Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here.

People seem to think that Harry or I get upset when people don’t agree with us about a movie, but that’s ridiculous. Half the time, I don’t even agree with Harry, so we certainly don’t expect everyone on the site or everyone in talkback to line up with us.

Case in point: INLAND EMPIRE. This was number two on my list of favorites this year, but I know many people who have hated it outright. Capone doesn’t quite say he hates it, but this review is anything but positive. Does that mean Capone’s wrong?

Well... yeah, most likely.

But we love him anyway.

Hey, all. Capone in Chicago here.

Just don't throw tomatoes until you've read this entire review and you've seen this film. If you've ever wanted to know what it's like to live inside David Lynch's brain for three hours while he's asleep after eating a lot of spicy food and cheese, then INLAND EMPIRE is the movie-going experience you've been craving. I am an admirer and sometimes defender of pretty much all things connected to Lynch, but this one got away from me. I'm not someone who needs a film to make sense or follow anything resembling a linear structure, but I do need it to affect me, challenge me and ultimately impress me with the filmmaker's style and intellect. Lynch has never had a problem doing any of these things for me in the past, but Inland Empire is, simply put, a staggering mess. I don't care if he perfectly captured a dream state. There's a reason I don't ever ask someone to tell me their dreams and why I never remember my own: because 99.99 percent of the time, dreams are fucking boring.

Not that INLAND EMPIRE doesn't have its moments. The film's star, Laura Dern, does a terrific job of grounding Lynch's other-worldly stories, which seem to be in no way connected other than that he weaves them together through editing. Much as he did in MULLHOLLAND DRIVE, Lynch presents us with the journey of an actress. Playing a woman much like herself, Dern is cast in a film co-starring Justin Theroux and being directed by Jeremy Irons, and as she slips further and further into the character, the line between the film and her real life grows blurry. And, yes, my brain did feel like it had been watching three hours of blurriness after sitting through this.

Dern's ability to observe and react to the absurd is probably the film's greatest achievement. She is us. She rarely understands what's happening to her, and neither do we. In Lynch's well-conceived press notes for Inland Empire (in which Lynch's biography consists entirely of "Eagle Scout Missoula Montana"), the plot synopsis reads, "A woman in trouble." In all honesty, I can't do any better than that. Dern wears a look of pure anxiety and confusion on her face that probably mirrored my own. Also on hand to provide some comic relief is the ever-dependable Harry Dean Stanton as the perpetually broke right-hand man of Irons. Dern's mother, Diane Ladd, also pops in at one point, as does William H. Macy and an almost unrecognizable Julia Ormond, who could be either a friend of Dern's character or a friend of the character she's playing. There are hookers (or actresses playing hookers) on hand, as well as a weird end-credits party scene where Laura Herring and Nastassja Kinski appear for all of three seconds each. It's great that Lynch got his famous friends to show up…I guess.

I've grown up watching the works of David Lynch, so I know to expect the unexpected and to assume the unexpected will be unveiled to me at a pace that goes against the grain of nearly every other film made in a given year. But I always end up finding his movies gripping and emotionally troubling because what's waiting at the end of the journey is substantial. Despite its length, INLAND EMPIRE is not substantial. It didn't even rouse any curiosity in me. I feel guilty saying this, but I'll get over it. This movie is Grade-A boring, and nothing troubles me more than a filmmaker like Lynch repeating himself and not getting under my skin the way he always has in the past. There's no denying Lynch's talent, and there are some sequences here that quickened my pulse momentarily, but at three hours, INLAND EMPIRE needed more moments like that. I will always be a disciple of Mr. Lynch, but I cannot worship at this particular shrine.

Capone