mike k in l.a.

If there’s one thing i’ve learned about LA so far, it’s that if there’s a free event and it’s even mildly cool you’ve got to show up really…really early for it! The Hammer museum was having a screening of David Lynch’s new film Inland Empire tonight with a Q&A after. They’ve been having cool events all summer and I was so excited to go to this one. Well the screening filled up FAST so I didn’t get in, unfortunatly. But dammit, I came back for the Q&A session even though I hadn’t seen the film!

Seeing Lynch talk was a pleasure. He’s a really funny guy despite what you might gather from his aesthetic. I also learned that he’s got his own brand of coffee, and every morning he reads the weather forecast on Indie 103.1. The talk itself was pretty short but entertaining. I’m really looking forward to watching the film; it comes out on dvd in about 2 weeks and from what I gather, is rather unique because Lynch shot it all on digital video and (I think) did a lot of the camera work himself. It was interesting to hear him talk about how the project started with him just getting ideas for a scene and shooting it. Through this process happening several times, he started to get new ideas about piecing them together into a feature length. I like how that methodology mirrors art-making in a lot of ways. Not to say film isn’t art-making, of course, but…you know, usually films are more planned out.

At the end of the talk, 9 “valley girls” that appear in the movie came out onto the stage and did a choreographed dance to “The Locomotion”. God Bless America.