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What Did Jack Do? is a new 17-minute movie from David Lynch (recently-ish seen with Harry Dean Stanton in Lucky), which arrived by surprise, and celebrates the great director’s 74th birthday.
Why not release this on his 75th birthday? Well, when has Lynch ever done anything normal? As one person said on Twitter, “Netflix: Just give David Lynch $100m and stay the f**k out of his way!” 😀
Lynch plays a detective who interrogates a monkey which is suspected of murder. So, yep, completely bonkers, but then what else would you expect from the man behind Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet?
And to that end, this movie release also ties in with today’s release of the Twin Peaks: From Z to A Blu-ray boxset.
Attempting to get questions, he asks Jack if he knows anything about birds. You’re expecting the monkey to sit there quitely, because monkeys don’t speak English. However, this one does, of course.
As Lynch continues his line of questioning, stating that Jack has also been seen with chickens, the monkey deviates with lines like “You are a strong-arm man?”, leading Lynch to reply, “You could say that”, and Jack chides, “I just did.”
AAAARRRGGGHHH!!! MY BRAIN IS MELTING!!!
The monkey clearly has a human mouth superimposed over the top of his own, but that’s the only straight-forward thing going on here, as the conversation changes in random ways from one sentence to another, sounding like something that’s come out of an Eliza program.
We only get some sense of coherence when a waitress states that cops are after a murderer… but coherence lasts about as long as her appearance onscreen.
So, did Jack commit the murder? Even after watching this, I still don’t know. However, it’s bizarre and hilarious – especially when the song True Love’s Flame (spoiler below about this) comes about, and it has left me feeling like I’ve just swallowed 100 LSD tablets!
Oddly, the film has a 2016 copyright logo, even though it’s only just been released.
Next up: Can we please have all the David Lynch films on Netflix?
Plus, when the film has finished, the Netflix link comes up “More like this”. Well, excuse me, Netflix, but there is NOTHING like this! 😀
And about the song…
What Did Jack Do? is released today on Netflix. Time for another viewing…
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 17 minutes
Release date: January 20th 2020
Studio: Netflix
Format: 1.78:1
Rating: 9/10
Director: David Lynch
Producer: Sandra S Sutherland
Screenplay: David Lynch
Cast:
Himself: Jack Cruz
Detective: David Lynch
Herself: Toototabon
Waitress: Emily Stofle
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.