So, you desperately wish that you were one of those indy/art house film nerds who openly expresses disdain for words like “Hollywood blockbuster” and would rather spend their time sipping lattes and stroking their goatees while discussing the greater significance of a film’s use of “creative geography.” But, we all know you secretly loved Bridget Jones’ Diary. Don’t lie. Well, luckily, there’s still hope for you and your pop-culturally tarnished soul. Here is your chance to get your uneducated foot in the door.

Renowned cult film director, television producer, composer, and visual artist, David Lynch’s work should be your alpha and omega into the illustrious world of overrated…er, independent film, and the concept of the film maker as auteur. Don’t get me wrong, David Lynch’s body of work in both TV and film is unquestionably brilliant and a large portion of his brilliance stems from his seemingly effortlessly ability to straddle the gaping chasm between the accessible (2001’s Mulholland Drive), the widely popular and yet still quirky (his Twin Peaks television series), and the completely mind-numbing surrealist purgings scraped directly from the dark dank recesses of Lynch’s twisted spinal column (1977’s Eraserhead). Harvard Square’s very own Brattle Theater will be honoring this director of the dark side of the American experience by featuring a series of his most well known films in a week long showing titled I Had a Dream About This Place: The Films of David Lynch. But in this post-irony world I know you may be cynically asking yourself: “who doesn’t have their own film series these days? And what’s so special about David Lynch anyways? Dune totally sucked.” But, the Brattle theater is one of the foremost cinematic resources in Boston which can be consistently relied upon to provide both respected cinema classics and the often overlooked and underappreciated lost movie gems, side by side.

And while, yes, it does take a special breed of person to fully grasp the visually ambitious scope and densely constructed plot line of Dune, Lynch is still one of modern day most celebrated directors. He posses a unique directing style that blends complacent reality with the dark subconscious nightmares that underscore it, creating such a unified vision that it warrants the creation of the term “Lynchian” to describe his instantly recognizable technique. Few other directors have been able to achieve this level of success where their name becomes an adjective (admittedly, his monosyllabic last name puts him at an advantage-Kubrickian doesn’t quite roll of the tongue in the same way). Unpleasant soundtracks, disturbingly blunt humor, and skewed hallucinatory visual story telling are all tell-tale signs that David Lynch has had his dirty little hands in a project. Though Lynch has been on the cover of Time magazine and won a number of Academy Awards, his only real taste of considerable mainstream success was during his writing and production work on the Twin Peaks television series. Even though that star burned brightly from the show’s premiere in 1990, becoming the number one rated show and a near cultural phenomenon, it almost just as quickly fizzled out by the spring of 1991 and Lynch returned back to the comfortable safety of cult status (by the end of the series Lynch had relatively little to do with the show at that point). But you know what? That’s exactly how we prefer it. Being popular is good and all but once your grandmother know who you talking about it’s just not cool any more. So head on down to the Brattle Theater sometime between January 28 through February 3 and get schooled in the films of David Lynch. Just don’t bring your grandmother. Friday January 28 at 5:30, 7:30, 9:30 – Eraserhead; Saturday, January 29 at 2:00, 5:00, 8:00 – Mulholland Drive; Sunday January 30 at 2:15, 7:15 – Blue Velvet; also at 4:45, 9:45 – Wild At Heart; Monday January 31 at 5:15, 8:00 – Dune; Tuesday February 1 at 4:45, 7:15, 9:45 – The Elephant Man; Wednesday February 2 at 5:00, 7:45 – Lost Highway; Thursday February 3 at 5:00, 7:45 – Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me