'Licorice Pizza' = Best Movie of the Year
#154: "Licorice Pizza," "The Power of the Dog," "Hard Eight," "The Wind Rises"
Edition 154:
Hey movie lovers!
As always, you can find a podcast version of this newsletter on Apple or Spotify. Thank you so much for listening and spreading the word!
In this week’s newsletter: A triumphant movie musical is coming to Netflix, directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda. As if that’s not enough, we’ve also got one of the Best Picture front runners on tap in Belfast, and a cheesy Netflix rom-com to go with your usual streaming suggestions. In this week’s “Trailer Watch,” we’ve got an official trailer for Adam McKay’s star-studded climate change thriller Don’t Look Up.
Licorice Pizza
(Theaters)
My anticipation for Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest project has been building since at least last August, when I coincidentally stumbled upon the filming of Bradley Cooper’s gas station scene in the movie, which was then regrettably titled “Soggy Bottom.”
After rapturous initial reviews, the hype peaked for me last week when I showed up at one of the only two theaters in the country currently screening this movie — the Westwood Regency Theater (movie fans might know it as the theater in Once Upon a Time in…Hollywood where Margot Robbie’s Sharon Tate goes to watch herself). There the movie is playing to nearly sold out shows every night full of college students from nearby UCLA, people dressed in 70s-style clothes, and otherwise those who would’ve frequented the chain of record stores in 1970s LA which give the movie its name. It was an electric atmosphere, a reminder of the kind of special event going to the movies can still be. As the lights dimmed my hands were literally shaking with excitement.
The movie did not disappoint, quickly becoming my favorite movie of 2021 and cementing its place as a movie I’ll probably watch another 30-50 times in my life.
In truth, each PTA movie should be considered event viewing. To watch Licorice Pizza is to be reminded how ridiculously good Anderson is at making movies, as if we needed reminding after Boogie Nights, There Will Be Blood, The Master, and his other modern classics.
Those movies were ambitious to the highest order, trying (and often succeeding) to reveal fundamental truths about power, greed, America, fathers and sons, fame and/or human nature. They all have a few moments of levity (“I drink YOUR milkshake!”), but watching Daniel Plainview bash his rival’s skull in with a bowling pin isn’t exactly what I’d call a barrel of laughs.
Licorice Pizza has what PTA called "a lighter touch,” in the great hangout movie tradition of Richard Linklater (Dazed and Confused, Before Sunrise), or movies like American Graffiti, Swingers or The Big Lebowski, it’s vibes over story and themes all day. I just listed a couple of my all-time favorite movies, so perhaps I was an easy mark for a movie with a world I want to climb inside the screen and hang out in for a while.
The movie centers around a 15-year-old child actor and serial entrepreneur, who falls hard for and gives purpose to a 25-year-old girl looking for any kind of direction for her life. It’s a romantic comedy, insomuch as its funny and the story is nominally about these two falling in and out and in and out of love with each other as their lives are inextricably linked.
The story is episodic, presenting more a collage of moments than a tightly wound A to B plot. It’s about a group of kids who are restless and unsupervised, tilting on a razor’s edge between decisions with serious consequences and the kind of frivolous fun that results in lifetime memories.
It works so well because Anderson, who grew up in the very same San Fernando Valley during the 1970s, has built a world that feels both incredibly specific and real-to-the-touch while also capturing that magical, fame-just-out-of-reach quality specific to Los Angeles.
Everything about the movie is instantly iconic, from the costumes and locations to the lines and unforgettable moments to the needle drop soundtrack to the tune of David Bowie, Paul McCartney and Wings, The Doors and Sonny & Cher.
Our protagonists are both played by first time actors — Cooper Hoffman is the son of the late great Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and Alana Haim is 1/3rd of the sister musical group Haim — presented with intentional naturalism. Most noticeably, they don’t wear any makeup (a small thing until you realize how rare that is in any movie). Their dialogue isn’t too precise or articulate. They’re just crazy kids trying to figure out this thing called life.
Swirling around them is a maelstrom of insanity. At various points there are appearances from Sean Penn as an alcoholic movie star, Bradley Cooper as a unhinged womanizer (the same character as Warren Beaty in Shampoo, for those who know), Bennie Safdie (1/2 of the brothers who directed Good Time and Uncut Gems) as a LA mayoral candidate, Steven Spielberg’s daughters, Leo DiCaprio’s father, the other two Haim sisters AND their mother and father!
Each “episode” is a masterclass in moviemaking. If a good director is like the best player at your neighborhood pickup game, and a great director is like a player scrapping to make an NBA roster, Paul Thomas Anderson at the peak of his powers is like Lebron James. There’s a level of craft that goes beyond competent or effective and begins to inject the movie with a kind of magic electricity only found in the rarest of cases. The jokes are sharper, the drama more pulse-pounding, and the emotional journeys of our characters amplified to levels that can only be described as “thrilling” in the most literal sense of the word.
My mark for the best movies of the past few years since I’ve been seriously tracking these things is whether I want to immediate rewatch a movie after seeing it the first time, and in this case six days after my first viewing I travelled back to Westwood and saw this movie a second time. It was just as good if not better.
We live in a time where hundreds and hundreds of movies are being released each year, more than ever before, and content tends to rush at us like a giant wave, crash against us all at the same time, and then slowly slink away into obscurity.
So it’s really special to find a movie that you know will enter the lexicon of movies to be spoken about for years if not decades to come.
When Licorice Pizza releases wide on Christmas day, join that conversation by seeking it out and rediscovering what movies are capable of.
Something New
The Power of the Dog (Netflix): Whether you see Netflix as a patron of the dying art of mid-budget adult dramas or as an egotistical maniac striving after its first Best Picture crown, one cannot deny the company’s commitment to giving world class filmmakers (Scorsese, Fincher, Cuaron etc.) ample budgets for their passion projects. The latest beneficiary is Jane Campion, a filmmaker adored by critics and industry players who holds close to zero commercial recognition (her biggest hit, The Piano, grossed just $40 million worldwide).
Her movies, this one included, can be damned by the feint praise offered by my friend Daniel this week when he said, “it seemed like a movie people at movie festivals would love.”
The level of craft is simply undeniable, and there’s never a doubt that every majestic landscape of 1920s Montana and framing of the cattle ranchers there played by Benedict Cumberbatch and Jesse Plemons (flanked by settlers Kirsten Dunst and Kodi Smit-McPhee) is precisely constructed. But this story of masculine identity is backloaded into the final thirty minutes of run time, and it’s likely that on a streaming platform like Netflix many less inclined viewers will tap out during the extremely patient setup.
Those that stick around will be dazzled by one of the strongest and most provocative movie endings of 2021, and truly overwhelmed by the acting performance of Cumberbatch. The acting categories of the Oscars are undergoing a kind of crisis at the moment, dominated by portrayals of real life figures because, in my theory, most people just have no idea what constitutes good acting unless they have a control group (i.e. real life person) to judge it up against. For that reason, Cumberbatch’s wonderfully modulated performance as a repressed cowboy deserves to be championed. And this movie deserves to be appreciated, perhaps even loved, if for a night you’re willing to watch it as if you’re at a film festival. (I find it very telling that my friend Daniel, in such a crowded movie landscape, obliged to revisit this movie a second time.)
Something Old
Hard Eight (1996, Amazon Prime): If Licorice Pizza spurs in you a deep dive into the Paul Thomas Anderson filmography, why not start from the very beginning. PTA is one of those select filmmakers whose style and quality was undeniable immediately in this debut feature, about an up-and-coming gambler (John C. Reilly) mentored by a seasoned pro (Phillip Baker Hall) who gets sidetracked by his attraction to a cocktail waitress (Gwyneth Paltrow), with appearances from Samuel L. Jackson and Phillip Seymour Hoffman.
Unlike some of PTA’s later work, this movie attempts to make no grand statements about human nature or American society, instead plotting a compelling caper with fascinating if unlikable characters. As with his all his movies, the gap between directorial skill and directorial mastery is on display as he just knows how to maximize drama in every scene construction.
Something to Stream
The Wind Rises (HBO Max): I recently visited the newly opened Academy Museum in Los Angeles, a five-floor temple to the art of moviemaking. One of the opening exhibits showcases the work and career of Hayao Miyazaki, known someone inadequately as the “Japanese Disney” because of his prolific and beloved work as a movie animator. American audiences — or at least white audiences like myself — woefully ignore these masterworks, which can now all be seen on HBO Max thanks to the acquisition of Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli archive.
But I did one better. Part of the Academy Museum complex is a 1,000-seat theater decked out with state of the art projection and sound technology. It’s perhaps the nicest movie theater I’ve ever been in, and I predict it will be the future host of the Academy Awards. There I watched The Wind Rises, which absolutely blew me away in every respect of production and storytelling. It was easily my favorite of the three Miyazaki movies I’ve seen.
This movie tells the story of an aircraft designer in the years leading up to World War II, itself a loving homage to Miyazaki’s own father. But it’s so much more than the story of some guy who designed the Zero fighter plane. It’s a loving portrait of Japanese culture, a tear-jerking romance, and a movie about pursuing big dreams. It was legitimately one of my favorite movies that I’ve seen in all of 2021, an absolute masterpiece. I give it the highest possible recommendation.
Trailer Watch: National Champions
On paper I should be the easiest mark for this star-studded movie about paying college athletes. But after this trailer I’m concerned it will be more essay than movie, and even if it’s an essay that many people not tuned into the sports world need to hear, fictional narratives are generally not the right place for complex arguments. The inevitable oversimplification here will undoubtedly dominate conversation around the movie, which may undermine its quality.
Without a doubt, in my little corner of the internet, this movie dropping on Netflix is going to be extremely buzzy when it eventually drops. I can’t wait.