Licorice Pizza - Speculation & General Reactions

[Pringle]

^ man, every weirdo in the world is on PTA's wavelength, huh?

[PinkTeeth]

it might be him 

ill eat my hat

[wilberfan]

Show of hands, how many people had to look up this word? 

(and after one blurry and muffled leak courtesy of an iniquitous theatergoer)

[wilberfan]

Haven't finished the essay yet, but the Valley parts of that essay are spot on.  I'm not prepared to weigh-in on the whole Kubrick/Demme thing yet.  This really made me smile:

Of course, for all we know, the American Graffiti tone (which seems to involve after-school filmmaking efforts of exactly the sort Anderson cut his teeth on in the '80s) being pushed here could easily be a red herring, with the primary thrust of the story being something thornier and more alienating. For as crowd-pleasing as this trailer makes Licorice Pizza look, it's worth remembering that twice in the past, audiences have felt Anderson sold them a false bill of goods, and in both cases — the frustrated Adam Sandler fans who initially rejected Punch-Drunk Love and audiences drawn in by the slapstick tone of the Inherent Vice trailer only to leave in droves when the film proved woozy and impenetrable — those backlashes were severe enough to be newsworthy.

I liked this too:

For as romantic as his urges may be, Anderson's romances are often oddly chaste. Any sex between either Barry and Lena or Reynolds and Alma is implicit at best, and the sex scenes in his other films tend to be transactional — the porn production of Boogie Nights; Claudia's briefly-glimpsed sex work in Magnolia and Clementine's more open prostitution in Hard Eight; the handjob-as-matrimonial-extortion in The Master. (As it is in so many ways, Inherent Vice is a bit of an outlier here, but given that it's the work of, as Wesley Morris put it, "Paul Thomas Pynchon," there should probably be an asterisk beside it on the big thematic chart anyway).

The most romantic sex scene in an Anderson movie must be either Freddie Quell's afternoon delight with virtual-stranger Winn at the end of The Master, or the foreplay between soon-to-be porn star Eddie Adams and his girlfriend Sheryl Lynn in Boogie Nights. But in the Licorice Pizza trailer we have something relatively new: a pretty conventional expression of sexual desire as a boy asks to "touch 'em" after a girl proffers her "boobs" in his bedroom. It's not much to remark on all things considered, but as a data point on that big Andersonian chart, it did catch my eye.

And this:

In Anderson's two prior love stories, the female leads have been notably lacking in both backstory and any particular pressures or associations outside their relationship with the protagonist. This makes someone like Lena or Alma very easy to slot into the busy and vibrant milieu of something like Barry's warehouse or the House of Woodcock, but it can also leave these women feeling less than fully realized. After pulling a very similar trick in two very different romances across two decades, I'd love to see him challenge himself to create more balanced pairings, and I know I'm very much not the only one.

I'd love to see Anderson head into the next decade with some new colors on his palette, especially if he's making any version of the tack towards sentiment that's implied by this trailer — but, of course, Paul Thomas Anderson never shook your hand without having a joy buzzer in his palm. For better or worse, I can't imagine he'll be wandering too far from the mischievous tendencies that have lent him the sort of brand-name status you only see with a handful of auteur directors at this ebb in Hollywood history.

Before I go, I'm going to make one reckless prediction: this is the year Paul Thomas Anderson finally wins an Oscar. While his collaborators have won for their work on his films, Anderson has never won any of the marquee year-end awards, and while he's taken home hardware at festivals and critics' groups, he's had to content himself with eight Oscar nominations (four for screenplay, two for director, and two for picture) but no wins. I think with the right rollout and the right narrative, and with a movie that looks like it could be a real crowd-pleaser (if not another Lucy-and-the-football moment from the guy who still kind of wants to be Robert Downey Sr.) this could be his year for a Best Original Screenplay win. I don't see him getting director until later in his career; like Scorsese (the guy to whom Todd McCarthy picked him as successor in that infamous Esquire poll in which Andrew Sarris predicted Kevin Smith as Marty's heir apparent), I imagine he'll be taken for granted for a few more movies first. But especially with his hands getting increasingly involved in every element of the production — there's still no confirmed editor in this movie; has his editorial department become cooperative too? — it could be he's just determined to wind his way up to that podium by hook or by crook.

Some musings on the marketing:

It's extraordinarily rare for a year-end prestige play — which any Anderson movie, even the defiantly scruffy and zany Inherent Vice, tends to be greeted as at least initially — to have so constrained a rollout. Anderson is bucking the typical show business trend of providing a slow and steady drip of information — by this point in a prestige movie's release cycle, we've typically seen glossy stills, a robust synopsis, and an easily consultable cast-and-crew list, as well as a festival premiere either on the books or already in them, with all the attendant hyperbolic premiere-night reviews and social media sturm und drang churning away in fits and starts for months before general release. If Paul Thomas Anderson intends to continue flouting that conventional release rhythm — and he's groused before, at least as of 2017, about how much information tends to be out in the ether before a movie can be seen — it'll be really interesting to see how the gamble pays off for him.

There are a couple of less sentimental wrinkles surrounding this whole mysterious rollout, and chief among them would be MGM's recent acquisition by corporate megalopoly Amazon. Leaving aside the Jeff Bezos of it all, Amazon has managed effective theatrical rollouts for plenty of movies bearing the company's name, from Kenneth Lonergan's Manchester by the Sea to Luca Guadagnino's Suspiria, but if Anderson's crusade to put butts in repertory seats with his trailer leads him to a streaming rollout, it would certainly be an enervating sign of the times (as well as being a sign of the COVID times — though Licorice Pizza was one of the first prestige productions to proceed with safety measures in place and fingers crossed while the world tried to reestablish equilibrium, and God bless them, they seem to have pulled it off without high-profile disaster).

[Find Your Magali]

I think they thing they're holding back on the most is the Wachs sub/side plot
It's harder to get a sense of how much Penn & Cooper are in the film

[Drill]

Oh it's a lovely film. Only wrote a couple of cues for it - the score is all 70's source cues (and all the better for that) - you're all in for a giant PTA-shaped treat...

Apparently that's what Greenwood tweeted before he deleted it.

[d]

Here is a screenshot:

Cool it has some Greenwood music after all. We may also have the first opinion about the whole thing. "A giant PTA-shaped treat" sounds good to me, "lovely" is also fine. And if it really comes from Jonny, I have a feeling it is not just courtesy.

Still a bit strange he apparently revealed the secret and then deleted it, either on second thought or because was asked to,

[wilberfan]

Are you youngsters familiar with the origin of the slogan on Alana's T?

Let's go with this one.  I like the header on it.

https://youtu.be/vXUbkIkwn2Y

[Licoriceboy]

Hi,

So what I got from the trailer is that this is during the 70's gas shortages and Alana, Gary and friends are syphoning fuel from cars and selling it.

That's why we see the shot of them counting money on the table. In one shot you can see a sign that says GAS STEALERS BEWARE at 1:27-1:28.

And then the police goes and picks up Gary while they are in some sort of beauty pageant or a movie? Maybe they're selling gas there?

How this ties into the politician character, I have no idea yet.

[Rooty Poots]

Has this been shared yet?

(Fat Bernie's is the name of the place Gary's filming a commercial for.)
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/fat-bernie-s-pinball-palace

Last week, I drove past Fat Bernie's on my way to work in the morning. It was good to see a new place popping up especially during Covid. It wasn't the most glamorous of places, but it was nearby the office and thought it was worth checking out. I took this picture at 6am that morning and the doors were wide open with 3 guys working on machines inside.
I didn't stop by then, it wasn't until Friday after work a few days later. I pulled up and the place was gone. Not closed, but gone...gone. No signs, No machines, clean windows & new dry wall. It took about a minute to realize it was probably some kind of film shoot location. After getting home and looking at the picture again, it should've been more obvious that morning. But it was early and I was just surprised to see a new pinball place. There's about 5 to 6 clues in the picture Fat Bernie's wasn't an actual business, but the black equipment cases in front of the 'not so real' Grant's photography should have been the biggest giveaway.
They must of had a fairly good budget, considering how fast it popped up and then disappeared again just as quick. Also seems they were going for a early throw-back 70s or 80s vibe. Please chime-in back here if you see this place appear some where down the road, I always miss those things.

[Fitzroy]

There's a shot of Hoffman looking through a window whilst wearing a white suit and red / pink shirt.

Instantly reminded me of Dirk Diggler's wardrobe  in the very last shot of Boogie Nights (before he whips it out, of course).

[Licoriceboy]

How this ties into the politician character, I have no idea yet.

Of course! They meet while volunteering for the guy's campaign and then they're shooting something with him in the car.

That's so awesome, Taxi driver-ish.

[wilberfan]

Has this been shared yet?

(Fat Bernie's is the name of the place Gary's filming a commercial for.)
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/fat-bernie-s-pinball-palace

If you look closely, in the trailer you can see it says "Fat Bernie's" on the camera slate.

[Drill]

https://twitter.com/JOSH_BENNY/status/1442555323743617025

[d]

Will he delete it?

So what I got from the trailer is that this is during the 70's gas shortages and Alana, Gary and friends are syphoning fuel from cars and selling it.
That's why we see the shot of them counting money on the table. In one shot you can see a sign that says GAS STEALERS BEWARE at 1:27-1:28.
And then the police goes and picks up Gary while they are in some sort of beauty pageant or a movie? Maybe they're selling gas there?

This is an interesting clue not discussed here or elsewhere, isn't it?