I saw this one Sunday a month ago when it was playing for a limited weeklong run in Buffalo. There were two other people besides me in the theater, and one of them walked out after the first hour. And that was the most normal part.

Let me say up front that I am very ambivalent about David Lynch. I really liked Twin Peaks and Mulholland Drive, and thought Eraserhead was intriguing. Blue Velvet and Lost Highway, on the other hand, felt like horseshit to me. In any case, Inland Empire is one of the good ones, and if anything it is like a longer, stranger, and angrier version of Mulholland Drive.

Imagine you have a vivid dream that is a bit creepy though more or less connected for a while. This would be like the first 60 minutes of IE. But then suppose it degenerated into a bunch of extremely creepy stuff that repeated itself without any connection whatsoever, and was intertwined with a bizarre dance number or two. This would be like the next 90 minutes. And then what if finally your dream seemed to return to its original theme, but everything was a bit off and you couldn't figure out what was going on exactly, and then it ended with an even longer bizarre dance number. This the last half hour. And oh, by the way, the whole thing would also be interspersed with scenes of a family of rabbit-people hanging out in its living room.

What redeems all of this is that there is a message in it towards the end, and that parts of it, especially the closing credit scene, are unforgettable. Believe it or not, I'm planning on seeing this again as soon as I get the chance.