Inland Empire

Having sworn off film forever — one way of avoiding the financial hassles that surrounded the production and release of MULHOLLAND DR. — director David Lynch shot this typically noirish, three-hour magnum opus on consumer-grade digital video. Gone is the rich, dark gloss and deep, gothic gloom Lynch achieved with 35mm film, but the movie is so filled with all things Lynchian that it's practically an exhaustive career summary. In addition to a cast composed of Lynch's past stars, there are empty yet portentously numbered hotel rooms; slow, fearful creeps up darkened stairwells and down labyrinthine hallways; characters who awaken from one identity only to slip into an...