Licorice Pizza

Licorice Pizza (2021)

Written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson

Stars: Alana Haim, Cooper Hoffman, Sean Penn and Bradley Cooper

Saying this off the bat, I hate the title. I do. I really do. What the fuck does licorice pizza mean? Whatever. This is the last Best Picture nominee that I needed to see. I like the movie, but I think the movie has some problems.

The dynamic between Gary (Hoffman) and Alana (Haim) was good. I was getting a little iffy with it because their a ten year age difference between the two. I didn't want an underage romance. The two leads are friends, but I have no idea why they are so jealous of each other when they are with other people.

My biggest problems of the movie were the cameos of Sean Penn and Bradley Cooper. They dragged the movie down. I was getting pissed off with them. I wanted them to go away. The third act fell apart for me. It dragged on. I was getting frustrated. There was also a problematic scene with an Asian character in this movie. I physically winced.

Rating: 7.5/10

The Master

The Master (2012)

Written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson

Stars: Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, Laura Dern, Ambyr Childers, Jesse Plemons, Rami Malek, Kevin J. O'Connor and Madisen Beaty

I have a sketchy track record with PT Anderson movies. I generally liked his movies. There are some that I out right hate like Magnolia. The Master has divided audiences since it was released last month. It divided my audiences when I saw it. The movie needs to marinate after you see it to make your judgment.

Freddie Quell (Phoenix) is an alcoholic former Navy seaman that is struggling to adjust to civilian life after WWII. He bounces from job to job until he stowaway on a boat that belongs to Lancaster Dodd (Hoffman). The Dodd family is celebrating the marriage of the daughter, Elizabeth (Childers) and Clark (Malek). Freddie is being introduced to the world of The Master as Dodd calls himself. He is an author of the Cause that is a form of hypnosis that inducing past live regressions. The Master wants to spread his message and make Freddie his guinea pig.

I saw the film yesterday and at first I loved most of the movie, but felt dissatisfied with the ending. It was very abrupt. I was left hanging. Now, I feel that the acting was far superior that the movie as a whole. I thoroughly enjoyed PSH's performance as the charismatic Dodd who tries to tame the unpredictable, hotheaded Freddie who acts like a bratty ten year old.

After Phoenix's "hiatus" from acting, I was concerned about what he will do here. I was mixed with him. He was brilliant in certain moments, but sometimes he would be going off the rails and lose me. I was looking at him and his choices. I asked myself, is he a hunchback? Does he have Bell's palsy? I could barely understand what he was saying a good portion of the time.

This movie is described as the Scientology movie. I don't believe that it is. I deals with the genesis of a religion. People thought that Christianity was a cult. The same can be said of Mormonism, Kabblah, etc. As I said in my Religulous review, I am not a big fan of organized religion. The Master's way of entering your mind can be on the lines of brainwashing. The people are free to believe what they will.

There were only five people in the theater I was in. A pair of older ladies left after Dodd's wife, Peggy (Adams) jerked Dodd off in the bathroom. The bangled lady left when Dodd was spreading his message about the evolution of The Cause. The Asian guy left two minutes before the movie ended. I could tell that this movie is not everyones cup of tea. I found myself bored with the movie. I expected a little more with it. I was slightly disappointed with the film overall.

My Rating

There Will Be Blood

There Will Be Blood (2007)

Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson

Screenplay by Paul Thomas Anderson

Based on the novel, "Oil!" by Upton Sinclair

Currently #176 of the Top 250 Films of All Time on IMDb (as of this posting)

Stars: Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano, Dillon Freasier, Ciarán Hinds, Sydney McCallister, David Willis, Kevin J. O'Connor, David Warshofsky, Hans Howes and Russell Harvard

One of the greatest omissions of all time is that I have never seen P.T. Anderson's epic, There Will Be Blood. Okay, backpedaling. I saw maybe the first ten minutes of the movie and stopped, because the silence. After seeing and loving 127 Hours, it had long silences. I thought it was high time that I see this movie again. It was nominated for eight Oscars and won two for Best Cinematography and Best Actor for Daniel Day-Lewis. I enjoyed the movie, but it's not flawless.

During the height of the Gold Rush and Oil Boom in the turn of 20th century, Daniel Plainview (Day-Lewis) hit the big time by striking oil. He turns into a oil mogul that is buying up land to build oil derricks to pump out the oil. One day, Daniel is approached by a boy, Paul Sunday (Dano) about a possible place where oil is found near the family ranch. Daniel goes to where the oil source might be and tries to buy the land from the father, Abel (Willis) with a stipend to donate a large sum of money to church where son, Eli (Dano) is a minister at.

Sometime when I movie comes around, I would think that it is clear Oscar bait. I have that perception about a lot of movies. This movie feels like that to me. You have Day-Lewis who gives a grandiose performance. Has he ever given a bad performance? If you name one, I will eat crow. I understood why Plainview did some of the things that he did. He did some monstrous things, because I understood the motivations behind them. It was not like that in Match Point where similar actions happened. Daniel did deserve his Oscar.

The movie feels very epic in scope, but I felt that the movie was too long. One strike against the movie would be the pacing. There are some superfluous scenes that needed to be cut out.

The another strike against the film is Paul Dano. I have to say that I didn't understand why P.T. Anderson decided to make Dano play Paul and Eli where you see that Daniel was not surprised to see Eli looked like Paul. Paul was never mentioned again until the end of the movie. Dano was not in the same league as Lewis. It was a David vs Goliath situation and Goliath bitch slapped David. Dano was wooden in the movie. I didn't understand he let the person that was going to be Eli, Kel O'Neill go. I thought it was a big mistake.

My Rating