Blue Velvet
Kyle MacLachlan, Isabella Rossellini, Dennis Hopper, Laura Dern
Written and directed by David Lynch
Originally released 1986
Fox Home Entertainment 2011
Blu-ray really shows off the cinematography in Blue Velvet. Unfortunately the sound is on the uneven side, especially in scenes such as when Jeffrey (MacLachlan) first goes to Detective Williams’ house. Blue Velvet is a David Lynch movie so you know it is going to be very weird and very weird it is. It is also a very good sort of film noir if you are in the right mood.
In some ways Blue Velvet is an adult and kinky Hardy Boy and Nancy Drew story. College boy Jeffrey Beaumont comes home when his father has a heart attack. He finds a human ear in a deserted lot and decides to investigate. He enrolls police detective’s daughter Sandy Williams (Laura Dern) to help. Their methods are very teen detective inspired. such as dressing up as a bug exterminator to get into a femme fatale nightclub singer’s apartment and having Sandy pose as a Jehovah’s Witness to distract her for a minute.
Jeffrey becomes attracted to the woman even if she likes rough sex and he does not. It turns out she is being blackmailed by a psychotic character named Frank (Dennis Hopper). Jeffrey gets even more involved in the mystery.
Depending on your point of view and mood, Blue Velvet suffers or is enhanced by the director’s whimsical shots such as the opening sequence panning into the lawn to show the bugs at work (a metaphor for the movie itself).
Lynch was nominated for an Academy Award for Blue Velvet.
Special features for Blue Velvet Blu-ray are Newly Discovered Lost Footage, Mysteries of Love documentary, Outtakes, the original Siskel and Ebert review (they are as on the fence as everybody else), trailer, and vignettes.