Wild Palms

This is a cult favorite, and in my opinion, it is Oliver Stone's finest achievement in film. This film watches much more like David Lynch-- If you liked Twin Peaks, then get a copy of this as soon as possible. This film is actually very deep in the examination of our society in how it portrays the masses as being glued to their televisions and easily controlled by media giants, and how much religion is cultish no matter how big. I recommend you watch it if you have a brain in your head and like to use it. It's not just another action movie that seem to waste the projectors at movie theatres these days...

WP has a rating of 7 here and that is what it merits. I saw some of the series back in 93, but have just re-watched it all. The quality of the cinematography is excellent and in that area the series holds up well. However, there are some major downsides to WP. One and the most important, some of the acting is incredibly bad, to start with, that of Belushi. The Trivia section says he had no idea what the story was about, so he simply recited his lines. One has the impression, most of the time, that he did just that. Loggia is Loggia, another Type A, overacted performance. Catrall starts off weak, but gets better. Angie is the real disappointment. She looks great and is perfect for the part, her clothes are fine, her scenes some of the most intense, but her acting is often wooden. I find Delany the best and most consistent, though other reviewers don't like her. The music is overblown and the one good piece, the background music to the most intense scene, the ending of Hungry Ghosts, is obviously influenced by P Glass's music. The series shows its influences clearly: 60's counter-culture, Scientology, and perhaps a little less obviously, Meet John Doe. In fact, for me, the latter is the main thrust of the series. However, the way the story is handled leaves something to be desired. It is too neat and clean, not open ended. However, the series obviously had some major influence itself. Those are easily seen in the Matrix series, in Caprica, and most obviously and essentially in Inception. Nolan would probably deny it, but half of Inception is lifted from WP. So, kudos for an idea that has had some mileage. Also, the series has been compared to Twin Peaks, but there is little to compare really. As said, the acting of WP is not esp thrilling whereas I find not a single character is weak in TP. The music for Badalamenti is far superior to that of Sakamoto. Both series look excellent. One area where WP beats TP is that WP is a closed story, a true miniseries. TP got out of control and thus lost some of its power. However, for me, TP is still a series I could re-watch without problem. So, finally, at the end of this long-winded review, WP is good, but not great. It would a great choice for some sort of re-imagined series à la Battlestar Galactica.

"Politics have no relation to morals" Machiavelli.

When in 1993 "Wild Palms" was released on television it didn't stand a chance. Misguidedly compared to the hit series "Twin Peaks" - which was wrong in every sense of the word - WP was not well-received. Misunderstood by critics and viewers alike the show never got the praise it still deserves today.

"Wild Palms" is an opera, a new age fever dream that predicted a future in which the public gets manipulated through the media with the purpose of creating a fascist society that reduces people to drugged zombies with hardly any notion of reality.

Sounds familiar ?

In an age of redundant and uninspired remakes this is THE show that should be remade for a contemporary audience as this is the world we are currently living in. Ironically the fictional reality of "Wild Palms" has caught up on our current state of mind, our politics and the media worldwide.

Watch this show for the creative worldbuilding, the atmosphere and the drama while ignoring the bad acting, the plot holes and the ridiculous last 15 minutes. Get on the "Wild Palms" trip and be amazed about how accurate the predictions made 30 years ago would become.

When this mini series was first broadcast, most people had never used a computer, the NSCA Mosaic browser (later to become Netscape Navigator) had just been coded. Thus allowing those with a data connection to graphically browse content at glacial speed. But just consider the list that follows which tallies their actual occurrence.

The Web = The web Tony Krietser =Donald Trump Chickee Levitt = Mark Zuckerberg Mimecom = Facebook Mimezine = Oxycontin The Florida Bomb = 9/11 The 90's Depression = The Great Recession The Fathers = Rebublicans with a capital "R" The Friends = Liberal Democrats Josie = Melania? Watch this excellent mini series with your politically astute frienew and you will have a BLAST finding current and near current tie-ins. Then you'll have one final question. "Where did Olivier Stone get a time machine?!"

Transhumanism, techno-shamanism, hallucinations, cults, child abductions, mind control, mass media, mind altering drugs, virtual reality, political subterfuge, musings on the nature of the mind and reality and Buddhism and Philip K Dick and William Gibson, peppered throughout with excerpts of excellent poetry (Yeats, Wallace Stevens, TS Eliot, etc), Bruce Wagner's clever wordplay, Sakamoto's score, gauzy soft-focus camerawork a la Twin Peaks, with a bunch of rad flowy early 90s rayon shirts and outfits as the cherry on top of the quaalude sundae. Prophesied a lot of stuff happening today. A bit convoluted at times, but more than makes up for it as an overall piece of visionary art, even if Jim Belushi is the weakest link among an otherwise bravura cast. Amazed this show ever saw the air.