Wild at Heart (1990, USA) C-124m. SCOPE ***½ D: David Lynch. Starring Nicolas Cage, Laura Dern, Willem Dafoe, J.E. Freeman, Crispin Glover, Diane Ladd, Calvin Lockhart, Isabella Rossellini, Harry Dean Stanton, Grace Zabriskie, Sherilyn Fenn, John Lurie, Jack Nance, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Sheryl Lee. Powerful, red-hot continuation of Lynch's American Nightmare of BLUE VELVET (1986). Aggressive Cage clubs someone to death with his bare hands and after his release from prison takes it on the lam with his lover Dern. Her furious mother Ladd sends out a handful of hitmen, all assigned to kill. Road movie thriller kicks ass like none before, with typically odd, surreal touches by Lynch, who puts his own version of THE WIZARD OF OZ on the screen here. Plot is really indefensible, but this violent, loud, intense film is the prototypical cult movie and also a major influence on the work of writer-director Quentin Tarantino. Based on the novel by Barry Gifford, who also wrote a novel about Rossellini's character, which was filmed in 1997 as PERDITA DURANGO. Good soundtrack by Angelo Badalamenti. Winner of the Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival.