David Lynch is 60

David Lynch, my favorite living director turns sixty-years old today. Lynch is currently in post production on his first film in 5 years, INLAND EMPIRE (caps his) which is to premiere at Cannes this summer. Mr. Lynch has had a mixed record at Cannes with his 1990 film Wild at Heart taking top honors (ironically the French loved this, the only Lynch film I've absolutely hated), while his Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me was mercilessly panned (and that is my second favorite Lynch film). A strong believer in transcendental meditation, last year the director opened the David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace. Lynch would like to build a series of "peace factorys" that would employ about 50,000 people to meditate all day and send out good vibes to improve the world. It is estimated that this project would cost about 7 billion dollars to get started. Now before you write him off as some liberal anti-war nut, I'd like to point out that Mr. Lynch did get a lot of crap in the 1980's for his defense of the Regans (especially Nancy). So David Lynch isn't so much political as he is just weird, which is probably what makes him such an interesting director to watch. Mel Brooks once called him "Jimmy Stewart from Mars."