Inherent Vice (New Paul Thomas Anderson)

[Paisley]

I think I loved it.

In spite of it probably being PTA's most modest film from a directorial point of view, it looks amazing. He's nailed his aim of trying to replicate the look of a faded postcard/yellowing paperback; he somehow made me feel as heat-damaged as the film-stock he supposedly used to shoot parts of it, like half waking-up under the midday sun in a field during a festival. It's woozy as fuck. I don't think I've ever noticed the lighting in a film before. And that scene in the rain... Man, I'm gonna have to go in again.

Edit: Seems my local Vue has ditched it after one week. Seeing it again's gonna involve a lot of travelling. I guess that'll give me more time to reflect on my own ex old lady. She's totally the type to get involved with a property magnate...

[Paisley]

One scene I wasn't so taken with first time around was

Spoiler alert

the Adrian Prussia/Puck Beaverton(?) "showdown." I didn't think it was necessary or especially interesting. I felt the same way when I read the book, and was hoping PTA would jettison it for something from his own pen

[close]

Joanna Newsom's narration though, I could listen to that all day.

[Sam]

I fucking loved it. Woozy, mełancholic, gorgeous. Just like The Master, there's a meticulous level of detail going on, every single choice made deliberately and lovingly. You can nestle into that layer and get the intellectual high, or just let the film's incredible atmospherics do their magic. The direction was the least flashy of his oeuvre and yet the most mature and restrained, as PTA was saying in the above interview.

The brittle, erratic, absurd feel of his earlier films was just the right sharpness through the haze.

The film did not feel too long at all, in fact like many good films it transcended that and surrendering to the flow meant I felt I could have been watching for ten minutes or ten hours.

Anyway, not for everyone but it just clicked with me within seconds and then didn't put a foot wrong throughout. Proper, nutritional, robust cinema.

[Nobody Soup]

nice to look at, some cool scenes and for the most part well done.

apart from that I found it a bit meh, I didn't really think much of Phoenix in this, he was ok but nothing more and Brolin was the same. if you're going to do a real off-beat narrative then at times you need your characters to drag the audience through. PTA got that from his actors in the master and in there will be blood but it was lacking here, Doc's feelings for Sashta were obviously a huge motivating factor but it never really felt that they were realistic enough characters to have a past or future that I should care about. Joanna Newsom narrating was really good though.

[Sam]

I though Phoenix was better than you give him credit for. He managed to exude a sweetness, a lovable doofus vibe which was genuine and worked well with the story. Usually stoners are tedious, both in real life and on film, but he was mesmerising and compelling.

Phoenix often plays emotionally complex vulnerable people, but in different ways. The Master saw him acting paranoid, unhinged, aggressive, broken; in IV it's a mellower paranoia, and he's vulnerable in a much less abrasive way.

It's a great performance, but I can see that if you have problems with the film in general that's going to include issues with the acting because it's such an integral part of the film.

Having stayed in my mind a while, I still think it's a great film. PTA's films are getting more elliptical and less audience friendly but the craft is so good, that at middle age he's already in that 'late style' phase, after moving on from the impetuous virtuosity of youthful creativity. It's worth remembering he spoke keenly of the experimentalism of To the Wonder, for instance.

[Paisley]

I miss this film. I yearn. Do you ever yearn? I don't nearly enough.

[Bored of Canada]

I miss this film. I yearn. Do you ever yearn? I don't nearly enough.

I yearn.
The emotional pangs of mid March release down under.

[Vitalstatistix]

Wowzers. Amazing film. Like a really melancholic, deranged Big Lebowski.

It's left me in a state of wonderment for a few days now.


SPOILERS BELOW


So Bigfoot was in a gay relationship with his partner before he died? And who killed him exactly? Was there a reason why he ate all that weed? I got seriously lost plot wise, but I agree with those who've said it doesn't really matter. I am most intrigued by these Bigfoot questions though. Brolin was great.

That scene between Doc and Shasta (toward the end) was something to behold. So painful and nuanced. Incredible cinema.

[Sam]

Wowzers. Amazing film. Like a really melancholic, deranged Big Lebowski.

It's left me in a state of wonderment for a few days now.


SPOILERS BELOW


So Bigfoot was in a gay relationship with his partner before he died? And who killed him exactly? Was there a reason why he ate all that weed? I got seriously lost plot wise, but I agree with those who've said it doesn't really matter. I am most intrigued by these Bigfoot questions though. Brolin was great.

That scene between Doc and Shasta (toward the end) was something to behold. So painful and nuanced. Incredible cinema.

Glad you liked it as much as I did; I don't understand how this got mixed reviews really as it's such a wonderful film. The weed eating scene was just him having a bit of a breakdown and regressing. I think we were led to believe earlier that he's previously had more of a beachbum/druggie existence with Sportello but then went down the path of stait-laced jingoistic cop. There was also that bleak/funny scene of his broken relationship with his wife which was another thing pushing him over the edge. Who killed his partner may have been mentioned but I don't think it's important.

PTA has always had erratic moments in his films, for example the William H Macy gun scene in Boogie Nights, but both those scenes you mentioned were tragic and nuanced as well being purposefully absurd. There's a lot of depth and subtlety to what PTA does. I heard he's not got a new project lined up yet but it will be interesting to see where he goes from here. He hasn't made a bad or even average film yet, he's already one of the all time great directors and he could have another dozen films in him.

[paolozzi]

Can anyone help me understand the boom mic scenes?

[zomgmouse]

I watched this yesterday on 70mm in a packed auditorium, which are extraneous details but whatever. I have to say[nb]I have to otherwise trained terrorist crocodiles are going to come to my house and blow my brains out, all four of them (brains and crocodiles), with a pistol the size of your face.[/nb] I enjoyed it. So here goes: I enjoyed it. In terms of a Pynchon adaptation, it did okay. Pynchon is too elusive and wacky and Inherent Vice is written in a haze of smoke, and I don't feel the film quite matched it tonally. Where it came close was in the funny scenes, of which there were plenty. The funny scenes worked - to my surprise and delight - and there were not enough of them. In fact, the scenes played straight, mostly the attempts at romance or sentimentality or introspection, are what I disliked the most about the film. Unfortunately those exact qualities were to be found in the narration, a narration that seemed unnecessary but carried on from the start to the end and just killed the vibe whenever it was there. I'm not saying there's not a narration that could have work but the one that the film had didn't. Apart from that, Del Toro as the maritime lawyer was grossly underused, and I'm a bit disappointed they cut out a few of my favourite details from the book, though I guess in retrospect it was understandable given you're bound to cut stuff from books when adapting them. Anyway, these are:

Spoiler alert

a) Denis' name being pronounced to rhyme with penis (it was pronounced that way in the film but wasn't explained like it was in the book), b) the theory that Jesus was a surfer and his cross was a surfboard, and c) The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band's cover of "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)"

[close]

.
I still enjoyed it, though.

As an aside, there was an infuriatingly talkative couple sat behind me in the cinema - they didn't talk often but when they did it was to explain or react to what was going on on-screen. For example, when

Spoiler alert

Puck's necklace is shown, the lady said, "He's got the same necklace!"

[close]

, or when

Spoiler alert

Shasta turned up naked

[close]

she exclaimed, "Oh my!" and then shortly afterwards when

Spoiler alert

Shasta mentioned "Charlie" she said "She means Manson"

[close]

. When Doc'd just beaten Puck to a pulp and shot Adrian, she kept going, "Jesus!". But my favourite was towards the end when

Spoiler alert

Bigfoot comes barging into Doc's lodgings and wolfs down a bowlful of pot, she went, "What's he eating??"

[close]

. Really annoying during the film but I do chuckle recalling it.

[East of Eden]

Thought the same about Del Toro, if PTA could've somehow removed the Denis character and used Del Toro instead, I would've been very happy, thought the guy who played Denis was trying to ruin the film.

I'll be honest, I absolutely loved it, the melancholy tone, the music, the humour, Phoenix's performance, but I really can't empathise with anyone calling it incoherent, it made far more than enough sense on my first viewing and flowed well enough never to become frustrating in a bad way. Been listening to the soundtrack constantly, I love that PTA never shies away or looks down on the importance of music in a film.

[stunted]

The penis gags were very lame.

[checkoutgirl]

I think I want to see this so can someone sum up the consensus of the thread so far please? Is Jockqueen Feenix in it?

[Bored of Canada]

If PTA had to make a PG cut of this film, he'd cut out 90% of the shit attempts at humour and be left with the 10% of solid physical comedy and clever wry humour.

I'm all for crude jokes but the ones in this were just woeful, delivered without wit or surprise. People saying off colour things in unassuming ways is okay but you need more than that. Boogie Nights falls into the same trap in a lot of ways but it's still much funnier and feels much fresher and has the right energy for the most part despite it's tone deaf shifts

I wasn't confused by the film. I understood the plot and the themes were clear because they just tell them to you by theme explanation voice over lady.

I wasn't engaged and I've been trying to figure out exactly why. I think the characters never make any interesting decisions. They just amble through the film and yes it's deliberate in that a lot of it is about a sense of inevitability and futility but if I'm not engaged to start connecting and processing the themes than I think he's unsuccessful in getting the story across.

I feel it doesn't use a lot of the interesting tools of cinema to get it's story and themes across. It feels like a very faithful adaptation of a book. And I'm sure I would really enjoy the book for all the same reasons I wouldn't like it as a film.