It’s interesting to me that altho I have adored PTA’s work since Boogie Nights, nearly all his films have felt incomplete to me. BN and Phantom Thread probably the most complete. But there’s always something unresolved or not quite tucked in. Don’t know if it’s a flaw or a signature.
― assert (matttkkkk), Sunday, 16 January 2022 22:56 (two years ago) link
something unresolved or not quite tucked in
I think he senses it too, which is why his endings can seem like he's wrenching to put all his meanings in order.
― Halfway there but for you, Sunday, 16 January 2022 23:11 (two years ago) link
he removed an entire story thread from magnolia, he’s def got the impulse
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Monday, 17 January 2022 00:37 (two years ago) link
i don’t agree with the sentiment about his endings tho. did the ending of the master give you the feeling he was trying to put all his meanings in order? far from it imo
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Monday, 17 January 2022 00:38 (two years ago) link
https://media.giphy.com/media/26DN5ayYLdN6bK62I/giphy.gif
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 17 January 2022 00:47 (two years ago) link
Yes, I think The Master is his most successful film with, no coincidence, his most successful ending.
― Halfway there but for you, Monday, 17 January 2022 02:20 (two years ago) link
haha fair! but i love the way inherent vice and phantom thread end too, and neither of them feel like a late massing of the film's themes
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Monday, 17 January 2022 03:14 (two years ago) link
I'm shocked a picture as dialectically subtle sprung from the mind of an American writer-director.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 17 January 2022 03:16 (two years ago) link
John Simon is cheering that post; I am not.
― clemenza, Monday, 17 January 2022 03:17 (two years ago) link
what -- mine?
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 17 January 2022 03:25 (two years ago) link
Simon wouldn't write a thing without a passing gibe at a person's looks, using strained alliteration, or lamenting how even good American movies fall short of a European tradition he's got lodged in his head, which means he's like me.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 17 January 2022 03:27 (two years ago) link
as an aside my ranking upthread is not correct but i had only seen the master once at the time
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Monday, 17 January 2022 03:28 (two years ago) link
Yes; subtlety in American films is hardly rare (maybe dialectically subtle is a distinction I'm missing). Funny you say "from the mind of," though, because Phantom Thread to me very much belongs to the From the Mind Of genre, where you get some portentous voice announcing "From the mind of _________" (Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson, etc.--David Lynch and Stanley Kubrick in a previous lifetime) in the trailer.
― clemenza, Monday, 17 January 2022 03:29 (two years ago) link
I mean, it's also a movie about closeups of Welsh rarebit, martinis with a twist, and mushrooms in butter.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 17 January 2022 03:43 (two years ago) link
now that I think about it Boogie Nights ended with something not quite tucked in
― assert (matttkkkk), Monday, 17 January 2022 05:29 (two years ago) link
Inherent Vice works because it's somewhat built in that putting everything neatly away by the time it ends was not ever really on the table
― Ár an broc a mhic (darraghmac), Monday, 17 January 2022 10:33 (two years ago) link
rewatched this before christmas, best film hollywood has produced since john ford died
― devvvine, Monday, 17 January 2022 11:31 (two years ago) link
(xxpost) I started to defend Boogie Nights' ending...then I got the joke--nice!
― clemenza, Monday, 17 January 2022 13:57 (two years ago) link
xp hey now devvv, I'm with KJB that A.I. is that movie
― Max Hamburgers (Eric H.), Monday, 17 January 2022 15:22 (two years ago) link
― A Pile of Ants (Boring, Maryland), Monday, 17 January 2022 15:32 (two years ago) link
No American film in the last few years makes me more uncomfortable. Letting someone "in your life" is a risk: you look like a manipulative Hitchcock-esque svengali like Woodcock, and that's the benefit of telling the story through Alma's POV; but I'm also annoyed that she won't respect his boundaries, especially since she lives in his house. Scraping the toast, throwing a surprise party for him -- it's clear he's on the spectrum when we see his reactions to them, and I cheer her hilarious, sadistic, cheerfully willful attempts to break him...but why shouldn't he expect (at his age!) to go on drinking his tea at a certain hour and not be disturbed? He's so hateful, and she's so right, and yet.
― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 20 April 2023 00:48 (one year ago) link
That scene in the rural inn where he patiently, meticulously, smilingly requests a traditional breakfast, and PTA cuts to Krieps' hungry expression (she's thinking, "OMIGOD he gets it!") is just perfect.
― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 20 April 2023 00:50 (one year ago) link
i don't have a fully formed thought on it, but thinking through the relationship dynamics in this and licorice pizza is really interesting bc there are some things that are strikingly similar and some things that are very much not
― call all destroyer, Thursday, 20 April 2023 00:52 (one year ago) link
Also: he's the worst gaslighter in movies since Charles Boyer.
― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 20 April 2023 00:57 (one year ago) link
I didn't like anybody onscreen, which is fine because I dislike 98 percent of the people I watch or read about. But the film is sharp about the delusions of men who experiment with the feelings of women but expect solitude to work on their art.
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, January 24, 2018 8:57 PM
still stand by this
― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 20 April 2023 01:07 (one year ago) link
Didn’t Morbs say this movie was about “a closet case with a poisoning fetish”? I think about that phrase a lot.
― Every post of mine is an expression of eternity (Boring, Maryland), Thursday, 20 April 2023 01:33 (one year ago) link
alfred otm
― k3vin k., Thursday, 20 April 2023 02:07 (one year ago) link
I just love this movie so much
― k3vin k., Monday, 19 June 2023 14:42 (eleven months ago) link
his best movie
― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 19 June 2023 14:54 (eleven months ago) link
incredible
― Ár an broc a mhic (darraghmac), Monday, 19 June 2023 15:44 (eleven months ago) link
Saw it for the first time on New Year's Day, 10/10 masterpiece
― bain4z, Tuesday, 20 June 2023 13:52 (eleven months ago) link