The first movie my late father ever showed me was David Lynch’s Blue Velvet. I remember, he was so excited. He rented it down at the local video store, came back, and said, “Kip, this movie is supposed to be just TWISTED, this is going to be great!”
I was eleven years old when I saw Blue Velvet with my dad. If you haven’t seen it, you really should watch it; it’s arguably David Lynch’s greatest work. My father had a habit of doing this, though — shoving adult genius in my face as a child, then stepping back with a sort of, “Whatcha think of THAT, eh?” attitude.
Should you show it to a a child? I don’t know. It contains scenes of Dennis Hopper nitrous and saying to Pia Zsadora, “BABY WANTS TO F—!” and so on (“BABY WANTS BLUE VELVET!!!”) Maybe not. But my dad showed it to me and it changed my life.
So, here is the movie that I saw at a very formative age that has stuck with me allll these years, it made me who I am, thank you very much David Lynch and Gerry Lange, and goddamn that Frank is fucking fantastic!
Thanks, dad.
P.S. So the man was a Republican political consultant. Shut up. Just shut up. You don’t know what the man had to go through. Do *you* want to deliver briefcases full of $200,000 to mafia bosses who control unions in the North End of Boston in an empty warehouse? Fuck off.