by Mark Allyn Stewart

I'm reading it now.  Has anyone else checked it out?

It's kind of a conversational, Formalist criticism of the features plus Twin Peaks.  Great IE chapter, too.

That god damn trailer's more popular than Uncle's Day in a whorehouse!

What's good about the approach is that he doesn't make any absolute statements, mostly suggestions, and his conclusions are very simple. He's not afraid to say, and I paraphrase, 'we never find out exactly how X plot point is resolved, but that's relatively unimportant.'  He really is just gathering repeated themes, symbols and motifs and reminds us of their contexts, and thus, their potential implications for a larger mythology, the same thing we all do. I mean, really, we all go "I'll be damned, more red curtains."     

So far, the major "visual language" cues he's discussed that appear to be used in the same way are:

* white-outs

* strobes

* electricity

* flames

* clothing

* dogs/barking

* red curtains

* the color blue

This book would be an excellent starting point for anyone trying to do a more complex analysis.  Most of the decoding is stuff we fans already take for granted.  I dunno.  My only complaint is the price for the brevity of it.