Paul Thomas Anderson: C or D?

As tedious as I found the hotel room scene between Hall, Baker, and Reilly

Better than if I'd written "between Philip, Baker, and Hall," but what I meant was Hall, Paltrow, and Reilly.

If you think Hard Eight is better than Boogie Nights, I'm guessing you're someone who's content with the direction Anderson started to take with There Will Be Blood.

How so? I don't much like There Will Be Blood but like Hard Eight. The Master and Inherent Vice are his best.

I regard Hard Eight as a one-off chamber piece, an exercise by a young filmmaker testing his limits.

What I meant was that Hard Eight is dark and brooding and slow, that Boogie Nights is anything but (except for those couple of scenes from the 1980 section), and that that's where his films have resided since There Will Be Blood at least. (Inherent Vice was probably an attempt to loosen up some again--I think it's the least interesting film he's ever done.) If you take his career from start to finish, Boogie Nights is the anomaly. And, for me, the best.

70mm screenings of PT's PT

http://www.indiewire.com/2017/12/phantom-thread-70mm-screenings-1201905384/

You can't get it cheap, but you can get it:

You could have bought that film print yourself, too.

Before the Boogie Nights screening tonight--a 35mm print that Warners supposedly gave them a hard time over, suggesting they play a Blue-Ray instead--Brendan, host of the series, brought a friend with guitar up and they played "Feel My Heat." Pretty funny.

Notwithstanding that I have watched it too many times (not for quite a while, though), the film still amazes me. Even the dark, slow section, where I can understand the argument that it seems layered on--things fall apart now, because they have to fall apart--the way PTA cuts between Wahlberg in the parking lot and Reynolds/Graham in the limo, and then links both of those scenes to Cheadle in the donut store, all of that is masterful (punctuated by immediately going into the spectacular Alfred Molina scene). And I love everything after that: Wahlberg's apology, and the beautiful--except for the Colonel--grace note of the last five minutes. Really, the '80s third of the film is no less great, I'd say, than what comes before it.

Looks like the new one doesn't have a credited cinematographer, yet again--I wonder what happened between him and Elswit.

He turns 71 in a few days, maybe he wants to just chill idk

If Anderson and his crew enjoyed the collaborative experience on Phantom Thread, makes sense to carry on and develop that. Being 90% shot in the same environment was probably a good training-wheels experience for lighting?

...though I just went to check my memory on that and found that Elswit said (on a Mission Impossible podcast) that reuniting for Inherent Vice didn't feel so good:

“God, I don’t know what it is anymore. It’s like a bad married couple. Unpleasant.”

Asked whether he could see them collaborating again, Elswit didn’t sound optimistic. “I don’t know. Probably not. You know, it depends on how he feels. I would do it again…I didn’t enjoy myself on ‘Inherent Vice’…It was a combination of me and Paul just not getting along, and I can be as immature as him.”

And when he was asked about Thread for Adam Nayman's PTA book:

“Well, I know how he did it, because it’s the same people I work with, it’s the same crew. He just threw a lot of smoke in the room. Which he never would let me do, he never let me smoke a set. Not that I wanted to — I mean, he wanted it for a scene. But I think he shot tests and he knew enough that he didn’t know enough. But with the modern stocks you can do minimal low lighting and you can lower the contrast and shoot all the detail you want, just by adding smoke. I can’t imagine I would have done it that way and I probably could have talked him out of it if he wanted to.”

“But yeah it was a period film, it was okay and had really good locations. I enjoyed the film. I just…if I’d shot that movie I would not be happy with it ending up looking like it looked, that’s all. But I liked the movie. I actually like it better than anything else I’ve done or he’s done with me or without me. I like it more than “The Master” and I like it more than “Inherent Vice.”

He turns 71 in a few days

Really? Wow--had no idea. I would never have guessed that Boogie Nights was made by someone almost 50; always thought PTA was around 30 at the time.

PTA is 50 now, he's referring to Elswit.

I'm laughing at myself...that makes sense.

Lol, I pointed that because I also misread it at first but realized that couldn't possibly be right.

Just watched Phantom Thread the other day and wow what a film... why do I have such a love/hate relationship with PTA? Couldn't stand Magnolia, Punch Drunk Love, and Inherent Vice but I adored Boogie Nights, There Will Be Blood and now Phantom Thread. What a weirdo.

https://x.com/JarmuschMood/status/1752353224860827696?s=20

yeah, they're shooting that up in Humboldt County. A bunch of PA's went into a thrift store multiple times to buy clothes for the extras, they're stoked

Vineland? Holy Shit! Is that confirmed?

More details... they're being cagey about what they're filming

https://www.sfgate.com/sf-culture/article/leonardo-dicaprio-eureka-arcata-movie-filming-bc-18636090.php

DiCaprio in a bathrobe and scenes of paramilitary forces would definitely fit.

the thing i saw said the movie had a "contemporary" setting

Disappointed Leo isn't wearing the party dress and carrying the ladies' chainsaw.

More cast announced: Alana Haim, Teyana Taylor, Wood Harris, Shayna McHayle (aka Junglepussy)

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/paul-thomas-anderson-alana-haim-teyana-taylor-1235813631/

Chase Infiniti does already feel like a Pynchon name tbh

PTA was shooting in downtown Sacramento on Saturday :D

Sacramento Bee included this v bitchy aside in the report “The film is reportedly based on the Thomas Pynchon novel "Vineland." In a biting Associated Press review that ran in The Sacramento Bee on March 4, 1990, Mario Szichman called the novel "a sea of boredom, sailed by hardly recognizable characters." “

Noted. Thx for that
lmao “biting”

I know you'll recognize this: "It's a honor to leave the Chronicle and go work for the Sacramento Bee. Dare to dream, right, Robert?"

looool yes I loved that line lmao

Lol