poll thomas anderson 2

I need a second watch of phantom. Until then Magnolia.

The Master easily for me

The last three films constitute a helluva streak.

Inherent Vice disappointed me because I (foolishly) read the book immediately prior. I should watch it again.

I also haven't seen the first three; maybe I'll try to do that before I vote.

Hard to even pick my favorite ending from among TWBB, The Master, and Phantom Thread

Am sure I voted Magnolia last time. Now it's a three-way contest between that and the last two.

Punch-Drunk Love, but I should probably give the last couple a chance.

my vote's unchanged from before, so Boogie Nights it is. I think that and Inherent Vice are classics, and the Master is p interesting but the rest I do not care about at all. He's oddly erratic filmmaker.

did you watch Phantom Thread?

write-in vote for mortal kombat

not yet, primarily because the subject matter sounds painfully boring plus I totally am not interested in Daniel Day Lewis, an actor who's ouevre is vastly overrated imo

There’s the Shakey we know and love

sorry, I've been in a meeting most of the day :)

Day-Lewis as an actor has never excited me but this movie succeeded in doing so.

Inherent Vice disappointed me because I (foolishly) read the book immediately prior.

I read the book a couple years before the movie came out and I can't imagine making heads or tails of the movie without the book. it would probably still be a delirious trip tho.

my vote is for boogie nights, which is often compared to goodfellas, but it shouldn't be cause it's better

I never got around to reading Inherent Vice, but I had no problem following the movie. The plot (such as it is) seems mostly beside the point - as it often is with noir - and I enjoyed it as a rambling series of character sketches and setpieces v much in the vein in Altman's Long Goodbye or Mitchum's Big Sleep, and with a really great combination of sadness and humor. I mean, Brolin eating in every scene, culminating in eating the weed (gotta eat something!) is hilarious.

an alternately affable and tragic shaggy dog story

also Boogie Nights better than Goodfellas lol stop trollin bro

I think my previous vote was TWBB, but it might be Phantom Thread here.

voodoo chili otm

Yeah, Boogie Nights is totally better than Goodfellas and will probably get my vote.

Still haven't seen the last two (although I have an unwatched copy of IV I should get to before the poll is done). I at least like everything he's done. Haven't seen Magnolia in approximately forever, though, so can't really judge how much my tastes may have changed in the interim.

Boogie Nights is good, but still can’t shake the smell of young, talented filmmaker in thrall to his influences. Goodfellas is totally a better film.

I read the book a couple years before the movie came out and I can't imagine making heads or tails of the movie without the book.

i couldn't make a lick of sense of it but I'm tempted to vote for it because Josh Brolin is hot as fuck in it.

I voted Magnolia last time.

I haven't seen Phantom Thread yet, so this remains a toss-up between Boogie Nights and There Will Be Blood, the only two of his movies that I flat-out loved on first viewing. Magnolia and Punch-Drunk Love both feel a bit too much like stunts, to me, and while I could see The Master growing on me in time, Inherent Vice, as much fun as it is, just feels like an even wackier version of the already-sufficiently-wacky The Long Goodbye. I haven't seen Hard Eight since it played on cable in the late 90s.

boogie nights still my vote also but phantom thread is prob 2nd now

The Master

The Master

The Master

but haven't seen magnolia or phantom thread

Also read Inherent Vice before I saw the film and the film suffered in comparison. Even tho it’s ~minor Pynchon~ it’s such a colorful, mystical, dream/cartoon and the movie just felt so flat and surface in comparison. Definitely interested in seeing it again removed from that and seeing it as it’s own thing.

Phantom Thread was wonderful. It felt small in a way, not aiming for the fences, but it was totally successful and I would gladly watch it again and again.

I didn’t really rate this guy until TWBB, which I didn’t love but had marks of a new and interesting artistic voice.

Was kind of hoping I'd be the only Boogie Nights vote, but I guess not. His films always interest me, but becoming a textbook case of what Sarris called "strained seriousness."

that is the wrongest descriptor of phantom thread

The Master

The Master

(xpost) That's actually the film I'd most apply it to.

Phantom Thread is a romcom

“Troubled weirdos struggle to communicate” is how I’d sum up his oeuvre for the most part. It’s a shtick I don’t think I’ll get tired of.

I’ve heard it bounced elsewhere, but “fucked up weirdos making their own family” is def a recurring theme.

And yeah it’s a good theme that has legs.

glad to see so much support for The Master -- the reviews I read seemed kind of lukewarm about it but then I watched it and was rapt. There Will Be Blood is the overrated one for me.

The Master > Boogie Nights > Inherent Vice > There Will Be Blood imo

There Will Be Blood is his weakest by far imo (or rather, emptiest).

I'm surprised how much TWBB is hated around these parts, I think it's fantastic, and it marked a real interesting shift in his approach that has carried forward in the subsequent films. It was the moment when he truly found his voice.

If Paul Dano’s character was played by someone better it would’ve worked more for me. Guy kinda ruins the movie imo.

I mean, hard as hell role, but shit is he not up to the task.

glad to see so much support for The Master -- the reviews I read seemed kind of lukewarm about it but then I watched it and was rapt. There Will Be Blood is the overrated one for me.

― Fedora Dostoyevsky (man alive), Saturday, June 9, 2018 1:15 AM (thirty-eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I saw it when it came out, two days in a row, and was nonplussed both times... second night was with friends, all fans of PTA, we all left just sort of scratching our heads, unsatisfied but unable to articulate why. I actually don't think I've seen it since but it's the movie of his that's stuck with me the most, it has sort of has the Vertigo effect of a movie that feels like it never really ends or begins, as if it exists out of time. I haven't seen it in years, definitely not since PSH's death and maybe not since that opening weekend. But TWBB, which I loved at the time and have seen maybe 3-4 times, seems overwrought and ridiculous in retrospect. Probably suffers from memefication of milkshake ending and DDL's performance which again just seems silly compared to Phantom Thread. A great movie I should revisit... eventually.

Boogie Nights is great but Altman cosplay. My second favorite. Magnolia was my favorite movie when I was 11 but I don't think I've seen the whole thing since then. Not sure if it'd hit me as cloying & saccharine now, because I still love the singalong and the frogs.

Punch Drunk Love was my favorite for years but after watching it for the first time in a few years a couple months ago I sorta turned on it. Beautiful moments, Adam Sandler is amazing & it's really a drag no one else has hired him or pushed him to do another performance like that. PTA, very astutely, saw how much rage and male insecurity was in Happy Gilmore/Billy Madison/The Waterboy/The Wedding Singer and how that could be used and turned on its head. But the movie excuses some awful behavior from Sandler's character, particularly destroying the bathroom in the restaurant. Emily Watson forgiving to the point of absurdity - basically a pixie savior girl. I just didn't find it as moving as I used to.

Inherent Vice is really fun, liked it when it came out and even more when I watched it last summer. "There's something wrong with your couch!" pops up in my head a lot. circa1916 otm about Phantom Thread, it was small and unforced and very funny and it's definitely the most successful example of PTA's post-TWBB "loose" / "are they making this up as they go along?" approach.

...and I haven't seen Hard Eight lol

i love a good few of these but come on it's phantom thread

i also read inherent vice before watching the movie but i’m confused about how the movie supposedly suffered in comparison. other than some altered plot points they both have this wonderful, hallucinatory progression, gliding through ever deepening confusions. movie has the added bonus of a great soundtrack and excellent performances

it’s my vote here but i still haven’t seen phantom thread

I mean, film has its limitations and I can understand that, but Pynchon Hallucinatory and IV-The-Movie Hallucinatory are continents/sunken cities apart.

Sad to see so few people repping for Hard Eight. It's, y'know, a '90s indie film but much more ambitious than most of that crop (although I do have a soft spot for even lesser '90s indie films). It's all about the performances imo. Phillip Baker Hall and John C. Reilly are great, as is Samuel L. Jackson in a smaller role. It would be another director's best film.

Clearly, I need to rewatch The Master. I thought it was fine the one time I saw it but I'm not sure I was in the best headspace to appreciate it.

Hard Eight was for a long time his best film.

Pynchon Hallucinatory and IV-The-Movie Hallucinatory are continents/sunken cities apart.

― circa1916, Saturday, June 9, 2018 4:31 AM (nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i don’t think this is true about that particular book!

which i love, don’t get me wrong

i really loved The Master. so many great performances and wonderful moments in that. that one scene with "Get Thee Behind Me Satan" playing. the other scene where Philip Seymour Hoffman is commanding a room full of singers and it slows pans over to reveal everyone is naked is awesome and unexpected.

i admit i haven't seen most of these. Punch Drunk Love was nice but it's been at least 15 years. TWBB was a great film but i've never wanted to go back and rewatch it.

i also read inherent vice before watching the movie but i’m confused about how the movie supposedly suffered in comparison

flappy's long post otm

i like the frogs in magnolia too but can't stand the wall-to-wall score or all the tv "arcs" and there's way more of those than there is of the frogs

LOVED punch-drunk love as a high schooler and don't mind its "excusing" sandler's behavior which i don't know that it does, but yes emily watson is only a surreal device and it is p boring to me now to watch a movie about a guy and his surreal device

there will be blood has that terrific score and a couple of good long scenes with a lot of tension and scenery, but its big moments (thinking of camera assuming role of demonic presence in baptism scene) aren't rly any less showy or mannered than boogie nights doing i am cuba, and in the end the movie is worse kubrick cosplay than BN is altman

tho the back half of BN isn't rly altman right? it's scorsese, and alfred molina setpiece aside i find it a drag. i like the movie and actually think goodfellas is like hugely overrated and have never loved it in the endless-rewatch hangout way i think it works for many, but come on boogie nights is not better than goodfellas. ultimate darkness and danger much better-integrated into + present alongside exhilarating romp section in the latter, for one. also it comes up with its own camera moves

the master was rly great

haven't seen phantom thread yet.

voted for p thread, a perfect movie to me

voted for p thread, a perfect movie to me

voted for p thread, a perfect movie to me

cool

lol

I think phantom thread may be my choice too, but now I want to go back and watch boogie nights, magnolia, and punch drunk love again

LOVED punch-drunk love as a high schooler and don't mind its "excusing" sandler's behavior which i don't know that it does, but yes emily watson is only a surreal device and it is p boring to me now to watch a movie about a guy and his surreal device.

pudding scam in punch drunk love is best scam since penny round off scam in superman iii, that movie should be called pudding drunk love airline miles

that movie should be called pudding drunk love airline miles

― Philip Nunez, Monday, June 11, 2018 10:43 AM (ten minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lmao

ok, Hard Eight: definitely "early work" and some moments I thought were truly maladroit but John C. Reilly's character is a pretty classic PTA loser. "I know three kinds of karate!"

Reilly is pretty reliably one of the best elements of any film he's in, I find.

Phantom Thread is the first PTA film I've really liked. The Master and There Will Be Blood were OK. Still can't stand Magnolia. He still doesn't know how to end a movie.

He should always end them with a dong shot imo.

i like pretty much all these movies (i didn't like magnolia much but i only saw it when it first came out and i wasn't sure what to expect and i'm betting i'd like it more if i rewatched it). there will be blood, the master, and phantom thread are the best. voted for the master because the subject matter is more intrinsically interesting to me.

Reilly is pretty reliably one of the best elements of any film he's in, I find.

yeah, this guy is really a treasure. Philip Seymour Hoffman level imo.

The Master was great but this is still TWBB for me, crackpot epic with killer score.

TWBB might get my vote, i found it to be really compelling. Though I should rescreen it sometime to see how it holds up.

though I do really like Boogie Nights (another contender for my vote) it's not better than Goodfellas, not even close. Goodfellas is both darker and a lot funnier, plus BN doesn't feel like anything other than PTA transposing the Goodfellas aesthetic and structure to a new setting and different type of insular underworld, however unlike Scorsese it's one that he doesn't seem to particularly understand. And maybe he didn't care to, and he wasn't interested in the darker elements beyond bits of more Tarantino-style splatter violence. It gets by on the fact that it's extremely well-made and everyone in the film is pretty great and mostly likable.

I still can't get past the vacuum at the center of TWBB, and when I look past the vacuum I see Paul Dano.

And the Dano gazes back at you.

It just occurred to me every one of his movies is about a scam or someone scamming another. I used to think his movies were about how he didn’t have a good relationship with his father but now I see it’s about scams.
Maybe phantom thread will be his last movie; it’s the one that seems most at peace with the scam.

Boogie nights then hard eight.

I didn't know The Phantom Thread was so well received here

And maybe he didn't care to, and he wasn't interested in the darker elements

I think that's it, and a major part of what makes Boogie Nights so great. Star 80, Hardcore, and other films had already gone that route--successfully and unsuccessfully--and at a certain point, that approach is just turgid. Boogie Nights completely turns all of that on its head. Other than the Colonel and Little Bill, no one is punished. I love that about the film; someone else might find it willfully naive and destructive, and that's valid.

Lil Bill's wife and her last dude sure get punished.

Right--and the people at the donut shop, and a few other peripheral characters. I was thinking more of the principals.

I’m not complaining exactly, Boogie Nights is the only structure and style Goodfellas rip-off that works on its own terms more or less.

Just watched Boogie Nights and I sure don’t know what to make of it but the ensemble is great.

Starting to suspect I will vote for The Master

also realized that all of his movies are 'epics' except Punch Drunk Love and Phantom Thread (and Hard Eight yea?)

Voting on the basis of replay value and sentimental feelings here.

Boogie nights has a stellar soundtrack N heather graham and Julianne Moore, two class actresses. Perfectly captures the drug use N dead end of the porn industry and there’s a reason it’s never been bettered today. It was otm

Hard eight is a minor classic and to me that’s better than epics any day - don’t imagine I’ll care to watch magnolia or there will be blood any time
Soon. Inherent vice was amazing but I would rather go back to a classic comfort movie like boogIe,

I’m no movIe critic, diss me as you feel

I don’t see boogie as an epic unless you think long movies are default epic.

it's def an epic, ensemble cast + decade long span + altman-esque mosaic. fwiw i think Nashville is an epic too, and imo Boogie Nights is more similar to Nashville than Goodfellas.

I've seen them all and vote Phantom Thread. maybe just recency bias tho, haven't rewatched any of the other ones in a long time.

boogie nights insistent use of "you got the touch" makes me wonder how high a paul thomas anderson directed Transformers movie would have rated.

https://media.giphy.com/media/fdo9pw26q2euQ/giphy.gif

i guess there's a megatron/starscream dynamic between philip seymour hoffman and joaquin phoenix

also realized that all of his movies are 'epics' except Punch Drunk Love and Phantom Thread (and Hard Eight yea?)

― flappy bird, Tuesday, June 12, 2018 9:46 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

and inherent vice

which is what i ended up voting for

all eight of his movies except for half

eh i feel like inherent vice is still an epic despite the story taking place in a relatively short period of time/ sprawling & discursive & ensemble cast

that's how Transformers: The Movie is too.

sprawling & discursive

it's stoned

that exchange sounds like something I'd hear in a Parquet Courts song.

It reminds me of the discussion in the thread for a road movie poll about what constitutes a road mcvie (which I still insist could constitute a particularly epic afternoon stroll through one's neighborhood because it's all about the vibe maaaan).

THE road movie poll, I mean. I assume there was only the one.

Now that I think about it it's the Hoffman/Christopher Evan Welch scene that is most Megatron/Starscream-like.

His last two are his best, easily.

Everything before TWBB seems like bloated student films to me.

Now that I think about it it's the Hoffman/Christopher Evan Welch scene that is most Megatron/Starscream-like.

So Magnolia is one heck of a thing, huh

Gotta rewatch that one soon.

was my favorite movie of all time for a long time

albeit i was a teenager for most of those years

good mourning!

Ok I rewatched Inherent Vice last night for the first time since the theater and it was much more enjoyable when I wasn’t anticipating every next thing from my memory of the book. Noteworthy that even within the more kaleidoscopic plot PTA indulged his interest in doubling his protagonist (Doc doubled by Bigfoot, made explicit in the unison dialogue over the tray of weed at the end).

Some standout points here are Brolin with a mouthful of weed and Joanna Newsom as Sortilege as narrator.

Brolin was perfect in that role. Probably my favorite performance of his.

motto panukeiku!!!

the popsicle 😳

they're frozen bananas

Still...

Finally saw Phantom Thread. Wouldn’t change my vote for BN or TWWB (I can’t remember which I voted for), but very good and definitely in the top half of his filmography. Not much to add to what’s been written on it already, but I did wonder about the meaning behind Alma’s bizarre (and impractical!) method of pouring drinks beyond it being a quirk that Reynolds (apparently) finds charming at first and then later finds annoying (unless that’s all its meant to mean).

She’s idly amusing herself by pouring slowly from great heights. Reynolds finds it obnoxious because he is highly sensitive to sound (and everything else). I think that’s all.

I landed on The Master. Among the reasons: Joaquin Phoenix's face in contorted detail, the hours of word salad, the end, the beginning, the central relationship, the struggle and the fear, "Pig fuck!", Amy Adams.

so anyway thinking abt this I found it mysterious beautiful and hella raw. his other film have been super crafty and all v well laid out from a plot and character development pov. this one was willing to not be all constructed of perfectly interlocking pieces. it felt like a play how there were two miserable dudes yelling at each other and no resolution. also ACTING. I liked their relationship, just two guys who want to have adventures surrounded by a band of joyless pedants. Amy adams being all this is a thing you do for billions of years was such a hilariously wrong reading of psh's seat of the pants bullshiting. it looked amazing I thought, all this clear light. also the spacious 50s vibes when there werent as many people around, America was a small town.

not sure if it was really as good as boogie nights or there will be blood but it was def more mature and operating on a deeper level. and I loved joaquin phoenix riding off on the motorcycle and not coming back

― lag∞n, Monday, October 1, 2012 6:23 AM (five years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hard eight is underrated

that lagoon post is so righteously good

Have long wondered (probably because I saw the films around the same time) if the motorcycle scene in The Master was a homage to Hughes tooling around on one at the beginning of Melvin & Howard?

awesome lagoon post except can someone tell me what he's trying to say about Amy Adams?

yeah I didn't get that either

Think he’s meaning the characters there not trying to say anything about the actors

IV my fave movie of the decade, so that

same, Inherent Vice my just be my favorite film this decade. glad (and unsurprised) it has a following in ILX. most people around me dislike it.

really great if you haven't heard it

https://soundcloud.com/rufioxvi/wtf-episode-565-paul-thomas-anderson

ih is a rly good movie

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Predicted finish:

Phantom Thread
The Master
There Will Be Blood
Inherent Vice
Boogie Nights
Magnolia
Hard Eight
Punch Drunk Love

Not the inverse of how I'd rank them, but probably closer to the inverse than to how I'd rank them.

Win for Phantom Thread would make me suspect pernicious recency bias but would also be totally justifiable

feel like The Master will win by a lot

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

My faith in something or other has been mostly restored.

lol wtf

hmm.

I actually did try to vote 19 times, but only one of them got through, promise.

Well let’s check in after another 3 to 5 movies

the top two were obviously going to be the top two, there's no surprise there.

kinda surprised TWBB placed 2nd and got so many votes. thought that one had really diminished in hindsight

lagoon otm re The Master

Predicted finish:

Phantom Thread
The Master
There Will Be Blood
Inherent Vice
Boogie Nights
Magnolia
Hard Eight
Punch Drunk Love

Not the inverse of how I'd rank them, but probably closer to the inverse than to how I'd rank them.

― clemenza, Tuesday, August 14, 2018 4:31 PM (two hours ago)

pretty close, boogie nights higher than you predicted though! (I know you really liked it, I did too)

Lol why does anyone like DDL, such a tiresome bore

Or ham, take your pick

can't believe BN is 21 years old. more time passed between now & '97 than '97 & subject matter. crazy. i'll be dead soon.

thought that one had really diminished in hindsight

it's easily his weakest imo but I thought that on first and only viewing too

(on DVD, the only one apart from Hard 8 that I didn't see in the cinema -- but it's showing in a 70mm festival here next month so thinking of giving it another chance)

you should definitely see it in 70mm

oh yeah for sure if you've never seen it in a theater

I thought TWBB had diminished in retrospect because of DDL histrionics. Phantom Thread didn't have the same problem because it was so surprisingly self-effacing and funny and loose.

lagoon otm re /The Master/

TWBB feels so narrow in scope compared to The Master

Lol why does anyone like DDL, such a tiresome bore

Or ham, take your pick

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 15 August 2018 02:22 (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

pattern here imo

amazingly you can be a bore and still be a good actor and be a total ride as well.

I don't think DDL's performances in A Room with a View, My Left Foot, The Age of Innocence, The Boxer or Phantom Thread are the work of a ham. Let's say he can work both modes.

But TWBB is mostly a failure.

or My Beautiful Laundrette, In the Name of the Father, The Boxer, The Crucible...

That My Beautiful Laundrette and A Room with a View were made the same year is pleasing.

that they were made back-to-back, basically.

tbh I haven't enjoyed anything DDL has done since My Left Foot, which teenaged-me enjoyed almost solely because of his hamminess

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CF2PbJsaW8

lmao "there was hardly any fucking blood"

I mean, Jamie otm

man magnolia fucking sucks

Would love to see a yearly poll for his works since imho his “best” could change any day.

Man THE MASTER fucking sucks

One of my Letterboxd follows listed his ranking of PTA’s features and as I commented to him I would’ve complained about it but it’s hard to be offended when the movies are as good as they are. Which made me wonder, of the 8! = 40320 ways to rank his features to date, how many of the orderings are indefensible? Is ranking Punch Drunk Love or Hard Eight first necessarily trolling? Is rating Magnolia highly an imposture? Putting There Will Be Blood towards the bottom half would be a minority opinion but not a boorish one. Anyway I like these films.

Revisited Magnolia recently and, no, it's not at the top of the pile. I'm sure a rewatch of Inherent Vice would result in the same reassessment. So it's Phantom Thread because that's what's left.

as my date and i were coming out of there will be blood the guy behind us said to his date "i think he was consumed by greed"

guy was not wrong

i should rewatch the master

which does not suck

I honestly would love a yearly rehash poll of his works

btw “The Master” has a good example of something I think deserves a separate thread: Weird/Bad Last Line Said in a Film

“Now stick it back in, it fell out.”

one of those directors i like who still makes a lot of movies i don't like

the master had a hole where a main character should have been. twbb kind of a mess. adam sandler romcom. etc.

Punch-Drunk Love and Magnolia are, to my mind, better films than There Will Be Blood. I haven’t seen anything he’s made since then.

pdl and hard 8 both rule

I don't think Hard Eight is a particularly great movie, but the presence of the godlike Phillip Baker Hall raises it up to an extremely memorable 100 mins or so

his performance in that movie sort of reminds me of George C. Scott in The Hustler

Philip Baker Hall is so great in Magnolia. I think about him in that all the time.

I've always been curious about his turn as Trickie Dickie in Altman's Secret Honor. I know it's probably a bad movie, but I'm going to dl from the torrents to find out for myself.

it’s a helluva watch, recommended (for pbh only really)

nice one, that will do for me

he really blows the rest of the cast offscreen

It's on the Criterion Channel for those interested.

he really blows the rest of the cast offscreen

honestly that does happen too

I think Magnolia is a lot more personal than Boogie Nights, which is maybe why despite all its high points - and I'd argue it's mostly high points - it's still something of a mess, or at least feels teetering on the brink of out of control despite its virtuosity (it's certainly ott). But it definitely seems like he got something out of his system with it, because Punch Drunk feels like a conscious shift/reset, just as There Will Be Blood (which I still really like and view not as simply as "man consumed by greed" moral fall movie and more as "this guy/corporations are evil and/or literally the Devil" a la Chinatown) is the debut of a "mature" PTA. "The Master" is a pretty incredible and original movie, but imo Inherent Vice is neither of those things. I still need to see Phantom Thread!

PTA admits to something along those lines in a Marc Maron interview from a few years back wrt Magnolia

The Master above all. I have to maybe put Magnolia second.

I was so fucking disappointed with Phantom Thread. DDL is no PSH.

I rate Hard 8 pretty high tbh, not #1 but above some of the recent sacred cows in his filmography. As his attention has drifted away from plot & structure over the years, I've had more & more problems with the films.

I agree with Josh that There Will Be Blood is the transition into his mature period, probably why I like it the best, imo it combines the best elements (or at least what I like about best) of his early & later periods. If it lost the 1920s coda I wouldnt have anything bad to say about it.

every time i see it i fantasize about doing my own soderbergh-style edit to tweak the things that drive me nuts about it, maybe that'd be a fun quarantine project

I return to Hard Eight often: a model of concision.

I think I observed once that Philip Baker Hall would've made a splendid Wallace Stevens.

i literally can't read a negative opinion about inherent vice without being like what movie did you see

"The Master" is a pretty incredible and original movie, but imo Inherent Vice is neither of those things

i would say that the good things about both of these movies are very similar!!!!

His last three films are his best imo, in ascendending order.

His last three films are his best imo, in ascendending order.

_His last three films are his best imo, in ascendending order._


I frequently think of Dr. Morbius’ crack about it being “about a closet case with a poisoning fetish.”

i've definitely said this before, but magnolia was my favorite film of all time for like a decade (i know) (i know) and i agree fully with alfred. pta's '90s films are all great (well i still haven't seen hard eight) but there's sort of an obvious post-scorsese energy they're picking up on and rolling with; master, inherent vice, and phantom thread are all operating on their own rhythms, more liberated from any de rigueur cinematic language, their scripts rely on elision and space instead of dialogue to move themselves forward

"i literally can't read a negative opinion about inherent vice without being like what movie did you see"

I didn't have a single clue what was going on.

it doesn't matter

even in the book the mystery is a möbius strip, it is part of its stoned paranoiac logic

Nah, Magnolia would still be top three for me, it’s a glorious mess in some ways but the glories is how I feel about it. The first time I saw it, I was supposed to be studying so I recorded it and watched it after I’d finished for the evening. As soon as I’d finished - on Claudia’s smile, an ending I still adore - I rewound the whole thing and watched it again. Even recently I put it on intending to just watch a couple of scenes and ended up watching the whole thing from start to finish again. Why so compelling? The obvious: the casting, the intersection, the soundtrack, the sense of it being hugely personal. But also! Stanley, John C Reilly’s well-meaning but oblivious cop, the way the whole thing is about fathers, the opening scene, the way Tom Cruise is more weirdly magnetic when he’s breaking down than when he’s jumping around pumping himself up. A million little things and all the others too. Imperfect as it may be, it’s genuinely touching and I adore it.

I’m sure his later films are worth a watch, just never felt the inclination.

I saw Hard Eight recently and it struck me that I've never seen such stupid characters in a movie (Reilly and Paltrow), without their stupidity being played primarily for comedy.

The endings of movies are the most important to me, and PTA regularly fumbles them (or the endings reveal that what he thinks the films are about is not what I was getting from them up to that point). I'd rank The Master at the top and Inherent Vice at the bottom (I don't need to know "what is going on", but I never felt ANYTHING was going on).

on Claudia’s smile, an ending I still adore

ugh it's the best i cry every time

great post gyac

It’s so good as well, you can barely hear what is being said, but it doesn’t matter because the focal point of the scene is Claudia’s face. Love it a lot.

Ah no, the scene where Frank looks at his dying father and goes from the shell he’s built for himself to anger he’s held onto for years to this wounded little boy in almost no time is just... spectacular. Cruise was robbed that year, robbed.

I agree with all of that.

Punch-Drunk Love and Magnolia are, to my mind, better films than There Will Be Blood. I haven’t seen anything he’s made since then.

The Master above all. I have to maybe put Magnolia second.

I was so fucking disappointed with Phantom Thread. DDL is no PSH.

Er, rather, just the quoted part

I loved Magnolia back in the day but it's been twenty years so I should probably review.

Hard Eight isn't PTA's best film but it would be hundreds of lesser directors' best film. It's definitely top tier PTA. Kind of the apotheosis of '90s indie film aesthetic imo, and everyone is great in it.

xp I’ve read the post and clarification several times and I still don’t know who you’re disagreeing with

Somewhat embarrassing to admit, as someone who would identify as a fan, that I still haven't seen Inherent Vice or The Phantom Thread. I even own copies of both. There's just no excuse.

gyac otm about magnolia and the ending. the whole relationship and interaction btw jcr and melora walters is so great. maybe i'm just a sucker for kindness being depicted in a movie.

there will be blood is really really funny to me.

I think it's less just kindness depicted in a movie and more kindness in a movie filled with people who are aggressively not kind, for their own respective reasons.

It's been a while since I saw it, but as I remember it I thought William H. Macy was pretty affecting, too, as a glimmer of wounded romanticism in a world of cynicism. But that's sort of how I remember the movie, as a bunch of cynical, mean people worn down by their lives that they've forgotten how to be anything else.

anyone still rep for Boogie Nights? I only saw it once and under terrible circumstances, so I've often thought about watching it again (it's sitting in my netflix queue). I always balk at the running time and vague feeling of over-hype and never do though

lol forgot to check the poll results...interesting

boogie nights is a great movie, it moves so kinetically that it feels 60 minutes long and is just a great ensemble piece

I saw a preview screening of Magnolia in late December 1999, and it fit the moment perfectly.
I like seeing people in a movie being kind, too, but seeing it again a few years later, I can't get over the feeling that, for some of the characters, the kindness is imposed from above by the director instead of rising from a realistic appraisal of what the characters would do.

Boogie Nights used to be one of my favorite movies. If I'd seen it at some point in the last fifteen years, I would more confidently count it among my current favorites.

I really just need to do a complete PTA watch/rewatch, is what I'm realizing here. I haven't even seen The Master since its theatrical release.

I think Boogie Nights is tight. He's totally in virtuoso/movie reference mode. Some Scorsese here, some I am Cuba there, some Altman, etc. Which is not a bad thing, he's showing off, and rightfully so! Totally in control of its actors and story and sprawl. How old was he, 27? 28?

Some interesting parallels between his career and that of Tarantino. Except I'd argue that Tarantino, while an extremely adept filmmaker, is still kind of mired in an innate reference-happy immaturity that PTA worked hard to move past or maybe was just smart enough to better disguise. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but I largely often find it a distraction or indulgence, even when it works.

I don’t understand this interpretation about Magnolia as being about “kindness” - it’s never been my interpretation. To me, it’s about fatherhood, chance, regret and serendipity. Kindness is something seen in the film, but it’s very much a film that looks at the uglier emotions too.

I wouldn't say it's about kindness, just that the kindness sticks out against the dark backdrop of ugliness (of various origins).

I actually remember pretty clearly leaving an advance screening of the movie way back when with mixed feelings, quipping to a friend that it could have been called "I Hate You, Dad." I must have been ... 24? But I've since come around to a lot of it.

just watched Boogie Nights again thought it held up very well

IV my fave movie of the decade, so that

― dele alli my bookmarks (darraghmac), Friday, 10 August 2018 22:55 (two years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Phantom Thread is better, so that

i could really go either way myself

Sorry, I meant the one about Phantom Thread vs. The Master and DDL vs. PSH was the one I couldn't disagree with more.

There Will Be Blood and The Master both suffer for striving to be the Great American Novel of modern movies.

The best thing about DDL in phantom thread is how funny he is. I had no idea! And in hindsight it’s what makes TWBB enjoyable.

Will admit that my favorite scene in TWBB is the close up of him getting slapped around by Paul Dano.

the blub blub blub sound he makes when he gets baptized is A+

IV > 8 > Phantom > The Master of Teras Kasi

I can't stand Joaquin Phoenix, which makes viewing Inherent Vice and The Master impossible, but even the movies around them misfire for me: I find both of them bludgeoningly antic and boring. Loved Phantom Thread.

I violently disagree with many of them, but man there are some insightful and penetrating takes in this thread. Maybe the best thing about PTA is that he is worth discussing at that level.

Christ what a gauche comment, I’ll get me coat

he should stop playing people with intellectual disabilities. he's bad at it.

i think he's goddamn amazing in the master

A pity he won the Oscar for Joker; he's one of the three or best working mainstream American actors.

Hoffman singing “Slow Boat to China” to Phoenix is one of my favorite film scenes ever.

watching those two performances bounce off of and complement each other is the best romantic comedy of the last decade

Someone explain Phoenix’s appeal

You just stare at his face

It’s a nice thing to take a picture of

Dont rly understand the question

Hes really great in some of his roles, im unconvinced of the framing that says "you must be fans of the individual so"

i would say he embodies freddie quell so completely that it makes me believe i've met the character irl

Joaquin's best performance = a porn-addicted teen in Parenthood

PTA really did a fantastic job of establishing the characters of Plainview and Quell in their respective opening scenes with little to no dialogue. Love the scenes of Quell fucking up over and over again at the start of the film.

https://data.whicdn.com/images/50529197/original.jpg

btw, anderson was apparently able to finish filming the next one, so it might be viewable in a theater someday.

I've never done much of a deep dive into Anderson the person or filmmaker, but I just learned today that he used the same DP for his first five movies, plus Vice, before they apparently stopped getting along. And I guess the relationship between PTA and the DP on "The Master" was pretty fraught, too, which may be why he shot Phantom Thread himself. Who shot the upcoming one, was it another PTA DIY special?

iirc this was discussed on the phantom thread uh thread

One of the more intriguing aspects of Phantom Thread was the revelation that Anderson wasn’t working with his longtime cinematographers. In fact, no cinematographer was ever announced, so everyone assumed Anderson was working as his own director of photography. But the filmmaker tells EW that’s not the case—the film has no single director of photography:

“I should really clarify that. That would be disingenuous and just plain wrong to say that I was the director of photography on the film. The situation was that I work with a group of guys on the last few films and smaller side projects. Basically, in England, we were able to sort of work without an official director of photography. The people I would normally work with were unavailable, and it just became a situation where we collaborated — really in the best sense of the word — as a team. I know how to point the camera in a good direction, and I know a few things. But I’m not a director of photography.”

Robert Elswit, who shot most of Anderson’s films including There Will Be Blood and Inherent Vice, was busy shooting Roman J. Israel Esq. at the time, and Mihai Malaimare Jr., who shot The Master, appears to have been otherwise engaged as well. Indeed, Anderson says there’s no director of photography credit at all, but he does single out a few members on the crew who helped handle those duties in a collaborative fashion:

“If you can give credit, Michael Bauman is the gaffer that I’ve worked with for many, many years on a lot of projects. I could veto Mike, I guess, but he held a lot of the keys. There was a camera operator, Colin Anderson, I’ve worked with, and Erik Brown, who was the first assistant cameraman and Jeff Kunkel, who was a grip. It was a real package like that. It was a really easy way of working. You have to be very, very careful because there are way too many good cinematographers that I would not put myself in that class for a second.”

https://collider.com/phantom-thread-cinematographer-paul-thomas-anderson/

Huh. Well, as I understand it those other DPs were not simply unavailable, they had a real falling out, especially Elswit. Unclear why, other than they just stopped getting along.

where'd you hear that?

https://www.indiewire.com/2019/02/robert-elswit-paul-thomas-anderson-cinematographer-1202044674/

Robert Elswit has shot six films for Paul Thomas Anderson and won an Academy Award for his work on “There Will Be Blood,” but the cinematographer doesn’t expect to work with Anderson again. During an appearance on the Light the Fuse podcast, Elswit didn’t have great things to say about their working relationship: “God, I don’t know what it is anymore,” he said. “It’s like a bad married couple. Unpleasant.”

Asked whether he could see them collaborating again, Elswit didn’t sound optimistic. “I don’t know. Probably not. You know, it depends on how he feels. I would do it again…I didn’t enjoy myself on ‘Inherent Vice’…It was a combination of me and Paul just not getting along, and I can be as immature as him.”

Part 1: https://soundcloud.com/user-552949050/ep-34-robert-elswit-interview
Part 2 (this is where he talks about PTA): https://soundcloud.com/user-552949050/ep-35-robert-elswit-interview