Green Acres, Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction

Film: One Battle After Another
Format: Streaming video from HBOMax on Fire!

We need a regular reminder that the Oscars are political and rarely correct. I say this because Paul Thomas Anderson is almost certainly going to win Best Director on Sunday and One Battle After Another seems likely to take Best Picture. The reason this is upsetting is that this is clearly not the best movie of this year and not the best directorial performance. However, Paul Thomas Anderson is a top director and much like the year that Christopher Nolan won for Oppenheimer, people have decided that it’s Anderson’s year.

That’s frustrating. Paul Thomas Anderson, to be fair, does have 14 nominations and no wins, so I understand the sentiment that he is due for a win. The problem is that One Battle After Another, while a fine movie, is not anything close to Anderson’s best work. This feels like Pacino winning an Oscar for Scent of a Woman or Paul Newman finally winning for The Color of Money. But, that’s where we are, and in a couple of days, it’s likely that that’s where we’ll remain.

With Anchovies

Films: Licorice Pizza
Format: Blu-ray from DeKalb Public Library on rockin’ flatscreen.

I looked forward to Licorice Pizza for some time, so when I saw it on the shelf at the local library, I snatched it up. I expected a great deal from this movie and the reviews would seem to back up that expectation. Four stars is by far the most popular review on Letterboxd, and the IMDb average rating is above 7 out of 10. Well, I’ve watched Licorice Pizza now, and I genuinely wonder what everyone sees in it. I don’t seek out movies where I disagree with almost everyone else. Sometimes, though, it just happens.

I’m probably not going to do a significant rundown of the plot of this movie because there really isn’t a great deal of plot. It’s very similar to a character study, except that it’s not a character study for one person but a relationship. A great deal happens in Licorice Pizza, but it all feels episodic. We’re looking at a series of unrelated events over the course of a year or so in the life and relationship of a couple of people.

Project Runway

Film: Phantom Thread
Format: Blu-Ray from DeKalb Public Library on rockin’ flatscreen.

With Phantom Thread, there is really a single story to be told. Star of the film and three-time Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis went on record as saying that this would be his last film and that he will be retiring from acting. That is reason enough to watch the film. Day-Lewis is, I think I can say without much fear of contradiction, the most accomplished male actor of his generation. I have no idea who will step up to replace him, but for the last 30 years or so—since his break-out performance in My Left Foot (but really since a few years before that), Day-Lewis has always been worth watching. And yet despite this, I can’t say that I was really excited about this despite being a one-time fan of Project Runway and a constant booster of the wonderful Tim Gunn.

Phantom Thread is something of a love triangle, kind of. It’s a little more complicated than that, really. Reynolds Woodcock (Day-Lewis) is a respected dress designer in London about a decade after World War II. His business is thriving for his upscale clients and at least some of this comes from the constant assistance of his sister, Cyril (Lesley Manville, who was nominated in a supporting role). It’s soon evident that Reynolds has something like a recurrent series of infatuations with women; early in the film, we see him more or less get rid of one live-in girlfriend when she no longer inspires him. Shortly after this, he meets Alma (Vicky Krieps), a waitress. She becomes his new infatuation and his new favorite dress-up doll. Soon enough, Alma has moved into Woodcock House and functions as muse and model for Reynolds.

Hippie Hippie Shakedown

Film: Inherent Vice
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on rockin’ flatscreen.

I knew that Inherent Vice was going to be trouble. I’ve read a little Thomas Pynchon and he’s not an easy author to understand. I knew there would be shades of Naked Lunch here since Pynchon is pretty close to unadaptable. Inherent Vice at least has something like a plot, but it goes in a million directions at once. Since all of the characters are heavily drug fueled, there’s a sense of altered reality throughout. It’s impossible to really know what is going on and what might simply be paranoia. That’s a part all a part of Pynchon. Some of the paranoia is justified and some of it is just the drugs.

I’m not going to attempt much of a plot summary because I don’t know if I could come close to doing it justice. At its heart, Inherent Vice is a film noir told from the perspective of Larry “Doc” Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix), a pot-soaked private investigator given a trio of interlocked and intertwined cases. The first comes from Shasta (Katherine Waterston), Doc’s ex-girlfriend. Her boyfriend Mickey Wolfmann (Eric Roberts) is in trouble. Specifically, Wolfmann’s wife and her boyfriend want to have him committed so they can take his wealth created from housing developments.

The Master

Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on laptop.

I’ve been told that The Master is at least in part based on the Church of Scientology. Having now seen it, that interpretation makes a great deal of sense. Of course, the film is much more than that, bearing a certain similarity to a film like There Will Be Blood in some senses. Still, it’s hard to avoid the comparison between the film’s fictional pseudo-cult of The Cause and Scientology, and I can’t imagine that it’s not done with a certain gleeful intent.

That said, this is a difficult film for me to judge in many ways. It’s a difficult film to “enjoy” for what it is, but is simultaneously a film that it is impossible not to respect for what it sets out to do. It would be tempting, when tackling something like Scientology even obliquely to make the film an exposé of the methods of the cult, but that’s not what The Master does, at least not obviously. Instead, it follows the fictional movement of the film through someone who may or may not be an adherent and who has his own horde of demons to quell as he goes through life.

This is Hardcore

Film: Boogie Nights
Format: VHS from personal collection on big ol’ television.

The more I watch Paul Thomas Anderson’s films, the more I think he was raised on the work of Robert Altman. Like Altman, his films seem to hold too many characters to be contained within the story, Magnolia certainly had enough stars for three films, and the same is true of Boogie Nights Anderson seems to thrive in the ensemble cast atmosphere, and he also seems to use a lot of the same people over and over. About half of his cast from Boogie Nights shows up in Magnolia, for instance.

Boogie Nights is different in many ways, though, because in this film, all of the characters don’t have to come to one point of convergence, because they already know each other. In some ways, it feels like a film of a younger screenwriter/director, because there is a lot less to juggle here in terms of pacing and maintaining various stories. However, much of what Anderson does in his later work is first attempted in this one.

Eddie Adams (Mark Wahlberg) is a high school dropout who works at a nightclub owned by Maurice Rodriguez (Luis Guzman). One of the frequent guests of the nightclub is Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds), a pornographic filmmaker. Eddie has a couple of talents in which Jack is interested: he’s extremely well-endowed, and he’s capable of performing continuously. It isn’t long before Eddie has had a falling out with his mother, left home, and become Jack’s newest star, working under the stage name Dirk Diggler.

And we get to meet the rest of the cast of thousands here. Dirk’s frequent co-star is Reed Rothchild (John C. Reilly), and the stable of females includes Amber Waves (Julianne Moore), Rollergirl (Heather Graham, so named because she always wears roller skates), Becky Barnett (Nicole Ari Parker), and Jessie St. Vincent (Melora Walters). Also making an appearance here is Buck Swope (Don Cheadle), who tries and sometimes succeeds at a sort of cowboy/Western persona.

Working on the films with Jack are Little Bill (William H. Macy), who’s wife frequently has public sex with other men; The Colonel James (Robert Ridgely), who we discover later has a thing for child porn; Kurt (Ricky Jay), who works the camera, and Scotty (Phillip Seymour Hoffman), who is gay and has a massive crush on Dirk. All of these lives intertwine continually through the film, often tragically.

The story is really about the rise and fall of all of these characters, predominantly Dirk, although they all rise and fall as one throughout. Dirk starts his adult entertainment career on top, and has a number of years of essentially pure success, as do his fellow actors in Jack’s stable. But as time goes on, the industry changes, moving away from film and x-rated theaters and into videotape and home video productions made on the cheap with amateurs. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, is pretty much constantly coked to the gills, and so when everything goes to smash, it smashes hard.

The moment it goes to smash, in fact, is brilliantly choreographed. It happens at a New Year’s Eve party heralding 1980. We learn at this party that Buck unsuccessfully tries to reinvent himself. We learn that amateur performers and videotape will be the wave of the future. Scotty tries to kiss Dirk, which freaks Dirk out quite a bit. It’s also right at the stroke of midnight that Little Bill walks in on his wife one time too many, shoots her and her current sex partner, and then turns the gun on himself.

What follows is a straight crash into the gutter for almost everyone, and true to the sort of long and continual montage that Anderson likes, we see all of these characters hit bottom at the same time. Dirk coked up and kicked out of Jack’s films, resorts to essentially prostituting himself for cash, but is so messed up on various substances that he can’t perform and gets himself beaten for his troubles. Jack is forced to make no-budget videos, pimping out Rollergirl to random guys on the street, and when someone gets in the limo who remembers her from high school, things get ugly. Amber, thanks to her career in porn and past convictions, loses all visitation rights to her son. The Colonel James gets busted for child porn and thrown in prison. Only Buck walks out of his unscathed. Unable to secure a bank loan for his dream of opening a stereo store, he is the only survivor of a failed convenience store robbery, and walks off with the cash.

And then things really hit bottom. One of Reed’s friends (Thomas Jane) comes up with a plan to rip off a drug dealer named Rahad Jackson (Alfred Molina). He doesn’t tell Reed or Dirk that he’s actually planning to rob the guy completely, and everything goes to hell. This is the true bottom for Dirk and Reed. The film ends on something of a return to the beginning, with everyone a little older and a little wiser, and in some sense relieved to be where they started.

As with Magnolia, which I watched a couple of weeks ago, the performances here really help carry the film. These are great performances all the way around, with not a weak one in the bunch. Anderson also liberally spiced the film with actual adults stars, both current and former. Little Bill’s wife, for instance, is played by Nina Hartley and the judge at Amber’s custody hearing is Veronica Hart. It adds an odd touch of authenticity to the proceedings.

I like this film a lot. It’s ugly and prurient and the sex is rarely attractive, which is exactly how it should be. It is, after all, about an exploitative industry, and the film has that sort of ugly and raw feel to it. There’s a touch of the grindhouse here, and that only makes the film work even more. Boogie Nights is the film that put Paul Thomas Anderson on the map, and with reason. It speaks to his level of talent that his follow up films have lived up to this coming out party.

Why to watch Boogie Nights: It’s poignant and raw, funny and scary, brutal and great.
Why not to watch: Think of something that would give you an R-rating. It’s here, many times over.

Serendipity

Film: Magnolia
Format: DVD from NetFlix on big ol’ television.

I’d heard of Magnolia.

I’d heard of it, but I’m not sure I was entirely prepared for it. This film is overwhelming, and I mean that only positively, only as something that is true and not as something critical of what Paul Thomas Anderson created with this film. This film is relentless and unrelenting and doesn’t stop except for brief moments. And it’s three hours long.

I’m not going to attempt a plot summary here, because Magnolia is not about plot. It is instead about a series of characters whose lives all intertwine at a single point in time. It is about the power of coincidence and chance, the failure of people and their brutality to those who they love the most, abuse, and the failure of fathers to their children. As the movie spins around and around, jumping from character to character and story to story, it becomes gripping almost in spite of itself—these stories have no real obvious connection in general except in the ways that some of the characters are related. So rather than go point by point, it’s a better idea to give a sort of story through-line. Essentially, there are two twined stories here that meet at the end.

We have quiz show host Jimmy Gator (Philip Baker Hall), host of the longest running quiz show on television. The show pits three kids against three adults. Jimmy is dying of cancer that has metastasized into his bones. Jimmy’s daughter Claudia (Melora Walters) is a cocaine addict who may have possibly been molested by her father. In any event, she’s not on speaking terms with him, and won’t accept him into her apartment when he tries to tell her that he is dying.

Claudia’s apartment is investigated by Officer Jim Kurring (John C. Reilly). Kurring is a decent cop who doesn’t get a great deal of respect from other officers as we learn in an opening scene. Called to Claudia’s apartment on a call from neighbors, he decides that he likes her and would like to see her, not knowing about her drug issues (although it’s evident that he suspects).

Meanwhile, Donnie Smith (William H. Macy), a former champion on Jimmy Gator’s quiz show, is down on his luck. Fired from his job and destitute, he has put his entire being into the idea of getting braces in the hopes that it will help him land the male bartender with whom he is infatuated. But even here he is shot down and mocked by an effeminate barfly (Henry Gibson).

One of the current kid champions of the game show is Stanley (Jeremy Blackman), who is oppressed in many ways by his father (Michael Bowen). Now close to earning a small fortune on the show, Stanley is browbeaten by his father to keep performing because he needs the money. In the game that we see, Stanley, nervous and emotionally abused, pees himself right around the same time Jimmy Gator collapses on stage.

The other set of connected stories begins with former television producer Earl Partridge (Jason Robards), who is dying and bedridden. His wife Linda (Julianne Moore) steals his medication and has some of her own. She married the old man for his money, but has since decided that she truly loves him and wants to rewrite the will so that she gets nothing just to prove it.

The problem is that if she has the will declared invalid, everything goes to Earl’s son, Frank T.J. Mackey (Tom Cruise), a professional womanizer who has created a series of misogynist self-help guides and seminars teaching men how to essentially trick women into sex. Virtually disowned by his father and of no interest to the step-mother, Frank spends a good deal of the film being interviewed, lying about his past, and being called on his lies by a woman named Gwenovier (April Grace). Additionally, he is contacted by Earl’s live-in nurse Phil (Philip Seymour Hoffman) to be informed that the father he has essentially disowned is dying.

And all of this, assisted by a rain of frogs, comes together at the end.

It’s a lot to keep track of, and the film offers little or no warning when switching from one story to the next. As mentioned earlier, this film is relentless in showing us all of these characters at their most vulnerable moments. This culminates in an emotionally devastating scene of the characters, each in his or her turn, singing along with Aimee Mann’s “Wise Up.” Few scenes in movie history are this powerful or poignant, or as painful, or frankly as beautiful. If the rest of the film were terrible, it might be rescued by this scene.

What’s truly astounding here—more than these intertwined stories and the emotional intensity, that is—is the performances across the board. John C. Reilly, for instance, is an underrated dramatic actor, and proves it nowhere better than here. It’s also probably Tom Cruise’s best performance in his career, and that’s coming from someone who, in general, likes Tom Cruise as an actor. The same could be said of Julianne Moore, which is again, remarkable considering her career. There are also some great bit roles from actors I like quite a bit. Patton Oswalt shows up for a minute or so at the start, for instance. I also need to mention the great Ricky Jay, who plays the quiz show producer and the narrator who bookends the film. If you don’t know who Ricky Jay is, look him up on YouTube. He’s one of the greatest card trick magicians to ever walk on a stage. Don’t believe me? Watch this.

Magnolia is about those moments of vulnerability when we are at our weakest and our strongest. It is about all of us at our best and our worst, and how for many of us, those two things happen at the same time.

I’m overwhelmed. I’m also stunned that it was nominated for only three Oscars, lost all three, and wasn’t nominated for Best Picture. Stupid Academy.

Why to watch Magnolia: It’s holy-shit good.
Why not to watch: If you don’t pay attention the whole time, you’ll get lost.

The Sweet Smell of Milkshakes and Oil

Films: Sweet Smell of Success, There Will Be Blood
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library (Sweet Smell of Success), DVD from Lemont Public Library (There Will Be Blood) on big ol’ television.


How much is a man’s soul worth? That’s undoubtedly a question that has no set answer. It depends very much on the soul, I would guess. It’s a question that is asked in both of these films, and both of them essentially have the same answer: The value of a man’s soul is far more than he is willing to take for it. The soul always goes for a discount price, or so these films would have us believe.

Sweet Smell of Success is about the give and take between two men who will do anything to get what they want. The first, J.J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster), is a powerful man in the world of show business. He is the quintessential late 1950s gossip columnist, and his column gives him incredible power. Getting a positive mention in Hunsecker’s column is the equivalent of rave reviews from every critic in the land. He claims a readership of 60 million, and he can deliver the goods.

Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis) is a press agent who finds himself perpetually in Hunsecker’s hip pocket. What J.J. needs, Sidney does, because of the power wielded by Hunsecker. If Sidney wants his clients to get a mention—and he does—he has to do the dirty work that J.J. gives him.

The current load of dirty laundry concerns Susan Hunsecker (Susan Harrison), J.J.’s kid sister. It seems that she has become enamored of Steve Dallas (Martin Milner), a local jazz musician with the Chico Hamilton Quintet (played by themselves, with the addition of the very clean-cut, vaguely out of place Milner). A guy who plays the six-string in local watering holes is never going to be good enough for J.J. Hunsecker’s sister, so Sidney’s job is to break the two up. Unfortunately for Sidney, Steve Dallas got all of the integrity that Sidney didn’t.

And Sidney is a louse, a pure unadulterated bastard of the first degree. To get the ball rolling on splitting up Susie and Steve, he bribes another columnist with a story about Steve Dallas being in with the Commies, and having a significant marijuana habit, both untrue. To get this done, Sidney fixes up the columnist in question with his girlfriend Rita (Barbara Nichols) for a little nighttime fun. She objects, but goes along with it anyway, in a scene that almost contains the sound of the poor girl’s soul dying.

Eventually, Susie and Steve go their separate ways, but J.J. isn’t satisfied. It’s not enough that Steve Dallas has been pushed away. For Hunsecker, the only thing that remains is to destroy Steve Dallas completely, another task that he gives Sidney. Sidney doesn’t want to do it, but has the carrot of Hunsecker’s column dangled in front of him, and once again, the spectral cash register rings up another sale.

Throughout this film, the overwhelming emotion is not love or desire, but loathing. Hunsecker loathes everyone who isn’t himself or his sister. He badmouths Sidney even while Sidney is lighting the man’s cigarette. Sidney loathes everyone, including himself. Susan learns to treat the world with her own brand of contempt by the end. Everyone seems to be just on the edge of hitting someone else.

Burt Lancaster is truly awe inspiring as Hunsecker. This is a man who will stop at nothing to get what he wants, no matter the cost. He is willing to bring as much power as he can to bear at any time to achieve his goals. With his severe glasses and more severe haircut, he presents himself as a man who cannot be taken lightly. Tony Curtis has never been oilier or more despicable.


There Will Be Blood stars Daniel Day-Lewis as Daniel Plainview, a silver miner-turned oilman when his old mine plays out and starts gushing the black stuff one day. In the early days of the 20th century, Plainview wildcats around the southwest, looking for likely places to drill and hitting strikes to fund his continued operations. On his first well, a man is killed in a freak accident, and Plainview adopts his now-orphaned son, christening the boy H.W. (played as a pre-teen through most of the film by Dillon Freasier). While hardly in the ranks of Standard Oil and other major players, Plainview is successful and wealthy, and would like to keep things that way.

One day, he is met by a young man named Paul Sunday (Paul Dano, who also plays Eli Sunday). For a cash payment, Paul tells Plainview about the town of Little Boston, where the oil bubbles to the surface. Plainview and H.W. go and scout the area, buying up land from the people there, and building a derrick to bring the oil to the surface. However, Plainview specifically snubs Eli Sunday when it comes to blessing the well, and two important events occur. One man is killed, which sets things back a bit. More significant is that the well erupts, exploding and catching fire. The blast also permanently deafens H.W.

Around the time H.W. is sent away to learn from a teacher specialized in the hearing impaired, Henry Plainview (Kevin J. O’Connor) arrives. He claims to be Daniel’s half-brother, and is at the end of a string of bad luck. Daniel takes him in, and essentially confesses everything to him—he hates the bulk of humanity. However, Henry is willing to work for him, and take what he can get, and he essentially replaces H.W. in Daniel’s world.

Daniel Plainview, like J.J. Hunsecker and Sidney Falco, knows what he wants, and he’s willing to do anything to get it. Anything that deviates from his worldview becomes something that should be destroyed. It’s difficult to ask the price of Plainview’s soul, because as the film continues, it becomes more and more evident that he never really had one to begin with. All he ever really had was an oil derrick for a heart. Even when he is on top, he can’t help but grind those he dislikes into the ground—and he dislikes everyone, especially Eli Sunday. He and Hunsecker are two versions of the same person.

Of the two films, I prefer Sweet Smell of Success. I like the story better and I appreciate the characters more. This isn’t to detract from the latter film. The more I watch Daniel Day-Lewis, the more I think he may be the best actor working today. He is always memorable and always riveting. I’m also happy to see a quality role for Kevin J. O’Connor, who is far more talented than many of the roles he gets. He’s badly underrated, and I’d like to see him work more in good films like this one.

However, There Will Be Blood concerns the soul of a man who is far more successful than most of us will ever be. Of course he’s a bastard, and he’s easy to dislike. There’s a pleasure in seeing the characters in this film get what they deserve. In Sweet Smell of Success, there is a continual feeling, at least for me, that something better has to happen to some of these people. There are innocent victims like Susie and Steve who deserve better. In short, there was something more for me to cling to there. There was, if nothing else, hope.

Why to watch Sweet Smell of Success: Two of the greatest sons of bitches to ooze across the screen.
Why not to watch: Martin Milner as a jazz musician?

Why to watch There Will Be Blood: Daniel Day-Lewis is that good.
Why not to watch: The DVD is pretty punishing—2:38:00 of film, and only 8 scenes.