DAVID LYNCH & OBJECT RESONANCE
Reunion Newsletter [6.20.25]
It would’ve been cool to make a documentary about the actual David Lynch things auction, which happened less than six months after his death. It’s gotta be one of the strangest phenomena that nobody wants to interrogate. Dennis Lim gave very politely insightful commentary in NYT. His words are carefully chosen to allow someone to arrive at a conclusion that it is…eh…a little maybe morbid…one could even call it disrespectful…but he doesn’t say that. He just lays out the scenario clearly for someone to hypothetically arrive at their own conclusion, of which one of those words is a possible description.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/18/arts/design/david-lynch-auction.html
I’m also not calling it morbid, I don’t necessarily feel that way, truly. I’m happy for the ‘estate’ to get all the money they can. What’s worth interrogating is our connection and resonance around objects. I think it’s rather beautiful. I’ve done this for a while. If you come to my house, you’ll literally see my assortment of Lynch ephemera, amongst lots of other things that have no other tangible value, yet are precious to me. I have props from the show, along with random stuff that’s loosely associated, or just carries meaning for me. What stood out to me most in the auction were the tools, cameras, and furniture. I’d love to have put that Lost Highway couch in my place. I’d love to shoot a movie on his PD-150 from Inland or 16mm from Eraserhead. To make something new, something my own…with the tools imbued by David Lynch’s echoes…that would be special. I also resonate deeply with purchasing ephemera only valuable because of its connection to someone who used or owned it. All of my kitchen stuff is from old NY hotels, and restaurants my family used to go to, like Lundy’s where we did a luncheon for my Bar Mitzvah before it closed for good.
I believe deeply in maintaining connection to the past for two reasons. Civilization and culture forgets more than it knows, our predecessors and ancestors made decisions for good reasons, and we should not only respect them, but often follow them even when we do not understand. I also believe echoes are a real thing, like what we’d call ghosts. I believe places and objects carry physical resonance with their encounters. I believe when you fight in a room with someone you love, you will feel that energy banging around the room, and it needs to be counteracted with love.
So I have no clue why people bought stuff for $4.25mm dollars at the David Lynch auction. I’m sure lots of reasons. I would have done it for those two reasons. I’d want to use the stuff he used. And I’d love to surround myself with a little bit of his energy and guidance. I’m sure someone will open a museum, or resell, or I don’t know. I think the Lynch community is so beautiful and strong that no ugly exploitation will occur. I hope all of his wishes are being respected surrounding scripts being shared or not shared. I’d never read those Ronnie Rocket scripts on purpose. I’m going to look up if it was his choice to share them now, because I know he was against sharing them in past. If he wanted these scripts released, then I’d love to check them out and hope the unpublished ones get shared. I strongly wish for nobody to make these films unless they were his direct collaborators. Make things inspired for sure. But don’t adapt his work if you weren’t connected. People like Sabrina Sutherland, Dean Hurley, Peter Deming…let them decide. Anyway, it’s worth checking out all these articles about the auction.
In a week where I watched a few movies that made me think very little, this auction is unintentionally the most vibrant work of art.
— Sean Glass @sdotglass
EVENTS (reunion.eventive.org )
NEWS
The important stuff on the important stuff. TL;DR + links if you want more.
Tom Cruise Will Receive an Honorary Oscar at Governors Awards [NYT]
Mission: Impossible Exit Interview: Stunt Coordinator Wade Eastwood Looks Back at a Decade with Tom Cruise [IndieWire]
David Lynch Collection of Scripts and Memorabilia Fetches $4.25 Million At Auction [Deadline]
David Lynch Auction: Director’s Chair Sells for $91,000; Highest Sale Is ‘Ronnie Rocket’ Scripts for $195,000 [Variety]
Wong Kar Wai’s First TV Series ‘Blossoms Shanghai’ to Stream Exclusively on the Criterion Channel [IndieWire]
Matthew McConaughey Reunites With ‘True Detective’ Creator Nic Pizzolatto On Feature Adaptation Of ‘Mike Hammer’ Book Series At Skydance [Deadline] Love this idea.
Cory Michael Smith To Topline Jeremy Saulnier’s Halloween-Set Fugitive Thriller October For A24 [Deadline] One of the most consistent, exciting filmmakers around. Looking forward.
Ryan Murphy Addresses the Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy Discourse [Puck]
Together Director Michael Shanks Issues Statement Strongly Protesting Idea-Theft Accusation [IndieWire]
Carla Gugino Joins Brad Pitt In Cliff Booth Movie From Netflix And David Fincher [Deadline] My biggest crush growing up was Carla Gugino in Son in Law.
Death Stranding is Getting an Animated Adaptation [Polygon] Won’t be an adaptation of the game, but an original story set in this universe.
Darren Aronofsky Circling A24 Film Breakthrough Co-Starring Dwayne Johnson [Deadline] The Rock finally doing the playbook, I thought he’d have done this ten years ago before his schtick got stale and cemented him as a kinda flyover state guy, but as weird as it is to say, the artsy crowd is more forgiving than anyone. Do good work, and you’ll be appreciated. If Safdie movie is good, and this is good, he’ll be beloved by all. Perhaps his art house / thoughtful cinema transition was delayed because he thought he tried it with Richard Kelly and Michael Bay and did not get out of it what he wanted. Given he’s surrounded by tequila people, maybe it took until the last few years for him to understand that wasn’t the move. Excited to see what comes of it.
Screenwriter Scott Z. Burns’ New Podcast Poses The Question: Is AI Itself A Contagion Sequel? [Deadline] This is a cool POV, I’m going to check this out. Annoyed that I just canceled my Audible sub I had for years for no reason because everything is on Libby, but now I have to decide what to do about this one thing. I hate our internet.
Saw Franchise Rights Acquired by Blumhouse, Reuniting James Wan with Horror Series [IndieWire]
Color Out Of Space & Hardware Director Richard Stanley To Make Horror Film At UK Heavy Metal Festival [Deadline]
Alcon Acquires Bankrupt Village Roadshow Entertainment Group’s Film Library For $417.5 Million [Deadline] Take a look at what happened with music catalogs starting ten years ago, peaking during pandemic times, crashing post-pandemic. Same players, including…Shamrock…
New Regency Partners With Shamrock Capital, Investment Firm Acquires Participation In Studio’s Film & TV Library [Deadline]
“You have to be a bit mad to try this”: inside London’s most daring new cinema [Time Out]
SUBSTACK RECOMMENDATIONS
Again, I wish things were less click-bait-y, but the idea is everything ‘content’ can be as automated as possible. Inherently, AI has no data to pull from for actual fresh ideas, and it will only predict trends insomuch as to tell us when nostalgia will permeate new audiences.
WATCH
MUBI and Metrograph Present: Twin Peaks circa 2017, JUL 5-6 [Metrograph]
28 Years Later [wide] I watched it. It’s a very capable and stylized franchizization of the franchise. There’s nothing here though. The main mythological ideas here is that there are ‘alpha’ zombies, and they can have babies; but these are just content for set pieces, nothing to think about. Stylistically, I guess the big thoughts were…what if we shot half the movie in the style of the originals with DV and zooms and quick shaky handhelds…but then we transitioned to dollies and jibs and whatnot to contrast the masculine-feminine relationship of father to mother. Again, that’s the extent of what it means. There’s nothing further to think about. No contemporary commentary, because this is a piece of content, meant to offend nobody. The performances are fine. Everything is fine. It just serves nothing. It’s a middle episode of a too-long Netflix series. It structures itself as a hero’s journey for the kid, Spike, but it’s not really that. It’s just the plot. There’s no story to Spike. We follow his transition from allegiance to his father to his mother, and the actions he takes, but it’s…just…what happens. It means nothing. Nothing to think about. The most dynamic part of the movie is the Jack O’Connell ending that stylistically twists the movie entirely into another realm of mid-90s rave culture that the actual film team comes from. But we know that team didn’t make the next movie. So the next movie will absolutely not be a 90s rave culture tinged zombie movie. But we got like 30 seconds of 90s rave culture tinged zombie movie. I dunno. Again. Who tf cares. Anyway. Whatever. Next movie is gonna suck bad.
Elio [wide]
The Other America: A Cosmology of Jordan Peele’s Us series—including Peele’s personal 35mm print, alongside prints of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Alice, Dead Ringers, The Lady From Shanghai, and more. [Film Linc]
Award-winner A Familiar Touch [Film Forum]
A Theater Near You series, through Jul 11 [MoMA]
Dogtooth, 4K restoration [IFC]
Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore [IFC]
KPop Demon Hunters [Quad]
Mr. Blake at Your Service! [Quad]
Roxy Reelness series. [Full lineup + tickets]
Mikio Naruse: The World Betrays Us [Metrograph]
Tom Cruise, Above and Beyond series [MoMI]
SUN: Deep Light presents CameraMamas featuring interviews w/ Mandy Walker, Rachel Morrison, Reed Morano, Ari Wegner, Polly Morgan, Fiorella Occhipinti, and Allison Anderson. [RSVP]
JUNE 25:
Nightbreed, w/ special guests [Film Linc]
JULY 17:
License to Live, archival 35mm with introduction by Kiyoshi Kurosawa [Japan Society]
Part of Japan Cuts 2025 [Japan Society]
JULY 18:
Cloud with Kiyoshi Kurosawa in person [Film Linc] Very fun and prescient / timely movie. Check it out.
JULY 20-AUGUST 1:
Megalopolis with interactive Q&A featuring FFC.
STREAMING
More titles added to the byNWR streaming archive.
The Annihilation of Fish [VOD]
An Unfinished Film [VOD]
Final Destination: Bloodlines [VOD]
Friendship [VOD]
ON OUR MIND
Happy 20th Anniversary to IFC Center!
Tom Cruise, is that you?
BFI announces “major” David Lynch retrospective, January 2026.
Lynch’s directors chair appears at the Bob’s Big Boy.
Apocalypse Now original poster art (one of the greatest of all-time) is going up for auction.
Dennis Hopper, John Ford, and John Huston, 1971. Photo by Victor Skrebneski.
A24’s Cherry Lane Theatre restoration is almost ready to open its doors.
Les Carnets de la Quinzaine releases September 23. Featuring interviews with filmmakers from each year’s lineup, along with exclusive behind-the-scenes visuals provided by the directors themselves, the book offers a unique showcase of cinematic creativity across genres and borders — a compelling portrait of a singular cinema and its era. [Preorder]
40th anniversary of Less Than Zero.
