"Wild Palms" is a title I've had hyped to me over the years and I finally checked it out. I had been told it "took place in the same world as Twin Peaks," which I figured could only be a good thing. It took less than twenty-five minutes of the first episode, however, to expose this comparison as a bogus euphemism. I know I'm not the first person to point this out but holy crap! Did they think people wouldn't notice? As if the general idea of the film, (blending elements of noir, melodrama, and science fiction through a post-modern filter of pop culture references and a large cast of quirky characters), wasn't similar enough to Twin Peaks, there are bits of dialog and situations that are directly lifted from the series! The role of dreams, the coffee-centric conversation, the references to Buddhism, the title sequence, the score
. I hoped to find some sort of redemption in the less Twin Peaks influenced areas of the story. The attempted corporate takeover of the country via virtual reality television seemed it might prove thought-provoking, but it ended up playing out more like "They Live" than "eXistenZ." The thinly veiled criticism of Scientology spurred my interest initially, but it lost its bite by the third episode. Most excruciating, is the acting. I'm quite capable of enjoying a stilted or awkward performance, so long as it serves a higher purpose (i.e. toying with a genre convention). But Jim Belushi gives a new meaning to the word unnatural. Even screen veterans like Robert Loggia can't rectify the unevenness and clumsiness of the cast. At best they come off as zany sitcom characters. Even as camp, "Wild Palms" is barely watchable. F-
Review of Wild Palms
