Latest on Lynch's Inland Empire

[Update: Inland Empire to screen at MIFF]

I've been noticing an increase in traffic to this blog through search queries for "Inland Empire" for some time now. I haven't reviewed the film; I haven't seen it, keen as I am. I am hoping it screens at the upcoming Melbourne International Film Festival. In my dreams I was thinking of going to Sydney where it is screening in festival*, but that's not going to happen - this year, at least.

As I recently posted, Dendy Films has moved back the release date (originally June 21) to "the last quarter of the year". With the flood of visitors to this site seeking information about the film (that I can't offer), and hearing of the film's release date on DVD (August 14 according to Amazon), I sent an email a while back to Dendy Film to offer some feedback about the interest in the film's release. I think it would be a tragedy if the film bombed at the box-office because many Lynch enthusiasts had already seen it on DVD. I won't be among them; I want to experience the film as it's meant to be. Lost Highway, for example, loses much detail on the small screen. Aside from the visuals, nothing compares to the big screen experience, in my opinion.

Getting back to Dendy, I was hoping my email might alert them to the demand to get this film out there. Maybe it's being delayed to allow Sydney to premiere it; I can only speculate. The response from Dendy was: "Thanks Paul. As soon as we have a release date we’ll be in touch." Hmmm... that didn't get me far.

To put a figure on the level on interest, of the last 219 visitors who have come to this blog through a search engine query (almost all through Google), 57 had "Inland Empire" in the query string. That's just over 26%. Consider this - the next most popular search is "Paris je t'aime" which brought 15 visitors (6.8% of the 219 search queries).

According to Ryko Distribution, who are distributing the DVD in North America, the extras with the DVD include:

• Lynch 2 (Behind the scenes of Inland Empire with David Lynch)
• Talks with Laura Dern and David Lynch - more things that happened (additional character experiences)
• Theatrical trailers (3)
  
• Stills Gallery (73 photos)
• David Lynch cooks quinoa

I may just pre-order the DVD from Amazon, but I don't think I'll watch it until after I've seen it on the big screen.

* Inland Empire is screening at the Sydney Film Festival:

• 20 June, 8.30pm at Greater Union George St
  
• 21 June, 9.00pm at the State Theatre