Licorice Pizza - SPOILERS!

[wilberfan]

I agree.  My first reaction was, "MORE, PLEASE!   Do the WHOLE FUCKING MOVIE for the blu-ray!"

But we have to talk about that vid.

Why would they release that entire sequence??   That's a spoilery as they come.  The cynic in me says this is a serious awards-vote-trolling (Oscar noms announced next Tue).  Maybe I'm being a little too 'purist' but it feels kinda...unseemly. 

And is some of the early 'narration' attempting to diffuse all the 'grooming!' bullshit?

Would I like Paul and this film to win all the Oscars?  You bet.  Would it help the grosses if it did?  Probably a little.  Certainly the disc and streaming sales.   Will anyone actually be watching the Oscars this year?   Maybe in the lowest numbers to date? 

[Drill]

I agree.  My first reaction was, "MORE, PLEASE!   Do the WHOLE FUCKING MOVIE for the blu-ray!"

But we have to talk about that vid.

Why would they release that entire sequence??   That's a spoilery as they come.  The cynic in me says this is a serious awards-vote-trolling (Oscar noms announced next Tue).  Maybe I'm being a little too 'purist' but it feels kinda...unseemly. 

And is some of the early 'narration' attempting to diffuse all the 'grooming!' bullshit?

Would I like Paul and this film to win all the Oscars?  You bet.  Would it help the grosses if it did?  Probably a little.  Certainly the disc and streaming sales.   Will anyone actually be watching the Oscars this year?   Maybe in the lowest numbers to date?

Voting for nominations ended on Tuesday.

[wilberfan]

I don't wanna let go of my cynicism so easily.  So voting for Oscars proper will begin in the next week or two... 

Can anyone think of another reason they would post something like this?

[d]

Is it just for me or has the video been deleted?

Fortunately I watched it already and it obviously made me want a PTA audio commentary even more.

[wilberfan]

Someone figured out that entire sequence doesn't belong on YouTube yet.  I actually assumed it wouldn't stay up forever and considered trying to 'save' it... Didn't tho...

[Shughes]

What was the (since deleted) video?

[wilberfan]

It was the meeting-Jon-Peters (with complete Strei-sand routine and threats) with what felt like the entire truck sequence--start to finish.

[Shughes]

Thanks.

With Paul's commentary? Damn I want to see that now.

Every time he talks over camera tests, or anything on a blu-ray, it makes me miss the days when he did full commentary tracks. You can tell how excited he is to be doing one on the Hard Eight track (partly to get his side of the story over, I'm sure).

I'd love it if the Lux Lighting guys did another epic breakdown of this, like they did for PT. Would be even better if Paul joined this time!

[wilberfan]

"'Man' — I like that": Gary Valentine and Playing Manhood

When we meet Punch-Drunk Love's Barry Egan (Adam Sandler), he's a simultaneously bullied and sheltered younger brother to seven domineering sisters, whose loneliness and furious desire for respect get him into financial trouble with a call girl and a psychotic mattress salesman.

When we meet Magnolia's Frank T.J. Mackey (Tom Cruise), he's a muscular silhouette on stage, the house lights reflecting his sweat-soaked hair, both hands directed firmly to his crotch as he primes himself to teach a room of testosterone and entitlement how to "Seduce and Destroy."

And when we meet Phantom Thread's Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis), he's about fifty-five going on eight, an irritable dressmaker constantly on the verge of a tantrum who, fundamentally, needs to be laid out flat on his back, helpless and tender.

A collage of three of Paul Thomas Anderson's protagonists. Barry Egan portrayed by Adam Sandler, Frank portrayed by Tom Cruise, and Reynolds Woodcock portrayed by Daniel Day-Lewis.
These are a handful of Paul Thomas Anderson's protagonists. They're men that have managed to navigate their way to adulthood, less because they're emotionally mature and world weary, and more because they've managed to stay alive long enough. They have firm ideas of what it means to be a man and they'll do everything in their power to defend and maintain those ideas, from donning cheap suits, to sleeping around, to disposing of girlfriends that butter their toast too loudly.

This leads us to Licorice Pizza.

When we meet Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman), he seems, somewhat, to have it all figured out, especially when compared to the other PTA protagonists. He's an accomplished businessman, an old-school, Hollywood smooth talker having honed his charm during his acting days, and, most importantly, he's kind. He has a knack that none of the aforementioned PTA blokes have, which is that he can make the people he's around feel good and noticed.

Oh yeah, and he's only 15.

Gary makes for a fascinating addition to the line of PTA protagonists, a boy that slots in comfortably amongst the men. At first glance, he feels more mature and adult than all of these actual adults combined. But he's still got his own precarious ideas of manhood that he's attempting to live by, a facade made all the more obvious by his age.

But what lies in store for Gary when he hits "real" adulthood? How will he cope with life beyond the credits? Is he destined to stray down this familiar PTA path, already trodden by Barry, Frank, and Reynolds, or is there yet hope for him, the potential to be better?

Gary plays at being an adult like other kids his age play pinball, this performative manhood showing face most obviously in three places.

Firstly, there's his career. Throughout the film, Gary starts and concludes multiple business ventures, a few of which are actually moderately successful. He's an actor, a PR rep, an agent, a waterbed salesman, a cameraman, and a pinball wizard. It's an impressive resumé for a 15-year-old, at least initially.

But the majority of his clientele, Hollywood producer Jon Peters (Bradley Cooper) and a couple of creeps aside, are barely past puberty. His opening nights feel less like the first day on the job and more like marijuana-scented primary school discos. In Gary's mind, using weed to sell water beds is an intelligent business decision, and the name "Soggy Bottom" reeks of sex appeal.

When his businesses do inevitably, and quite literally, run out of gas, it's almost always down to his naivety. He's the last person to see that the actors he's competing with for roles are all about half his size, and needs Alana (Alana Haim) to explain to him why the oil embargo will affect their vinyl stock. He thought the water beds were made of some sort of "scientific fabric, like rubber," which is, of course, also made of oil.

To give Gary his due, he is a natural salesman; a young Gary was probably shifting cheap watches whilst the other kids were still on lemonade. But he hasn't developed real common sense yet, and without Alana Kane (his business partner/crush/"lady friend") it's hard to imagine his entrepreneurial endeavours ever leaving the sidewalk.

Secondly, there's the way he carries himself: his gumption. He addresses adults as equals, is a regular at the Tail o' the Cock, and orders Coca Colas like they're gins. Adults tend to respond to his gusto, either charmed by the novelty that is Gary Valentine or genuinely taken aback by his supposed maturity. 

But Gary is a showman by trade, and his performance often falls apart when he comes up against older men that exude a more aggressive masculinity. Toward the end of the film, he's donned a freshly tailored suit, Barry Egan-style, and is patrolling his pinball palace. He tries to kick out an old guy that's being rough with the machines, but his age gets in the way. So instead of admitting defeat, he turns on younger, more innocent clientele. He can't assert his manhood in one place, so he has to assert it somewhere else.

It's a performance, and an insecure one at that. He'll smoke a cigarette to prove a point to Alana before he'll admit he's young. It makes you wonder if Gary's personality is less an authentic reflection of a self-assured guy, and more a kid that uses a persona like a fake ID. If Gary acts enough like an adult, then the world will hopefully see him as one.

Finally, there's Gary's relationship with women, most notably Alana. Her age — she's 25 in quote marks — is less of an obstacle for Gary and more of an incentive. He's a serial charmer in general, flirting fairly successfully with air hostesses, waitresses, agents, and even a handful of girls that are actually his own age. He's easily capable of out-seducing Frank T.J. Mackey, albeit he's nowhere near as keen on destroying — not necessarily a bad thing.

But again, there are more than a few caveats. His pursuit of Alana at times borders on a conquest. Marriage is the unwavering goal. He views almost every woman in his life, bar his mother, through this slightly flirtatious lens, peppering his conversations with compliments and charm, unable to cut straight to the point. It's enough to earn Gary the nickname "the Handyman" amongst the waitresses of Mikado.

This gives Gary a streak of childish hypocrisy, for when men show similar interests in Alana he becomes jealous and territorial. This surfaces most obviously in a Woodcock-style tantrum after she says she'd do on-screen nudity but refuses to show him her boobs in private. A simple respect for Alana's choice is out of Gary's reach, and in the space of a scene, he goes from her show-biz savvy agent to a petty, horny 15-year-old. This becomes clearer still after Alana is assaulted by Jon Peters, and sits with her head in her hands on the sidewalk, alone. She's blatantly upset and uncomfortable, but Gary is too busy giving his friend's petrol canister a sloppy blow job to notice. 

It's in these cracks in Gary's performative masculinity that he is most like Barry, Frank, and Reynolds. He has the knee-jerk business naivety of Egan, some of the misogyny of Mackey, and he shares more than a love of military metaphors with Woodcock, both capable of embarrassing, childish tantrums.

But despite these crossovers, something does feel different about Gary. And it's not as simple as the audience falling for his charming act. Even in his ugliest moments, in which he can be mean and solipsistic, it's still hard to picture him ever starting a business akin to the likes of "Seduce and Destroy."

"You may be through with the past, but the past ain't through with you."

To understand why the PTA men are the way they are, you have to look backward. Anderson often explores the childhoods of his characters and pinpoints their upbringing as having stunted or poisoned their growth. 

You can picture young Barry as simply a version of himself that hasn't bought a suit yet, anxious and quiet, wincing every time one of his sisters may utter the phrase "gay boy." His sisters recall that as an angry child, Barry once smashed the sliding glass doors of their home with a hammer, an act adult Barry repeats at the start of Punch-Drunk Love as if to emphasise that he's barely changed.

Meanwhile, Frank had to care for his dying mother, the responsibilities of adulthood forced upon him far too early. The only masculine presence in his life, Earl Partridge, set an unhealthy example, abandoning his family and cheating on his wife because he "wanted to be a man."

And the upper-class upbringing of Reynolds was enough to leave him with what can kindly be described as serious mummy issues. He'd follow his mother like a shadow and has attempted to continue following her even long after her death. His own fragile performative masculinity is an attempt to mask how much he misses her, not as a person but as a maternal figure to sit by his bedside and place a warm flannel upon his sickly forehead.

When we meet Gary, he's at this defining point in his life. He tells Alana he's going to be an actor. "It's all I know how to do," he says, before dropping that dream 25 minutes into the film in favour of becoming a mattress salesman. He's naive, but only because he's still being shaped and moulded. Licorice Pizza isn't about an adult having their worldview challenged, but rather a child having their worldview formed.

In the general absence of Gary's mother, who's away travelling and is largely sidelined by the film, Alana steps in as his concierge, adopting the role of a strange maternal figure. Their peculiar relationship is what'll shape Gary into a man. And whilst it's certainly not idyllic or completely healthy, it does teach him something that the rest of the PTA protagonists are unable to learn until they're well into adulthood.

People are important. As Gary abandons his pinball business to run the streets in search of Alana, it's clear that his priorities have shifted. Gary's world no longer revolves around Gary, around success, power, or the facade of manhood. It revolves around this strange, half-romantic, half-codependent love that he's fallen into, in which you're willing to forgo any ideas of being adult or mature in favour of naively and hopelessly running the streets of the San Fernando Valley.

For to love and be loved is what life is about, the great tragedies of Anderson films occurring where love is misplaced or rejected. Gary learns to open himself up emotionally to the world and to embrace the world in return.

This doesn't mean his learning is done, or that by the end of Licorice Pizza he's guaranteed to grow into a healthy, emotionally mature adult. His relationship with Alana is unsustainable, and the loss of that could twist his path. He hasn't overcome all of his faults or prejudices yet either, announcing Alana as "Mrs. Alana Valentine" to the pinball palace, playing adult in a loud, proud, childish way.

And, in all honesty, it's rare for an adult to ever completely lose their inner child. But Gary is only 15. He has time to keep growing. And he certainly has a head start on the likes of Barry, Frank, and Reynolds. As much as he would love to already be an adult, there's hope for him, not in spite of his immaturity or youth, but because of it.

[DickHardwood2022]

new tv spot from youtube some new footage

[wilberfan]

Licorice Pizza's Teenage Dreams
By Aurora Amidon

Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman) fusses over his hair with a comb in the boy's restroom mirror. It's picture day at Gary's San Fernando Valley high school, and the snake-charming little hustler—15 in age but pushing 30 in spirit—would likely not be able to live with himself if he didn't look like a million bucks. Even just to sit up straight and force a smile at an underpaid, overworked, middle-aged photographer, whose vocation capturing portraits of children was not where he once thought his artistic career would take him. But Gary Valentine is still young and driven enough to have dreams, young enough to see the world tinted in shades of fuchsia and gold. Or even a mousy brown, as Alana Kane (Alana Haim) saunters, incensed, past the line of teens that Gary is a part of, all waiting to have their picture taken. Teens who could not be bothered to give the poor Tiny Toes photography worker a simple "no thank you," as she half-heartedly—clearly exasperated—offers them a hand-mirror so that they might give their appearance any last-minute touches.

Gary, experiencing an intense attack of love-at-first-sight, hurries over to Alana. He takes her up on her offer of that mirror, even though he had already fixed himself up with the one in the bathroom just minutes earlier. So, Gary is able to strike up a conversation with the impatient, willful girl he's soon proclaiming to his friends that he'll marry someday. For a few moments, the camera frames both of their faces side-by-side, Gary's in the reflection of the hand mirror running a comb through the mop on his head, next to Alana's as she holds the mirror. In more obvious terms, it's a simple composition meant to signify the events to come in Paul Thomas Anderson's Licorice Pizza—an unconventional love story between a boy who's been forced to grow up before he should have, and a girl who's stuck in an arrested development; a collage of brief snapshots of their disordered lives in Anderson's beloved San Fernando Valley, as they simultaneously struggle to come of age.

But the mirror scene, which indicates the pair's impending connection, also reveals the crux of their tumultuous, unorthodox quasi-romance, and the core of a film which seems to effortlessly flit between planes of reality. In the shot, Alana and Gary are not really side-by-side. Beside Alana is a reflection of Gary, while the real Gary is just out of frame, sweet-talking his way into a not-quite-date with a young woman who is, against her better judgment, caught up in the peculiar charms of a teenage boy offering her the kind of attention that men her age can't quite give. Alana is taken by this reflection of Gary, this reflection she holds—quite physically—in the palm of her hand. It's a reflection of Gary hinged on an extension of oneself that manifests as an idea of romance. It's a view of the world and of people that isn't really real, but can be deeply felt during the melodramatic extravagance of youth.

Alana and Gary meet somewhere in the middle of their own internal crises. Alana is at a precarious time in her early 20s (perhaps mid-20s, but that seems unlikely; when Alana finally reveals her age to Gary during the film's opening, there is an almost unnoticeable hesitance between "Twenty" and "Five," and her behavior comes off as decidedly younger than that), where the siren song of puerility beckons her to a life of hedonistic pleasure, unburdened from the stuffy adult world that she's hopelessly joined to. Gary, whose money mindset and larger-than-life ambitions in Hollywood entrepreneurship partly stem from having to take care of himself and his younger brother in the absence of adult supervision, is awash in the romanticism of adolescence. Gary's affection and the friendship that the two lost souls strike up allow Alana to remain comfortably in the arms of youth, at least for a little bit. When they first connect in that high school gymnasium on picture day, Alana expresses reluctance and establishes clear boundaries between herself and this teenager, while still goading him to see what else he's got to sell her. She finds herself intrigued by his salesmanship and his old soul schtick.

Thus, Alana is pulled to Gary, despite everything telling her that she shouldn't be. Charmed by the chutzpah of their first encounter, she shows up at Gary's age-inappropriate haunt, Tail o' the Cock, still maintaining space between them through her trademark acerbic flippancy. But as the two talk, that space begins to narrow. The boundaries Alana initially establishes begin to weaken as she opens herself up to the kind of attention that Gary can offer her, the kind that other men can't—or at least, don't. There's more to Alana's attraction than experiencing a romantic tug towards someone that toes an ethical line. Gary sees Alana through this beautifully impermanent lens that begins to dim with age; one Alana desperately craves like an addict seeking a fix. Gary both wants to know Alana fully as a person and also romanticize her. Alana's brief boyfriend Lance (Skyler Gisondo), her almost-co-star Jack Holden (Sean Penn), and the local politician she volunteers for Joel Wachs (Benny Safdie), all become conduits through which Alana attempts to recapture Gary's idealistic view of her. "You remind me of Grace," Jack simmers at Alana, attempting to seduce her, after Alana auditions for the part of "Rainbow" in a new film alongside the aging star. Nearly flattered beyond words, Alana barely manages to choke out "...Kelly?"

Alana just wants to be someone's dream girl. But it's clear during the scene where Jack takes Alana on a date to Tail o' the Cock, where adult male immaturity and self-obsession rears its ugly head, that Alana cannot get her fix with older men. Gary, there with his age-appropriate date, is taunted wordlessly across the room by Alana, the two having recently had a falling-out during the opening night of Gary's waterbed emporium. Alana, donned in a skimpy bikini meant to act as a sexualized device to entice customers inside, was eventually dismissed by Gary for a teen girl he knows from school. Fast-forward to Tail o' the Cock, and Alana's sticking her tongue out at Gary like a petulant toddler. Her arms are urgently flung around Jack's neck, her face pressed against his, to prove in utter vain that she doesn't need Gary's attention anymore. She has a real man now.

But, of course, this is all failed subterfuge. Jack Holden and his old director buddy Rex Blau (Tom Waits) are somehow more immature than a teenager, and neither can give Alana what she wants because they're too obsessed with one another and themselves. Gary's attention is prized to Alana above all else, to the point where she doesn't want someone his own age to have it. In her mind, it would be wasted on someone his own age. Gary's attention is akin to Alana's elixir of life, keeping her closer in proximity to youthfulness while also rendering her an ageless object of desire.

What could be better than being a teenager's fixation? You are perfect and flawless and idolized—you are a version of you that does not exist, yet does to them. Through time, the blemishes of the real world start to shift into focus. The all-encompassing intensity of romantic and sexual attraction, the kind that hurts and overwhelms and makes gods out of mortals, starts to fade. But in Gary Valentine's mind, while he's still 15, Alana is Grace Kelly.

It's Gary's perspective that teeters the film into the realm of unreality. Gary's sheer aplomb and charmed ability to, in the simplest terms, make shit happen seems utterly fantastical. At times, it's as if the Gary Valentine we know is merely a projection, a figment of Gary's imagination or the most sought after version of himself. It goes back to the reflection of Gary in the mirror, the one that couples Alana's face at the start of the film. The reflection that both is and isn't Gary at once, and that manages to win the unseemly attraction from the older girl he's pining after. There are also moments in the shaggy story, scenes that hang in this uncanny lull that feel like glitches in the matrix. Gary's mistaken identity arrest at the teenage fair, or his and Alana's confrontation with his agent, Mary Grady (Harriet Sansom Harris)—a tensely comedic sequence that borders on the speculative. Or the bizarre time spent between Gary, Alana and the manic, fictionalized alter-ego of Jon Peters (Bradley Cooper), which culminates in Alana impeccably navigating a gasless moving truck backwards down a hill.

In this strange, unbecoming, ill-advised way, Gary and Alana are perfect for each other. Gary, a boy who perpetually lives in his head, whose dreams are bigger than he is, is entangled with a young woman who is still immature, and insecure, and directionless enough to crave the way he sees her and the rest of the world: Lacking the experience and nuance that, over time, reveals the rough edges of love and life. Through Gary Valentine's mind, Alana Kane is preserved in glossy amber, and the world really does revolve around Gary Valentine and his hare-brained, money-making schemes. It's true, as Paul Thomas Anderson himself has pointed out, that no physical line is crossed between the two mismatched people. But it is not monstrous to find oneself bewitched by the promise of being desired in a way that transcends reality. These desires between the characters coalesce into a film dappled in shades of magical realism. Anderson is no stranger to the concept, having demonstrated finesse in nurturing stories that blur the line between reality and dreams, in the wish fulfillment fantasy of Punch-Drunk Love, or in the frog downpour of Magnolia, or in Amy Adams' changing iris hues in The Master.

This idea of teenage love inventing fantastical happily-ever-afters is no more potent than in the final scene of the film, when the camera lens refracts a brilliant streak of flashing, kaleidoscopic light from a pinball machine, intercutting between Gary and Alana as they "Hi" to one another after pulling away from a romantic embrace. It's an otherworldly moment which recalls Punch-Drunk Love, that transitions the frame from the kiss into the concluding, idealistic shot of Gary and Alana bounding away from Gary's pinball palace, hand-in-hand, with Alana admitting that she loves him. But did she really? Did he even kiss her? It all just seems too good to be true, and maybe it is. Barry Egan's wish fulfillment has now become Gary Valentine's. It has also become Alana Kane's.

Indeed, the world of Licorice Pizza is atypical for much of Anderson's work post-Punch-Drunk Love, in the auspicious, fairytale warmth he offers his characters in the end, regardless of whether it's real, regardless of moral ambiguity. Licorice Pizza is, in part, about chasing some form of a dream. Whether it's Gary searching for a place of belonging in the adult world with his hustling schemes and his grandiose visions of personal success, or in the soulmate he believes to be Alana. Or Alana longing for a sense of stability and purpose and a love that is made of pure fantasy; a love that can only come about as youth slips away, as it's already done for her. Or Anderson chasing the nostalgic memories of his youth spent in sun-kissed California, preoccupied with a woman much older than him—a woman who happened to be his elementary school art teacher, who happened to be Alana Haim's mom.

Gary doesn't take his head out of the clouds, and Alana doesn't meet some sort of retribution for whatever it is that she feels for Gary. Instead, Gary and Alana find each other. Two imperfect people, their poles opposed and magnetized, their futures ever uncertain, buoyed by one another and what they stand for, what they could be and, most importantly, what they aren't. Gary and Alana are one another's dream. Who are we to tell them it's not real?

[wilberfan]

Very surprising, but very cool.  Wonder why they would have left the signage in place? (Unless the owner thought it was cool too?)

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[Find Your Magali]

Apologies if this has been brought up before, but does anyone think that Joel Wachs' stalker, while obviously echoing Taxi Driver a little bit, also had some vibes of the assassin in Nashville? That's the vibe I got.

[Drenk]

I've read somewhere that he wears the same jersey in Nashville.

[Yes]