Anticipating Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza

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.