Anticipating Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza

That’s the title. Guessing we’ll have a trailer ASAP.

For context:

Ad for the record store Licorice Pizza, Los Angeles Times, April 22, 1983. On sale for $1 off: @duranduran's 'Rio,' plus hot new albums by David Bowie, Thomas Dolby and Bob Seger. pic.twitter.com/z7bHfCy1mP

— Annie Zaleski (@anniezaleski) September 10, 2021

Oh yeah, I remember them, maaan: heyday was really more the vinyl heyday, the late 60s,70s, early 80s---by mid-80s, video rental got to be more of a profit leader, as noted here, w backstory of LP: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-04-23-fi-1244-story.html

Though of course, after video killed the radio star, it reanimated some of 'em, like Talking Heads, abd Bowie, for a while and birthed new radio-via-video stars--before MTV and VH-1 went all "reality"--so yeah, if this is set in 80s, could still be musically vibrant.

Phone rip of the still-not online trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0L6Go4rWw4

this feels like P.T. Anderson doing Wes Anderson, something a little too cutesy about it all, and I'm really done with "Life On Mars" in movie soundtracks.

Kind of came off to me like a mix of Anderson's own style and a Linklater-esque hangout flick.

Co-sign on "Life On Mars", although perhaps they should have gone extra-meta and used the Streisand version.

If I didn't know it was PTA I would have guessed that Linklater had been watching Coen Bros movies, or vice versa.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofnXPwUPENo

Proper trailer.

starring alana haim????? wow

this shit looks amazing

i'm guessing cooper hoffman is philip seymour's son

I actually am really excited about this now~~!!!

Choice of Life on Mars was a downer indeed but trailers are trailers, not going to read too much into one*

* I would be reading loads into it if it excited me.

The two leads looked totally different to me in every scene!

Reaction split along the lines of "Looks like Almost Famous - can't wait!" and "Looks like Almost Famous - how unoriginal!"

The longer this guy's career drags on the more convinced I am that his only two good movies are Hard Eight and The Master. This new one could not be more Not For Me unless it was a puppet musical.

Soon to be a campus/sleepover double feature with Lady Bird.

xp I’m convinced The Master and Hard Eight are his two worst films

The title may be a nod to Diane Kurys' Peppermint Soda (never seen it, but supposedly very good)...Trailer is promising--happy he's not in England 50 years ago--song choice could have been more imaginative.

i remember the phantom thread thread opening with a bunch of ilxors crowing "this looks boring" after watching the trailer :)

The title may be a nod to Diane Kurys' Peppermint Soda

Licorice Pizza was a 70s/early 80s West Coast record store chain.

song choice could have been more imaginative

All Streisand or gtfo...

looking forward to P.T. Anderson's Avenue Q now

The stills look like a gritty reboot of Dazed & Confused.

this can only be objectively good if she leaves him in the end

The Bowie song is doing 95% of the emotional labour in this trailer, still curious about the film.

The Master is incredible, WTF. Did not like The Phantom Thread at the time but my memories of it have softened.

the master is truly awesome

it is, and i am pumped about this new one, it looks fantastic

Now *this* is how you make a trailer. Gets your attention, bits of stuff here and there, but no idea what the plot is and don't feel like anything has been ruined or spoiled.

agree though, xp, that having Life on Mars? as the soundtrack to the trailer helps a lot.

however, imo you have to have some wonderful footage/performances to be able to hang with Life on Mars and not get embarrassed, so i take this as a good sign

Deleted Jonny Greenwood tweet:

Oh it’s a lovely film. Only wrote a couple of cues for it - the score is all 70’s source cues (and all the better for that) - you’re all in for a giant PTA-shaped treat…

feels more like adventureland than dazed and confused to me, but with added tom waits so that's cool

i know that they're both of a similar cloth.

anyway, i'm looking forward to pta's linklater film!

I'm very territorial when it comes to '70s' soundtracks. I'm wildly looking forward to the music here (looks like his first full-out pop movie since Boogie Nights), and I know I'll be excessively critical if it doesn't comport to how I, clemenza, think everything should have been done.

It's funny, this looks much more like Boogie Nights-meets-Dazed and Confused than anything else to me.

I also haven't seen any of his more recent movies, tbh, because I stopped going to the movies for more than a decade.

gonna watch the hell outta this

kinda looks like Bradley Cooper learned to smash car windows from Frank Mackey

This looks like it's probably enjoyable but the trailer was obnoxiously trailery

i love this already GIVE IT TO ME

I guess it's hilarious that Cooper's in the role of Streisand's boyfriend after his turn in A Star is Born

Not to be a buzzkill because it generally looks great and I'm excited to see it, but am I the only one slightly weirded out by 29-year-old Alana Haim's love interest being 17-year-old Cooper Hoffman in Licorice Pizza?

— Bonnie Stiernberg (@aahrealbonsters) September 28, 2021

are people utterly unable to detect subtext anymore?

people don't know how to watch things

They could swap this trailer out for the one for the Sopranos prequel and no one would notice

huh?

I think that was meant to be supporting evidence for Brad's assertion

Oh that makes sense, I read it as a dismissive thing about it being another period piece with an actor's kid.

Awards Blogger/Movie Lefsetz Jeffrey Wells serves up the hot takes re: the casting of Alana Haim

https://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2021/09/i-say-again/

FWIW, up until now I didn't know how old she is, but have people suddenly forgotten that actors (particularly those playing young folks) aren't playing their exact ages most of the time. I can certainly buy her playing younger, definitely either side of 20, which is what it looks like she's doing in the film.

it seems like there's an age difference between the characters in the film that will not go uncommented upon, for whatever that's worth

trying to hard for years to be less strident in my musical opinions but can arthouse movie bros please please give Hunky Dory era Bowie a rest for God's sake

*so hard

9.20.21: It seems to me that if you’re a major-league director making a supposedly important film about a couple of love-struck kids (even though the off-screen Haim is pushing 30), you can go with one unknown as long as you pair him/her with a skilled name-brand actor, but you can’t have two unknowns carrying the film because no one will care all that much.

I mean, movies deal in familiar faces and personalities for a reason…right?

There are basic rules about young person relationship movies. Rule #1 is that at least one of the kids should be a half-familiar face, which helps with the comfort factor. Rule #2 is that the kids have to be at least somewhat attractive, not just to each other but to the audience. I’m sorry but ginger-haired Cooper Hoffman looks nerdy and freckly. I can’t put myself in his shoes. I really can’t. Haim isn’t anyone’s idea of a knockout either. The idea seems to be “the odd couple.”

this guy gets paid to talk about movies? who is this mother fucker?

can i get a picture of this guy so i can talk about whether or not he's fuckable? hold on

He should be so lucky to look as attractive as Cooper Hoffman.

https://i.imgur.com/IGYUsmz.png

Haim isn’t anyone’s idea of a knockout either.

https://i.imgur.com/IGYUsmz.png

Haim isn’t anyone’s idea of a knockout either.

https://i.imgur.com/IGYUsmz.png

Haim isn’t anyone’s idea of a knockout either.

https://i.imgur.com/IGYUsmz.png

Haim isn’t anyone’s idea of a knockout either.

he couldn't be any more Incel in the Basement Criticizing Tits if he wanted to be

Rule #2 is that the kids have to be at least somewhat attractive, not just to each other but to the audience.

rules are meant to be broken in half and then used to beat the rulemakers

Oh, he's the "could you send me nude outtakes of Vinessa Shaw please" guy. I thought he rang a bell.

https://deadline.com/2007/09/creepiest-email-from-a-blogger-to-hollywood-3216/

He's such a sexist/racist/other -ist turd and he's been a turd for years. I have no doubt the same people that say "actors have to be pretty" mock actors that go sans makeup etc. in movies for chasing awards.

PTA's been on a roll since 2012 imo.

2014

PTA's been on a roll since his first movie, imo. Even his not great movies, whichever ones one thinks are not great, are always interesting and worth seeing.

And Jeffrey Wells has leaned so far into his role as an idiot villain he makes nu-Arm0nd look nuanced and insightful in comparison. At least the latter still watches and analyzes movies, some of the time.

i pledge to never read anything about movies ever again unless an ilxor wrote it

wells' review of Wizard of Oz (1939) - "judy garland is certainly a bombshell and a good casting decision, but what's with the long dress all the time? the tin man, scarecrow, and lion supporting cast was an absolute mess - all three are clearly older men in costumes and makeup. and why didn't scarecrow have a sex scene with dorothy at the end? clearly there was a connection there."

PTA's been on a roll since his first movie, imo. Even his not great movies, whichever ones one thinks are not great, are always interesting and worth seeing.

Counterpoint: nah

I really really did not like The Master but it was interesting and I guess worth seeing somehow. Moreso than say Hateful 8 which I didn't like either but didn't have as strong a negative reaction as with The Master.

I can watch Hard Eight anytime but can't finish Magnolia and will not dare to endure Punch Drunk Love again.

My hot take is that The Master had some wonderful scenes and incredible performances, but was not a very good movie.

i am not the one to be in this discussion, because i am a fool, but i'll bet that to some people, "some wonderful scenes and incredible performances" adds up to a "good movie", even if the rest of the elements aren't quite so impressive. kind of like a musical performance/album can be saved by some exceptional elements

i'm not sure i believe that, mind you -- i don't, i don't think -- but just wondrin

I hated "Hateful Eight" so much.

I was being a little flip, I just didn't think it all held together as a satisfying film. I loved PSH and Joaquin's performances and they had some incredible moments together, but I was frustrated that they only hinted at some of the more interesting things going on around them (Amy Adams was wasted, imo, and I think there was a more interesting thread about how her character influenced Dodd, but it was only hinted at). I didn't hate the move, it's just the last PTA movie I want to revisit at this point.

Eh I'm already wanted to walk back that Adams was "wasted", I just wanted more of her in it.

almost everyone in the movie was wasted to one degree or another though, haha, wouldn't surprise me

To borrow from Kael, The Master was straining so hard to be great it wasn't even good.

did you even SEE that scene where joaquin phoenix fucks the sand though? to me, that was everything

Paging Wakefield Poole.

I just reviewed the key plot lines of Boys in the Sand and I don’t see anything about fucking the actual sand. I will continue to believe that PT Anderson and Phoenix pioneered sand masturbation until confronted with earlier footage

straining so hard to be great it wasn't even good

This describes Boogie Nights perfectly.

I want to like Boogie Nights more than I do, but as a writer he fell in love with the character bits that didn't cohere into characters, then couldn't orchestrate them.

I've realized the PTA I like is the director of comedies and chamber dramas.

Except Boogie Nights is a comedy, imo, and a great one at that.

Straining so hard to be great it's not even any good describes stuff like The Irishman, not Boogie Nights, imo. Boogie Nights might be kids stuff, but he was practically a kid, and I can't fault the directing or the acting, and more than a handful of scenes are practically iconic at this point. Not even considering that movie good strikes me as revisionism, though I suppose if you don't like it you just don't like it.

"you" in this case being any of us.

xp to myself - At least the first 2/3rds before the heavy handedness kicks in.

His more explicit comedies, like Punch Drunk and Inherent Vice, are the ones I least want to see again. But all of his movies are funny, to an extent. Comedies of the human condition.

I was frustrated that they only hinted at some of the more interesting things going on around them

this is otm for me. i wish i saw what other people see in his last 3 but i just cant get there. they each feel like he's settled into this mode of where theres all these great actors filmed beautifully, arrayed into really interesting characters and relationships located in a really fascinating specific historical milieu, and as they orbit each other a movie always seems to be juuuust on the verge of breaking out but never quite does. eventually it feels like its all just about teeing up shots for Our Finest Actors to get to do Big Important Acting Moments, and i check out.

I can watch Phantom Thread any time.

The last half is a dare triumphantly realized, and as much as the film works as a depiction of masculine ego it's also damn funny, because, after all, we need good tea and sausage for breakfast and a martini with a twist after a hard day.

In other words: no consensus!

I still haven't seen Phantom Thread!

xpost That's just it, the fact that he's made so many movies yet there is no consensus which ones are the good/great ones really sets him apart for me. They're (mostly) all pretty interesting/novel.

What gets me is how often he fumbles in the last half-hour, to the point where I'm saying, "That's what he thinks this film is all about?!?" The Master is the only one with a great denouement, but they almost all have great scenes and performances (Inherent Vice lost me completely).

i got a bit lost during inherent vice, but i get a bit lost during all pynchon stories so it seemed normal

lol, yes, that felt very faithful to the source material

"That's what he thinks this film is all about?!?" The Master is the only one with a great denouement,

Ha The Master is the ne plus ultra film for me having this reaction

i remember watching the end of phantom thread and getting really excited at the last scene, thinking "ah what a great development! its going to be really interesting watching PTA and these actors explore this in the second half of the movie!" but then the credits rolled :/

Haha same

But why continue? It would rehash what we just watched in the last 50 minutes.

Anyone who hates on Boogie Nights is a fucking demon afaic, that movie is hysterically funny and bleak and pitch-perfect for what it is. Even the outtakes are great.

i feel like there's no strain in the master at all, and in fact that's what distinguishes it from his previous films. things are allowed to be

it is also amazing to me that people don't get inherent vice which is a lovely film on the surface and beneath that surface a seismograph of the slow death of american culture set right in the waning of the hippie era and the dawning of the yuppie era to the point where you can feel everyone in the film's possibilities and fundamental dignity being restrained/undermined by the untrammeled flow of capital and corruption but i guess we aren't stoned all the time

and like ..... any good noir(?), following the mystery isn't the point

xp to Alfred idk, im speculating about a movie that doesnt exist, but its not hard to imagine there would be some interesting things to explore w/two characters in that setting who have come to that realization about themselves & each other. for a filmmaking style that is so much about patiently observing unusual humans as they move through very specific worlds, i definitely didnt see that scene and think "ah, now i know everything i need to know about these two characters, nothing further needed!"

but also, like Halfway There, i also assumed the movie was going somewhere different. it seemed kind of obvious, more of the "yes, finally" feeling of a plot finally turning than a satisfying ending for me. i felt similar w/the master - after 87 consecutive scenes of them acting out an unrequited love, the final scene just left me thinking "thats it? thats all we're going to do with this?"

tbf phantom thread is one i havent revisted, i wonder if i'd get more out of it now that i understand the shape of it.

I just enjoyed Inherent Vice a lot better as a novel.

(I haven’t watched this trailer yet and have never been a PTA stan but maybe it’d be fun to be part of the party this cycle.)

i feel like there's no strain in the master at all, and in fact that's what distinguishes it from his previous films. things are allowed to be

― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson

otm -- he became a better writer and a better director of his scripts

a seismograph of the slow death of american culture set right in the waning of the hippie era

It's obvious that this is what he wanted to do with Inherent Vice, I just thought it was a pale shadow of the films that did this at the time, like Night Moves, 92 in the Shade, The Last Movie, etc.

The Big Lebowski.

the long goodbye even

inherent vice is my comfort movie. must have watched it 10 times now

it's the fucking best

worst PTA films are magnolia and hard 8 imo.

moto panekeku!

Aww, I have a soft spot for Hard Eight but haven't seen it in many years

I actually feel bad calling it "worst" anything. it's good.

I enjoyed Inherent Vice a ton when I saw it in the theater, way more than my friends who I went with, haven't seen it since then. But it's such a literal interpretation of the book that I don't fully think of it as a PTA movie, a la 'No Country for Old Men' and the Coens.

i do not really agree but i have watched inherent vice a lot. there are things the film does that the book cannot do, cf. the superimposed image of shasta after doc starts smoking a joint, which, as probably several pta threads on ilx bear out by now, is literally my favorite scene in any movie

idk, the ending dialogue between shasta and doc in the car, with the light streaming over them, plus the aching tenderness the characters have for each other through the entire runtime... these are the movie's terrain

movie also snips one of doc's threads of inquiry, can't remember which, but it's for the better

That's true, and the book is longer and shaggier than the movie for sure

yeah i was shocked he was able to pull a coherent adaptation out of such a nutso book

movie also snips one of doc's threads of inquiry, can't remember which, but it's for the better

― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Wednesday, September 29, 2021 3:09 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

movie gets rid of the book's Vegas digression, which contains one of the best summations of Pynchon ever:

“Out there, all around them to the last fringes of occupancy, were Toobfreex at play in the video universe, the tropic isle, the Long Branch Saloon, the Starship Enterprise, Hawaiian crime fantasies, cute kids in make-believe living rooms with invisible audiences to laugh at everything they did, baseball highlights, Vietnam footage, helicopter gunships and firefights, and midnight jokes, and talking celebrities, and a slave girl in a bottle, and Arnold the pig, and here was Doc, on the natch, caught in a low-level bummer he couldn’t find a way out of, about how the Psychedelic Sixties, this little parenthesis of light, might close after all, and all be lost, taken back into darkness . . . how a certain hand might reach terribly out of darkness and reclaim the time, easy as taking a joint from a doper and stubbing it out for good.”

To some extent they morph this digression into Doc's encounter with Mickey in the asylum but I don't recall if it covers this passage.

I haven't read the book, but in the synopsis I did see (and that posted excerpt), it seems including that part would skirt extremely closely to bat Fear & Loathing country.

That sentence is a perfect example of why I've never been able to finish Gravity's Rainbow.

On a different note, this cleared up what I thought was just a psychedelic choice for naming a record store:

It’s from a self-deprecating joke by the comedy-folk duo Bud and Travis, who joke around the 9:30 mark of this video that one of their vinyl records is so unsuccessful that it’s being marketed as “licorice pizza” — since records are black and round.

Also initials L. P.

i like hard eight. it’s not his best, maybe even in his bottom 3. but it’s really good imho. i love philip baker hall

i get why a quirky LA neo-noir about people fucking up wasn’t the most original concept 3 years after pulp fiction. but it’s still a lot of fun

We have soundtrack: https://pitchfork.com/news/paul-thomas-anderson-licorice-pizza-soundtrack-announced/

Barabajagal, yessss

Well...He transformed some real junk in Boogie Nights, so anything's possible. (I can see him doing something memorable with "Diamond Girl.") Underwhelming, though. "My Ding-a-Ling" for Chuck Berry? That's insulting (and irredeemable, I'm guessing).

(I see it's a version from 1967 with the Steve Miller Band. So maybe it started out life sounding like Chuck Berry's supposed to sound.)

Kind of wishing there was more Have A Nice Day junk tbh, like I can totally see him doing something great with "How Do You Do?" or "Chick-A-Boom". Related: I really wish the trailer had been cut to Dwight Twilley's "I'm On Fire"...but then again I wish all trailers were cut to that.

Would look forward to either of those first two, basically the equivalent of what he did with "Sister Christian," "Driver's Seat," and Apollo 100's "Joy."

This looks like it’ll be fun.

Maybe he's paying tribute to the Canadian film Paperback Hero (1:15:45) with "If You Could Read My Mind," the one song on that list I unreservedly love (also used memorably in Mr. Robot).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ig2EL6WBEs

Walter Chaw: https://www.filmfreakcentral.net/ffc/2021/11/licorice-pizza-ghostbusters-afterlife.html

I rewatched Inherent Vice, hoping that I would like it without the burden of expectations. I liked it a little more, but was stunned several times upon realizing there was still x much time left. "45 minutes? fuck..."

The original viewing put me off so much that I avoided the Phantom Thread. I also have a mild problem with costume dramas, but I should probably have a go at it. Licorice Pizza has me hopeful.

I also have a mild problem with costume dramas, but I should probably have a go at it. Licorice Pizza has me hopeful.

A movie set in the 1970s *is* a costume drama.

Yeah, what's a costume drama?

I watched Inherent Vice again recently, and somehow the pacing and tone settled in a lot better than on the first viewing. I don't think I had inappropriate expectations when I first saw it, but maybe having a vague memory about what was about to happen allowed me to pay more attention to what was occurring in the moment.

Yeah, what's a costume drama?

MOVIE REVIEWS

'Licorice Pizza' Is Paul Thomas Anderson's 1970s Power Ballad - and the Funkiest Love Story of the Year
A spiritual prequel to 'Punch Drunk Love,' the filmmaker's look back at a bygone era couldn't be more personal — or have better performers at its center
Have not read rest; ads are fucking w my computer:
https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/movie-reviews/licorice-

Were there 1970s power ballads? "Fade Away and Radiate"?

Kiss's "Beth" The 70s were full of them.

Styx "Lady" comes to mind

Dust in the Wind

Buncha Elton: "Candle In The Wind"; "Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me"; "Levon" etc.

PLUS THE FUCKIN' EAGLES

BOB GODDAMN SEGER

read a positive review of this which confirmed my lack of desire to see it

LYNRYD SHITKICKIN' SKYNYRD

Yeah but the 'power' in power ballad connotes an explosion of electric guitars and thundering drums

Otherwise it's just a ballad

ELECTRIC MELLONFARMIN' LIGHT ORCHESTRA

Yeah but the 'power' in power ballad connotes an explosion of electric guitars and thundering drums

Some if not all of those bands did that.

Ballads are Ballads but part of the "Power" is the showstopping, reach for the rafters sing-along chorus.

ANTHEMS

Possibly substitute Queen for ELO.

Juice Newton - “ Angel of the Morning” is a total 70’s powerballad

candle in the wind is just a ballad imo

I've always maintained that Whitesnake's Here I Go Again is just a rewrite of Angel of the Morning

Whoa Juice has kind of a crazy-eyed Kate Bush thing going here... pretty awesome

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTzGMEfbnAw

Nazareth: "Love Hurts" so good (their covers of "Hollis Brown" proto-folk-metal ritualizm, the Joni cover, though blanking on title, more ov a power folkie-ballad)(they should have done "Candle In The Wind," then it would have been proper power ballad) But I was thinking more "tasteful romantic move by 80s metal etc."

Joni cover = "This Flight Tonight"

Ramones had a few!

For an acoustic guy, Cat Stevens had a ton of these.

Licorice Pizza Love Jams

I don't even own a Film Twitter, but sorta surprised the grievance Chaw had that's getting run with is the age difference thing and not the racial thing, but OTOH I guess the former is easier to address without having yet seen the movie.

Between the trailers for THE TENDER BAR and LICORICE PIZZA this weekend, I was deeply irritated with lovingly recreated 70s scuzz. So of course AFI Silver just announced a 70mm screening of LP for this Saturday evening. (It previously was scheduled to open there Christmas Day; no word on analog or digital format.) Decisions, decisions.

goddamn i hated this so much. what a bullshit white dude nostalgia trip. and im a jew that grew up in the valley! it should have hit different. oh well.

These types of films aren't always (or even usually) aimed at people who shared in their era, experience, geography, etc.

As in, I can totally see hating it, especially if your experience has some parallels in the movie itself.

I also haven't seen it, though. I'm speaking more "generally."

goddamn i hated this so much. what a bullshit white dude nostalgia trip. and im a jew that grew up in the valley! it should have hit different. oh well.

― kurt schwitterz, Monday, December 6, 2021 6:44 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

this is what it looked like to me, i'm going to avoid it.

some review was talking about it portraying scrappy small business owners and that's when i decided no thanks, i'd rather watch train cab footage at home.

Not scheduled for either of the independents/rep houses in my area, so it must be getting a Cineplex opening.

So, wait, it's not a good movie about people working?

I love those!

Just read a post on Criterionforum about an advance screening a few days ago at an Austin Alamo Drafthouse that had a surprise appearance from Alana Haim, who-in lieu of doing an after-screening Q&A-treated the audience to a secret Haim show at a neighboring club.

xxp it's distributed by Universal here in Canada, so of course it's Cineplex

but also if you wanna come to Toronto, the Lightbox is getting a 70mm run (there's an advance screening this Sat that sold most of its tix to TIFF members, fucking TIFF)

I've made the trek into Toronto two or three times (two-and-a-half hours), but if it's opening here, I'd have to be promised dinner with the cast or something.

Bro if this movie was about people just regular ass working in the valley I'd be all about it.

Good interview w Anderson on The New Yorker Radio Hour---he knows how to sell it of course, but mainly about backstory of plot and what it's like to direct Hoffman and Haim, both of whom he's known for quite a while---Hoffman's character seems based or fusion of his own persona and that of 15-year-old Anderson, pestering and then (as he remembers it) bonding with a couple of his sister's friends (18, 19, had cars omg, though of course Haim is still older)https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL2ZlZWRzLndueWMub3JnL25ld3lvcmtlcnJhZGlvaG91cg/episode/ZTg4MDMyOWEtY2M5ZC00ZDRkLThhMz

Oops--not on there yet, sorry.

It's playing now (while I'm signed in to Google, haven't tried otherwise)

Best movie of the year, ridiculously good

Dang, and I was looking forward to this one too.

Lol

I don't know what to think, a promising sign. The time line confused me: Gary's a high schooler who in the course of the film opens a water bed store and pinball joint? Alana Haim's a natural, though, and those tracking shots adore her. Most tolerable Bradley Cooper work in a long time -- I hope Babs was thrilled.

I can tell you I don't care much for the Valentine character and Hoffman performance, especially PTA's insistence that we adore him. The ending irritated the fuck outta me.

So maybe I didn't like the film after all.

That we adore Hoffman or Valentine?

both!

Ah, I don’t think the character was supposed to be adored! I got Max Fischer vibes.

Honest to god, the whole film I thought I was watching Gandolfini's son in the lead role...I liked the ending--a Google search on the film turns up a piece complaining about the ending; didn't read it, baffled as to what they wanted--liked the restaurant scene with the closeted mayoral candidate, and the music was better than I expected from the advance song list (without ever being outstanding). And that's about it, I'm sorry to say--and the trailer had me in a very receptive frame of mind. Without going on about specific scenes that dragged on forever, I'll just sum up by saying the two leads fell woefully short for me, and the marquee cameos weren't much better. (Embarrassed to say I didn't recognize Penn for the first couple of minutes.)

Minor thing: Vin Scully on the radio, post-season underway, making reference to Garvey's 111 RBI and Jimmy Wynn's 108 for the season. The first isn't especially helpful in ID'ing the moment, but the second's automatic: October 1974, Wynn's one great year with the Dodgers. That's early on; much later in the film, Nixon's still president, two months after he would have resigned. I cut films a lot of slack with regards to music--if you need to cheat to work a specific song in, like "Come Sail Away" in The Virgin Suicides, cheat away, it's worth it--but I don't know, that felt sloppy. Of no consequence whatsoever, just the kind I thing I might not have noticed in a better film.

Two obvious homages: the cherry bomb and American Graffiti, and--I think--Taxi Driver with the lurking weirdo outside the campaign headquarters.

My only real problem with the music was “Life on Mars”

I didn't mind it, but it is a little familiar, and was better in the trailer. (There's another film that used it very prominently in the past few years...I thought maybe The Martian, but that was "Starman.") What I liked: Sonny & Cher, Mason Williams, Clarence Carter, and "Let Me Roll It," and I thought "Peace Frog" worked surprisingly well. Major sin: burying "I Saw the Light."

"Life On Mars" was prominently placed in Life Aquatic, which might have been where movie people rediscovered it.

Oh, and before that it was in some versions of Breaking The Waves.

Was it a cover in Life Aquatic? I think it's Breaking the Waves I'm thinking of.

I think it had both the original and a cover

saw this in 70mm today. the first scene completely enthralled me, though I felt the middle bits were a little hit or miss (hit: bradley cooper sideplot, benny safdie sideplot; miss: sean penn sideplot). I mostly thought the music worked. honestly I was blown away by haim and hoffman

Didn't realize that was Benny Safdie (I mean, I'd never even seen him before, not that didn't make the connection).

have you seen GOOD TIME?

Nope. Think I was one of the few naysayers on Uncut Gems here.

oh, boo. boo!

I posted this in the wrong thread a few weeks back but:

speaking to the cooper performace, guy was COMEDY ACTING in a v try hard way b/w Penn and Waits scene it became a "here's this scene with a guest star in a wig!!! Now here's this scene with a guest star in a wig!" movie for a sec. like we get it you have famous friends, pta.

Meaning I thought Cooper was painfully unfunny and the " StreiSAND like sand on a beach" scene was probs good on paper but very level 1 ucb sketch class on celluloid

I often have that problem with Coop, but here PTA asked him to give a SNL skit performance, and Coop did and he was fine.

I don't know PTA asked him, of course, but the supporting performances are at that level -- except Tom Waits, who creates his own reality vector.

haven't seen the film yet but didnt cooper have to deal irl with the dude he's playing when he made a star is born

Man I love so many of PTA’s films but this does not sound promising at all.

To me, the best thing about Paul Thomas Anderson is that his dad was Ghoulardi.

It's fin *shrug*

fine too

are haim actors now and not going to make any more music

i thought alana was really good in this for what it's worth

haven't seen the film yet but didnt cooper have to deal irl with the dude he's playing when he made a star is born

He mentioned this on Colbert last night, saying he was ultimately grateful to Peters because he waived some rights he had over the ASIB property, which allowed Cooper to do the remake with the budget he had without having to pay Peters (upfront, I imagine).

Yeah, there's a new rule in Hollywood that once you act you can't make any more music. Poor Ariana Grande gave all that up for Don't Look Up.

i liked the film, but the discourse about it makes me want to dig in my heels and defend it from people who have never heard the word "lolita"

Alana H earns the acclaim; her un-actressy manner is most charming.

^ this and the supporting performances are at that level — all the Hollywoody people are magnificent slabs of ham (eg “Peters”, Waits, Penn, abusive older actress, Frasier’s agent as an agent), which not only underscores the more naturalistic perfs by the leads, it unsubtly emphasises how much fulfillment both Gary and Alana find in other work, without ever showing them make any decision to stop pursuing acting.

(In the same way, Anderson and Safdie imply that Wachs is entirely sincere about his career aims.)

one thing i thought was fun about the movie was the fact that every supporting character instantly knew gary and alana by name

All the sequences of Gary lolloping through the streets like a huge, zitty Andrex puppy made me somehow think of Greta Gerwig in Frances Ha, and occurred to me that LP is a quixotic attempt to contrive a manic pixie dreamboy, whose daft ebullience and charm are *so refreshing* compared to the maniacs, sleazebags and cynical careerists who seemingly comprise the adult male LA population of the movie. Except Gary seems like a kind of apprentice sleazebag himself, trying to cop off with any available hotpants chick as soon as the opportunity arises :/

yah gary reminded me of all the assholes i had to grow up around in the valley that lived in their little rich kid bubble and dgaf. pta was probs like this as he decided to cast exactly zero latinos in a movie about the goddam san fernando valley in the 70s lol.

sorry i know i h8 this movie for PERSONAL reasons lol. those dolly shots are beautiful though!

I had a totally different reaction to the cooper/waits/penn bit of the film, it was a tonal shift but I felt it as a move into inherent vice mode, that sense of slippage: the audition into the wait, what are you even saying restaurant scene into the stunt; the whole truck sequence which was exhilarating to me. It felt very bracketed from the rest of the film, which I also mostly loved

I never saw the trailer or anything about the film so I had no idea that the whole of haim was in this until the credits - Alana Haim was amazing imo!

Anderson is good at these supremely awkward, unhealthy relationships I would say that the “happy” ending of this pairs with that of phantom thread but that one has a better outlook

The gag of the restaurant owner and his wives felt like 70s humour, as in a joke that would actually be in a 70s film, and was a huge bum note

Oh also the agent - idk that actor but omg yes indulge that face for many seconds that is why I pay to look at a large screen

I don't get the whole criticism that PTA was trying to make these two "good/cool/refreshing manic pixie dreamboy" people. They both seem like different types of lost weirdos, in two different stages of lost weirdoness

Like it's a dogged teenage dreamer/schemer who's so wrapped up in his own goals that he hurts other people and a 20-something who everyone agrees is beautiful but has no real skills/desires/direction so she falls in with a bunch of teenagers. They're both kind of fuckup messes in different ways

alana's character in particular seemed to have an incredibly low opinion of herself, craving validation in the form of male attention. she was intensely flirtatious with everyone she interacted with, so of course she's more likely to entertain gary's puppy dog advances way longer than an emotionally mature woman of her age might have. alana haim's natural ebullience hides that a bit, and it's probably why annoying internet people are complaining because the film didn't explicitly spell out "this relationship is unhealthy and weird"

They are both fuck-ups, but the whole mise en scene of the movie views them as so much more adorkable than say Woodcock and Alma, cos PTA is shamelessly making a film with his buddies about his own childhood. It's indulgence - tho not without its charms - rather than nuance.

Not knowing anything about Anderson’s childhood I def got that the whole thing was inflected with fondness but still got nuance from the relationships - as I say the ending in particular felt heavily ambiguous to me

All the sequences of Gary lolloping through the streets like a huge, zitty Andrex puppy made me somehow think of Greta Gerwig in Frances Ha, and occurred to me that LP is a quixotic attempt to contrive a manic pixie dreamboy, whose daft ebullience and charm are *so refreshing* compared to the maniacs, sleazebags and cynical careerists who seemingly comprise the adult male LA population of the movie. Except Gary seems like a kind of apprentice sleazebag himself, trying to cop off with any available hotpants chick as soon as the opportunity arises :/

― Piedie Gimbel, Wednesday, January 12, 2022 1:07 PM (three hours ago)

FRANCES HA is my favorite film of the 2010s and I see where you’re going with this, but gary and frances are totally different characters — there is an innocence in frances, who seems younger than her age, that the rakish wannabe gary (who seems older) lacks. 7w6 vs 7w8 stuff ultimately

some of the reactions to this — lolita, really? — are so predictably bourgeois… anyway I really enjoyed this review I saw on letterboxd:

https://boxd.it/2pUpCn

otm

I'll admit that much of my wincing whenever Gary appeared rested with my thinking Hoffmann too irritating a screen presence; he doesn't have an actor's training in modulating his effects on audience. Half the time I couldn't figure out why or how a teen like him got money for his ventures.

otoh Haim I believed. She differs from Frances in her wariness; in her eyes I can see worry if not anxiety about where her life will go. With Frances, though, I can see her happily driving Haim's moving truck backward if it means she can preserve her youthful insouciance forever.

and if it means she can hang with Benji and Sophie forever too

lolita, really?

nah i wasn't comparing this to lolita, but more commenting on the annoying tendency of some to proclaim "this film has an inappropriate relationship that it doesn't condemn and is therefore problematic" as if that's the end of critical discussion and not an extension of a conversation that's been happening forever.

voodoo that wasn’t directed at you of course, completely agree w/ that

why is the only good film criticism happening for free on letterboxd

or here

I really love that review, it’s such a sensitive read

yes. thank you for that.

showing my ass here maybe but brody also gave a rapturous review

Half the time I couldn't figure out why or how a teen like him got money for his ventures.

This seemed very clear: he made money from his acting, his mother was his manager, and they collaborated on the PR business as an offshoot of that. (Her work with hospitality venues in other states presumably came first, not that the Vegas deal was a client of Gary's, but either way it shows how the pair were suited for promoting local restaurants.)

Presumably she loosened the purse-strings enough for him to sell a handful of water beds with no more cost than buying some big balloons. His demonstrated schmoozing abilities helped him move enough at swap meets and with radio reads to require the call centre staff (added at their existing office?). That did well enough that they added frames and a retail space. The second he found out there was going to be a supply issue, he dropped 100% of the costs of electricity and payroll, and moved to liquidating inventory to clients who could pay for a full installation, not $39.95 shipped. They still had 10 months or so on the lease for that storefront, so he used it again on his next scheme, which was surefire enough that Mom let him put more of the waterbed profits into the lighting.

holy shit -- you took good notes!

(The scene at the radio station is essentially the lynchpin that the cyclical relationship hangs on; Alana seems so happy in that moment to be part of Gary's life, a scheme they worked on together going right ...but the scheme was his idea, not something that drives her)

wins' highlighting of the tonal shift reminds me how episodic the film is, through the Waits/Penn sequence is the only one to change visual style to match: most of the "chapters" would feel self-contained and tonally distinct if broken up with title cards. a lot of time gets elided in the movie!

nearly all PTA's films are funny, but I don't think I've ever GOLed as much in any of them previously btw

holy shit -- you took good notes!

I just saw it last night :)

(but also I started looking for those details because Gary seemed to be presented as such a doofus whose confidence outstripped his ability. it was delightful how quietly the film insisted that all his endeavours m/l worked out and how honest he was about them - multiple autofantasists are shown as contrast)

Saw this today (in a mostly empty multiplex theater, ahhhhh). Lots of thoughts. Glad the Herman Munster celeb cameo hadn’t been spoiled for me.

thought this movie was dope and magical

looking forward to seeing it

I wish the central relationship didn't exist tbh, not b/c it's 'inappropriate' or whatever -- I just didn't believe them.

the central relationship was the animating force of the entire movie! I found it very believable

I believe Haim and many of the bits of business from the rest of the cast; I didn't believe Cooper Hoffman and that kind of love he expressed.

I could've watched a 90-minute movie about Alana Haim driving backward in L.A. tho

The Wages of Fairfax

I had a totally different reaction to the cooper/waits/penn bit of the film, it was a tonal shift but I felt it as a move into inherent vice mode, that sense of slippage: the audition into the wait, what are you even saying restaurant scene into the stunt; the whole truck sequence which was exhilarating to me

otm, this was my favorite part of the movie, the magical realist effect of a movie set intruding upon an already-heightened reality

the music was better than I expected from the advance song list (without ever being outstanding)

"peace frog" would like a word

although you mentioned how amazing "let me roll it" is in this film

and "peace frog" too! lol sorry clemenza i'm reading the thread very slowly

Not to nitpick, but I thought those two songs were good, not amazing or anything (which, for me, would be at least a half-dozen songs in Boogie Nights: "Magnet and Steel," "Spill the Wine," "Jessie's Girl," etc.). "Peace Frog" was the real surprise. If I had listed 10,000 songs beforehand that might work in a PTA film, "Peace Frog" would not have been on it. I don't think I'd so much as thought of the song since I used to play Weird Scenes a lot in high school 45 years ago.

blood in the streets it’s up to my ankles!

I was just happy in general to see him using pop music again--I want to say "after a long break," but the internet tells me there was lots of pop music in Inherent Vice (Neil Young, Cascades, Can, Association, Radiohead...). Honestly, I don't remember any of it.

The opening title scene was set to "Vitamin C". A couple nice Neil Young tunes were in the romantic flashbacks, I believe "Harvest" and one other.

Also mother-in-law Minnie Riperton got in there

Will try to revisit...Not that I wanted him to anomalously sneak some pop music into There Will Be Blood Sofia Coppola-like, by the way; I like There Will Be Blood just the way it is.

“july tree” was so good

I spent a very large part of this film pondering how it could be that PTA would give her sisters with the same names as her real life sisters, and cast actresses that looked vaguely like them, and not just cast her actual sisters. Then the credits rolled and I felt really dumb. I have no idea why I was convinced it wasn't them.

alana rules, i love seeing a movie centered around a woman who is just generally pissed off and surly
gary feels like max fischer but without the pathos (a character issue, not a performance issue)
this is set up as a movie about gary and alana and their relationship but really it's about alana. gary is 15 and confident and successful, who cares, he's going to be fine
i was pretty disoriented by the start of the movie (gary immediately hitting on alana in this very suave way) but again, this movie is ABOUT alana and we're getting her perspective and it would be disorienting to be talked to by a 15-year-old boy that way
the john michael higgins scenes were as excruciating as described and not funny at all and could so easily have been cut, why were they there?????
the sean penn extended cameo >>>>>> the bradley cooper extended cameo
i always like seeing skyler gisondo in stuff even if he's one of those guys who always plays essentially the same character. he's good at that one thing
the one harriet sansom harris scene was the best standalone scene in a movie that mostly felt like a bunch of (enjoyable!) setpieces kind of thrown together. a+ to harriet sansom harris

also apparently in the '70s you just ran everywhere. primary mode of transportation = running.

the first scene with gary and alana is seriously just so good, such a sensitive portrait of tantalizingly taboo desire

Just saw this. To me it felt like it was directed by a neural network that studied all of the shots seen in other movies about the 70s. Directed by transformer. And the characters too felt like they were impressions of impressions of impressions of typical characters from movies about the 70s to the point where it seemed like Fred Armisen could show up to do the same thing then break the fourth wall. Caricatures of specifically movie versions of 70s people.

Liked this (loved the cinematography), but it reinforced my theory that if you have enough money to license amazing songs, you can make any movie seem better than it is.

idk i just keep asking myself why this (powerful hollywood white man from a hollywood lineage) guy, at this point in his career, in 2022 decided to do a movie about this age gap shit. like really. why? 🤔 🤔 🤔 🤔

Three bad takes in a row!

Agree with Darin's theory, although to me that's a plus--spend, spend.

Minus its soundtrack (not the most expensive ever assembled--I guess Bowie cost enough), Licorice Pizza would evaporate.

I'll also give LP extra points for featuring the most authentically ugly onscreen 70s hair on men I've seen since the actual 1970s.

the wigs were pretty bad

It’s kinda funny to see people call out a soundtrack that includes “My Ding-a-ling.”

My point is that anyone can film young people running in 35mm w/vintage lenses and toss Life on Mars? in the sound bed and trigger an emotional response (with Bowie doing the heavy lifting).

"anyone" = someone with a large soundtrack budget

it's a godawful small affair

whenever someone brings up the age gap someone chimes in with "BAD TAKE" when it's actually good that people point that out and think about why its even in this dumb movie!

the soundtrack drop with the greatest impact is a doors song imo which requires talent to carry off

you can sub in wings for the doors in that post and it’s still true :)

also ffs how many pta movies involve transcendent pop song placement that you feel the need to invoke “anyone could do this” for this film

for me it’s impossible to say whether the soundtrack makes this movie seem better than it is because it’s one of his indisputably great tricks, across his oeuvre

The best argument I can make for the talent/knack involved in placing a song artistically is to look at films like Forrest Gump or (my go-to example, a forgotten film--for good reason) The Flamingo Kid. They're filled with great songs, most of which have zero resonance (occasionally one will work anyway). So even though I mostly agree with Darin about "Bowie doing the heavy lifting," what the director does in choosing that song and placing it right can't be removed from the equation.

The last 25-30 years have been littered with movies that leaned on their soundtrack that weren't able to generate any kind of response.

This movie didn't entirely work for me but the "age gap" discourse has been a typical shambles. It paints everything with the same brush and is about defining what's out of bounds for artists to explore, not about generating thought.

"life on mars" scores cooper hoffman running to the gas station right? not sure what emotional heavy-lifting people are accusing it of tbh

most of the song placements in this movie align with its tilts between realism and surrealism, and the surreality life takes on when it no longer resembles what you recognize, which is i think what the intervention of the gas shortage also signifies for these characters, that the time they have to abide within their fantasies will end

I'm no film critic, but in defense of my post:

• seems like PTS saw the Tarintino Manson movie and thought "MY TURN"
• song choices felt unconnected to narrative and arbitrary (although Brad's take on the Bowie song is good)
• soundtrack seemed like a crutch (yeah yeah you can direct this at any film, but whatever)
• the aesthetics of the film were the only aspect I truly liked which made me feel manipulated in a way
• as I said, I liked the movie, but didn't love it. Sorry!

blood in the streets it's up to my ankles

Three bad takes in a row!

― Max Hamburgers (Eric H.), Monday, February 21, 2022 1:04 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol

In my film class today we discussed sound design: music, special effects, etc. PTA came up as an example of a director who can use music diegetically and non-diegetically well and also for spectacularly ungainly reasons. The wall-to-wall score in Magnolia came up as an example of how he can do it badly.

(The point was to explain how movie scores contribute to our responses).

Am I crazy though? It felt like I’ve seen the 70s character quirks over and over scans as cliches to me...

It's not fresh like Phantom Thread, which seemed as if he were breaking new emotional ground; American directors don't touch this sort of conception of love as a game you can still take seriously. It's like Ophuls directing a Mazursky script. I saw it again in January and am prepared to crown it his best.

Magnolia’s score did what I think PTA wanted it to do tho? To keep the entire movie at a heightened state of anxiety for 3+ hours?

congrats, PTA!

The only film-score mismatch I can think of in PTA’s work is There Will Be Blood come to think of it

inasmuch as Greenwood music only works with Thom Yorke's dispatches.

last two posts are deeply wrong lmao

*cues Greenwood thunder*

one of my most memorable theater experiences is the seasickness i felt when greenwood's score starts up in there will be blood

pta's way of making the landscape from which they extract the oil feel full of doom and hostile to any kind of humanity

That's a movie where it's a necessary complement, yeah.

In my film class today we discussed sound design: music, special effects, etc. PTA came up as an example of a director who can use music diegetically and non-diegetically well and also for spectacularly ungainly reasons. The wall-to-wall score in Magnolia came up as an example of how he can do it badly.

― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, February 21, 2022 3:25 PM (forty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Would pull my kid out of this college

me in professor Soto's class

https://c.tenor.com/sCdo8DW21XQAAAAC/boo-outrage.gif

can't stand Radiohead, Greenwood's scores for PTA and Ramsey and Campion are v good

I'd also differentiate between using period music to fix time and/or to capture a mood, like with "Life on Mars" here, and using something counter-intuitively, like PTA using "Jessie's Girl" in Boogie Nights in the midst of this violent, chaotically surreal scene. The former is the lowest level of imagination--it can be great, but as Darin says, the music does the heavy lifting. With the latter, I give most of the credit to the director (or person in charge of the soundtrack).

My example of "great soundtrack, inert movie" is Almost Famous.

That's an example of a startling PTA use of music xpost

I love a few things from Almost Famous: "Tiny Dancer," of course, but also "America" as William flips through his inherited record collection, the couple of Led Zeppelin songs, and one or two other things, I think.

Best of all, when Dirk, sitting on the couch and in close-up, realizes the song describes his relationship to Amber and smiles.

This movie didn't entirely work for me but the "age gap" discourse has been a typical shambles. It paints everything with the same brush and is about defining what's out of bounds for artists to explore, not about generating thought.

This is dumb bcuz the guy explored it and made a huge movie about it and is getting critical acclaim and anyone that disagrees is labeled with having bad takes.

So what's your good take?

disagrees with what

the critical acclaim

kurt you hate this movie on such a personal level that all of your arguments feel like a form of revenge. hard to engage with

isn’t there tumblr for this kind of stuff

What about my about-the-70s movie tropes issue? I just wanted someone to tell me why I'm wrong

well going into the film completely blind, for the first few minutes i thought it was vogueishly set in the 90s, which would make sense perhaps?

The first few minutes are just in the school, right? Makes sense.

fucking loved this, it was crammed with the joy of throwing images on the screen, haters can go to hell.

My kinda review tbh ^

Hope to watch it this weekend

The age gap discourse is dumb because it doesn't acknowledge how the dynamics actually play out onscreen.

I don't think that the soundtrack does the heavy lifting but I do think the fetischistic evocation of a bygone era - which includes the soundtrack sure but also production design and plot points - does. It's almost like a video game, where so much of the appeal is allowing you to walk within a particular world. So Evan I think your about the 70's movie trope issues are valid, but I do think it's that at its highest possible level.

That being said, it's also just funny! The crazy business ideas, the weird showbiz kid behaviours, that amazing scene with Sean Penn and Tom Waits (even tho casting Penn in the first place should be a bigger point of problematic contention than age gap and supposed racism both).

A friend and I are going to do a Zoomcast on this and Zola next week, so I went to see it a second time tonight. Had two deer cross in front of me on the way home, one right after the other; I almost died for a PTA film.

It just seemed longer this time--there was a point where I thought, "Jesus, there's still Sean Penn, Bradley Cooper, and the politician to go." I think the best thing about it is the ending, which is the kind of storybook thing I tend to fall for. I think the worst thing is the whole Bradley Cooper detour, which seemed pointless.

No one's mentioned John C. Reilly under the Herman Munster makeup--maybe it's too obvious, but I got a kick out of recognizing the voice.

Is Lucy Doolittle literally supposed to be Lucille Ball, or is she a composite? The song her troupe sings is "Yours, Mine and Ours."

hmm it seems as if twitter has stumbled upon the john michael higgins scene from this film

nah people noticed that a long time ago. it's the reason I'm uninterested in seeing the movie, and I consider myself a PTA fan otherwise. uninterested in seeing white guy doing an Asian accent whether he's the putative target of the joke of not, I don't really need white guys appointing themselves the makers of that joke.

I have really enjoyed in discussions with friends about it the occasional "it's only one scene!" though, like a small bite of shit doesn't spoil the beautiful auteur filet mignon

besides which it's two scenes

I miss Morbs for what he might say at this point

same

Not because he’d be right, obv. But better he say it than me, even more obv.

Finally saw this last night, I liked it way more than I thought I otherwise might. The Higgins' scenes were definitely uncomfortable and unnecessary. Like I imagine the idea was to show how this kid had some less than savory people to lean on with his unorthodox upbringing but feel like it could have been accomplished in a less awful way.

I will say I agree with Brad's (and someone else's, tbf) take on the almost magical realism of the Penn/Waits/Cooper detour. It felt like a less malicious turn of the Alfred Molina scene in Boogie Nights in the whole, "can you believe these batshit Hollywood people" kind of way. It was cartoonish to heighten the force with which Alana had been wrested from her day-to-day malaise into an entirely different universe that was overlaid on the one she usually experienced. In the comedown from this is when she connected with the political thing and found a direction.

I miss Morbs for what he might say at this point

I don't remember if Morbs was pro or con PTA but I think we definitely would have butted heads about it. Still so sad he's gone.

I rescreened before it left cinemas, and on second pass the Higgins character’s idiocy definitely seemed intended to show the level of client Gary could attract as a teenager (and his mom’s solo clients clearly a separate thing). One capable, hard-working bar/restrauteur, and one clueless oaf with a shiny white smile. Though both of them are sincere in their belief in Gary, respectful as well as indulgent!

Also cf my post about his jobs upthread, the waterbed call center is indeed the same one-room office as the PR company - no extra commitment to expenditure there.

regardless of the particular merits of that scene, the moralistic discourse surrounding this film in general has bummed me out

showing a racist person makes a movie racist.

It's not that as much as it is, if you get racist shit directed at you in your actual life, how much of it do you also want to watch in your entertainment?

I think part of what's in play here is that the movie is, despite being a period piece, very much a movie-made-today. So even if, to give PTA the benefit of the doubt, he was using a trope/joke that would've been absolutely of the movie's time period, it still cuts differently than finding a similar scene in a Hollywood movie made in 1971.

(I do think PTA was clumsily trying to introduce it as something that would've just been part of the fabric of that era. But if the movie feels like a 2021 movie in nearly every other regard, is there an expectation that the movie reflect our supposed evolution on these matters? Probably yes.)

I really don't understand where the disconnect is happening. Everyone got what they wanted: PTA made his movie and it got widely distributed. People who thought that part was racist got to air their complaints.

It's like arguing over Rotten Tomatoes scores at this point or writing PTA fan-fiction to own Twitter users. Even in the criticism I've seen, it's not like saying the pinball movie is Birth of a Nation

People interpret movies differently! That's OK!

I'm a big fan of the movie but wholeheartedly agree it was completely unnecessary to the fabric of the film. It was super jarring, though probably less because I knew about it in advance. If I didn't know about it, it probably would've been angering because it seems so sudden, stupid and hateful? But yeah, I get the intent of it.

Can't hate on anyone who considered this a brickstop. I guess I'm lucky that all the idiots I've met who spoke in a racist accent were just traditionally racist as compared to... whatever this is supposed to be

...and it wasn't half as funny as Josh Brolin's "MOTO PANCAKU!" bit from Inherent Vice, so this is definitely some kind of weird, specific bugbear for PTA

regardless of the particular merits of that scene, the moralistic discourse surrounding this film in general has bummed me out

like chinese american in a theater full of laughing whites bummed?

Chinese?

did the scene draw laughs? not at my showing.

oops japanese! i jk but yah my showing had lotsa laffs

lol….

the first instance drew a genuine, completely bewildered laugh from me. as it went on, and the second time around, it was more just cringey

I felt like it took the film like 15 minutes to get the audience back at my Oakland screening. It was a big mood killer.

I'd already read Walter Chaw's one-star review at that point so I was anticipating that scene tbh.

Finally read that review and it’s very OTM and I do not lament the moralistic tone of the discourse, and also I think Licorice Pizza is probably one of PTA’s two or three best movies. Lean into the cognitive dissonance, et al.

^otm

no laughs at that line when I saw it, just people looking understandably uncomfortable, which I assumed was the desired effect.

It’s based on a real guy who acted like this. If you were aware of it you might think it strange enough to put in a movie you were making about the time period but I agree in execution it goes over like a lead balloon.

I feel like breaking the gag up into two separate scenes made it more confusing and awkward. It takes most of the movie to find out everyone thinks this guy is an asshole.

Did everyone take a fucken poll of the audience after the movie or something to know exactly how everyone in the room felt

I meant everyone he interacted with in the movie

Yeah, I’m just saying more of the “in my screening…” stuff

There was a person in my screening who laughed loudly at the scene under discussion but I feel comfortable thinking that person's an idiot and I'd rather directors didn't tailor their films to idiots.

Same in mine. He made sure to signal the six of us that Xmas morning he found the scene very amusing.

Scene felt consistent with the rest of the movie to me

In terms of moralistic discourse, I was pretty disappointed that PTA gave Sean Penn a job. He's good in it and everything but.

Finally watched this last night, was kind of disappointed. Felt like the movie never really lifted off. I think making it ultimately about the dynamic between the two of them was limiting, for a while I was interested in the possibility of it being about the two of them kind of learning from each other but going their own ways, which would have been less predictable and awkward. Some very good scenes, plus obviously the bad/miscued racist scenes, decent use of music (tho yes "Life on Mars" very much needs to be for another decade or two), he's a stylish filmmaker. A solid 3 out of 5 for me, like some of the other PTAs I haven't fully connected with (e.g., The Master, Punch Drunk Love).

(As a study of a somewhat aimless young woman trying to sort herself out, I found it less engaging than The Worst Person in the World, which we happened to watch the night before.)

Sorry, should say "Life on Mars" needs to be retired for another decade or two, as a soundtrack reference point.

Yes. Think the first and maybe last time I liked it in a soundtrack was Breaking the Waves although I have since gone off that movie for some reason.

Did like the television show though.

I liked the show too. (The original version anyway, never saw the U.S. remake.) But surely that should have been enough of the song as soundtrack material.

Yes, exactly. Never watched the US version either, maybe it had an intriguing casting choice though, the guy from HBO's Rome iirc.

Ha, no, not at all, not sure what I was thinking, except there was an episode of Grey's Anatomy called "Life On Mars?" and he was in that, not that I was aware of that show too much.

Saw John Michael Higgins in this and thought, how did they resurrect Murray Hamilton?

Hadn't thought about that--absolutely, that's Murray Hamilton all the way.

kinda eerie

(Audition) "JMH, we just want you to say one word for us. Just one word...Are you listening? 'Plastics.'"

Nailed it, got the part.

(Audition continues) "That was good...now try giving it a Japanese-American spin, only pretend it's like, 1957, instead of 1975."

"Big Mickey Rooney energy..."

"Mrs. Gorightree!"

Licorice Pizza (2021) Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson pic.twitter.com/ISY764JDs2

— mad men pics (@madmenpics) March 22, 2022

So. Much. Running.

I looked it at like - hey, they took all the running from that one scene in Punch Drunk Love and spread it out this time

it was the '70s, you had to run to get to places fast

It's the hot new trend dontchaknow

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/feb/07/from-spencer-to-licorice-pizza-why-are-women-suddenly-running-on-film

I finally saw this tonight

The age difference didn’t bother me here because I think it was the point of the characters - Alana is 25 and just kinda aimless & paddling in the shallow end, while Gary is 15 and harnessing every single one of his means & wringing every last possibility out of every minute he’s drawing breath, wanting to be something anything now, right now — like they’re both so extended beyond their age expectation in such different directions that they meet in the middle through emotional insecurity & escapist tendencies . she’s mature to a teenager & he’s mature to a 20-something

Haim just crushed it from the off, so perfect & funny & heartbreaking, god I loved her. And Cooper is lovely to watch, he shows so much in his eyes!, lots of real sincerity idk he felt like he really was that striver

the Holden diversion was amazing imo. swept up in a fantasy of a photocopy of Hollywood & drunk washed up old dudes reliving glory days, Haim struggling to parse ~any~ of it, god so funny/sad. I haven’t enjoyed Penn that much in a while

Anyway I loved all of it & I dont think the movie was just about him it was about both of them & i loved all the chapters & side journeys & i could watch it 10 more times

and the soundtrack was VG heaven omg.
James Gang! Wings! PEACE FROG yess.

niiice

👏

A beautifully shot hetero-boy fantasy. I guess I liked it as much as I am capable of liking such things these days.

a handful of really amazing scenes but I did not like this for probably bad boring reasons (same goes for The Master ha ha, still not seen Phantom Thread)

Scrolling through this thread, I'm reminded that there's some audio of Vin Scully in this.

I only barely finished watching this film. The person I saw it with viscerally hated it, saying afterwards that the leads were completely uncharismatic and uninteresting, that the age difference between them was gross, and that the meandering plot was unbearably bad

I appreciated a lot of the details of the story and the appearances not by celebrities but by obscure relatives of celebrities, as well as the music. I will wait a few years and watch it again. In some ways it almost seems like an updated version of Boogie Nights to me

"They're all shits, aren't they?"

Licorice Pizza as a description of a vinyl record and as a title getting at the essence of 1973 is really great

I think I posted in the "puns you took a long time to get" thread about LP, thinking for the longest time that it was just a hippie, weird combination of words thing, like Strawberry Alarm Clock.

seems you haven't gotten "Strawberry Alarm Clock" yet

jk

Ha!

Finally saw this. Skillfully made but definitely not my cup of fuzzy nostalgia.

I can’t figure out if I actually like this less the more distance I get from it, or if I simply care less about it one way or the other.

This movie was not good.

Very well made, I guess, but the "plot" was incredibly disjointed. The attempt to suddenly raise the stakes through the Bradley Cooper diversion didn't do it for me, at all. Just lurching for drama.

raise the lols, not the stakes

^^^

the film that most captures my high school experience in the 1970s is still Dazed and Confused. It was a more rural and much less sophisticated world than that depicted in Licorice Pizza.

PTA was only just born in 1970 so he does not really know from experience what 1970s high school was like. The movie seems like a fantasy from a kid’s point of view about high schoolers and adults back then

maybe that's what redeems it though, kind of. It still seems very shaggy and unfocused

I don't think this film is making very much of an effort to portray a realistic high school experience either

It's definitely making very much of an effort, that's for sure.

I've decided this is Telegraph Avenue: the Movie.

When I’m pausing and coming back to the movie over multiple days during my first viewing of it is probably not a good sign of where I’d place it in my PTA power rankings. Have no problem that it’s nowhere near grounded but maybe it was a little too far off the ground for me.

I just don’t much care for PTA when he seems focused, at the end of the day

some of the reactions to this — lolita, really? — are so predictably bourgeois… anyway I really enjoyed this review I saw on letterboxd:

https://boxd.it/2pUpCn

― auld gang syne (k3vin k.), Wednesday, January 12, 2022 4:47 PM (nine months ago) bookmarkflaglink

thank you for posting this review, it's really great and very precise about what's going on with the central relationship of the movie.

That is a great review

Phantom Thread is the only one of his movies I still haven’t seen.

Loved LP.

Inherent Vice is the only dud.

*clutches heart* ah you wound me :(

also that review is so good - illustrates so clearly what i loved about it — now i wanna watch the movie again

I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t think PTA has at least three duds

I really liked this film, but Alana carries the overwhelming majority of it. Didn’t think the Gary role was very well acted.

he just smiled and gave me a licorice pizza

I finally saw Hard Eight, leaving Phantom Thread as the only one I haven't seen. Hard Eight is fine, a little slight and way too in thrall to that whole '90s thing of how every flick had to turn needlessly bloody and violent in the final act, but Philip Baker Hall and John C. Reilly save it from being a dud.

Of the ones I've seen I'd probably rank 'em

Boogie Nights
Magnolia
Inherent Vice
Licorice Pizza
There Will Be Blood
Hard Eight
The Master
Punch-Drunk Love

Descending order:

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

i watched hard eight pretty recently and its better than my memory of it (which was favorable btw), v direct & affecting imo

I would have loved the hell out of Hard Eight had I seen it back in 1996, but from 2022, I wanted more of the first two thirds - just Hall and Reilly talking and bumping up against Vegas weirdos.

Magnolia is the only one I think is bad.

PTA is 9 for 9, fuiud

i haven’t seen hard eight but i agree w whiney basically

What am I missing in Inherent Vice? I watched it a second time and likes it even less. It just…. wanders. It’s kinda like the Big Lebowski if you drained the humor out of it.

inherent vice is very funny

if josh brolin chewing and swallowing a lit blunt doesn’t make you laugh, idk

inherent vice is a whole vibe & it is glorious

i mean fuck, it’s basically freaked-out chandler + weed x paranoia … what could be more enjoyable

and yeah, it’s funny as hell

It's a weird movie for sure. I like it a lot but I get why people don't. There's so many similar vibe, shaggy dog neo-noirs from the '60s/'70s that leave me cold and I'm still not sure why Inherent Vice worked for me when like, The Long Goodbye didn't

Just watched this, can I say it's simultaneously a good movie and a lousy one?

Good: Alana Haim is spectacular, Hoffmann is convincing enough, I did believe the relationship (though I don't have great hopes that it will last, it's so contingent on the specific points they're both at in their lives), I appreciate the continuing Haim family multiverse (see also "No Body No Crime")
Bad: the plot that moved the characters between emotional checkpoints...boring and way too long. Especially the Hollywood stuff that I've seen before. I wish I could have seen the same characters in a different film.

Ultimately the only PTA I've liked is Inherent Vice (have not seen The Phantom Thread), maybe we're not meant to be.

rewatching, can confirm still great

“Ugh, Danielle I’m eliminating property tax for the elderly and saving the mountains and you’re talking about free Pepsi”

that part in licorice pizza where you hear the todd rundgren radio ad is the closest i've come to experiencing asmr

— boss crude (@bosscrood) December 15, 2022

lol i love that part

the way Alana is reading Jack Holden’s face like an ancient text for ANY clue of what the fuck he’s talking about

For some reason (the title I guess?) I thought this was a movie about the music industry in the 70s; I watched it for about an hour last night thinking "Enough with the waterbed shit, when is s/he going to get a record deal?"