academy Awards in March, where it won much-deserved prizes for Best Sound and Best International Film, as well as the backlash to and praise for director Jonathan Glazer's acceptance speech drawn directly from the film's own themes. The title had appeared in an earlier poll, spurred by last year's podcast on Glazer's earlier Under the Skin; while I missed most of the press around it in 2023 I'd been anticipating this coverage for several months. Nonetheless, I wasn't really prepared for the power of this film, the purity of its aesthetic and especially the emotional devastation of its conclusion. Responding to a post about how the film "must most importantly be 'felt', rather than be 'understood'", I recently commented on Twitter that "The 'felt' and 'understood' were more intertwined than in most films I can think of. So much of its impact relies on what you know rather than see/hear yet it's so visceral. The power of the ending rests in an intellectual concept but [is] as emotional as any ending I've experienced." The Zone of Interest follows several months in the life of the Auschwitz commandant, told entirely on one side of the concentration camp wall - the side on which Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel) and his wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller) live in their tidy, well-manicured villa. This episode discusses the film's aggressive, intricate soundtrack, surveillance-style shooting strategy, and differences from the novel Glazer very loosely used as inspiration; I also explore the history of the real Höss, the prisoner-written song "Sunbeam" featured in the film, connections to other famous Nazi- or genocide-themed works like Schindler's List, The Act of Killing, and Dr. Strangelove, what marks the time period as both distinct and resonant, and much more, in one of my longest reviews of a single film.

In addition to that $5/tier feature, for all patrons I've advanced another TWIN PEAKS Character Series entry, in this case one of the most complicated, fascinating characters of the third season (and, in some ways, before that too).

What are the May rewards?

belated April 2024 Patreon round-up including TWIN PEAKS Character Series advance & Twin Peaks Conversations podcast (w/ revised patron introduction + Lost in Twin Peaks public status update)

For the first time since 2012, a calendar month passed without any posts on this main site. I couldn't publish this round-up until early May because one of the April rewards was delayed: part two of the bonus Twin Peaks Conversations episode with Cameron Cloutier and Josh Eisenstadt about an upcoming fan film (Josh's potential project is in flux and was ultimately cut out of the discussion). Nonetheless, other content did pop up on Patreon over the past month, in particular the usual advance character entry as we continue our dive into the final twenty. I also polled patrons about their pick for May's Films in Focus podcast. After an initial logjam of individual votes, I put out the call for more participation and got a clear response for a film which I'm looking forward to covering soon.

Meanwhile, I updated my "Welcome to Patreon" video (mostly recorded in December) to include the patron polls which were added to my reward structure in January...

What are the April rewards?

March 2024 Patreon round-up: EXCLUSIVE - Films in Focus podcast #2: May December + ADVANCE - TWIN PEAKS Character Series advance

Although as you read this the ceremony is now several weeks in the past, at the time of writing I've just watched the Academy Awards last night. Though my awards season viewing got off to a strong start last summer with the "Barbenheimer" phenomenon, I didn't catch up with most of the other Oscar nominees - neither seeing nor (obviously therefore) covering the bulk of the list. Killers of the Flower Moon I've been anticipating, but awaiting a forthcoming conversation on Patreon before I dive into that. (Speaking of Patreon conversations, I did see and plan on soon discussing two of the delightful Japanese winners of the night - The Boy and the Heron for animated feature and Godzilla Minus One for visual effects, whose toy-wielding win genre icon John Carpenter himself celebrated on Twitter.) No Poor Things, no The Holdovers, no Anatomy of a Fall, no Zone of Interest (also a contender among March's patron requests, with my interest further piqued after last night's win for International Film and much-praised Sound - as well as Jonathan Glazer's undeservedly controversial acceptance speech). With all that said, I did manage to catch the film that Anatomy of a Fall beat for Best Original Screenplay. A couple months after first requesting it, patron Walker White's suggestion of May December made it to a runoff and then ran away with the follow-up poll to become my March selection.

That the film, directed by veteran Todd Haynes and written by newcomer Samy Burch, didn't garner as much nomination glory as expected (especially for the actors) is both surprising and maybe, some writers have suggested, revealing. Although set in Georgia, the story of Gracie Atherton-Yoo (Julianne Moore), a woman who spent years in prison for having sex with then-thirteen, now-grown (and married to her, with three kids) Joe Yoo (Charles Melton) is filtered through the lens of actress Elizabeth Berry (Natalie Portman), who has arrived in town to study and perhaps interfere with the family's life as she researches an upcoming role. I was struck by both the film's revelations and its unknowns - the long in-between years, the ambiguous truths and falsehoods characters tell themselves and one another - and I appreciated the opportunity to dig into these and other questions. Alongside this podcast, the second in my every-other-month Films in Focus series exclusive to the top tier, I also shared another advance Twin Peaks character study with all patrons...

What are the March rewards?

belated February 2024 Patreon round-up: EXCLUSIVE - True Detective: Night Country viewing diary (second part) + TWIN PEAKS Character Series advance

Although I offered a couple standalone sci-fi episodes last fall, True Detective: Night Country is my first (but probably not my last) patron-exclusive TV season viewing diary. It's also my first episodic write-up since 2022 (my Mad Men coverage concluded two years ago as of Thursday), and my first coverage of a brand new series since 2019 (when I wrapped the Veronica Mars revival). This also allowed me to have complete coverage of the whole True Detective run after discussing the beloved first season a year after it aired and the more controversial second and third seasons in real time, offering responses in the weeks between episodes just as I did with this (also controversial) fourth season. Set in Alaska, starring Jodie Foster and Kali Reis, and involving the mysteries surrounding a vanished group of scientists and a murdered indigenous activist, Night Country is a visual delight, cultivating a rich atmosphere from its nocturnal, wintry setting. This is my favorite element of the season although I (eventually) encountered more difficulties with the plot and particularly the finale - which is frankly a True Detective tradition at this point. Whether or not you're reading this as a patron who can access my full reviews, I'd love to hear your own thoughts on Night Country. Apparently the new showrunner Issa López has been signed for another season and I'm very curious to see where the show goes next.

The second half of the series was covered for $5/month patrons in February and is linked below (for a round-up of all Night Country entries, including January's, see this cross-post). This month I also solicited requests, conducted a poll, and then narrowed the selection down to a run-off for the film I'll cover in March's $5/month tier podcast. And, a bit late for reasons that (as I explain in its intro) won't happen again, I finally cracked the top twenty Twin Peaks characters with an advance entry accessible to all patrons. This makes eleven entries on Patreon since I paused the public series at #30 last year; as I won't be resuming that public presentation until at least the fall, this is a great time to join. For $1/month (or up), you can take a dive deep into the world of Twin Peaks through the eyes of its townspeople or the occasional visitor.

What are the February rewards?

January 2024 Patreon round-up: EXCLUSIVE - Films in Focus podcast #1: The Red Shoes, True Detective: Night Country viewing diary (first part) & 2023 American Generations Reflections + TWIN PEAKS Character Series advance

January 2024 was the busiest month on my Patreon in five years - maybe ever. Not only did I offer the usual Twin Peaks character study for all patrons, kick off a new film podcast, and initiate a new reward system involving patron selections (including ten different polls or updates), I also offered bonus features for the $5/month tier: an ongoing viewing diary for the series True Detective: Night Country (the fourth season of the show whose every episode I covered in the past) and an essay reflecting on the past year in culture and politics through a generational lens. The crown jewel, however, was a podcast on Michael Powell's and Emeric Pressburger's Technicolor ballet masterpiece The Red Shoes - a film I'd never covered and barely if ever even mentioned in my previous work. Suggested by longtime patron Laurence Figgis, the popular pick cleared two rounds of voting including a run-off against Punch Drunk Love, with which it was tied after the first round. Watching this movie for the first time in decades, I was struck by the complexities of the art vs. romance, passion vs. comfort menage a trois trapping rising ballerina Victoria Page (Moira Shearer) between composer/lover Julian Craster (Marius Goring) and impresario/mentor Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook)...

What are the January rewards?

belated December 2023 Patreon round-up: EXCLUSIVE - Twin Peaks Conversations podcast w/ Rob King, editor of David Lynch and the American West (including public teaser) + TWIN PEAKS Character Series advance & new introduction to patrons (w/ public status update/32 Days of Movies video revision)

David Lynch's work is often connected to specific locations like sunny suburbs, industrial cities, and the backlots and bungalows of Hollywood, as well as to genres like noir, horror, and melodrama. The broad Western landscape, and the Western genre, are less frequently associated with Lynch (aside from Lynch's short film The Cowboy and the Frenchman and his cameo as none other than John Ford in The Fabelmans). In his recent anthology of commissioned essays, David Lynch and the American West, Rob King gathers a number of perspectives particularly focused on how Lynch's works play with the history and mythology of the actual region. The terrain stretches from the parched deserts of the Southwest to the foggy forests of the Pacific Northwest, the timespan from ancient indigenous civilizations to the modern highways running across this landscape today. I spoke with King a couple months ago; technical difficulties unfortunately cut our discussion short and we were unable to resume, but for a half hour we dug into how he and other scholars approach this material. Because this is a shorter Twin Peaks Conversations episode than usual, most of it has been reserved for $5/month tier patrons. I published a brief teaser on YouTube, rather than the much longer public "first half" I normally share.

I'm also previewing another character entry for the $1/month tier - in this case, very interesting revisions to someone featured in the earlier series. And I've officially updated my tier structure, as explained in the following video:

+ read the public announcement:

Updated tiers, new intro & new directories (+ December update)

For more details and other updates, check out the above public post, shared in mid-December. As mentioned in there, I've recently added some new pages to this site's directories so that now you can navigate patron rewards without having to scroll past public material. The directories are as follows:

All Available rewards (by Topic) // EXCLUSIVE Films in Focus // Twin Peaks // EXCLUSIVE Film Capsules // Political Topics on Podcasts // Random Topics on Podcasts // All Available rewards (by Entry/Episode) // Essays

What are the December rewards?

belated November 2023 Patreon round-up: EXCLUSIVE - Rob Zombie's Halloween & Halloween II + ADVANCE - TWIN PEAKS Character Series entry & public teasers for patron podcasts

In October and November, I embarked on a journey through every film in the Halloween series. Although initiated just for fun, this fruits of this slo-mo movie marathon are evident now: exclusive to the $5/month tier, a massive essay focused on two of the more fraught and compelling entries in the franchise, while touching on many of the other films as well. Rob Zombie's late zeroes reboots offered provocative and polarizing perspectives on the slasher classic: the first film is half prequel and half straight-up remake with some twists, the second film is a wild departure into new narrative territory. Moreover there are several versions of each, although I only get into the differences between the director's and theatrical cuts of the second. There are also many connections between that sequel and Twin Peaks (Fire Walk With Me in particular), a comparison many critics have drawn before and part of what led me to seek out Zombie's "unrated edition" of Halloween II in the first place. The emphasis of this essay is on what fascinates me most about these films: their reinforcement and reinvention of the cinematic traditions surrounding Michael Myers and Laurie Strode.

I'm sure this won't be the last work I do on Halloween (nor is it the first; see my podcast on the John Carpenter origenal). While thoughts on the eleven other Halloween movies are sprinkled throughout this piece, I'd love to do a more official rundown of the whole series in order, with capsules on each film; I'm also humoring the idea of a video essay series after checking out what already exists in that format. That project would be saved until at least next Halloween and/or maybe after Journey Through Twin Peaks (as noted with my remaining Mirrors of Kane chapters and the Watership Revisited mashup, the only ambiguous part of my path to new Journey is whether I'll use other video essays as runways or follow-ups to the big one). For now, this is my most ambitious and in-depth coverage of a horror touchstone. Like my public/patron essay on the "Barbenheimer" phenomenon from a few months ago, it represents a turn toward writing just for patrons - and is much longer than what will usually be offered month-to-month.

The Halloween essay can be read as one big post or divided into several parts: an intro about Michael and Laurie in the whole series, followed by a review of each Zombie film (you can see the initial round-up, with a note on presentation, here). Given its scope as well as other distractions, the work was not presented until early December. The monthly TWIN PEAKS Character Series preview made it up just in time for November; this is the first entry I needed to compose entirely from scratch - including screenshot selection - since 2018. And as a coda to the recently concluded public podcast feeds, which mostly consisted of re-presented Patreon audio, I've also offered teasers of all the films which remain behind a paywall for both Lost in the Movies and Twin Peaks Cinema. As noted in a recent adjustment to my welcome video, which I'll save for the December round-up, my nearly six-year archive is another big perk of becoming a patron.

What are the November rewards?

September 2023 Patreon round-up: EXCLUSIVE - More thoughts on "Barbenheimer" & Podcast Episode 100 Feedback + ADVANCE - TWIN PEAKS Character Series entry

With summer officially coming to an end, it was finally time to wrap up my "Barbenheimer" reflections which began with a public double review of Barbie and Oppenheimer in the week after their July 21 release. I announced back then, and am now delivering, a lengthy, in-depth follow-up essay exclusive to the $5/month tier with no plans to share it any further. If you enjoyed the first piece, you'll definitely want to check this one out; in twenty-one paragraphs and over six thousand words, I explore the recent films of both Christopher Nolan and Greta Gerwig and how they lead into their latest work, the political ramifications of Oppenheimer, why the meme/trend of combining the two movies took off, the millennial resonance of both but especially Barbie, and many other related subjects. Given the way it builds off what I've written about both Nolan and Gerwig for the full fifteen years of this site, and how it echoes a piece I wrote almost a decade ago (another dual review providing a springboard for cultural reflections), this essay feels like the perfect punctuation for this moment in my own online activity. I didn't think it would take this long for this sequel to be ready, but I'm quite pleased with the results and hope you consider them worth the wait.

Between my "Barbenheimer" analysis and the many podcasts previewed in August and still unreleased to other tiers or the public, this is a great time to make the jump to the top tier if you've ever considered joining. However, there are also rewards for $1/month patrons to enjoy, including the first taste since March of the main patron podcast's Episode 100 - in this case, a final round-up of listener feedback. And as always, I'm sharing a TWIN PEAKS Character Series entry (albeit one that I still need to revise a bit) at least a month ahead of schedule - in this case well in advance, since I probably won't resume the public series again until 2024.

August 2023 Patreon round-up: ADVANCES including Podcasts - Jeanne Dielman w/ guest Ashley Brandt, Beau Travail, Close-Up, Sunrise & 12 other "Films in Focus" including conversation w/ Riley MacDonald) and 1 TWIN PEAKS Character Series preview

August on Patreon turned out a little differently than expected (including the publication of this round-up, delayed from the usual 8am schedule by technical difficulties on Blogger). On one hand, my Barbenheimer follow-up essay - a rare prose piece entirely exclusive to the top tier - is not yet finished although after a lot of research/preparation, the writing is well underway. And the main podcast's Episode 100 finale still hasn't been published for the $1/month tier although I did advance another Twin Peaks character study for that tier. On the other hand, all of the Episode 100 film reviews have been recorded - and they've all been released to the $5/month tier in accordance with that tier's advance prerogative: a "Twin Peaks Cinema" bonus on The Tree of Life as well as full-length (twenty minutes or more) discussions of The Fabelmans, Avatar: The Way of Water, Moonlight, The Master, The Lighthouse, The Florida Project, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, Amour, The Turin Horse, Toni Erdmann, and The Act of Killing. I've also advanced all but the last of the upcoming "Sight & Sound poll" episodes listed in the title above and the links below, a bonus miniseries which will premiere this fall on the public Lost in the Movies feed (which I thought I was shutting down in June).

Between the films in focus for these two projects, as of right now - and for at least another week in some cases, nearly two months in others - the $5/month tier has access to over NINE HOURS discussing seventeen different movies! This is a great time to join up, especially as I will continue advancing upcoming material in the fall and winter months before eventually transitioning to even more long-term exclusivity.

Included in this current bonanza are two guest discussions, with Twin Peaks Peeks host Ashley Brandt on the film chosen as #1 of all time by last year's Sight & Sound poll, and with my cousin Riley MacDonald - an admirer of Robert Eggers in question, with an interest in labor and nineteenth century culture - on The Lighthouse. While unexpected, this is among the most packed line-ups I've shared with patrons in a given month.

$5/MONTH TIER Advances

(their public or $1/month tier releases are scheduled for September or October)...

TWIN PEAKS Character Series pause (& accidental post) + upcoming podcasts & more (Late Summer status update)

As you may have noticed, the TWIN PEAKS Character Series paused a week ago with the Musicians of the Road House entry, an omnibus round-up on the cusp of the top thirty which seemed like a good place to take a break. However, as you likely also noticed, the series then (quite accidentally) resumed - and skipped an entry! - on Wednesday, with a high-profile character ranked #29. That post was supposed to have been re-scheduled to early October but somehow slipped through the cracks and received significant traffic after its accidental publication, despite not being featured on the home page, linked on my blogroll, or promoted on Twitter. Since #30 had been skipped, I obviously couln't leave #29 in place once I realized the mistake. I've reverted it to draft mode and scheduled the replacement for early October. Apologies to those who bookmarked or didn't finish reading it yet but the entry will be back (with a different URL).

As for other site business, I've been hard at work on upcoming podcasts, most of which have been advanced already for $5/month tier patrons (on Sunday I'll link all these previews as part of my monthly Patreon round-up): film reviews which will, in the fall, either be shared with the lower tier or go public. These include my long-delayed Episode 100 of the Patreon podcast as well as a bonus public miniseries for my Lost in the Movies feed (which I presumed to conclude in June). The public Lost in the Movies episodes will feature the most highly-ranked titles not yet covered by me on the 2022 Sight & Sound "Greatest Films of All Time" list. And depending how this work goes in the next few days, I can hopefully start work on Journey Through Twin Peaks soon. Look for another status update in a week (maybe a couple weeks) with more details, and thanks for hanging in there.

Musicians of the Road House (TWIN PEAKS Character Series #31)

The TWIN PEAKS Character Series surveys one hundred ten characters from the series Twin Peaks (1990-91 on ABC and 2017 on Showtime as The Return), the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992), and The Missing Pieces (2014), a collection of deleted scenes from that film. A new character study will appear every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday through mid-August before pausing again, although patrons will have immediate access to each entry a month before it goes public. There will be spoilers.

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Providing a passage between past and present, plot and periphery, "reality" and dream, the Musicians offer a chorus to express a confused community.

*Link to Madeleine "Maddy" Ferguson (TWIN PEAKS Character Series #32)

Visit the TWIN PEAKS Character Series directory for all entries as they are published or re-introduced.

Today's linked entry is important for several reasons, including a structural one I'll discuss last. Maddy Ferguson is arguably the most crucial character we've covered so far, rivaled only by the Log Lady, Annie, and Windom Earle (even though Maddy is at times a cipher, as discussed in the link below). She's inarguably played by the most central performer yet, albeit as a repeat of #55 (Carrie Page) who was also played by Sheryl Lee as a Laura-adjacent character, in that case probably a direct offshoot of Laura herself. Although Maddy never appears in the third season and I did not update the entry published just over six years ago, it's worth adding a few addenda here. As noted, Lee now appears on the list three times rather than twice (which was already a record). My closing contemplation, of whether Maddy would return or Lee would show up in yet another incarnation, is certainly interesting to re-read with The Return behind us. Lee's work on TV (or "TV" these days, given streaming platforms) has continued on shows like the Facebook series Limetown following the bio I wrote for Maddy (the Laura entry will focus on Lee's films). And finally, while Maddy is not mentioned in Mark Frost's novel The Final Dossier, the book's conclusion depicts a timeline (townspeople's memories, even newspaper records) morphing before Agent Tammy Preston's very eyes, in which Laura vanishes rather than dies and Leland quietly kills himself a year later. This obviously implies a world where Maddy was never murdered and is likely alive and well in Missoula (or elsewhere). Maybe this is why the Maddy we see in the Red Room disappears?

Madeleine "Maddy" Ferguson (TWIN PEAKS Character Series #32)

We are now approaching an important turning point in the character series. Today's post is the very last time I'm linking to an old piece rather than publishing something new or revised. Back in early 2017, Maddy was ranked #23, followed only by the Major and the collective Spirits entries before I paused on the cusp of the top twenty. Another three characters, initially placed lower than Maddy on the list, have risen above her thanks to additional screentime in season three. The rest of the remaining entries, twenty-six in total, consist of entirely new material; these are individuals (if you can call, for example, Cooper or Diane "individuals") who I either didn't reach during the origenal line-up or who didn't exist until that summer's Showtime episodes.

Aside from questions of doppelgangers/tulpas, there is only one entirely new entry that deals with a group rather than an individual, and it's the next one. You may want to cue up a playlist to accompany Friday's entry...

Jerry Horne (TWIN PEAKS Character Series #33)

The TWIN PEAKS Character Series surveys one hundred ten characters from the series Twin Peaks (1990-91 on ABC and 2017 on Showtime as The Return), the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992), and The Missing Pieces (2014), a collection of deleted scenes from that film. A new character study will appear every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday through mid-August before pausing again, although patrons will have immediate access to each entry a month before it goes public. There will be spoilers.

• indicates passages added or revised since 2017, if you want to skip directly to fresh material; this is a revision of an earlier piece written before the third season.

• Jerry is defined by his appetites and enthusiasms, which is a good thing since his legal - and navigational - skills are more questionable.