Paul Thomas Anderson

LICORICE PIZZA: when nine years is a big age difference

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Photo caption: Cooper Hoffman and Alana Haim in LICORICE PIZZA. Courtesy of MGM.

The entertaining coming of age story Licorice Pizza has a lot going for it – the originality of an age mismatch, two fresh and interesting lead actors and a 1973 time capsule of the San Fernando Valley. A little too much length and an odd segment with Bradley Cooper as Jon Peters keep this from being among the best films of the year.

Gary (Cooper Hoffman) is a successful child actor who, at fifteen, is aging out of his marketability; nevertheless, he has stashed his earnings and can’t pass up the chance to build a business mini-empire, whether in waterbeds or pinball machines. Gary is a bundle of showbiz charm and ambition, and he is always “on”.

Gary’s ambition contrasts with the 24-year-old Alana (Alana Haim), who is drifting through deadend jobs. Amused, and then intrigued, by Gary’s chutzpah, she starts driving him around (he’s too young for a driver’s license) and becomes entangled in his schemes, intermittently questioning why “I’m hanging out with Gary and his 15-year-old friends“.

Alana is open to experiences, and flirts with a more age-appropriate actor pal of Gary’s, enjoys meeting much older celebrity in a Ventura Blvd showbiz bar, and moons after a young politician. Still there’s Gary – will he become her friend – or her soulmate?

Licorice Pizza is the creation of accomplished writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson (Hard Eight, Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch-Drunk Love, There Will Be Blood, The Master, Inherent Vice). The vibe of Licorice Pizza is so specific to the period and place that I was surprised to learn that Anderson, who did grow up in the San Fernando Valley, was only three years old in 1973.

Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman in LICORICE PIZZA. Courtesy of MGM.

Licorice Pizza is entirely a character-driven story and its most successful moments rest on the performances of newcomers Haim and Hoffman. Haim excels at portraying Alana’s moxie. Gary is a force of nature, and Hoffman captures his knack for ever acting as the adult hustler, except when his teenage emotional immaturity peeks out.

Cooper Hoffman is the son of Anderson’s frequent collaborator Philip Seymour Hoffman. Philip Seymour Hoffman had an early-career minor part in Hard Eight, broke through with his supporting performance in Boogie Nights, and starred or co-starred in Magnolia, Punch-Drunk Love and The Master.

Alana Haim is a musician in the sister band Haim. Here’s the pretty cool, 3:57 one-shot video of their pop hit Want You Back and a live festival cover of the Peter Green Fleetwood Mac’s Oh Well. Paul Thomas Anderson has directed nine of Haim’s videos (but not that Want You Back video that I just linked). Haim’s real life parents and sisters play her family in Licorice Pizza.

Sean Penn, showing a sense of humor for the first time since Fast Times at Ridgemont High, is very good as a veteran Hollywood celebrity, as is Tom Waits as his drinking buddy.

Indie filmmaker Benny Safdie is excellent as the non-fictional elected official Joel Wachs. (I essentially grew up in campaign offices like the ones perfectly re-created in Licorice Pizza (and the one in Taxi Driver where Cybill Shepherd volunteered).

In one disjointed segment, an over-the-top Bradley Cooper sends up the by-all-counts-scumbag Jon Peters, who washes over Gary and Alana with a tsunami of self-absorbed outrageousness. The tone of the Jon Peters scenes just doesn’t mesh with the rest of the movie and only serves to jar the audience out of the story.

I was expecting Licorice Pizza to be among the very best films of the year, so I was a little disappointed. I still enjoyed it overall, but it failed to engage The Wife, who thought that the oft-repeated motif of characters running didn’t work.

Gary would be 63 today, and Alana 72. I’m pretty sure that they’re not together as a couple, but that they have lived very interesting lives.

Stream of the Week: HARD EIGHT – the indie neo-noir that launched careers

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John C. Reilly and Philip Baker Hall in HARD EIGHT

Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread is topping a good many critics’ top ten lists. So it’s a good time to revisit Anderson’s first feature, Hard Eight, a neo-noir from 1996.

In Hard Eight, the down-on-his-luck simpleton John (John C. Reilly) encounters an older loner, Sydney (Philip Baker Hall) in a diner.  The 60ish Sydney, who Has Seen It All, takes pity on the 20-something John and offers to help him get some money.  Sydney takes John to Las Vegas and downloads Sydney’s casino expertise.  John becomes Sydney’s mentee, and eventually gains confidence, some financial security and the hope of a non-trashy future.

But, alas, this is a neo-noir and John can’t leave well enough alone.  He starts making some stupid decisions.   He falls for the cocktail waitress (and trick-turner) Clementine (Gwyneth Paltrow). He starts hanging out with security guy Jimmy (Samuel L. Jackson), who turns out to have a scary side.  Soon these folks get themselves into a dangerous situation WAY over their heads.  Perhaps Sydney knows a way out…

John C. Reilly in HARD EIGHT

Hard Eight works largely because of the characters of John and Sydney and the  performances of John C. Reilly and Philip Baker Hall.  Reilly is especially gifted at playing a goofy naif.

Hall is brilliant as Sydney, the wise loner.  We imagine that Sydney has operated in cynicism for decades, but something, perhaps some fundamental, accumulated loneliness, causes him to reach out and adopt John as his protege.  It’s as if Sydney suddenly feels the need to father  someone.  Why does he pick John as his son-figure when it’s clear that John has a limited ceiling?  Is it that John is just available when Sydney gets the urge?

Philip Baker Hall in HARD EIGHT

Paul Thomas Anderson’s career exploded with his next movie Boogie Nights, also with Reilly, Hoffman and Hall.  Then Anderson went on to make Magnolia, Punch-Drunk Love, There Will Be Blood, The Master and, now, Phantom Thread.  That’s a body work remarkably filled with originality.

Boogie Nights was also the breakthrough movie for both Reilly and Philip Seymour Hoffman.  Hoffman, of course, was later nominated for an Oscar in Anderson’s The Master after winning one for Capote.

Just before Hard Eight, a 23-year-old Paltrow had a part in Se7en.  But in the two years after Hard Eight, she was cast in Emma, Great Expectations, A Perfect Murder and her Oscar-winning role in Shakespeare in Love.

Jackson had already broken through with his performance as Gator the crackhead in Jungle Fever and defined his career as the iconic hit man Jules in Pulp Fiction.  But Jackie Brown, Star Wars, Shaft, The Hateful Eight and 70 more feature films were still ahead.

By Hard Eight, Hall had been working steadily for 26 years – almost all on TV.  He was best know for his Richard Nixon in Robert Altman’s 1984 Secret Honor.  AfterHard Eight, he went on to roles in Magnolia, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Rules of Engagement, The Matador and Zodiac.  And, in his 80s, he became instantly recognizable as Walt Kleezak in Modern Family.

Hard Eight is available to stream from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

Gwyneth Paltrow and Philip Seymour Hoffman in HARD EIGHT

PHANTOM THREAD: rapturous and witty

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PHANTOM THREAD

Phantom Thread, starring Daniel Day-Lewis, is Paul Thomas Anderson’s rapturously beautiful and unexpectedly witty story of a strong-willed man and two equally strong-willed women.

Reynolds (Day-Lewis) is a dressmaker to the rich and famous in 1950s London.  His unmarried sister Cyril (Lesley Manvilla) runs their home and takes care of business affairs.  On a foray to a provincial resort cafe, Reynolds is taken by the breakfast waitress Alma (Vivky Krieps), and brings her back to London with him.  Barely tolerated at first by Cyril, Alma becomes Reynold’s muse – until she isn’t.

In the movie’s first two minutes, Anderson establishes Alma as vibrant, Reynolds as fastidious and Cyril as commanding.  Phantom Thread is about the three characters’ relative power in the interpersonal relationships.  Alma starts at the very bottom, but changes the power balance in a quite novel way.

Daniel Day-Lewis creates a wonderfully watchable character in Reynolds.  He uses his creativity as an excuse for license to get his way in every regard.  Cyril indulges Reynolds and keeps him in a cocoon.  He says that a distraction at breakfast can ruin his productivity for an entire day.  Anderson heightens the volume of breakfast noises to show how grating the sound of buttering toast is to Reynolds.  It’s very funny.

Reynolds is so obsessive that, when he brings a date back to his place, he DRESSES her instead of undressing her.

The formidable Cyril is as chilly as February in the Yukon.  She is a woman of very few words, but her cutting observations and acid reactions are very, very funny.  The great actress Lesley Manville gets the most out of very brief lines – and, often, a mere silent look.  Manville’s performance is reason enough to see Phantom Thread.

The Luxembourgian actress Krieps (never thought I would write the adjective Luxembourgian) has received much critical buzz.  She is adequate as Alma, but I wouldn’t cross the street to see her next movie.

Reynolds adorns women in impressive dresses throughout Phantom Thread – the costume design is stellar. Anderson’s frequent collaborator, Johnny Greenwood of Radiohead, supplies a beautiful score.  The total effect of visual imagery and music is opulent, so opulent as to remind me of Max Ophuls’ The Earrings of Madame de… and Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard.

I saw Phantom Thread at a special SFFILM screening (70mm print!) with Paul Thomas Anderson in attendance.  Anderson said that he set out to make a gothic romance like Hitchcock’s Rebecca.   The kernel of the story was a strong-willed man who becomes nicer when laid low by illness – and his wife prefers him that way.  Anderson said that he was further inspired by the period British films The Passionate Friends and I Know Where I’m Going.

In a very nice touch, Anderson dedicated Phantom Thread to his late friend, the director Jonathan Demme.

Phantom Thread is a beautiful and witty film – one of the best of 2018

Stream of the Week: INHERENT VICE

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Joaquin Phoenix and Josh Brolin in INHERENT VICE
Joaquin Phoenix and Josh Brolin in INHERENT VICE

Adapted by Paul Thomas Anderson from a Thomas Pynchon novel, Inherent Vice is a funny and confused amble through pot-besotted 1970 Los Angeles.  Joaquin Phoenix plays a bottom-feeding private eye who is contacted by an old girlfriend and, of course, finds himself knocked out and implicated in a murder.  Thus begins a plot so convoluted that it makes The Big Sleep look as linear as a Bud Light commercial.

We meet a wide array of characters with names like Dr. Buddy Tubes, Japonica Fenway and Puck Beaverton.  We hear sly wit along with seeing low brow sight gags (nose-picking. etc.).  There are funny lines, as when Phoenix’s pothead detective is described as “You smell like a patchouli fart”.  Perhaps the funniest moment is when our addled hero writes himself a note in block letters: “NOT HALLUCINATING”.

Owen Wilson, Reese Witherspoon, Benicio Del Toro, Eric Roberts, Jeannie Berlin, Jena Malone, Maya Rudolph and Martin Short all pop up in Inherent Vice, and Joaquin Phoenix is as good as one would expect.  The most memorable performances, though are by Josh Brolin and Katharine Waterston.  Brolin is hilarious as a flat-topped hardass cop.  Waterston plays the former girlfriend, Inherent Vice’s female lead, and she pretty much captivates every scene that she’s in.  Musician Joanna Newsom, who also plays a minor character, narrates very effectively.

Paul Thomas Anderson (Hard Eight, Boogie Nights, Punch-Drunk Love, The Master) is a brilliant filmmaker, and Inherent Vice gets the time and place just right, with an especially evocative color palette.

It’s mildly entertaining all the way through, but never compelling.  And all the way through is two hours and twenty-eight minutes – not really a slog, but you’re never on the edge of your seat.  And you’re certainly not going to think about it tomorrow.

I finally got around to watching Inherent Vice on DirecTV PPV.  It’s also streaming on Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play, Xbox Video and Flixster.

The Master: a visual and acting masterpiece that fizzles out

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This ultimately unsatisfying film is a visual masterpiece with an extraordinary performance by Joaquin Phoenix.  It’s also a brilliant depiction of alcoholism.  But the story fizzles out like a spent Roman candle.  With all of its achievements, it’s hard for me to imagine The Master pleasing more than the narrowest audience.

The story is about an emotionally troubled WW II vet (Joaquin Phoenix) who drifts through post-war America, leaving social carnage in his wake.  His only success is in making moonshine out of available ingredients ranging from torpedo fuel to paint thinner.  He happens upon the charismatic and manipulative author of a new path for seekers (Philip Seymour Hoffman), and the two men forge a bond.  The leader enjoys the drifter’s moonshine and, when he needs a thug,  harnesses the younger man’s rage.  The drifter finds someone who seems to care about him, who offers a place and a sense of belonging.

Phoenix’s performance as Freddie Quell is one of the best of the century.  Phoenix took some risks with the physicality of the performance, employing a hunch and a scowl that could have been too much, but instead help create a flawless performance.  Freddie can stand quietly at the back of a room filled with people and fidget just enough so you absolutely know that he’s trouble.

Freddie is a damaged soul who self-medicates with alcohol.  Joaquin Phoenix’s portrayal of his compulsion to drink and the inevitably unhappy (and sometimes lethal) consequences makes for one of the best ever movie portraits of an alcoholic.

(Two scenes of Freddie’s experience at a military hospital for battle traumatized vets are lifted directly from the brilliant John Huston documentary Let There Be Light, which I have written about and which you can watch for free on-line.)

Philip Seymour Hoffman is superb as the charismatic charlatan.  Amy Adams and the rest of the cast give uniformly excellent performances.

Every single shot has been carefully composed, framed and photographed in especially beautiful 65 mm.  The story takes place in the early 1950s, and every period detail is perfect.  You could use any 100 shots from this film and make one glorious coffee table book.

The Master has been perhaps the years most awaited movie for two reasons.  First, the Philip Seymour Hoffman character is inspired by L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of controversial and ever litigious Scientology.  But the movie is really the story of the young transient (Phoenix’s character), and the cult created by Hoffman’s character is merely the setting.

Second, it was written and directed by acclaimed filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson (Hard Eight, Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch-Drunk Love, There Will Be Blood).  Since the fun and accessible Boogie Nights, Anderson has been specializing in critically anointed films that are not that audience-friendly.  This time, Anderson has done his best job of directing, but the movie fails because his screenplay peters out.

I would happily invest two hours and 17 minutes into a good story that looks this good and is about a character this compelling.  In the first half of the movie, I was on the edge of my seat, wondering “What will Freddie do next and what will happen to him?”.  Unfortunately, the last half of the film takes Freddie a few thousand miles with very little dramatic payoff.  So, like a boat inexpertly tied to the dock,  the movie drifts in and out and bangs against the pilings.  This could have been a masterpiece, but you need a good story to make one of those.