Phantom Thread - Critic's Reviews

[wilberfan]

Phantom Thread Press Embargo Slip?

http://www.gwinnettdailypost.com/entertainment/movie-review-oldman-is-flawless-darkest-hour-is-not/article_3d9511a8-0c38-5694-a861-ba4339962bdb.html

Apart from the possibility of three-time Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis in Paul Thomas Anderson’s equally uneven “Phantom Thread,” winning his fourth Academy Award, there is no one is more deserving of the industry’s top prize this year than Oldman. The only thing that could torpedo his chances right now is the film itself which is not nearly as impressive as its leading man.

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I haven't seen the Oldman film yet, but I certainly didn't think Thread was "uneven".


Hint of Phantom Threads wider-release schedule?  (At least in Canada?)

Fortunately, there is a reliable supply of December releases likely to make the cut, at least in larger cities. Winnipeggers, alas, are obliged to endure the platform releases of likely contenders into the new year. Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread, for example, releases only in New York and Los Angeles on Christmas Day and even those pampered Torontonians will have to wait till Jan. 12 to see Anderson’s anticipated second collaboration with Daniel Day-Lewis, set in the world of fashion.

[budwillies]

Another masterpiece from Anderson. One of his best, according to the reviews thus far.

[Fuzzy Dunlop]

Birth.Movies.Death ( )

http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2017/12/07/phantom-thread-review-reclaiming-her-time-and-his-too

[wilberfan]

I'm curious:  How many of you will avoid reading reviews before you have a chance to see the film yourself?   How many of you feel like you've already read too much about the film?

I've seen the film, and am starting to read the reviews...and feel like knowing the least about the film possible would make for a more satisfying experience.  YMMV.

[edit]  In fact, I've just decided I'm going to stop reading them until after I've seen the film a second time...

[Drenk]

I've read tweets. And I do feel like it's too much. But I'm unable to do a full blackout. It's the first I haven't watched the trailer/am not reading reviews. That combo can spoil the first viewing: creating expectations. You're waiting for bits.

[Sleepless]

I think I'm going to avoid reviews. I've read some headlines and it all sounds positive, so I'm happy.

[Fuzzy Dunlop]

I didn't watch the trailer (I scrolled through just to see a few images), I didn't read any reviews, I tried my best to go in as blind as possible, that's really the only way to do it IMO.

I'm actually kinda nuts about it. When I saw No Country For Old Men in the theatre, I ran out when the CMBB trailer came on. I like my first impression to be of the whole thing, not battling whatever idea of the thing I've built in my head.

Even having seen the film, I've only read a handful of reviews and interviews. I want to see it a few more times to solidify my feelings on it. You have the rest of your life to look into the critical assessment of a film, you only have one opportunity to approach it apart from all that static. It's a special time right now.

Also, this is only tangentially film-related, but lately, I feel as if I'm drowning in a sea of opinions that I'm not even consciously seeking out. Every time I go online, or talk with people, its just this endless, borderline mindless, rattling off of opinions, and I think its become kind of unhealthy. It becomes harder and harder to approach art or politics or even facts themselves when there is such a strong compulsion to see how everyone else feels about shit while I'm still formulating my own feelings. When I like something, why should I give any kind of fuck if someone else doesn't, or why they don't? If I tell someone I liked something, and then they tell me, unprompted, "Oh, I hated that thing", how does that add to my life in any kind of way? I dunno. I'm not suggesting that criticism or discussing opinions are inherently bad things, just that I feel totally overwhelmed right now. I might try a thing where I don't offer an opinion unless asked, and don't actively seek any out unless I really, consciously feel like it will enrich my life in some way. At the moment its just a bunch of fucking noise.

[eward]

Glenn Kenny at rogerebert.com with a 4-star review:

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/phantom-thread-2017

[wilberfan]

David Edelstein (NPR) reviews 'Phantom Thread'

[SPOILERY FOR MY TASTES]

https://www.npr.org/2017/12/22/572597961/phantom-thread-is-deeply-weird-and-marvelously-entertaining

The resolution is preposterous even for Paul Thomas Anderson, who once opened his characters' hearts in "Magnolia" by pelting them with a biblical rain of frogs. That said, if you're an Anderson fan, you'll relish the insights into his character. This is the work of a fiercely self-centered artist who seems to long nonetheless to surrender, especially to a combination lover and mommy. As I said, it's deeply weird.

[eward]

Leonard Maltin makes my eyes roll.

http://leonardmaltin.com/phantom-thread-an-odd-pattern-of-behavior/

[wilberfan]

A different perspective:  The New York Times Fashion Critic on Phantom Thread

"The Daniel Day-Lewis Version of Fantasy Fashion Diva"

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/23/fashion/daniel-day-lewis-phantom-thread-myth-of-the-designer.html

“The Devil Wears Prada” and “Funny Face” aside, fashion has traditionally played better in documentaries than in feature films. (Remember Robert Altman’s “Prêt-à-Porter” or Ben Stiller’s “Zoolander 2”?) In part that’s because the temptation to turn its characters into caricatures of caricatures rarely ends well. So all of these accolades got my golden thimble tingling, especially because Mr. Day-Lewis is famous for actually learning to do what his characters do (and you can see all the needle pricks on his thumbs).

Had Mr. Day-Lewis and Mr. Anderson managed to succeed where so many others had failed? Had they created a realistic portrait of a designer for posterity?

Nope. They mythologized an old one. There’s no better perspective on how far we’ve come than seeing a once-upon-a-time stereotype, even one as compellingly watchable as Mr. Day-Lewis as Reynolds Woodcock (what a name), looming many feet high on the big screen.

He may be a designer, but he’s the designer as tortured genius, a man whose idiosyncrasies and unreasonable behavior are enabled and tolerated in the service of his art. It’s an old and favored trope in fashion, once cultivated by many. But while that version of the aesthetic auteur may still be revered in other realms, from Hollywood to SoHo, it has actually fallen out of favor in fashion. Or perhaps more pointedly, we’ve stopped falling for it.

[Drenk]

I haven't seen the movie but it doesn't matter if that type of person is current/was current in fashion or not.

[eward]

Bret Easton Ellis chiming in with some high praise for Phantom Thread (exciting for me because he's been a bit ambivalent about PTA's last few releases)

http://www.talkhouse.com/the-2017-talkies-talkhouse-film-contributors-top-films-of-the-year/

[jenkins]

2. Phantom Thread 162 points
“Phantom Thread is not only a ravishing piece of pure cinema but it’s one of the best movies I’ve seen about an artist and his process: the control freakery, the seduction, the manipulation, the inspiration, the depression. It’s a movie primarily concerned with atmosphere and character, casting a spell without narrative contrivance and without (finally!) Daniel Day-Lewis devouring the movie he’s starring in and allowing Vicky Krieps (the find of the year) and Lesley Manville their space. The movie is funny and suspenseful but it ends up, for some, in a remote and perverse place, and though I bought the idea and I bought the execution I still felt a little disconnected from it on a first viewing–but it doesn’t matter: this is the most gorgeous movie I saw in 2017. I’ve drifted away from PTA in the last two decades but Phantom Thread is a jolting reminder that he’s one of the last great auteurs working on a grand scale in mainstream American film.” (Bret Easton Ellis)
Image by Jack Dunphy and John Cibula

oh but IV was entirely concerned with atmosphere and character and cast its spell without narrative contrivance. entirely. i think it was BEE's own problem that he'd forgotten and needed reminded. i have no idea what kind of movies BEE likes but i know he's a shittalker and it's always good to be on a shittalker's side. again i think part of what's happening is people walked away and they're excited to turn back.

[Robyn]

Pitchfork review of the soundtrack (7.5)

Since the start of his career, the director Paul Thomas Anderson has exhibited an acute sense of how music can shape a film’s narrative—how cues and leitmotifs come to define not just individual scenes but the entire world being built from scratch. (The Gen-X angst of Magnolia would not be the same without Aimee Mann’s ballads, for example.) Since 2007’s There Will Be Blood, Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood has composed the music for each of Anderson's films. The collaboration between the two has only strengthened the distinctiveness of Anderson’s work: The frantic string compositions of There Will Be Blood and the stoner-rock grooves of Inherent Vice are essential to those viewing experiences. On Anderson’s latest feature film, Phantom Thread, Greenwood’s music appears across the majority of the film’s 130-minute runtime, elevating the director-composer partnership to a new level.

Set in mid-1950s London, in a world of high fashion and faded glamour, Phantom Thread is among Anderson’s most luxurious and romantic period pieces. It follows a tumultuous courtship between the renowned dressmaker Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis) and a waitress and model named Alma Elsen (Vicky Krieps). Greenwood’s compositions are as lavish and lush as the film’s old-world beauty: Aided by a 60-piece orchestra, the scope of the score far exceeds his previous work for film.

Working with such an opulent backing band allows Greenwood to craft truly ornate pieces. He has said that a principal reference point was Glenn Gould’s Bach recordings—the kind of cerebral, minimalist, and “obsessive” baroque music that would fit with the film’s hifalutin mood. But there are also touches of popular jazz and big, bodacious string recordings (inspired by Ben Webster) in the background of the score, to give the film’s setting its appropriately grand feel. The resulting songs are intense and almost comically rich—the sonic equivalent of a caviar and foie gras sandwich. ( )