Reading Inherent Vice

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1791528/keywords

i suspect thomas pynchon knows how his own name is pronounced

canning his own red herring

gr8080's link reminds me of the library subject headings for The Crying of Lot 49:

California--Fiction. Married women--Fiction. Administration of estates--California--Fiction.

whoa when i read that format i can smell the library

new trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTRMkQzFYHI

by some miracle of coincidence I am going to have babysitting this weekend and will actually get to see this in the theater

oh goddammit no I can't, the screening in Oakland is already sold out BAH

Chicago too

where is it screening in Chicago?

loled hard at that cop shove

vitamin c sounds so good in that!! i heard it playing in the elevator at the hotel where i work this week and did an eyebrow raise; would be awesome if it had a huge comeback this winter.

not opening in Austin this weekend = aarrrrghgh!!!

NY Times profile of Anderson last weekend has him talking about Airplane! and Top Secret! as big inspirations for his approach to this (really).

saw inherent vice tonight at the new beverly. one of the pre-show trailers was for top secret (there was also up in smoke, the long goodbye, and the cheech & chong "basketball jones" animation).

posting this w/ all "warts and all"/"don't shoot the messenger" caveats.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIbp5C-5WXM

going to have to finally read this before I see the movie.

It's a fun/quick read

the trailer makes it look like a must-see for lebowski fans. very madcap.

Dargis likes it. oddly did not mention Lebowski once, which it definitely seems reminiscent of.

GOOD, Lebowski agnostic here

v intentionally not reading b4 film

seeing this saturday. glad ive read the book since i'd have no hope of following it otherwise.

J Phoenix sez don't bother following it.

i read the book, but didn't follow a lot of the plot. seemed to be beside the point.
xp

yeah I should add I didn't totally follow the book either!

last pynchon i read was against the day and i'm kinda looking forward to going into this cold

my only real complaint is that all the characters talk too fast for the general stoner vibe -- i get that there's a lot to pack into the running time, but if the plot doesn't matter, maybe slow the dialogue down a bit? also, do modern-day actors mumble more than actors of the past (mumblecore jokes here)? there are a lot of lines i wish had been looped in or re-shot to make them sound clearer.

i haven't read any early reviews or interviews about the film, so maybe this criticism has already been brought up elsewhere.

I can't wait to grow sideburns and go see this

Fantastic film. A scaled down production from TWBB/The Master but amps up weirdness to some truly awesome levels. Nailed the Pynchon vibe.

i enjoyed this a lot, but im gonna have to see it again i think. i agree this def struck a pynchonian vibe at times but it wasn't really as madcap as I was expecting. i found myself missing pynchon's narrative voice, which is a really ridiculous criticism to throw at a movie. hence the need to see it again. had the book in my head too much.

but for all that this maybe the most cinematically restrained PTA film? hopefully a grower.

also yeah there was a LOT of mumbly dialogue.

Opens here Christmas Day. I've never read Thomas Pynchon; assuming that won't be a problem.

xp yeah i found it pretty hard to hear significant amounts of dialogue. i also honestly don't know how much you could follow if you hadn't read the book. a lot of critics say they like it much better the 2nd time around. i think viewing one is for letting it all wash over you, the second viewing is where it coheres more.

it's sweet that the soundtrack features a song by his mother-in-law

this one btw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1kDd6yBQZ4

I didn't know about that. What a song that is.

it's in at least one of the trailers (at the end IIRC)

and yeah it's a great song

Sorry, I meant I didn't know about Minnie being PTA's mother in law.

actually, i guess he and maya rudolph aren't married. but they are domestic partners for about a decade and have a few kids so i think calling minnie riperton his mother-in-law is spiritually if not technically correct.

they have a kid named minnie, too.

oh man i love that song

OMG I was trying to figure out how Melanie Jackson was related to Minnie Riperton for the longest time.

This is Anderson's best film imho. And it's deeper than the shtick of Lebowski, thanks Christ, as Howard Hampton writes in Film Comment.

Surprisingly, the movie’s more weirdly interiorized and not as expansively outgoing as the book would lead you to anticipate: the Inherent Vice of my dreams would have more sense of the jumbled archaeology of L.A. back then, more of the grunge-funk edifices, the leftover potluck from previous generations, the smog and the unexpected torrential rains, the feeling of reality bleeding and strobing like a cheap color TV picture in a thunderstorm. Master of Southern California light and industrial spaces, Anderson’s withdrawn from the landscape this time around, as though he caught a dose of agoraphobia from Doc.

http://www.filmcomment.com/article/everybody-must-get-stoned

Did not recognize either Eric Roberts or Jeannie Berlin in their one-minute scenes.

This one didn't really work on me, but I'd def agree with it being the best PTA v. 2.0

Hampton is also right that the 'something extra' is due in large part to Ms Waterston's two monologue scenes.

I'm with Eric in that it didn't work on me, in part because I've watched The Long Goodbye too many times, and despite its flaws I preferred The Master; but PTA gets the funkiness of the novel, and Phoenix once again deserves the credit. All the women except Witherspoon blurred, and maybe that's the point?

I just saw TLG again two weeks ago; this is not exactly the same thing.

Seeing this a second time in 70mm next week. Hoping my feelings about it will coalesce this time.

what'd you guys think of how PTA staged Shasta's seduction of Doc? Hampton otm about it's being a "slow drip of role-playing, self-revilement, vulnerability, and desperate control that’s indistinguishable from nihilistic abandon, expresses more about sex as a weapon.

loved how PTA shot Mrs. Wolfmann's pool party, complete with unshown heads of actors and LAPD cops grilling at BBQ in long shot -- a refinement of scenes in Boogie Nights.

should i read the book before seeing this or no