Licorice Pizza (2021)

After a titanic and prestige showing in 2007’s There Will Be Blood, Paul Thomas Anderson has somewhat returned to form – his particular brand of oddball character pieces driven by episodic plot happenings that seem to follow dream logic more than strict realism. In this way, Anderson has become one of the directors in whose brain I’d most like to rent a room, curl up with a blanket, and snuggle in for a few hours. His latest, Licorice Pizza, is precisely one such cozy dream, a meandering fantasia of late-70s Los Angeles that comfortably finds its groove, if not its purpose.

Child actor and high school entrepreneur Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman) falls head over heels with Alana Kane (Alana Haim), a photographer’s assistant nearly twice his age. While Gary tries to convince Alana that the age gap doesn’t matter, he embroils her in his myriad schemes, which include selling waterbeds, opening a “pinball palace,” and jump-starting Alana’s own budding Hollywood career. Her showbiz path takes her into the orbit of a gin-soaked legend (Sean Penn) and his director (Tom Waits), mayoral candidate Joel Wachs (Benny Safdie), and blustery film producer Jon Peters (Bradley Cooper).

 

The plot of Licorice Pizza, such as it is, meanders between the twin itinerant protagonists and their respective trials to find meaning and purpose. While Gary Valentine moves from hustle to hustle, Alana works fame like the gig economy, first modeling then auditioning before moving into politics. This episodic structure makes Licorice Pizza feel a bit plotless, but in the compelling and oddly comforting vibe of other recent Anderson films like The Master and Inherent Vice. Perhaps, if Alana and Gary are not the protagonists of the film, Los Angeles is; not unlike the underrated Shane Black film The Nice Guys, LA is here a place of mystery, but it’s an ineffable, unknowable mystery rather than a mystery to be solved.

 

Licorice Pizza is not quite a bildungsroman, insofar as its protagonists don’t seem to have changed all that much by the end of the story. But it’s a film more about a journey than a destination; it’s a love story where the love is peculiar, unlikely, and largely unilateral. At 15, Gary is in love with Alana, who finds his romantic fixation amusing but never reciprocates his frequent professions of love, recognizing them for the immature infatuations they are. This is not a story of predators and prey, but rather one of arrested development; despite being 25, Alana is the youngest and least mature of her sisters, with little in the way of career or romantic prospects until she finds both, such as they are, in Gary. It’s to the credit of the performers that this dynamic never feels creepy. Instead, it’s understandable, human, and perhaps even a little sweet, despite being completely impossible and inherently ridiculous.

 

Indeed, Anderson invents a world without imposing a moral judgment on it, leaving it to the audience to discern that, yes, some of these people are outlandish and absurd. John Michael Higgins, for example, plays a restaurateur fetishizing Japanese culture to the point where the joke is on him, not his Japanese bride(s). Anderson trusts we can figure it out, that the humor is in Higgins’s failure to recognize the irony of his inability to speak Japanese. The others in the film are all in a sense using Alana, projecting their own desires onto her. It’d be spoiling to say what any of those desires are, but never is the tableau clearer than when Bradley Cooper quite literally storms into the picture (leading a woman a few rows behind me to intone, in a momentous whisper, “This is the best part”). As real-life producer and Streisand beau Jon Peters, Cooper is sound and fury signifying only self-aggrandizement, building himself up by threatening the life of a mattress delivery boy while making the world’s most shameless pass at his driver. It’s not hard to imagine that this Peters is the same producer who would famously demand a giant spider in Kevin Smith’s aborted Superman screenplay.

 

There are moments of genuine pathos in Licorice Pizza, as when Alana learns why her mayoral candidate boss has asked her to dinner, that show Anderson is truly in command of a narrative that seems otherwise wandering. While I’m still not sure anyone can recount the plot of Inherent Vice (thanks in no small part to the deliberate illogic of its author, Thomas Pynchon), Anderson takes the same shambolic narrative anarchy but finds his own kind of odd purpose in it. What Licorice Pizza is “saying” is anyone’s guess, but we can feel what it’s doing, even if we can’t rationalize it. Anderson takes the framework of a Hollywood love story, builds his own chassis around it, and guides the plane in for a landing on a runway that looks like “happily ever after” but might not actually be.

 

Licorice Pizza is rated R for “language, sexual material and some drug use.” Written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. Starring Alana Haim, Cooper Hoffman, Sean Penn, Tom Waits, Bradley Cooper, and Benny Safdie.

Monday at the Movies - November 5, 2018

Welcome to another installment of “Monday at the Movies.” This week, two magnetic idiosyncratic performances.

My Dinner with Hervé (2018) – This HBO biopic has been something of a passion project for Peter Dinklage, so I’m glad to see him cash in that Game of Thrones check and do something that fascinates him. Dinklage is indisputably commanding as Hervé Villechaize, best known for his work in The Man with the Golden Gun and Fantasy Island. Jamie Dornan co-stars as journalist Danny Tate, assigned to a puff piece on Hervé before it turns into an all-night confessional bender. The cast is rounded out by some heavy hitters: Andy Garcia as a pretty unflattering Ricardo Montalbán, David Straithairn as Hervé’s long suffering agent, and Oona Chaplin as Tate’s ex, lost to him before his days of sobriety. As biopics go, this one is fairly by-the-numbers, leavened with the added pathos of Villechaize’s increasingly debilitating dwarfism. The central attraction for My Dinner is Dinklage’s masterful performance; though he does not quite physically resemble the distinctive Hervé Villechaize, he has his voice down pat, capturing the curious nasal way that Villechaize’s French accent crept into his performances. Moreover, Dinklage has an earnest sympathy for Villechaize, which overrides the issue of physical resemblance and gives his performance something of the weight of Tyrion Lannister’s confession speech from Game of Thrones. It is enough as an acting showcase and should earn Dinklage his fair share of awards on his gift of impersonation alone, but it is not, I think, a gamechanger in the genre nor a film that needs much revisiting unless one, suffering aphasia, forgets what a talent Dinklage is.

Phantom Thread (2017) – Here, on the other hand, is a film that I know I need to see again. The latest collaboration between director Paul Thomas Anderson and star Daniel Day-Lewis follows the life of cranky fashion designer Reynolds Woodcock (Day-Lewis), caught in a bizarre triangle between his unwed sister Cyril (Lesley Manville, simmering), guardian of the fashion house, and muse Alma Elson (Vicky Krieps), who begins to upset the established order in the House of Woodcock. That’s all I’ll say by way of summary, because the marketing only prepared me for a film about an uptight fashion designer whose life changes when he falls in love, and I can safely say that that description barely scratches the icebergian surface of what Anderson is up to in this film. In the way that There Will Be Blood was “about” an oil man but only barely, and The Master was “about” Scientology and huffing Lysol, Phantom Thread is more about the idiosyncrasies that power Woodcock and his petulant reactions as those habits are challenged. But it’s also about Alma, and Cyril, in ways I did not expect. I suppose I had anticipated a more demure outing from Anderson and Day-Lewis, in his ostensible swan song, but that was a fool’s bargain; both are in rare form, collaborating on a puzzle of a script and setting loose its peculiar questions on an unsuspecting audience. As ever, Anderson is invested in process, lovingly photographing the intricacies of sewing and the careful preparation of mushrooms, suggesting that perhaps he too is as demanding of his art as Woodcock is of his own life. I think the best of Anderson’s work takes so many turns that demand a second viewing just to sort it all out, but I’m equally looking forward to reveling in the quiet menace of a Day-Lewis stare, the withering retorts clipped by Manville, and the quiet ferocity of Krieps in the kitchen.

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” If it sounds like Phantom Thread might be a candidate for a “Take Two Tuesday,” you may not be far off the mark. Indeed, “Take Two” returns tomorrow, but for a 2015 film. We’ll see you then!

Monday at the Movies - June 4, 2018

Welcome to another installment of “Monday at the Movies.” This week, more pudding than I was expecting.

Punch-Drunk Love (2002) – Voluntarily watching an Adam Sandler movie is quite low on my list of priorities, and yet Punch-Drunk Love is just a film that happens to have Adam Sandler in it. Guided by the masterful script and direction of Paul Thomas Anderson, a true Cinema King favorite ever since There Will Be Blood, Sandler proves himself quite competent when he puts forth the effort. Sandler stars as Barry Egan, a plunger salesman with seven sisters, an anxiety problem, and a temper to match; contemporaneous with meeting the besotted Lena Leonard (Emily Watson), Barry’s life falls headlong into a number of implausible schemes, ranging from identity theft to exchanging pudding cups for airline miles. It’s the sort of oddball plot that might fit in a Coen Brothers movie (think Burn After Reading), only Anderson is more deadly serious than I suspect the Coens would ever attempt, aided by a tense and clattering score from Jon Brion that seems to anticipate Anderson’s later work with Jonny Greenwood. That Anderson gets as good a performance from Sandler as he does a score from Brion is one of the film’s greatest pleasures, as Sandler funnels his nervous energy into a compelling character who bears none of the lame humor pervasive in the rest of his career. Among the surprises of the film, aside from the pudding, is a captivating appearance by the late, great Philip Seymour Hoffman as a shouty mattress salesman slash phone sex pimp; Hoffman is as commanding as he ever was, an apt reminder of his unsettled performance as Anderson’s eponymous Master. Punch-Drunk Love is a brisk forerunner of Anderson’s longer epics, but it displays his consistent manipulation of tension, even in the screwiest of circumstances.

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you next week!

Inherent Vice (2014)

Since the debut of the Thomas Pynchon book on which the film is based, Inherent Vice has invited the admittedly somewhat clever pun “Incoherent Vice.”  What this appellation suggests, however, is that incoherence itself is incapable of being a virtue, a distinction I don’t think is fair to a film like this.  While I can’t yet vouch for the rewatch value, I found myself more than spellbound for the ride, regardless of its coherence.

Joaquin Phoenix stars as Doc Sportello, a drug-addled private detective out to thwart his ex-girlfriend’s lover’s wife’s lover’s kidnapping plot.  Only it might not be a kidnapping at all?  It might be a real estate scheme, a government brainwashing trip, a narcotics underworld power grab, or maybe – just maybe – all in Doc’s head.

For those who don’t know Pynchon, Inherent Vice feels very much like The Big Lebowski, which is quite a high compliment coming from someone who’s only a mouse-click away from ordaining himself in the Church of Dudeism.  Taking a page from the slacker noir gospel of the Coen Brothers, Paul Thomas Anderson gives us that same bewildering sense that grand mysterious proceedings are afoot, if only our narrative guide were sober enough to perceive them. Indeed, Doc Sportello spends significant moments in stoned unconsciousness or blunt trauma-induced comas, trudging through the case compelled more by genre than by duty.

Throughout, a stellar ensemble cast drifts in orbit around Doc.  Where Anderson had recently proven himself with small-cast character studies like the riveting The Master and the incomparable There Will Be Blood, Inherent Vice demonstrates his dexterity with multiple moving parts.  A-listers like Josh Brolin, Reese Witherspoon, Benicio del Toro are here, as are comparative newcomers like Katherine Waterston as Doc’s ex.  Brolin in particular, in a role somewhat analogous to John Goodman’s in Lebowski, plays the heck out of a blustering cop with aspirations to act amid his own crisis of masculinity – the “motto panukeiku” scene, eliciting laughs as it does, also layers on a deep understanding of the character when Brolin reveals he comes to that particular restaurant “for the respect.”

For those familiar with Pynchon, though, Anderson captures quintessentially the novelist’s depiction of the experience of incomprehensibility, the disorienting sensory overload in postmodern America and the struggle to find meaning therein.  Viewers who report themselves feeling alienated may, I feel, have missed the point.  Inherent Vice is not the sort of film in which you can find yourself in one of the characters; this is a film not to be experienced but to be perceived, to be (dare I say it?) overwhelmed by.

Inherent Vice is delightfully overwhelming, if a bit overlong near the end of the film, but Anderson is a filmmaker who’s proven himself well enough to earn my playing-along for 148 minutes.  It is not the kind of film that will be embraced by everyone, but those of us who enjoy a bit of quirky surrealism starring some top-notch performers are in for something of a treat.

Inherent Vice is rated R for “drug use throughout, sexual content, graphic nudity, language and some violence.”  Nearly every scene involves at least one illegal substance being abused, as well as dialogue littered with obscene dialogue of one variety or the other.  In one extended scene, a woman is seen fully nude while delivering what might be important expository dialogue, while a few other sequences involve fistfights and gunfire.

Tuesday at the Movies - April 30, 2013

Welcome to this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies,” coming at you via Tuesday due to unavoidable circumstances (or, to be more precise, circumstances I chose not to avoid).  Before our summer blockbuster coverage begins, we take a moment for one of the strangest Oscar-nominated films from last year.

The Master (2012) – After crafting There Will Be Blood, an unexpectedly riveting drama about an oil man and his tense relations with his adopted son and a flimflam preacher, Paul Thomas Anderson (PT to his admirers, a nod to the Barnum Circus of attractions) is on my shortlist of directors to watch no matter what.  The Master is a baffling film, cryptic even when it’s not trying, but it’s a captivating watch that doesn’t fail to enthrall.  Joaquin Phoenix stars as drifter Freddie Quell, whose latest bender leads him into the path of mysterious cult leader Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman).  Captivated by Freddie, Dodd begins to alter the practices of “The Cause,” a thinly-veiled Scientology allegory whose promises of enlightenment are never quite clear.  What is clear is that Dodd’s wife Peggy (Amy Adams as the not-so-sweet matriarch) is growing weary of Freddie’s company.  That’s all quite upfront, but much of the movie raises questions – How much of this is real?  What does it mean?  What is “The Cause”?  Much of the fun of the movie comes not from discovering the answers but from thinking through the questions with the movie.  And while the script is aloof in a David Lynch sort of way, the performances are compelling beyond requirement, more than earning those Oscar nods; Phoenix disappears behind Freddie Quell, down to the posture and squint of a damaged man.  And Hoffman is stellar as always; indeed, I’m not convinced Christoph Waltz was better in Django Unchained, especially after Hoffman’s eerie incantation of “Slow Boat to China” or his stubborn insistence on the rectitude of The Cause.  But don’t let the comparison to Lynch put you off; The Master is a film that will leave sighing breathlessly – not for perplexity at the disconnects but for exhaustion from probing those lacunae.  In fact, I’m certain The Master requires multiple viewings for full comprehension, but you need only one to know that Anderson is as much the master as Lancaster Dodd.

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you here next week for Iron Man 3!

There Will Be Blood (2007)

(NOTE: This was written early in January of 2008, before the Coen Brothers took home Best Picture for No Country for Old Men. I'm still smarting over that one.)

With Oscar season upon us and the awards ceremony just around the corner, I submit for your consideration what may be the only perfect movie of 2007: Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood.

From the director of Boogie Nights and Magnolia, Anderson’s latest tells the story of Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis), a rising self-made oil magnate attempting to strike black gold in the small religious community of Little Boston. Plainview, after successfully leasing enough land to begin drilling, crosses paths with Eli Sunday (Paul Dano), a healer/preacher in Little Boston and the only person who may be able to match wits with Plainview.

To distill the movie into a mere battle between two men, however, would be to do the film a gross injustice. There Will Be Blood is many things: an epic about a Machiavellian capitalist’s boundless ambition to conquer, the story of a man’s self-imposed meteoric rise and plummeting fall from glory, or even a Marxist commentary on the parallel malevolences of capitalism and religion. But the one thing it’s not is simple. Even the film’s last line – “I’m finished!” – has at least four different levels of meaning apparent on the first viewing alone.

To the best of my knowledge, Martin Scorsese’s 2006 gangster blockbuster The Departed was the last perfect movie Hollywood churned out. Don’t get me wrong; 2007 has been a year of great movies – Sweeney Todd, Juno, and No Country for Old Men come to mind – but seldom does a movie come along that commands a second viewing like There Will Be Blood does.

I might add that my second viewing came exactly twenty-four hours after my first viewing, and though the film was still fresh in my mind Anderson offers so much at once that it’s impossible to catch everything in one go.

Day-Lewis as Plainview is one of those offerings. Day-Lewis, who previously took home a Best Actor Oscar playing disabled artist Christy Brown in 1989’s My Left Foot, is almost guaranteed to win this year’s Best Actor award. Though Johnny Depp was delightful as the musically murderous barber Sweeney Todd, he can’t hold a candle to Day-Lewis, who commands attention from the first scene to the last line. It’s impossible to look at anyone else while Day-Lewis is onscreen, so commanding is his performance.

Even Dano, who performed admirably both here and in Little Miss Sunshine, comes up short against the Day-Lewis juggernaut. Playing the dual role of twins Paul and Eli Sunday (Eli being the more prominent of the two), Dano is suitably over-the-top as he delivers quack sermons but also beautifully pathetic as he questions God’s “mysteries” in the last reel of the film.

Though this was my first Paul Thomas Anderson outing, I’ll be sure to check out more films in the canon, since Anderson’s direction here is non-pareil. The first fifteen minutes, in what feels like an homage to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, elapse in virtual silence; the only dialogue – save for a brief gasp of “No!” – comes from those inevitably chatty people sitting behind you. From there on, Anderson launches through a tour de force portrait of turn-of-the-century California, complete with what I understand are his trademark long takes. As a film fan madly in love with long takes, extended scenes such as the one where Plainview meets his brother Henry are breathtaking. And the soundtrack, which at times sounds like a train whistle that crescendos into a swarm of bees, is instrumental in building the suspense that Anderson so effortlessly crafts.

But where Anderson truly shines as a filmmaker comes about halfway into the film, when one of the characters is permanently deafened by a drilling accident (to divulge that character’s identity would be a criminal revelation). Anderson deftly switches between shots of the flaming derrick and close-ups of the newly-deafened character, accompanied by only the swooshing noise of what the deaf character can only hear.

There Will Be Blood, as I’ve said, is one of that rare breed of “perfect movie.” When the film was over, I sat in stunned silence, desperately trying to catch my breath and looking around frantically for an usher with an oxygen tank. Seldom does a movie take my breath away like this one did, and even rarer is the film that I must see a second time in the same weekend – let alone threaten to drag all my friends to see.

The last ten minutes of the film, which more than live up to the title, are as gripping as anything I’ve seen in a film in a long time. With my hand clasped over my mouth, I watched as Day-Lewis took the film beyond great and into perfection, all with the line “I drink your milkshake!” And both times I watched in rapt horror as the film’s final, tragic moments played out like some inexorable Greek tragedy.

At one point, Plainview tells his brother, “I look at people, and I see nothing worth liking.” Yet when I look at There Will Be Blood, I see not just a movie that I liked, but a movie that demands to be liked.