How does Licorice Pizza stack up to the other films of Paul Thomas Anderson?
Lets discuss Anderson's new '70s-set comedy, which rolls into theaters this weekend
Film Features Films
Over this past month, Film Club has been revisiting the films written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. It’s all been in anticipation of Anderson’s new movie, Licorice Pizza, which hits theaters this holiday weekend. On this special bonus episode of the podcast, we cap our four-part series with a conversation about his latest. Where does it rank in the filmography of American cinema’s most acclaimed contemporary filmmaker? Let’s discuss.
Here’s what A.A. Dowd had to say about Licorice Pizza in his written review:
Licorice Pizza is a woozy
time-warp shuffle of a comedy: a California daydream of infatuation,
aspiration, and protracted adolescence that seems to propel its
celebrated writer-director, Paul Thomas Anderson, forward and backward
at once. The film is set in the San Fernando Valley of the early 1970s,
returning its maker to the time and place that made him, and also
roughly to the same setting as his sprawling ensemble period pieces Boogie Nights and Inherent Vice. Yet if Licorice Pizza
can be called a homecoming, it also paves new ground for the great
American artist who plucked it from his memories and dreams: For better
or worse, and especially on the heels of the refined, meticulous Phantom Thread, this looks like the shaggiest and most rambling movie of Anderson’s esteemed, ever-evolving career.
There’s
an episodic quality here, almost a sense that the movie is making
itself up as it goes along, across what feels like a single eventful
summer of cameoing stars and breaking news pushed to the margins of
fictional and fictionalized lives. At the center of its narrative, at
once sprawling and incidental, is a love story—though, in the
Andersonian tradition of romances punch-drunk and perverse, it’s an
unconventional one.
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8 Comments
You just had another article ranking PT Anderson movies. Let’s freshen it up a bit and add fast food chicken sandwiches to the rankings. I think The Master goes above BK’s Ch’King but below Boogie Nights and Popeyes Spicy Chicken still holds the #1 slot.
Great, now sort PTA movies by color, then by release date, then by how poggers they are.
I’d like to see a ranking between Licorice Pizza the movie, Licorice Pizza the record store chain, and an actual pizza made of licorice.
I am confident the movie would come in last place. Ranking the record store vs the actual pizza would be more challenging.
Despite seeing an extremely long trailer before No Time To Die, I still have no idea what this movie is supposed to be about.
Neither do I, having just seen the movie.
I still can’t get over how you get PSH to play an L Ron Hubbard figure and drop the ball so badly. God, in my head that movie was perfect. Should’ve kept it there.
I listened to this podcast before seeing the movie, and now I’m listening to it after having just seen it and I am blown away by your commentary. I’m also glad you mentioned the John Michael Higgins scenes, because that was just weird, wrong and unfunny. Other than those two scenes, I really enjoyed it a lot.