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Yep. It's great.
Saw it in 70mm and the whole look of the film is gorgeous as if this was some lost film from the 70's. I really don't see movies look like this anymore.
Also, the score is incredible.
Day lewis oscar lock?
I don't really understand PTA's scriptwriting anymore. His movies after Punch-Drunk Love feel so aimless to me, and the characters too thinly sketched. I appreciate individual components like Greenwood's score, but my experience watching the movie leaves me so apathetic.
I don't think you understand what a good movie is, Weems.
This is a good movie.
I think a movie can have great technical merits, strong acting, and still be nigh worthless. Too many directors nowadays have no sense of the total impression of their movie; they're like novelists who can write the occasional striking sentence, but can't write a strong chapter, much less an entire book.
Also, did you find "Fucking chic!?" funny? Because that's emblematic to me of how lazy much of the purported humor and writing in this movie is.
That was a jab against you at your silly one-off criticisms of well-liked films digging through your posting history. Ex. you gave Dunkirk a 1/10 because it didn't "have a story (uh, who the fuck cares? some of the greatest films ever made don't have stories; movies are not novels). What directors do you think have any sense of their impression of their movie.
Also, "fucking chic" is no different from "Pigfuck" or "I drink your milkshake!"
It's funny.
Seeing this on Tuesday.
My body is ready.
Beautiful. Just beautiful. I don't wanna gush since I just left the theater, but this is my movie of the year.
As much as I liked the film, I can't help but regret Anderson's reliance on Hitchcock and Bergman as models, which tends to preclude him from making any fresh discoveries of his own. Given what Lesley Manville does in her films with Mike Leigh, where she invents her characters from scratch, it's a little sad to see her reduced to replicating Judith Anderson's performance as Mrs. Danvers in Rebecca.
Not my favorite P.T. Anderson movie, but I am filled with admiration that he created something so unexpected and so seemingly outside of his comfort zone. I suppose by that I mean that he's made a movie that is fierce and gripping without the use of sexuality or violence. It's not exactly Merchant-Ivory, but repressed emotions and biting language become the focus and the three lead actors are straight-up extraordinary in making the whole thing seem plausible and engaging. The ending is fine. A little bit pat and cute perhaps. But still, I was left with a lot to think about and remember fondly.
This movie is like a Sunday Brunch.
Plenty to like about it. Laughs throughout. Exquisite to look at, listen to, and admire. You kind of just move on as there isn't really anything to it that's going to stick with me for the longterm, and that's fine. You can add Woodcock to the list of other great PTA characters, which is due to Daniel Day-Lewis knocking another performance out of the park.
This is a step up from the very disappointing Inherent Vice, and back on par with The Master. I don't know if PTA will ever get back to masterpiece level, but he can certainly show that he's got some gas left.
I was wondering if PTA was aiming to hit every decade as I wasn't completely sure if this was late 40's or not, but turned out it was similar period as The Master, so there goes that line of thinking.
DDL was good, for sure, but is nowhere near Lincoln or There Will Be Blood caliber. Can't help but feel it'd be a waste to nominate him this time out.
The Master isn't masterpiece level?
This is a film I couldn't have had less interest in given the subject matter, but I was engrossed from very early on. I agree with Wats in that it feels like a movie out of time. I kept thinking it felt like Max Ophuls made a movie in 2017. It's so tactile and imbued with so much feeling. I'm not sure what led him to make this film, but I'm glad he did.
I also enjoyed seeing a more restrained performance from DDL. I think this is nearly as impressive a performance as There Will Be Blood, just in a different way.
There's some fascinating scenes in The Master, but I certainly don't go back to it like I do for Boogie Nights-There Will Be Blood era. I may have watched the full thing twice is all.
Absolutely agree on the subject matter. Thank goodness it had PTA and DDL on it. I don't think I was ever 'bored' from beginning to end.
PT Anderson is weird because he seems to be a shapeshifter of a director. Its been to long for me to accurately reflect on Hard Eight, but Boogie Nights seems to be a Scorsese riff (Goodfellas and Raging Bull specifically). Then Magnolia seems to be Scorsese by way of Altman and Kieslowski. Then there is kind of a shift with Punch Drunk Love, which I'm not sure what type of movie it is riffing on, but there definitely seems to be some nascent signs of Kubrick which really came out in There Will Be Blood. The Master is some more Kubrick riffage, although maybe less pronounced than TWBB. Inherent Vice goes back to Altman, specifically The Long Goodbye and the Coens' The Big Lebowski. Apparently, Phantom Thread feels like an 80s Merchant Ivory movie, but I haven't seen it yet, so I'll reserve judgement.
Vicky Krieps vs. DDL is some great shit. DAMN.
Phantom Thread is as classic as it gets really. I've seen many say Hitchcock, but it's been so long since i've seen Rebecca that I don't notice that at all.
Regarding the issue of which Anderson films are or are not masterpieces, I'll just be upfront and say that, for me, nothing he makes in the future is likely to top his first four films (some of which are arguably just as derivative as Phantom Thread, if not more so) simply because I saw them when I was a teenager.
Perfection.
I feel that way about Boogie Nights (I was in college when Magnolia came out, which maybe explains why I was more 'meh' about it...at that point I was getting into older films). Everytime he makes a new movie, I'm like "eh it's no Boogie Nights" although TWBB and Punch Drunk Love have quite a bit of rewatch / staying power.
Boogie Nights and Magnolia (and even Hard Eight) have this incredibly infectious energy to them—they epitomize youth and verve and swagger and ecstatic excitement at the tools of cinema, and I don't think it would even be possible for an older (not-coked-up?) PTA to replicate. It's unfair to compare them, IMHO.
The Master and Phantom Thread are both just as ecstatic and rapturous as his 90s stuff, just mellower and more level-headed. Less surface swagger, and with far more philosophical depth.
I think beyond the lack of "exuberance," Anderson's most recent films come across as increasingly insular. These later films are less interested in the broad human experience and more tailored for the interests of a very specific type of intellectual white male. Not to say this is an outright knock, but I think Anderson's waning interest in appealing to a more diverse audience comes across in his later movies.
This was better in that respect than Inherent Vice, but I still struggled with it at times, especially in the beginning. The film really started firing when it found some universality in how it portrayed relational conflict and the ebbs and flows of long-term partnerships. It's obviously gorgeous, and it's resonating extremely well for me. Still, I find myself saying, "oh, this is good, but it's not Boogie Nights; it's not Magnolia." Maybe that will never go away.