Untitled PTA Project (2020)

[jenkins]

i'll just let the movie speak for itself. IV slays, no question.

[wilberfan]

After disliking Inherent Vice so much, I could only hope that it was a very faithful, and skillful adaptation of "problematic" source material.  It made no sense to me that PTA, who had proven his story-telling skills multiple times, could make a film about people I felt absolutely no connection to.  It's ultimately what makes or breaks a film for me:  I need to care--on some level--about what happens to the people whose story is being told.  I didn't care at all about Doc & Co.--nor what they were doing and seeking in the film.  I generally enjoy movies set in the '70s (came of age in that era.  Enjoying The Deuce so far, etc.)..but even that aspect of it didn't effect me positively. 

I couldn't figure out, either, why the humor fell so flat for me in IV.  The timing was off, and he seemed to be hitting to jokes too broadly.  (And don't get me started on the trailer!  A TOTAL misrepresentation of the film, in my mind.)

I'm wondering if I should try watching the film again--with the sound off.  I've tried rewatching the movie twice now--and never made it more than about an hour in before just throwing up my hands (and the remote at the TV) in abject frustration. 

I'm trying to remain open-minded about 'Thread', but IV did such psychic damage (yes, an exaggeration--it's just a movie) that I'm honestly got some trepidation about seeing it.  It's why the 'weird' label for 'Thread' a few posts back gave me pause...  I'm not against weird per-se, but it needs to be GOOD weird...

[Jeremy Blackman]

I could only hope that it was a very faithful, and skillful adaptation of "problematic" source material.  It made no sense to me that PTA, who had proven his story-telling skills multiple times, could make a film about people I felt absolutely no connection to.  It's ultimately what makes or breaks a film for me:  I need to care--on some level--about what happens to the people whose story is being told.  I didn't care at all about Doc & Co.--nor what they were doing and seeking in the film.

That is exactly how I felt as well. I think a lot of people who loved IV were bringing information from the book (which is fair). I think wilder is right that there is a lot going on aesthetically, but it clearly did want to be a character-based film, and the characters did not connect with me. I felt genuinely depressed that a PTA movie could feel so cold.

[axxonn]

Inherent Vice could have been a lot better if they slimmed down the plot and allowed it to be a relaxed look at an interesting character like Doc. The time with his character needed to breathe more and be more loose and fun.

Well no, that's not what the movie should be about. The last thing anyone needs is another Big Lebowski.

It's PTA's best and most mature, imo.

[jenkins]

a way to stay open minded is by dropping statements like "needed" and "GOOD weird". that's literally a way to stay open minded.

i've watched IV three times and i've never had a problem with it, it's grown and stayed with me. it's impossible for me to call the movie cold because it's impossible for me to call Doc cold. it's such a mellow narrative mixture of interconnectivity and riotous paranoia, it's by far the most non-dramatc city-like narrative PTA has orchestrated. you guys don't even chat its philosophy. no mentioning of the things that were taking place in the movie, only that it wasn't the movie you wanted to be. i'd say Pynchon helped and i wouldn't say Pynchon hurt. Pynchon and PTA know the same thing, that everything is about atmosphere. you don't teach people based on what you tell them, you teach people based on how you make them feel. that's science. anyway you guys sound crazy to me but it's just a thing that's hilarious enough to be taking place here and it's only life.

[Lottery]

That is exactly how I felt as well. I think a lot of people who loved IV were bringing information from the book (which is fair). I think wilder is right that there is a lot going on aesthetically, but it clearly did want to be a character-based film, and the characters did not connect with me. I felt genuinely depressed that a PTA movie could feel so cold.

I won't deny that reading the book probably made it a more comprehensible experience for me but I disagree with this, the book is way more meandering, distant and bizarre. PTA did do a good job in making it a more heartfelt experience. In the limited time he had, he added more emotional weight to Doc's relationship with Shasta and Bigfoot- even Coy's family stuff. It comes across better in the film than it does in the book. Doc's life is a revolving door of people, full of growing disconnection and discontent- while the other characters are a bit hazy, Doc himself is pretty easy to connect with. I agree with Jenk when he says "it's impossible for me to call the movie cold because it's impossible for me to call Doc cold", Doc's generally a good dude in world growing more cold.

Inherent Vice could have been a lot better if they slimmed down the plot and allowed it to be a relaxed look at an interesting character like Doc.

I suppose this is an example of me bringing information from the book but crazily enough, PTA did the above. He slimmed it down considerably from the source. IV is a technical display for PTA in regard to editing and writing.

I wrote similar stuff in the IV thread about the same topic.
Phantom Thread will probably be a more obviously PTA type movie because it's coming straight from his head whereas with IV, it was him adapting a difficult to adapt book and then tuning it to his own sensibilities (probably the same deal with TWBB, but I can't really comment on that).

[Gold Trumpet]

Inherent Vice could have been a lot better if they slimmed down the plot and allowed it to be a relaxed look at an interesting character like Doc. The time with his character needed to breathe more and be more loose and fun.

Well no, that's not what the movie should be about. The last thing anyone needs is another Big Lebowski.

It's PTA's best and most mature, imo.

Haha, I was thinking more offbeat films of the 1970s. Anderson already films with a tone and realism more akin to that decade and the 60s than what Big Lebowski features. I would have liked him to essentially made same film but simplified a lot of the story and followed the wandering life of Doc more.

Mature is an interesting idea for IA. It's one of his lesser films for me but I would like an explanation how this stands out compared to what he's done prior.

[Drenk]

"What I will probably try to do next—foolishly—is to go back to that 600 pages thing I have and try to see if there's anything I can carve out of it. I'll try to approach it in the next couple of months the same way that I just described; I think that I'll probably try to daydream about what I know is in there and wonder how much I can get away with not looking at it and just write from what I know in there is good."

From the Bill Simmons podcast.

I also read recently but I don't remember where that he had an idea with "wide spaces" involved. In California.

[Robyn]

has he talked about "that 600 pages thing" before?

[BigSock]

Earlier in the podcast, he described Boogie Nights and Magnolia as those "600 page things", so this probably indicates PTA is interested in doing something more ensemble driven

[Lewton]

I recently read that Phantom Thread was going to be a ghost story at one point -- something in the vein of M.R. James' stories. That's really interesting. There's a thematic precedent of sorts via The Master's emphasis on past lives, the Casper movie that Freddie watches, etc. Plus, in general, PTA's movies suggest a lot of fondness for bygone eras, and I can see how focusing more directly on ghosts could amplify that aspect in interesting ways.

Personally, though, I hope his choice is even more out of left field and focuses on extraterrestrials. He mentioned his appreciation of Close Encounters of the Third Kind fairly recently, I think, and that got me wondering about the idea of him doing a sci-fi movie. I guess, in a way, that might sound as outlandish and unlikely as PTA adapting Metal Gear Solid (remember that false rumour?), but I don't know. It'd be so fascinating to see his sensibilities adapted to such a new context. I wonder if he liked Jonathan Glazer's Under the Skin...

[Gold Trumpet]

Whatever the project ends up being, i'm going to bet it's set in present day. Funny enough, he hasn't made one since Punch Drunk Love and on the Bill Simmons podcast, seemed like he was yearning to do one.

[Lewton]

I went looking through the back pages of this forum and found bits of a Total Film interview from 2003:

PTA: "I don't have a career plan so I can't say for sure but I don't think I have much interest in doing anything that I don't generate. I know Sam Raimi has a love of comic books and an interest in doing Spider-Man, but that's another level of working and making movies that I think is probably a bit more invasive than I could manage. But I'm still very young and there's a bunch of genres out there that I want to tackle."

TF: "Such as?"

PTA: "Every single one of 'em. I mean, if you said 'western' I could go on for ages about westerns. That'd be great. Or a good old-fashioned English period drama. And I'd love to make a fuckin' scary movie. Real terror movie. One that'd make you go: 'I'm going to see this to get scared. Something like that.'"

It's now well over a decade later and his take on "a good old-fashioned English period drama" is out (I mean, I haven't seen the new film yet, unfortunately, but I'm assuming that label more or less fits).

[wilder]

I hold out hope for this

In other news, critic Glenn Kenny recently pointed us towards this article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer about late night horror host Ghoulardi (PTA's father Ernie Anderson) commemorating the 50th anniversary of his first broadcast. There's also a sidebar featuring some nice quotes from Paul. He talks about watching movies with his dad and that he's thought about setting a film in that era of the early days of local television.

    "From time to time I've thought about making a film about that era of local TV and the kind of Wild West lawlessness and the things that could happen. When my dad was doing it, it wasn't national, it was local. And it felt like lunch time was drinking time and you could come back to work totally hammered." 

http://cigsandredvines.blogspot.com/2013/01/ben-affleck-shouts-out-pta-at-golden.html

and this

And damn, Maron mentioning that it sounded like PTA was making a film based on the Hollywood Blacklist was so on point, I could really see that in my head. Just like his idea for the 'early days of tv' film.

[Drenk]

Indeed, he shows no sign of slowing down. “I have a very strong idea of what I will do next,” he says. “I have to corral it into existence, because there’s a lot of material that I’ve written over the years, dating as far back as 1998-99, that’s been many different things, over many different years, that now it would be great to go back to.” Of course, he declines to elaborate.

https://amp.ft.com/content/4745f4a8-fb14-11e7-a492-2c9be7f3120a?__twitter_impression=true