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Posted: **Tue Dec 09, 2014 6:38 pm**

No problem, will add them to the post. Hoberman made some brief remarks in Artforum too, but I was quoting from the New York Review of Books. Rosenbaum's comments were brief, you have to flip through the Criticwire run down to find them.

Posted: **Tue Dec 09, 2014 7:37 pm**

The movie performed horribly at a DGA screening in LA. I many notable Academy members leave midway and a lot of the audience didn't even bother to stay for the Josh Brolin Q&A (And this particular theatre isn't very big).

PTA is not my favorite Director, but I appreciate his entire output and love his enthusiasm for film and technique. Boogie Nights is still IMO a masterpiece and I was really hoping this would have that sort of energy and fun. Unfortunately I'd definitely rate it far lower than any of his works. The film is just a collection of random scenes that very loosely weave in and out together like a sort of haze noir, which is fine, but the movie just doesn't know whether it wants to be serious, absurd, comedic, silly or just dumb.

I've been fortunate enough to have seen the film a few more times and after reading some of your comments it might grow on me a little more, but merely as a collection of scenes. I do wonder what PTA's real intention for this movie was. I have no doubt PTA knew what he was doing here, and it may just be over my head. This just seems like a film that gave the main star a chance to go method as a pothead with no interference from the public eye, the cast and crew a chance to play with costumes and settings and make a 70's homage, and PTA a chance to just film a collection of scenes in homage to some of the films he loves. Josh Brolin's character seems to literally be a lift of Stacy Keach in Up In Smoke.
On a completely random note, I also find it semi ironic that the fashion house Saint Laurent's new SS15 clothing line seems to be a direct mirror of every single item worn by the characters in this film.

Posted: **Tue Dec 09, 2014 8:35 pm**

phantomforce wrote:The movie performed horribly at a DGA screening in LA. I many notable Academy members leave midway and a lot of the audience didn't even bother to stay for the Josh Brolin Q&A (And this particular theatre isn't very big).

I wouldn't give a plugged nickel for what DGA members think and I'm a member, who frequents the DGA theater in NYC. I have seen more walkouts from members then I care to remember. Anything challenging or art housey draws a quiet wrath from a majority of these folks. All you hear are sighs and restlessness. Mallick seems to be one that really upsets the NYDGA folks.

But films like The Help get ovations when the credits roll. Go figure.

I will avoid seeing Inherent Vice at the DGA when it screens in a week or so.

Posted: **Tue Dec 09, 2014 8:52 pm**

phantomforce wrote:The film is just a collection of random scenes that very loosely weave in and out together like a sort of haze noir, which is fine, but the movie just doesn't know whether it wants to be serious, absurd, comedic, silly or just dumb.

Do you read (or like) Pynchon's work? I believe this is Anderson's first "straight" adaptation. Whereas There Will Be Blood used a large section of Oil! as a foundation for a fairly original screenplay, this picture sounds like a faithful interpretation of its source. So you'd have to account for Pynchon's distinct personality and style, and what you describe doesn't seem far from the structure and tone of the book.

Posted: **Tue Dec 09, 2014 8:58 pm**

hearthesilence wrote:
phantomforce wrote:The film is just a collection of random scenes that very loosely weave in and out together like a sort of haze noir, which is fine, but the movie just doesn't know whether it wants to be serious, absurd, comedic, silly or just dumb.
Do you read (or like) Pynchon's work? I believe this is Anderson's first "straight" adaptation. Whereas There Will Be Blood used a large section of Oil! as a foundation for a fairly original screenplay, this picture sounds like a faithful interpretation of its source. So you'd have to account for Pynchon's distinct personality and style, and what you describe doesn't seem far from the structure and tone of the book.

And thank goodness Anderson didn't try to do a "straight" adaptation of Oil.

Posted: **Tue Dec 09, 2014 10:34 pm**

Have to admit, I have not actually read Pynchon's work and before Inherent Vice had even been announced I knew little to nothing of him (I'm a terrible person). If what I wrote sounds like the tone of his work then PTA has succeeded and it makes me wonder how an adaptation like this had even been greenlit. I definitely respect what PTA has achieved even if I don't think it's very interesting on first and third viewings, other than the fun I can only imagine the cast and crew had creating the characters and their surroundings, and admire that he stuck to the source material. Still it would have been easier for the viewer if he had simply given us another TWBB or Master with pretty pictures and less interweaving narration and rambling dialogue.

Posted: **Tue Dec 09, 2014 10:40 pm**

phantomforce wrote:If what I wrote sounds like the tone of his work then PTA has succeeded and it makes me wonder how an adaptation like this had even been greenlit.

PTA succeeding with this film should have nothing to do with how faithful an adaptation of the book the film is or how well it captures the book's tone. If the film is a failure, you can't really put that on Pynchon either.

Posted: **Tue Dec 09, 2014 10:40 pm**

Criticism, ladies and gentlemen!

Posted: **Tue Dec 09, 2014 10:42 pm**

I haven't seen the film or read the book but I also have opinions

Posted: **Tue Dec 09, 2014 11:02 pm**

swo17 wrote:
phantomforce wrote:If what I wrote sounds like the tone of his work then PTA has succeeded and it makes me wonder how an adaptation like this had even been greenlit.
PTA succeeding with this film should have nothing to do with how faithful an adaptation of the book the film is or how well it captures the book's tone. If the film is a failure, you can't really put that on Pynchon either.

Succeeding by what and whose standards? Clearly this is going to be another divisive film. I don't think Anderson thinks in terms of success and failure and that's why he takes on projects like he has in recent years. I am surprised that Warner was behind this and let the final cut through.

Posted: **Tue Dec 09, 2014 11:43 pm**

FrauBlucher wrote:Succeeding by what and whose standards? Clearly this is going to be another divisive film. I don't think Anderson thinks in terms of success and failure and that's why he takes on projects like he has in recent years. I am surprised that Warner was behind this and let the final cut through.

Did Anderson have final cut on this? Pretty sure he did on The Master...

Posted: **Wed Dec 10, 2014 12:56 am**

My comment about PTA Succeeding has nothing to do with the film being successful in any way shape or form, rather PTA succeeded in capturing the tone of the book - A random, hazy, convoluted noir, where characters drop in and out and you don't quite understand where and how Doc fits into the whole thing.

Posted: **Wed Dec 10, 2014 4:38 am**

Just saw this at MoMA, and there were a significant number of walkouts. This was definitely a disappointment, probably my biggest of the year. So much it is just flat out dull. There are a handful of moments that I really enjoyed, but they're scattered across a 150 minute film.

Other qualities I liked: the look, except for some handheld movement that looks like it was manufactured in post, the general look is spot on authentic, you could easily mistake this for a movie shot in 1970 or the early '70s. The entire prologue felt like something out of Arthur Penn's Night Moves. Acting was incredibly fine, Phoenix is excellent, Brolin was very enjoyable, Malone and Del Toro's brief roles were spot on and Martin Short was also ridiculously good in his brief role. This is kind of a throwback to the ensembles Anderson used to make, the characters have a life to them that's electric, hysterical and occasionally raw, qualities that weren't lost so much as repurposed in his last two films. (Here, in a jokier context, they're able to let loose more.) I feel funny saying that because so much of the movie itself did not feel that way at all, especially after the first third - at some point it seemed to deflate and it became this wildly uneven thing.

Posted: **Thu Dec 11, 2014 10:56 pm**

A fair share of glowing reviews, but so far, none of them are convincing - they generally praise it as a stoner hippie film. I'd like to hear something more substantial, I'm willing to give it another chance, but I'm not interested if it's meant to be an artier Cheech & Chong flick. (Not saying it is, but that's the impression I get from some of its less insightful fans.)

Posted: **Thu Dec 11, 2014 11:02 pm**

Empire caught up with Anderson at the Venice Film Festival (where The Master is showing), and the filmmaker confirmed he’s still working on a screen adaptation of Pynchon’s stoner detective-mystery – describing it "like a Cheech and Chong movie. [It's] just gonna be great and, hopefully, fun."

Posted: **Thu Dec 11, 2014 11:05 pm**

Aw, shit….

[I don't mean that as a joke, I'm just not into Cheech & Chong]

Posted: **Thu Dec 11, 2014 11:20 pm**

Comparing it to Cheech and Chong rather than Lebowski or the Long Goodbye def makes me more interested, at least...

Posted: **Thu Dec 11, 2014 11:40 pm**

Yeah, especially in that first film that punk rock chicano aesthetic was brilliant and a lot wittier than people give it credit. Also just plain hilarious.

Posted: **Fri Dec 12, 2014 12:04 am**

All right, if I had to make the case for this, I'd reference The Cineaste’s Guide to Watching Movies While Stoned, which was written by one of its biggest admirers, Jim Hoberman.

This is probably key:

Filtered through a haze of grass, that which was simple is now complex, while that which was complex becomes unintelligible, and who really cares?

This is kind of an apt description of the film (and so many of its admirers seem to echo that same sentiment, "who really cares [if it makes any sense]?"), so if the film is a success, it's because it mimics (as best as one can) the effect of marijuana while watching a movie without the actual indulgence of it.

Posted: **Fri Dec 12, 2014 7:26 am**

Caught it tonight in SF... PTA himself introduced it, he may have done a Q&A after but I kind of hate those.

I'm a big Pynchon fan and I've read the book (which I think is his worst) and found the movie disappointingly mediocre. The sound is horrible, for the first 10 minutes I was straining to try and pick out the words, it doesn't help that Joaquin mumbles everything. In the middle section the movie is at its best, with the multiple different intertwined threads opening up and a rapid pace of fun new characters marching through - the diagram Sportello draws at one point mirrors one I drew while reading the book. Then in the last part of the film, around the Adrian Prussia section onwards, it gets real draggy and slow and the scenes are just endless, it's crying out for tighter editing.

The whole thing just felt a lot more lifeless and less zany than what I would have liked, and the incoherent dialogue is maddening - and not in a fun "oh the dialogue doesn't really matter, don't worry about it way". The film just sort of limped around. Writing "paranoia" down in a notepad is not the same thing as a real paranoid atmosphere.

The best part was the Rudy Blatnoyd (Martin Short) sequence. I wish more of the film achieved that feeling of druggy and zippy and off-the-wall.

Posted: **Fri Dec 12, 2014 11:42 am**

Can we start a whole separate thread for who Pynchon in the movie is? I'm going to guess it's

Spoiler

the character Burke Stodger was talking to in the film. The mustache he had is exactly the way Salman Rashdie describe Pynchon.

Posted: **Fri Dec 12, 2014 12:42 pm**

Do not start another thread

Posted: **Fri Dec 12, 2014 1:29 pm**

Wow, horrified to hear that there's still an issue with the sound mix.

Posted: **Fri Dec 12, 2014 9:28 pm**

Kinda bummed to read people are lukewarm on this. I saw it on Monday at BAM and basically loved it from frame 1. Full disclosure, I've never read the novel or any Pynchon so I don't know if that has anything to do with it. It's PTA's most "un showy" film in a lot of ways. It's a hangout movie, it's his Rio Bravo. There a few soft lines but no problems with the sound mix at BAM. They also showed it on 35, and it looked absolutely gorgeous.

Posted: **Sat Dec 13, 2014 4:09 am**

Interesting. I had trouble making out the dialogue in the opening scene as well; I thought it was a problem on my end (I often have trouble distinguishing words for some reason, I have no idea why).

evilfred wrote:The best part was the Rudy Blatnoyd (Martin Short) sequence. I wish more of the film achieved that feeling of druggy and zippy and off-the-wall.

Everyone who I saw the film with, myself included, thought this was the best part of the film. Short should have been reworked into the rest of the film based on this scene alone.

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