Movies: They're Pretty Good!
Movies: They're Pretty Good!
Paul Thomas Anderson
Ever wondered how a director can weave an intricate story with a star-studded cast, yet make you deeply invested in each character? That's the genius of Paul Thomas Anderson, and we talk all about it in this week's episode. Starting off with Anderson's debut feature film, Hard Eight, and moving on to the popular Boogie Nights, we break down the compelling performances and share our personal experiences of discovering Anderson's world.
How can a movie over three hours long keep you engaged? Anderson achieves this with Magnolia, another masterpiece that we dissect, focusing on the heart-warming love story between John C. Riley and Melora Walters. We draw parallels to modern rom-coms like Valentine's Day and He's Just Not That Into You while appreciating Anderson’s knack for creating a complex, interconnected narrative.
Finally, we delve into Anderson's romantic comedy Punch Drunk Love, and scrutinize the duality of Adam Sandler's career, and his other cinematic gems like There Will Be Blood, The Master, and Inherent Vice. We discuss the brilliant performances by the likes of Daniel Day-Lewis and Joaquin Phoenix, and the unique visual language that Anderson employs. Join us for this scintillating journey through the works of one of Hollywood’s most influential contemporary directors.
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Hello and welcome to another episode of movies, colon. They're pretty good. I'm your host, travis Dudding, and today I continue my director series, and the director in question today is Paul Thomas Anderson. Very, maybe my number one director is he's up there. He's up there and I only like to count like my favorites when I've seen all of their you know, feature films. So he's in a select group of directors. It's basically him Tarantino, wes Anderson, mel Brooks, who covered last week and David Lynch. So in terms of directing and whole Filmographies, that's pretty much.
Speaker 1:It Still missing one at least one. Christopher Nolan film, tenet still haven't seen that. I have the blu-ray but still haven't watched it. Kubrick, missing a couple of his older ones, but yeah, anyways, that's a. That's neither here nor there. That doesn't really matter right now. What matters is Paul Thomas Anderson, pta, the parent teacher association, all right. So, like I said, one of my all-time favorite directors.
Speaker 1:The first one I saw of his was there will be blood. I saw it at a Base theater because my I grew up with my dad was in the Navy for 20 years. I Eventually became a veteran myself. I did the Air Force for eight years, so we had access to the movie theater on the military bases and For a while they were free, then they were a dollar and then they were always way cheaper. But you just have to wait a little bit till it had been out of the theater, out of circulation and everything. So Saw that one just a couple months after it had come out Immediately, just fell in like, fell in love with it, fell in love with cinema in general, like it was the first movie that I saw that I felt Smart after you know which. You know, everybody has that movie, everyone has their phase where they're they feel a little Better than everybody and everything like that. And you never are, you know, because everyone's taste is their own taste and nothing, nothing you like, makes you better than anybody else. But you know, when you're young, when you're 1817 I was 18 when I saw it. But yeah, I mean I had definitely seen a lot of good movies, but this was the first one where it just like blew me away and I couldn't put my finger on what I liked about it. I just knew that I loved it and wanted to see it again and again, and again. So, yeah, let's, uh, let's, just get right into it.
Speaker 1:Let's go back to the beginning, beginning his first film, hard eight, 1996, starring Philip Baker Hall, which is he's in a bunch of his movies, john C Riley also in quite a few, but then Gwyneth Paltrow and Samuel Jackson, and then a Pretty short cameo appearance from Philip Seymour Hoffman, another PTA mainstay. Great movie, great, great, great movie. If this is one of the harder ones to find and one of the lesser known ones, it's about a man who is Mentors, this young guy that he finds he's leaving Vegas. He was trying to win some money to pay for his mom's funeral, so he decides to take him under his wing and kind of teach him how to Make a good amount of money in a Short amount of time and also just to like kind of survive in in the casino and just live, live in a hotel room. Pretty much, yeah, it just gives them all these tricks of the trade. This is Philip Baker Hall mentoring John C Riley. Yeah, great, great movie.
Speaker 1:I think my favorite Gwyneth Paltrow performance ever she's did amazing in this. She is a sex worker who marries John C Riley and yeah, it's just. I think it's her best performance, the only well, yeah, I'd say it's better than seven, because there's more to it, you know, and it's not that her she's a good actress in seven, but it's like her performance isn't what you're remembering, you're just remembering what happens to her, you know. So, yeah, really great movie. Give it. If you haven't seen that one and seen all the other stuff, give it a shot. I streamed it on Pluto TV with ads it was so, it was free, but you just had to watch the same commercial every few minutes. But, yeah, great movie. Great movie. Heart eight. All right, moving on.
Speaker 1:Next we have I don't know if it see, this is where it gets hard, because there's really only two that I have rated lower than everything else, and everything else is like a seven way tie. But next is Boogie Nights, and this is this is one of the best ones, probably one of his best known ones Incredible, incredible movie. I just watched this, rewatched it today. Amazing performances from everybody. We got Mark Wahlberg and then this is, in my opinion, his best acting performance, which so kind of sucks because he's kind of down on this one and kind of says that he regrets doing it and stuff, because the subject matter of the film Boogie Nights, if you don't know, is that it's about the porn industry in the seventies and eighties, basically. And it shows the dark side but also doesn't necessarily say oh it's all bad because it does have a happy ending. It's like the bad side of what could happen within it and the bad side about how people are going to look down on you even though you're just trying to make a living. But yeah, amazing, amazing performances Mark Wahlberg, burt Reynolds, julianne Moore, john C Riley, heather Graham, don Cheadle, philip Seymour Hoffman, william H Macy, louise Guzman, malora Walter she's another repeat PTA person Phillip Baker Hall.
Speaker 1:Again Alfred Molina, and he's probably got my favorite scene in the movie. He plays a drug dealer that they go to try to rob and it's one of the most intense scenes, like well done, intense scenes, because there's just a lot of tension, it's very chaotic and you don't really know, like what's about to happen. And that's not the only scene like that. There's another one where Mark Wahlberg's character, dirk Diggler, is down on his luck and trying to make money by prostituting himself and then he gets beat up. And then there's this scene where Don Cheadle has been denied a bank loan because of his career in the porn industry and so he's just going to pick up some donuts from the donut shop. He goes in there, he's picking them out, someone tries to rob the donut place and like multiple guns go off and everybody ends up dead except for Don Cheadle and he just takes the money and leaves. It's an incredible scene.
Speaker 1:I'm saying a lot, I know. Yeah, just a great, great, great, great movie and everyone does amazing man, I can't recommend that movie enough. But yeah, boogie Nights this is the one that put Paul Thomas Anderson on the map. Pretty much this is the one that was his breakout movie and everything. Because people liked Heart 8, but it wasn't like a smash success or anything like that. It wasn't a big hit. But Boogie Nights was the one that everyone remembers, and probably because it had some big names like Bert Reynolds in there.
Speaker 1:Alright, moving on, we got Magnolia. This one, this one's crazy. This is another All-Star cast. Got Phillip Baker Hall back again. You got Tom Cruise. You got Philip Seymour Hoffman. You got William H Macy. You got Julianne Moore back again, john C Riley back again Geez, you got Jason Robards, malora Walters, melinda Dillon, alfa Molina again, louise Guzman again. Yeah, yeah, star-studded cast.
Speaker 1:This one will hook you in because it's a bunch of different stories that seem disconnected but become connected by the end. Everything's a little related and you don't realize until it all comes together at the end. You know the popular versions of this but not necessarily good versions of this are stuff like Valentine's Day and New Year's Eve and what's that other one? He's just not that into you. I mean those are all romcoms, but it's a similar type of thing where they bit off this a on first appearance, disconnected stories that all blend at the end.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and also a surprisingly feel-good movie. There's a lot of bad stuff that happens in this and a lot of dark moments as well, mostly because of the love story between John C Riley and Malora Walters. It's really very touching and it's one of my feel-good movies. It's one that I'll put on if I'm feeling kind of down and stuff like that. It's also a very long movie. I think it's his longest one at a little over three hours. But I had found this one on TV once and just couldn't stop watching it. You know, I was just flipping channels and I think I recognized one of the massive stars in the cast and was like I'll check this out and just kept watching and watching and watching and then two and a half hours later it's like, oh shit. But yeah, real, real good movie. Yeah, that's Magnolia from the year 1999. All right, moving on.
Speaker 1:Next we got Punch Drunk Love. This was probably the first time I heard of a Paul Thomas Anderson movie, because it was a huge deal in 2002 when Adam Sandler was trying to get into more dramatic roles and obviously now we see him succeed in both. He's making hella money on these comedies that everyone's like a little hard on on Netflix but he's making hella money from that. But then we're also like trying to get him an Oscar for uncut gems and stuff like that. So we're used to seeing both sides of Adam Sandler at this point. But in 2002 it was. It wasn't. There wasn't the duality of Sandler, it was just a comedy guy going into drama and he's not the first to do that. But you know they, even though it happens all the time, people always make a big deal about it. But this is another like real feel good movie.
Speaker 1:Great performance by Adam Sandler. Love interests is Emily Watson. She does a great job. Philip Seymour Hoffman, kind of the antagonist. You got Louise Guzman, maryland Rise Cub. Robert Smigel, the SNL writer. He's got a cameo in there. Yeah, a bunch of other, like small cameo parts from different comedians and stuff like that, but it's a real, real good, real good story, real beautiful love story and also funny too, like it's obviously like way more dramatic than Sandler's other stuff at that time, but very funny as well, you know, and it kind of just lives in this realm of acceptance of people with different mental states and things like that, because Adam Sandler suffers from kind of he's like very socially awkward and a little bit of an anchor management and things like that and like his family is like always super down on him and everything like that. But he's also very successful too. So it's not like you know he's completely, he's not like a complete failure or anything like that, not that anyone ever is, but yeah, just real, real beautiful movie.
Speaker 1:Another another feel good one I'll put on. It's the only one that is on criterion collection, which I'm hoping that changes. I know Boogie Nights was in the laser disc days, but so I'm hoping someday they go ahead and put that on 4K or Blu-ray criterion collection, because I mean I mean all these movies belong, but I know it's just always stupid rights issues and stuff like that, and I mean news flash the studios suck. So who knew? All right, moving on. Next we got there will be blood. Like I said before, this was my first Paul Thomas Anderson movie. I think my favorite. But it's like I said, it's very hard to decide to pick a favorite. I'm going to try at the end I'm going to try to rank them all in real time, so bear with me through that there will be blood.
Speaker 1:This is the first time he works with Daniel Day Lewis, first of two times. Very different movie, like from the other ones so far. The other ones are very big. Like I said, star stud cast a lot going on, a lot of plot going on. This is not a plot driven movie. I mean there is a plot, but this is definitely character based cinema.
Speaker 1:This if you want to look at perfect acting Daniel Day Lewis, and there will be blood. I mean he did win the Oscar for it, so no surprise there. But just, I want to say, like the first 20 to 30 minutes there's only one word of dialogue and it's just. But even with that, and it's just a couple scenes of him Mining for gold, getting injured, crawling to town to get the money, buying land and drilling for oil, and even even in those scenes there's not really any dialogue and you're still just captivated the whole time. It's literally just a guy in the desert trying to get oil and but you're glued to the TV, to the screen, whatever, wherever you're watching it. But Daniel Day Lewis, paul Dano, he plays this small town revival like tent revival style preacher. Also an incredible, incredible performance. Kevin J O'Connor he's been in a few things. He'll be in a couple more Paul Thomas Anderson movies coming up, I think the next one Kevin Hines, then a couple like random cameos from different comedians, like Paul F Tompkins. He's got a small part in there. But yeah, this, like I said, it's about oil tycoon.
Speaker 1:Underlying theme is just greed in general, like I don't want to give away the ending for anyone that happens to not have seen this movie. If you haven't like it, honestly, like the only one that I wouldn't flat out recommend of this of Paul Thomas Anderson's whole filmography is inherent vice. But I've only seen it the one time and I feel like if I give it another chance I might like it this time. You know, because I've definitely Uh, I've definitely appreciated some of the movies more on a second view. Some of them were 5 stars right off the bat and then a couple of them were like I don't know about that. And then I watch it again and like, oh my god, this is amazing. But I haven't done that yet with Inherent Vice. But, like I said, all these movies, highly recommend them. Go watch them if you haven't. Yeah, there will be blood. Just maybe one of the few perfect movies.
Speaker 1:Alright, moving on the Master. Now, this is one that I wasn't completely sold on the first time I saw it, but gotta tell you rewatched it last night. Yeah, this is another like full on masterclass of acting right here. And it's not just Daniel DeLuis like in there Will Be Blood, it's literally the whole cast is just putting on 150%. You got Joaquin Phoenix. He's the main character. You got Philip Seymour Hoffman. He plays the leader of this religious cult. It's very like. I mean, everyone was like, oh, the guy that made there Will Be Blood's making a Scientology movie. It's not fully Scientology, but it's pretty much Scientology. So yeah, he plays basically the L Ron Hubbard of this cult.
Speaker 1:In the Master Did I even say the title the Master? Yeah, my brain's like all over the place right now. But so just bear with me. I know I'm like probably getting pretty rambly. You got Amy Adams plays Philip Seymour Hoffman's wife, rami Malek, laura Dern, jesse Plemons, kevin J O'Connor's back again for this one, yeah, yeah. And then just a few other. You know he always gets his comedian friends in there. You got Julian Bell in this one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this one. It's another one of those that's just very captivating. There's definitely a lot more plot going on in this one than there Will Be Blood and it's just I don't know Like. I know I'm just saying like the same things about all these different movies, but it's just powerhouse performance after powerhouse performance and then, even if you took all the acting out of it, you have some of the most beautiful shots like ever put on the screen. My personal favorite it's like pretty early on in the movie because Joaquin Phoenix's character is a war veteran. This is right after World War Two that this is taking place. And there's this shot of him on a where he's like hanging or not kind of hanging, but like just laying down, like up high on a naval ship, and you could just see the ship like the waves going like amongst the ship, and it's just a downward shot of him. You know, and there's no way I could explain it and do justice, but like, when you see it you'll know, because it's just incredible. But yeah, this beautifully shot film, great music and that's another thing A lot of the soundtracks done by Johnny Greenwood from Radiohead, but he is an amazing composer and I think, for me personally and I'll get into it more later on in the episode but to me the mark of a good score for a movie is if you're like humming it on the way home, you know, or just later that day after you watch it, say if you did watch it at home.
Speaker 1:You just can't get that score out of your head and that's like that only happens with a few and it's. You know, it's easy now, when you were born in 89 and just grew up with Star Wars, to be like, oh, that score is so iconic because it is, because it was already iconic by the time you had ears and can identify stuff you know. But so it's a lot harder now to be like, oh, like that that score is so amazing because you don't know if it's going to have that staying power. And so I think if, if you can't get like those like melodies out of your head, then I think then you got a good. You got a good film score, you know and the master definitely has a great score Harder to pinpoint the good parts of the score and there will be blood because it's a very minimalist score. But when we get to Phantom Thread, I'll talk more about that and I might have mentioned it in the Phantom Thread episode. But if I didn't, or if I did either way, I'm going to be reiterating that should be the title of this episode. Travis reiterates everything he's ever said. Alright.
Speaker 1:Next we come to my least favorite but still probably a pretty good movie Inherent Vice. You got Joaquin Phoenix's back. You got Josh Brolin, you got Owen Wilson, you got Katherine Waterston, reese Witherspoon, benicio del Toro, jenna Malone, joanna Newsom, oh man, hong Chao, she was just nominated. You got Paul Thomas Anderson's wife, maya Rudolph, michael Kenneth Williams, omar from the Wire, martin Short, yeah, I'm sure a bunch more.
Speaker 1:This one takes place in the 70s. Joaquin Phoenix is a detective who is on drugs because it's the 70s and he's investigating the disappearance of an ex-girlfriend. Basically, like I said, I've only seen it the one time. It's visually very cool, that's great visuals, which is the case for all of these movies, but don't remember much about the plot, at least in my opinion, after one viewing, pretty forgettable. Nothing's really sticking out to me other than how good it looked. But, like I said, I'll give it another shot and maybe I'll update you guys when I do. Maybe I'll like oh, this is actually his best movie and do an episode on it, but not holding my breath. So, moving on from Inherent Vice to Phantom Thread, now I'm not going to talk too much about the movie because I already did a full episode on it, but probably my other, the one I'm back and forth between there Will Be Blood and this, which shows you how powerful Daniel Day-Lewis is, the two movies that he's in and those are the two that are in contention for which one's my favorite Amazing movie.
Speaker 1:Now, what I was saying about the score, that Phantom Thread theme is just incredible. Like, oh man, it's. I just couldn't get it out of my head. I was thinking about it like all the time. I downloaded the soundtrack. I'm always looking for it on vinyl. I'd love to have the record of it. I probably at one point on my Spotify wrapped Johnny Greenwood was number one, just because I kept like listening to the Phantom Thread soundtrack when I was going to sleep. So, yeah, amazing, amazing score on that. Just finished watching, rewatching that before I recorded, just because I wanted to get in that headspace of Paul Thomas Anderson and everything, yeah, but oh man, just such a good movie.
Speaker 1:So now we come to his most recent one, and this one's a pretty divisive one, even with me, because the first time I watched it I wasn't sure how I felt about it, but I also just had a really bad no, not really bad, but just a difficult viewing experience of it. I'm not going to go into details on that. So, licorice pizza Like I said, first time didn't really know how I felt about it, but also it wasn't an ideal viewing situation. I watched it again yesterday, over the course of a few days because it was on Amazon, and, yeah, loved it a lot more this time, appreciate it a lot more.
Speaker 1:I'm still not 100% sure how I feel about the plot, because it's about a young child actor and by child actor I mean 15, but still a child who falls in love with this girl in her 20s played by Heim's. Is it Alana Heim? Yeah, alana Heim and the other Heim sisters are in there too, but he's in love with this girl in her 20s, and there's this huge age gap, and it's they don't make it too weird, but what bothers some about it is the fact that if the genders were reversed, everyone would definitely have a problem with it. So that's just, basically, and maybe that was the whole point of it is like to be make everyone examine their own prejudices and like, oh, look how you're okay with that, but like should you be? I don't know, maybe I'm looking way too into it, but if you don't think about that too much, it's a really good movie. It's really funny, it looks great.
Speaker 1:Another great score it's taken place in the 70s. It's all like in the Valley. It's in San Fernando Valley, so a lot of great location shots. If you are from that area or familiar with that area, it's great. It's really fun. It's a lot of good jokes too.
Speaker 1:I think one of my favorite things about it, though, is that the main character, Gary Valentine, is played by Cooper Hoffman, who is Philip Seymour Hoffman's son and man, and he is incredible, and it's like. It's one of those things that when you, if you think about it, while you're watching him like be this amazing actor just like his dad was, then it can be like a little emotional because it's like, oh man, like we lost Philip Seymour Hoffman, obviously, but look how good his son is too. I'm not saying that that makes it, you know, if everything fine and was like, oh, we don't need him because we have a son. That's not what I mean. I just mean like he's just so incredible and it just makes me, it made me smile to see that his son's out there doing just as good as him, you know, and I hope he does have a long career if that's what he wants. You know, maybe he just wanted to do this one because a lot of, like the, there's a lot of cameos from Nepo Babies in this movie and I think that's kind of, you know, part of it. But yeah, great, great, great, great movie. Little weird the more you think about it, but still very enjoyable and it's like so enjoyable that it's easy to forget, like, what else is going on. Yeah, so yeah, that's the career of Paul Thomas Anderson, looking forward to whatever else he has coming up.
Speaker 1:So let's go ahead and rank these. I'm gonna say least favorite. I already said inherent vice. Next I'll put punch drunk love. That might go up after a rewatch, but because it's been a long time since I've watched that one, but right now I'm feeling like that's second to last, but I love that one. So what does that tell you about this guy's career? You know, next I think I'll go hard eight, then the Grish Pizza, the Master, magnolia, boogie Nights, Phantom Thread and number one, there will be blood. Yeah, okay, so that is my definitive ranking for now. As of 2023, november 2023, that is my ranking of the Paul Thomas Anderson movies.
Speaker 1:All right, so thank you guys for listening. I hope it wasn't too rambly or incoherent and I hope I gave you any sort of like marital information. I hope it was fun to listen to. At least I'll be way more prepared for the next one, I think. But yeah, it's just one of my favorite directors. Love is work. Can't wait to see what he has next. Can't wait to revisit some of those ones that I wasn't sure how I felt about. And that is it for me.
Speaker 1:Follow me at, or follow the show at, movies. They're Pretty Good, with no Punctuation on Instagram, that's where I'm the most active. I'm gonna do two more of these director episodes. I'll have a special guest on one of them. I don't know if it's gonna be the next episode or the last one of the month, and then, once December hits, I'll be doing some holiday movies, probably mostly Christmas ones, just cause that's the winter holiday that I celebrate. But yeah, that's it. So stick around. Hope you enjoyed the episode, hope you were enjoying the show, even if you didn't enjoy this episode, and see you next week. Thanks, bye.
