Reading Inherent Vice

not seen imipolex but besides its being long and having lots of characters i honestly think GR would be really easy to adapt. huge chunks are already a treatment and film as physical medium and language is so central to its metaphor system. (e.g. the section where the peenemunde engineer isn't sure if the daughter the SS periodically allows to visit is the same girl every time; this is already about cuts and frames and continuity.) the only thing that comes up more than movies is parabolas, plus every other scene is a chase. you've certainly got a lot of stuff to decide whether or not to include but whatever you do include barely needs adaptation.

Judging by how cagey PTA was when asked by Marc Maron if he had read GR (he said he hadn't which is frankly unbelievable), I think it's a good bet that he'll do the movie

Godard's Goodbye To Language => watching it last night and it did have a feel of "stoned mumbling" through 20th century history...

I haven't seen the Adam Curtis doc but actually would be interesting to. Its almost like the right move to have bunged on the internet.

yes, i've seen Impolex -- i was lost, never having read TP.

On seeing IV twice:

I found myself finding whole scenes funny that I didn't even realize were comedy the first time. Again, I didn't not enjoy the film during my first go, I just had a whole different part of my brain switched on. Furthermore, once I kinda-sorta knew what the characters were all about (and where they'd end up), I found a richness to the third act's more somber tone. (Here's a tip for first-timers: this movie is basically a tragedy.)

http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/01/inherent-vice-second-viewing

Great article.
I cam think of a few films - 2001, Children of Men to name but two- where I've enjoyed it a lot more on second viewing. often a film blindsides me the first time because I'm expecting something slightly different that never delivers. second time I'm more likely not to worry about that and feel comfy in its universe.

this movie is basically a tragedy

otm. i love that death of the era shit

finally saw the 70mm print at the Castro last night, really impressed. couple random things - where are they in the last shot? I couldn't tell if they were in a parked car or what, with the light occasionally flashing across Sportello's face. And the last scene with Doc and Bigfoot, it seemed to me the culmination of Bigfoot always being shown easting and now he comes to Doc's place, nothing to eat, might as well eat the weed lol. so many great little moments, expressions, and throwaway lines. easily his best or at least most enjoyable since Boogie Nights.

the only TP i've read is the crying of lot 49 (about 4x), so i knew to expect that i've have no idea what was going on plot-wise. this movie really felt like TP - not that i have much authority on his style, but it felt a lot like lot 49 - so i found it to be a really... admirable film, but i'm still not sure if i actually liked it. joaquin phoenix and josh brolin were absolutely amazing.

i dont think a 35mm print has shown in NYC.

Looked like a 'stylized' moving car to me, ie probly a studio shot.

yeah that was totally a fake moving car without bothering with a process shot. fits with the almost complete disinterest in place or setting through the rest of the film - you'll take faces and like it!

this disappointed me compared to the book, which is so concerned with the travel between places, the tedious* futility of returning to the same settings over again, and the general concern with being immersed in (an impression or memory or construction of) the 1970s

*in a gumshoe / shaggy plot sense

I'd guess Anderson didn't want to be tagged as repeating himself w/ Boogie Nights' glorious 70s production design and location exploitation - but the locations and environments his characters exist in have been such a significant part of ALL his other films.

after seeing the long goodbye this evening (which is SO brilliant), i am now thinking that obv that is the kind of film PTA should have made, but also, that this is the very film he was *trying* to make and had in mind, but couldnt as the source text was different, but also because hes trying to actively resist the altman comparisons, which is a healthy thing for anyone as cinephilic as he is, but at the same time, its like he stripped out all the parts that might have made it more altman/TLG-ish (ie made it more accessible and more openly enjoyable) but didnt put anything much back in to replace it, so youre left with this somewhat obtuse, difficult film, but one with little reward beyond its own self-aware challenge that it is posing for the viewer. might also have helped if IH's lead character was half as likeable/amusing as elliot gould's marlowe.

didn't find this obtuse/difficult at all

i felt like it was PTA's version of an old RPG like monkey island - main character walks around having pointless conversations with other characters, repeat, repeat...

picaresque is the more appropriate term. I didn't find any of it pointless, it all fed back into the film's themes of corruption, misdirection, the blurring of cultural and ethical lines - which involves disillusionment to some extent - but then has a really obvious redemption arc (he's JESUS do u c) with Owen Wilson's character. Plus everyone is funny and engaging and diverting during there little turns. Couldn't ask for more afaic.

I don't think this was at all obtuse or difficult for viewers. It was obtuse and difficult for doc sportello

heyoooo

I think maybe I was too, um, sober for this movie.

extry

http://thefilmstage.com/news/watch-the-deleted-and-alternate-scenes-from-paul-thomas-andersons-inherent-vice/

We saw it in a very small cinema, with not a lot of people attending. However the middle-aged man, who had come alone, sitting behind us was laughing uproariously all the way through; even at parts that were only tenuously funny/quirky. Maybe he'd read the book or something? We couldnt' work it out.

maybe his idea of what's funny is different to yours.

it could even be possible that every other human being has a different mind to your own.

really going out of your way to be a patronising shit, ronan. do you always project this much?

really enjoyed this, difficult to hear the dialogue but not difficult to follow (inasmuch as following mattered)

A cinema in London that does overnight film marathons is doing one of films that influenced Inherent Vice: Chinatown, The Big Lebowski, The Naked Gun, The Long Goodbye, Zabriskie Point, and ending with the film itself. Not sure of all the through lines, but there are worse ways to spend 12 hours (if I was a younger man).

Finally screened on the 4th. Kind of loved it, if not to the degree of the prior two PTA's. Really enjoyed how un-jerked off the homages were in addition the neat balancing act of capturing the feel of 70s Burnout cinema while neatly sidestepping the obvious moralizing inherent (tee-hee) in same.

One seemingly obvious influence that's gone without mention (unless it has) is "The Rockford Files". Doc's visit to Mrs. Wolfmann, and some of the interactions between him and both Bigfoot and Penny felt like Rockford through a Psychedelic filter.

Absolutely, yeah - unannounced drop-ins at humble beachfront homes, creeping around recently-constructed office buildings, fistfights in platted deserts.

That said, I also noticed the "almost complete disinterest in place or setting through the rest of the film" sic mentions upthread, at least outside (aside from the empty development and the Golden Fang block) - some of the blocking and framing was so weirdly tight that I started wondering if they were shooting around non-period details. But it's more fun to try to cram it into some grand thematic vision - I'm still trying, tbh.

This was such an embarrassment of riches--the narration, "does he eat pussy," Brolin and the frozen banana, Phoenix's scream at seeing the picture, "Harvest," Short, the fake anti-Commie movie, that aching Ouija board flashback sequence--that I feel kinda guilty for not out-and-out loving it. I stopped giving a shit about the plot after a certain point, but I didn't really consider this a flaw; if anything, always barely knowing what the fuck was going on adds to the whole stoned and confused vibe of the thing (I should add to the things I liked about the movie those little notes that Phoenix was always making to himself when he was faking detective work). But the looseness of the thing + the 2.5 hour running time just meant that I got really restless and fidgety after a while, so much that I didn't even delight as much in seeing Martin Donovan again as I should have. I dunno, maybe reading the book first would have had me more invested in it?

TWBB still my fave Anderson, and by far my fave Anderson 2.0 (as someone referred to his recent work above). This one and The Master both had a roughly similar effect of dazzling me for a good chunk of their running time but ultimately leaving me wanting when all was said and done.

I finally saw this a couple of weeks ago & enjoyed it so much I'm entertaining the notion of reading Pynchon

but in terms of the film, Phoenix & Brolin were to me at their absolute peak of perfection. Could not stop watching every single moment of them both, and I thought Phoenix was amazing in The Master so I'm
kinda thrilled that he upped his game even more

saw this less than a year ago and already time to rewatch
= the sign of a great film

xp VG the book Inherent Vice is quite fun and imo similar to the movie, not as dense and knotty as other Pynchon. Crying Of Lot 149 is also great, and short.

joaquin's vast array of confused expressions was something to behold

i think if you enjoy the movie you should enjoy the book even more. (the book is actually funnier imo) now if you hate the the movie you should stay the hell away from the book...

movie gave me a Chinatown/Lebowski vibe, more w/r/t futile investigations & red herrings etc

joaquin's vast array of confused expressions was something to behold

really loved the opening, with doc running a hand lamely along shasta's departing car, sloooooooowly succumbing to an expression of total paranoid dread, and getting hit in the face with the neon title

also iirc some v good faces as eric roberts (also slooooooooooowly) describes his bad hippie dream. for free.

i thought this was wonderful. joanna newsom is a totally great actress! the woman playing jade was incredible! yeah PTA has woman problems but he does cast well. god knows what he was up to casting belladonna but she was great too.

I really like Pynchon, especially Vineland and Lot 49, and I /hated/ this. We rented it on iTunes and couldn't be bothered to watch it to the end. Just felt way too forced and dull. Phoenix is fascinating but he's super annoying to watch art length. That sense of meaning being just out of reach, which works so well in Pynchon's prose where there's goofy jokes and all those amazing sentences to keep you going - Phoenix making googly eyes is not a substitution for that.

(Sorry)

Re reading this shit. So good.

A game of "drink whenever someone rolls their eyes at how dumb Doc is" would be fun.

"there's a problem with Ouija boards" - best part of the movie for me. A little joyful moment in the middle of the madness, a little (valid) paranoia still there tugging at you. Brilliant realization of a distinctively Pynchon moment, good job PTA.

yeah PTA has woman problems

Yeah.