Wild Palms (1993) coming from Kino

[DR Herbert West]

from executive producer oliver stone (blue steel, freeway) comes this sexy and surreal five-part mini-series based in a neo-noir los angeles of the future. Harry wyckoff (james belushi, retroactive, real men) is about to become a player in a dark and terrifying battle where everything is at stake and no one is who they seem. Directed by kathryn bigelow (strange days), keith gordon (a midnight clear), peter hewitt (bill & ted’s bogus journey) and phil joanou (state of grace), wild palms is a haunting sci-fi saga of greed, treason and virtual reality. Beautifully shot by phedon papamichael (ford v ferrari), with a rousing score by ryuichi sakamoto (the revenant) and an all-star cast that includes dana delany (exit to eden), robert loggia (lost highway), kim cattrall (unforgettable), angie dickinson (dressed to kill), ernie hudson (the crow), bebe neuwirth (malice), nick mancuso (rapid fire), david warner (morgan!), ben savage (tv’s boy meets world), bob gunton (the shawshank redemption), robert morse (the loved one), brad dourif (hidden agenda), charles rocket (miracles) and charles hallahan (the thing).

Special features:
-brand new 2k master
-new audio commentary by star james belushi & executive producer/writer/creator bruce wagner (pilot episode: Everything must go)
-audio commentary by star dana delany & executive producer/writer/creator bruce wagner (episode: Rising sons)
-two new audio commentaries by director keith gordon (episodes: The floating world & hungry ghosts)
-new audio commentary by director phil joanou (episode: Hello, i must be going)
-optional english subtitles
-dual-layered bd50 disc

[tehthomas]

Never heard of this but.. LA, neo-noir, Oliver Stone... I'm very intrigued.

[HaroldnMaude]

It originated as a comic strip/graphic novel published at the back of the monthly men's fashion magazine Details in the lare 80's/ early 90's. In junior & senior high I would buy it every month, and it was a much younger/hipper magazine than GQ or Esquire. This was long before the internet made such things pretty irrelevant. Also it had a very different look and feel to the more recent version of Details that has been published in the last couple decades. At one point I still had all the back issues from my teenage years, but I tossed most of them albout 16/17 years ago during a move.
Anyways, Wild Palms was usually about 1 page every month, but I can't remember for how long. The story was fairly incoherent. It was more about style over substance. I remember that the TV adaptation was made, but don't really remember it. I think they had to try to come up with a more coherent plot for TV.
There must be a wikipedia article with info.

[drb124]

If we are putting out weird Jim Belushi erotic thrillers, I need Traces of Red and Separate Lives as well.

[HaroldnMaude]

By author David Faust in May 2014 from article found at (unfortunately doesn't include any artwork):
http://sequart.org/magazine/41688/an...d-palms-comic/


If it’s even remembered at all anymore, Wild Palms is mostly known as there basis for an ABC network miniseries that attempted to combine the surrealism of Twin Peaks with the cyberpunk subculture, with decidedly mixed results. Wild Palms was written by Bruce Wagner (who also scripted the TV series and is credited along with Oliver Stone as an executive producer) and was drawn by the late Julian Allen (1942-1998), whose illustrations appeared in magazines like Rolling Stone, Newsweek, Esquire, and many others. Wild Palms was originally serialized in Details magazine from 1990 to 1993 in two-page installments. Early commercials for Details that ran constantly on MTV and other places mentioned Wild Palms by name along with showing a page of the story, making it one of the few comics to be advertised on television. Arrow Books released a collected edition in 1993 around the time of the miniseries, however that collection has been out of print for almost twenty years now.

[HaroldnMaude]

MTV commercial for Details featuring Wild Palms comic:

https://youtu.be/VU-srz5dKug

[AnamorphicWidescreen]

Yes, I heard about the forthcoming WP on Blu about a week ago. Excellent news, especially given the DVD set hard to find for a good price - and had rough PQ anyway.

I saw parts of WP when it aired in late Spring '93. Excellent neo noir/cyberpunk/sci-fi series that defies easy definition. Extremely well done, prophetic, and unsettling.

[latehong]

DVD Beaver review

[anephric]

I watched this at the time (when there were a lot of offbeat network shows like Bakersfield PD - needs a release - and Key West riding the coattails of Twin Peaks) and I remember it being... okay. It has a few arresting sequences - there's the one it's most 'famous' for, and I remember Keith Gordon's episode being one of the better ones, but I imagine it's dated horribly.

[captainron_howdy]

Wow! I was just thinking about this the other day after watching Lost Highway. David Lynch hated it so much he almost made an entire movie out of it LOL.

[dissention]

This is great fun because it's so, so bad. The nineties were pretty bizarre, as evidenced by Belushi's casting for the lead, and the cheese levels are off the charts. I can't wait. Bonus points for a great evil Angie Dickinson performance, too.

[tomahawk]

I am looking forward to re-watching this again after so many years. I saw it when it originally aired; I was a kid obsessed with Twin Peaks, and all of the comparisons got me excited. Well, I ended up enjoying the show, but not because it had anything to do with TP. It is quite a different beast altogether. It's a testament to the influence of TP that pretty much any television in its aftermath that did anything unconventional drew a comparison to it. I always felt like Belushi's casting in the recent Twin Peaks had some tenuous connection to Wild Palms.

I still have on my bookshelf the "Wild Palms Reader", a very unusual book that, I believe, was published in tandem with the miniseries, but really has nothing to do with either the original comic or the miniseries. I can't remember though. Might be time to take a deep dive back into this weird world with KL's upcoming disc!

[Jay H.]

I remember ABC promoted this as being "the next Twin Peaks". It wasn't.

[AnamorphicWidescreen]

I find it extremely unfair & incorrect to compare WP to TP, though I know it was advertised that way & I know many people still compare the two series.

I'm a huge TP fan (i.e., a "Peak-head"), and WP wasn't even in the same ball-park. But, I don't mean that as a criticism. WP was a completely different type of series. I don't see the comparisons, other than they were both quirky, unusual shows.

[Titus37]

I'm very excited about this release! I loved Wild Palms when it aired on TV. I always thought that the DVD, with video quality that appeared to be from the laserdisc transfer, was the best home video release this show was ever going to get. The fact that Kino recorded commentary tracks is fantastic!

When Wild Palms aired on the Sci-Fi channel, they showed little interviews with the actors as they went to and came from commercial breaks. I used to have them recorded on VHS, but I'm disappointing that I can't find them anymore.

[Kyle15]

I had no idea this was happening! Never seen it before but I gotta grab it now.

Some o y'all are throwing the word "dated" around willy nilly again n that makes me sad! Tsk tsk!

[jrsl76]

I just ordered from Diabolik. I remember this from when I was in high school. Looking forward to re-visiting.

[erlinmeyer]

Enjoyed watching it again. Considering it was shot on 35mm, it seems soft at times. Good to see old familiar faces. Audio is DTS Master Audio 2.0 and a few spots the dialogue is kind of quiet, but Captions helped out. Will try and get through the commentaries this weekend. Thank you Kino for this.

[JKR1963]

I loved this show and own the dvd. I will buy the blu-ray when I can get it. The soundtrack and theme music are a favorite of mine. The CD soundtrack is really good.

[geekzapoppin]

I loved this show when it first aired. Yes, it is certainly somewhat dated now, especially with regard to the Cyberpunk elements, but it was so unlike anything else on TV at the time and so well-written that it blew me away. I totally disagree with those who think it's bad. It has some fantastic ideas and was very well-made, taking into consideration when it was made and what early-90's TV budgets would allow you to show. If you've never seen it and go into it with the right expectations, I think you'll really enjoy it. There's a reason that it didn't disappear immediately after airing. It never had the rabid fanbase that some other TV shows and miniseries had, but it definitely has a cult following. I love it, despite its unavoidably-Nineties flair. If you want some literate Sci-Fi Noir with some excellent satire of Scientology thrown in for good measure, Wild Palms won't disappoint.