Anticipating Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza

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?