November 14, 2023 • 35 mins
Ever wondered how a director can weave an intricate story with a star-studded cast, yet make you deeply invested in each character? That's the genius of Paul Thomas Anderson, and we talk all about it in this week's episode. Starting off with Anderson's debut feature film, Hard Eight, and moving on to the popular Boogie Nights, we break down the compelling performances and share our personal experiences of discovering Anderson's world.
How can a movie over three hours long keep you engaged? Anderson achieves this with Magnolia, another masterpiece that we dissect, focusing on the heart-warming love story between John C. Riley and Melora Walters. We draw parallels to modern rom-coms like Valentine's Day and He's Just Not That Into You while appreciating Anderson’s knack for creating a complex, interconnected narrative.
Finally, we delve into Anderson's romantic comedy Punch Drunk Love, and scrutinize the duality of Adam Sandler's career, and his other cinematic gems like There Will Be Blood, The Master, and Inherent Vice. We discuss the brilliant performances by the likes of Daniel Day-Lewis and Joaquin Phoenix, and the unique visual language that Anderson employs. Join us for this scintillating journey through the works of one of Hollywood’s most influential contemporary directors.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello and welcome to another episode of movies, colon
.
They're pretty good.
I'm your host, travis Dudding,and today I continue my director
series, and the director inquestion today is Paul Thomas
Anderson.
Very, maybe my number onedirector is he's up there.
(00:24):
He's up there and I only liketo count like my favorites when
I've seen all of their you know,feature films.
So he's in a select group ofdirectors.
It's basically him Tarantino,wes Anderson, mel Brooks, who
(00:47):
covered last week and DavidLynch.
So in terms of directing andwhole Filmographies, that's
pretty much.
It Still missing one at leastone.
Christopher Nolan film, tenetstill haven't seen that.
(01:08):
I have the blu-ray but stillhaven't watched it.
Kubrick, missing a couple ofhis older ones, but yeah,
anyways, that's a.
That's neither here nor there.
That doesn't really matterright now.
What matters is Paul ThomasAnderson, pta, the parent
(01:30):
teacher association, all right.
So, like I said, one of myall-time favorite directors.
The first one I saw of his wasthere will be blood.
I saw it at a Base theaterbecause my I grew up with my dad
was in the Navy for 20 years.
(01:51):
I Eventually became a veteranmyself.
I did the Air Force for eightyears, so we had access to the
movie theater on the militarybases and For a while they were
free, then they were a dollarand then they were always way
cheaper.
But you just have to wait alittle bit till it had been out
(02:13):
of the theater, out ofcirculation and everything.
So Saw that one just a couplemonths after it had come out
Immediately, just fell in like,fell in love with it, fell in
love with cinema in general,like it was the first movie that
(02:33):
I saw that I felt Smart afteryou know which.
You know, everybody has thatmovie, everyone has their phase
where they're they feel a littleBetter than everybody and
everything like that.
And you never are, you know,because everyone's taste is
their own taste and nothing,nothing you like, makes you
(02:55):
better than anybody else.
But you know, when you're young, when you're 1817 I was 18 when
I saw it.
But yeah, I mean I haddefinitely seen a lot of good
movies, but this was the firstone where it just like blew me
away and I couldn't put myfinger on what I liked about it.
(03:18):
I just knew that I loved it andwanted to see it again and
again, and again.
So, yeah, let's, uh, let's,just get right into it.
Let's go back to the beginning,beginning his first film, hard
eight, 1996, starring PhilipBaker Hall, which is he's in a
(03:41):
bunch of his movies, john CRiley also in quite a few, but
then Gwyneth Paltrow and SamuelJackson, and then a Pretty short
cameo appearance from PhilipSeymour Hoffman, another PTA
mainstay.
Great movie, great, great,great movie.
(04:01):
If this is one of the harderones to find and one of the
lesser known ones, it's about aman who is Mentors, this young
guy that he finds he's leavingVegas.
He was trying to win some moneyto pay for his mom's funeral,
(04:22):
so he decides to take him underhis wing and kind of teach him
how to Make a good amount ofmoney in a Short amount of time
and also just to like kind ofsurvive in in the casino and
just live, live in a hotel room.
Pretty much, yeah, it justgives them all these tricks of
(04:42):
the trade.
This is Philip Baker Hallmentoring John C Riley.
Yeah, great, great movie.
I think my favorite GwynethPaltrow performance ever she's
did amazing in this.
She is a sex worker who marriesJohn C Riley and yeah, it's
(05:08):
just.
I think it's her bestperformance, the only well, yeah
, I'd say it's better than seven, because there's more to it,
you know, and it's not that hershe's a good actress in seven,
but it's like her performanceisn't what you're remembering,
(05:28):
you're just remembering whathappens to her, you know.
So, yeah, really great movie.
Give it.
If you haven't seen that oneand seen all the other stuff,
give it a shot.
I streamed it on Pluto TV withads it was so, it was free, but
you just had to watch the samecommercial every few minutes.
(05:50):
But, yeah, great movie.
Great movie.
Heart eight.
All right, moving on.
Next we have I don't know if itsee, this is where it gets hard,
because there's really only twothat I have rated lower than
everything else, and everythingelse is like a seven way tie.
(06:12):
But next is Boogie Nights, andthis is this is one of the best
ones, probably one of his bestknown ones Incredible,
incredible movie.
I just watched this, rewatchedit today.
Amazing performances fromeverybody.
We got Mark Wahlberg and thenthis is, in my opinion, his best
(06:38):
acting performance, which sokind of sucks because he's kind
of down on this one and kind ofsays that he regrets doing it
and stuff, because the subjectmatter of the film Boogie Nights
, if you don't know, is thatit's about the porn industry in
the seventies and eighties,basically.
And it shows the dark side butalso doesn't necessarily say oh
(07:01):
it's all bad because it doeshave a happy ending.
It's like the bad side of whatcould happen within it and the
bad side about how people aregoing to look down on you even
though you're just trying tomake a living.
But yeah, amazing, amazingperformances Mark Wahlberg, burt
(07:23):
Reynolds, julianne Moore, johnC Riley, heather Graham, don
Cheadle, philip Seymour Hoffman,william H Macy, louise Guzman,
malora Walter she's anotherrepeat PTA person Phillip Baker
(07:47):
Hall.
Again Alfred Molina, and he'sprobably got my favorite scene
in the movie.
He plays a drug dealer thatthey go to try to rob and it's
one of the most intense scenes,like well done, intense scenes,
because there's just a lot oftension, it's very chaotic and
(08:07):
you don't really know, likewhat's about to happen.
And that's not the only scenelike that.
There's another one where MarkWahlberg's character, dirk
Diggler, is down on his luck andtrying to make money by
prostituting himself and then hegets beat up.
(08:27):
And then there's this scenewhere Don Cheadle has been
denied a bank loan because ofhis career in the porn industry
and so he's just going to pickup some donuts from the donut
shop.
He goes in there, he's pickingthem out, someone tries to rob
(08:48):
the donut place and likemultiple guns go off and
everybody ends up dead exceptfor Don Cheadle and he just
takes the money and leaves.
It's an incredible scene.
I'm saying a lot, I know.
Yeah, just a great, great,great, great movie and everyone
(09:12):
does amazing man, I can'trecommend that movie enough.
But yeah, boogie Nights this isthe one that put Paul Thomas
Anderson on the map.
Pretty much this is the onethat was his breakout movie and
everything.
Because people liked Heart 8,but it wasn't like a smash
(09:33):
success or anything like that.
It wasn't a big hit.
But Boogie Nights was the onethat everyone remembers, and
probably because it had some bignames like Bert Reynolds in
there.
Alright, moving on, we gotMagnolia.
This one, this one's crazy.
This is another All-Star cast.
(09:56):
Got Phillip Baker Hall backagain.
You got Tom Cruise.
You got Philip Seymour Hoffman.
You got William H Macy.
You got Julianne Moore backagain, john C Riley back again
Geez, you got Jason Robards,malora Walters, melinda Dillon,
(10:19):
alfa Molina again, louise Guzmanagain.
Yeah, yeah, star-studded cast.
This one will hook you inbecause it's a bunch of
different stories that seemdisconnected but become
connected by the end.
(10:40):
Everything's a little relatedand you don't realize until it
all comes together at the end.
You know the popular versionsof this but not necessarily good
versions of this are stuff likeValentine's Day and New Year's
(11:00):
Eve and what's that other one?
He's just not that into you.
I mean those are all romcoms,but it's a similar type of thing
where they bit off this a onfirst appearance, disconnected
(11:20):
stories that all blend at theend.
Yeah, and also a surprisinglyfeel-good movie.
There's a lot of bad stuff thathappens in this and a lot of
dark moments as well, mostlybecause of the love story
(11:41):
between John C Riley and MaloraWalters.
It's really very touching andit's one of my feel-good movies.
It's one that I'll put on ifI'm feeling kind of down and
stuff like that.
It's also a very long movie.
I think it's his longest one ata little over three hours.
But I had found this one on TVonce and just couldn't stop
(12:07):
watching it.
You know, I was just flippingchannels and I think I
recognized one of the massivestars in the cast and was like
I'll check this out and justkept watching and watching and
watching and then two and a halfhours later it's like, oh shit.
But yeah, real, real good movie.
Yeah, that's Magnolia from theyear 1999.
(12:30):
All right, moving on.
Next we got Punch Drunk Love.
This was probably the firsttime I heard of a Paul Thomas
Anderson movie, because it was ahuge deal in 2002 when Adam
(12:53):
Sandler was trying to get intomore dramatic roles and
obviously now we see him succeedin both.
He's making hella money onthese comedies that everyone's
like a little hard on on Netflixbut he's making hella money
from that.
But then we're also like tryingto get him an Oscar for uncut
(13:17):
gems and stuff like that.
So we're used to seeing bothsides of Adam Sandler at this
point.
But in 2002 it was.
It wasn't.
There wasn't the duality ofSandler, it was just a comedy
guy going into drama and he'snot the first to do that.
But you know they, even thoughit happens all the time, people
(13:41):
always make a big deal about it.
But this is another like realfeel good movie.
Great performance by AdamSandler.
Love interests is Emily Watson.
She does a great job.
Philip Seymour Hoffman, kind ofthe antagonist.
You got Louise Guzman, marylandRise Cub.
(14:03):
Robert Smigel, the SNL writer.
He's got a cameo in there.
Yeah, a bunch of other, likesmall cameo parts from different
comedians and stuff like that,but it's a real, real good, real
good story, real beautiful lovestory and also funny too, like
(14:26):
it's obviously like way moredramatic than Sandler's other
stuff at that time, but veryfunny as well, you know, and it
kind of just lives in this realmof acceptance of people with
different mental states andthings like that, because Adam
(14:48):
Sandler suffers from kind ofhe's like very socially awkward
and a little bit of an anchormanagement and things like that
and like his family is likealways super down on him and
everything like that.
But he's also very successfultoo.
So it's not like you know he'scompletely, he's not like a
complete failure or anythinglike that, not that anyone ever
(15:09):
is, but yeah, just real, realbeautiful movie.
Another another feel good oneI'll put on.
It's the only one that is oncriterion collection, which I'm
hoping that changes.
I know Boogie Nights was in thelaser disc days, but so I'm
(15:30):
hoping someday they go ahead andput that on 4K or Blu-ray
criterion collection, because Imean I mean all these movies
belong, but I know it's justalways stupid rights issues and
stuff like that, and I mean newsflash the studios suck.
So who knew?
All right, moving on.
(15:52):
Next we got there will be blood.
Like I said before, this was myfirst Paul Thomas Anderson
movie.
I think my favorite.
But it's like I said, it's veryhard to decide to pick a
favorite.
I'm going to try at the end I'mgoing to try to rank them all
in real time, so bear with methrough that there will be blood
(16:16):
.
This is the first time he workswith Daniel Day Lewis, first of
two times.
Very different movie, like fromthe other ones so far.
The other ones are very big.
Like I said, star stud cast alot going on, a lot of plot
(16:39):
going on.
This is not a plot driven movie.
I mean there is a plot, butthis is definitely character
based cinema.
This if you want to look atperfect acting Daniel Day Lewis,
(17:00):
and there will be blood.
I mean he did win the Oscar forit, so no surprise there.
But just, I want to say, likethe first 20 to 30 minutes
there's only one word ofdialogue and it's just.
But even with that, and it'sjust a couple scenes of him
(17:26):
Mining for gold, getting injured, crawling to town to get the
money, buying land and drillingfor oil, and even even in those
scenes there's not really anydialogue and you're still just
captivated the whole time.
It's literally just a guy inthe desert trying to get oil and
(17:49):
but you're glued to the TV, tothe screen, whatever, wherever
you're watching it.
But Daniel Day Lewis, paul Dano, he plays this small town
revival like tent revival stylepreacher.
(18:09):
Also an incredible, incredibleperformance.
Kevin J O'Connor he's been in afew things.
He'll be in a couple more PaulThomas Anderson movies coming up
, I think the next one KevinHines, then a couple like random
(18:35):
cameos from different comedians, like Paul F Tompkins.
He's got a small part in there.
But yeah, this, like I said,it's about oil tycoon.
Underlying theme is just greedin general, like I don't want to
(18:55):
give away the ending for anyonethat happens to not have seen
this movie.
If you haven't like it,honestly, like the only one that
I wouldn't flat out recommendof this of Paul Thomas
Anderson's whole filmography isinherent vice.
But I've only seen it the onetime and I feel like if I give
(19:17):
it another chance I might likeit this time.
You know, because I'vedefinitely Uh, I've definitely
appreciated some of the moviesmore on a second view.
Some of them were 5 stars rightoff the bat and then a couple
of them were like I don't knowabout that.
(19:37):
And then I watch it again andlike, oh my god, this is amazing
.
But I haven't done that yetwith Inherent Vice.
But, like I said, all thesemovies, highly recommend them.
Go watch them if you haven't.
Yeah, there will be blood.
Just maybe one of the fewperfect movies.
(19:59):
Alright, moving on the Master.
Now, this is one that I wasn'tcompletely sold on the first
time I saw it, but gotta tellyou rewatched it last night.
Yeah, this is another like fullon masterclass of acting right
(20:20):
here.
And it's not just Daniel DeLuislike in there Will Be Blood,
it's literally the whole cast isjust putting on 150%.
You got Joaquin Phoenix.
He's the main character.
You got Philip Seymour Hoffman.
He plays the leader of thisreligious cult.
(20:45):
It's very like.
I mean, everyone was like, oh,the guy that made there Will Be
Blood's making a Scientologymovie.
It's not fully Scientology, butit's pretty much Scientology.
So yeah, he plays basically theL Ron Hubbard of this cult.
(21:05):
In the Master Did I even say thetitle the Master?
Yeah, my brain's like all overthe place right now.
But so just bear with me.
I know I'm like probablygetting pretty rambly.
You got Amy Adams plays PhilipSeymour Hoffman's wife, rami
(21:28):
Malek, laura Dern, jesse Plemons, kevin J O'Connor's back again
for this one, yeah, yeah.
And then just a few other.
You know he always gets hiscomedian friends in there.
You got Julian Bell in this one.
(21:48):
Yeah, this one.
It's another one of thosethat's just very captivating.
There's definitely a lot moreplot going on in this one than
there Will Be Blood and it'sjust I don't know Like.
I know I'm just saying like thesame things about all these
(22:09):
different movies, but it's justpowerhouse performance after
powerhouse performance and then,even if you took all the acting
out of it, you have some of themost beautiful shots like ever
put on the screen.
My personal favorite it's likepretty early on in the movie
(22:31):
because Joaquin Phoenix'scharacter is a war veteran.
This is right after World WarTwo that this is taking place.
And there's this shot of him ona where he's like hanging or
not kind of hanging, but likejust laying down, like up high
on a naval ship, and you couldjust see the ship like the waves
going like amongst the ship,and it's just a downward shot of
(23:00):
him.
You know, and there's no way Icould explain it and do justice,
but like, when you see ityou'll know, because it's just
incredible.
But yeah, this beautifully shotfilm, great music and that's
another thing A lot of thesoundtracks done by Johnny
Greenwood from Radiohead, but heis an amazing composer and I
(23:28):
think, for me personally andI'll get into it more later on
in the episode but to me themark of a good score for a movie
is if you're like humming it onthe way home, you know, or just
(23:48):
later that day after you watchit, say if you did watch it at
home.
You just can't get that scoreout of your head and that's like
that only happens with a fewand it's.
You know, it's easy now, whenyou were born in 89 and just
grew up with Star Wars, to belike, oh, that score is so
(24:08):
iconic because it is, because itwas already iconic by the time
you had ears and can identifystuff you know.
But so it's a lot harder now tobe like, oh, like that that
score is so amazing because youdon't know if it's going to have
that staying power.
And so I think if, if you can'tget like those like melodies
(24:35):
out of your head, then I thinkthen you got a good.
You got a good film score, youknow and the master definitely
has a great score Harder topinpoint the good parts of the
score and there will be bloodbecause it's a very minimalist
(24:57):
score.
But when we get to PhantomThread, I'll talk more about
that and I might have mentionedit in the Phantom Thread episode
.
But if I didn't, or if I dideither way, I'm going to be
reiterating that should be thetitle of this episode.
Travis reiterates everythinghe's ever said.
(25:19):
Alright.
Next we come to my leastfavorite but still probably a
pretty good movie Inherent Vice.
You got Joaquin Phoenix's back.
You got Josh Brolin, you gotOwen Wilson, you got Katherine
Waterston, reese Witherspoon,benicio del Toro, jenna Malone,
(25:41):
joanna Newsom, oh man, hong Chao, she was just nominated.
You got Paul Thomas Anderson'swife, maya Rudolph, michael
Kenneth Williams, omar from theWire, martin Short, yeah, I'm
(26:03):
sure a bunch more.
This one takes place in the 70s.
Joaquin Phoenix is a detectivewho is on drugs because it's the
70s and he's investigating thedisappearance of an
ex-girlfriend.
Basically, like I said, I'veonly seen it the one time.
(26:25):
It's visually very cool, that'sgreat visuals, which is the
case for all of these movies,but don't remember much about
the plot, at least in my opinion, after one viewing, pretty
forgettable.
(26:46):
Nothing's really sticking outto me other than how good it
looked.
But, like I said, I'll give itanother shot and maybe I'll
update you guys when I do.
Maybe I'll like oh, this isactually his best movie and do
an episode on it, but notholding my breath.
So, moving on from InherentVice to Phantom Thread, now I'm
(27:11):
not going to talk too much aboutthe movie because I already did
a full episode on it, butprobably my other, the one I'm
back and forth between thereWill Be Blood and this, which
shows you how powerful DanielDay-Lewis is, the two movies
(27:31):
that he's in and those are thetwo that are in contention for
which one's my favorite Amazingmovie.
Now, what I was saying about thescore, that Phantom Thread
theme is just incredible.
Like, oh man, it's.
(27:54):
I just couldn't get it out ofmy head.
I was thinking about it likeall the time.
I downloaded the soundtrack.
I'm always looking for it onvinyl.
I'd love to have the record ofit.
I probably at one point on mySpotify wrapped Johnny Greenwood
was number one, just because Ikept like listening to the
(28:16):
Phantom Thread soundtrack when Iwas going to sleep.
So, yeah, amazing, amazingscore on that.
Just finished watching,rewatching that before I
recorded, just because I wantedto get in that headspace of Paul
Thomas Anderson and everything,yeah, but oh man, just such a
good movie.
(28:36):
So now we come to his mostrecent one, and this one's a
pretty divisive one, even withme, because the first time I
watched it I wasn't sure how Ifelt about it, but I also just
had a really bad no, not reallybad, but just a difficult
viewing experience of it.
(28:57):
I'm not going to go intodetails on that.
So, licorice pizza Like I said,first time didn't really know
how I felt about it, but also itwasn't an ideal viewing
situation.
I watched it again yesterday,over the course of a few days
(29:19):
because it was on Amazon, and,yeah, loved it a lot more this
time, appreciate it a lot more.
I'm still not 100% sure how Ifeel about the plot, because
it's about a young child actorand by child actor I mean 15,
but still a child who falls inlove with this girl in her 20s
(29:45):
played by Heim's.
Is it Alana Heim?
Yeah, alana Heim and the otherHeim sisters are in there too,
but he's in love with this girlin her 20s, and there's this
huge age gap, and it's theydon't make it too weird, but
(30:09):
what bothers some about it isthe fact that if the genders
were reversed, everyone woulddefinitely have a problem with
it.
So that's just, basically, andmaybe that was the whole point
of it is like to be makeeveryone examine their own
prejudices and like, oh, lookhow you're okay with that, but
(30:32):
like should you be?
I don't know, maybe I'm lookingway too into it, but if you
don't think about that too much,it's a really good movie.
It's really funny, it looksgreat.
Another great score it's takenplace in the 70s.
It's all like in the Valley.
It's in San Fernando Valley, soa lot of great location shots.
(30:57):
If you are from that area orfamiliar with that area, it's
great.
It's really fun.
It's a lot of good jokes too.
I think one of my favoritethings about it, though, is that
the main character, GaryValentine, is played by Cooper
Hoffman, who is Philip SeymourHoffman's son and man, and he is
(31:22):
incredible, and it's like.
It's one of those things thatwhen you, if you think about it,
while you're watching him likebe this amazing actor just like
his dad was, then it can be likea little emotional because it's
like, oh man, like we lostPhilip Seymour Hoffman,
obviously, but look how good hisson is too.
(31:44):
I'm not saying that that makesit, you know, if everything fine
and was like, oh, we don't needhim because we have a son.
That's not what I mean.
I just mean like he's just soincredible and it just makes me,
it made me smile to see thathis son's out there doing just
as good as him, you know, and Ihope he does have a long career
(32:06):
if that's what he wants.
You know, maybe he just wantedto do this one because a lot of,
like the, there's a lot ofcameos from Nepo Babies in this
movie and I think that's kind of, you know, part of it.
But yeah, great, great, great,great movie.
Little weird the more you thinkabout it, but still very
(32:27):
enjoyable and it's like soenjoyable that it's easy to
forget, like, what else is goingon.
Yeah, so yeah, that's thecareer of Paul Thomas Anderson,
looking forward to whatever elsehe has coming up.
So let's go ahead and rank these.
I'm gonna say least favorite.
(32:52):
I already said inherent vice.
Next I'll put punch drunk love.
That might go up after arewatch, but because it's been a
long time since I've watchedthat one, but right now I'm
feeling like that's second tolast, but I love that one.
(33:14):
So what does that tell youabout this guy's career?
You know, next I think I'll gohard eight, then the Grish Pizza
, the Master, magnolia, boogieNights, Phantom Thread and
(33:43):
number one, there will be blood.
Yeah, okay, so that is mydefinitive ranking for now.
As of 2023, november 2023, thatis my ranking of the Paul
Thomas Anderson movies.
All right, so thank you guys forlistening.
I hope it wasn't too rambly orincoherent and I hope I gave you
(34:09):
any sort of like maritalinformation.
I hope it was fun to listen to.
At least I'll be way moreprepared for the next one, I
think.
But yeah, it's just one of myfavorite directors.
(34:30):
Love is work.
Can't wait to see what he hasnext.
Can't wait to revisit some ofthose ones that I wasn't sure
how I felt about.
And that is it for me.
Follow me at, or follow the showat, movies.
They're Pretty Good, with noPunctuation on Instagram, that's
(34:55):
where I'm the most active.
I'm gonna do two more of thesedirector episodes.
I'll have a special guest onone of them.
I don't know if it's gonna bethe next episode or the last one
of the month, and then, onceDecember hits, I'll be doing
some holiday movies, probablymostly Christmas ones, just
(35:19):
cause that's the winter holidaythat I celebrate.
But yeah, that's it.
So stick around.
Hope you enjoyed the episode,hope you were enjoying the show,
even if you didn't enjoy thisepisode, and see you next week.
(35:40):
Thanks, bye.
Hello and welcome to another episode of movies, colon
.
They're pretty good.
I'm your host, travis Dudding,and today I continue my director
series, and the director inquestion today is Paul Thomas
Anderson.
Very, maybe my number onedirector is he's up there.
(00:24):
He's up there and I only liketo count like my favorites when
I've seen all of their you know,feature films.
So he's in a select group ofdirectors.
It's basically him Tarantino,wes Anderson, mel Brooks, who
(00:47):
covered last week and DavidLynch.
So in terms of directing andwhole Filmographies, that's
pretty much.
It Still missing one at leastone.
Christopher Nolan film, tenetstill haven't seen that.
(01:08):
I have the blu-ray but stillhaven't watched it.
Kubrick, missing a couple ofhis older ones, but yeah,
anyways, that's a.
That's neither here nor there.
That doesn't really matterright now.
What matters is Paul ThomasAnderson, pta, the parent
(01:30):
teacher association, all right.
So, like I said, one of myall-time favorite directors.
The first one I saw of his wasthere will be blood.
I saw it at a Base theaterbecause my I grew up with my dad
was in the Navy for 20 years.
(01:51):
I Eventually became a veteranmyself.
I did the Air Force for eightyears, so we had access to the
movie theater on the militarybases and For a while they were
free, then they were a dollarand then they were always way
cheaper.
But you just have to wait alittle bit till it had been out
(02:13):
of the theater, out ofcirculation and everything.
So Saw that one just a couplemonths after it had come out
Immediately, just fell in like,fell in love with it, fell in
love with cinema in general,like it was the first movie that
(02:33):
I saw that I felt Smart afteryou know which.
You know, everybody has thatmovie, everyone has their phase
where they're they feel a littleBetter than everybody and
everything like that.
And you never are, you know,because everyone's taste is
their own taste and nothing,nothing you like, makes you
(02:55):
better than anybody else.
But you know, when you're young, when you're 1817 I was 18 when
I saw it.
But yeah, I mean I haddefinitely seen a lot of good
movies, but this was the firstone where it just like blew me
away and I couldn't put myfinger on what I liked about it.
(03:18):
I just knew that I loved it andwanted to see it again and
again, and again.
So, yeah, let's, uh, let's,just get right into it.
Let's go back to the beginning,beginning his first film, hard
eight, 1996, starring PhilipBaker Hall, which is he's in a
(03:41):
bunch of his movies, john CRiley also in quite a few, but
then Gwyneth Paltrow and SamuelJackson, and then a Pretty short
cameo appearance from PhilipSeymour Hoffman, another PTA
mainstay.
Great movie, great, great,great movie.
(04:01):
If this is one of the harderones to find and one of the
lesser known ones, it's about aman who is Mentors, this young
guy that he finds he's leavingVegas.
He was trying to win some moneyto pay for his mom's funeral,
(04:22):
so he decides to take him underhis wing and kind of teach him
how to Make a good amount ofmoney in a Short amount of time
and also just to like kind ofsurvive in in the casino and
just live, live in a hotel room.
Pretty much, yeah, it justgives them all these tricks of
(04:42):
the trade.
This is Philip Baker Hallmentoring John C Riley.
Yeah, great, great movie.
I think my favorite GwynethPaltrow performance ever she's
did amazing in this.
She is a sex worker who marriesJohn C Riley and yeah, it's
(05:08):
just.
I think it's her bestperformance, the only well, yeah
, I'd say it's better than seven, because there's more to it,
you know, and it's not that hershe's a good actress in seven,
but it's like her performanceisn't what you're remembering,
(05:28):
you're just remembering whathappens to her, you know.
So, yeah, really great movie.
Give it.
If you haven't seen that oneand seen all the other stuff,
give it a shot.
I streamed it on Pluto TV withads it was so, it was free, but
you just had to watch the samecommercial every few minutes.
(05:50):
But, yeah, great movie.
Great movie.
Heart eight.
All right, moving on.
Next we have I don't know if itsee, this is where it gets hard,
because there's really only twothat I have rated lower than
everything else, and everythingelse is like a seven way tie.
(06:12):
But next is Boogie Nights, andthis is this is one of the best
ones, probably one of his bestknown ones Incredible,
incredible movie.
I just watched this, rewatchedit today.
Amazing performances fromeverybody.
We got Mark Wahlberg and thenthis is, in my opinion, his best
(06:38):
acting performance, which sokind of sucks because he's kind
of down on this one and kind ofsays that he regrets doing it
and stuff, because the subjectmatter of the film Boogie Nights
, if you don't know, is thatit's about the porn industry in
the seventies and eighties,basically.
And it shows the dark side butalso doesn't necessarily say oh
(07:01):
it's all bad because it doeshave a happy ending.
It's like the bad side of whatcould happen within it and the
bad side about how people aregoing to look down on you even
though you're just trying tomake a living.
But yeah, amazing, amazingperformances Mark Wahlberg, burt
(07:23):
Reynolds, julianne Moore, johnC Riley, heather Graham, don
Cheadle, philip Seymour Hoffman,william H Macy, louise Guzman,
malora Walter she's anotherrepeat PTA person Phillip Baker
(07:47):
Hall.
Again Alfred Molina, and he'sprobably got my favorite scene
in the movie.
He plays a drug dealer thatthey go to try to rob and it's
one of the most intense scenes,like well done, intense scenes,
because there's just a lot oftension, it's very chaotic and
(08:07):
you don't really know, likewhat's about to happen.
And that's not the only scenelike that.
There's another one where MarkWahlberg's character, dirk
Diggler, is down on his luck andtrying to make money by
prostituting himself and then hegets beat up.
(08:27):
And then there's this scenewhere Don Cheadle has been
denied a bank loan because ofhis career in the porn industry
and so he's just going to pickup some donuts from the donut
shop.
He goes in there, he's pickingthem out, someone tries to rob
(08:48):
the donut place and likemultiple guns go off and
everybody ends up dead exceptfor Don Cheadle and he just
takes the money and leaves.
It's an incredible scene.
I'm saying a lot, I know.
Yeah, just a great, great,great, great movie and everyone
(09:12):
does amazing man, I can'trecommend that movie enough.
But yeah, boogie Nights this isthe one that put Paul Thomas
Anderson on the map.
Pretty much this is the onethat was his breakout movie and
everything.
Because people liked Heart 8,but it wasn't like a smash
(09:33):
success or anything like that.
It wasn't a big hit.
But Boogie Nights was the onethat everyone remembers, and
probably because it had some bignames like Bert Reynolds in
there.
Alright, moving on, we gotMagnolia.
This one, this one's crazy.
This is another All-Star cast.
(09:56):
Got Phillip Baker Hall backagain.
You got Tom Cruise.
You got Philip Seymour Hoffman.
You got William H Macy.
You got Julianne Moore backagain, john C Riley back again
Geez, you got Jason Robards,malora Walters, melinda Dillon,
(10:19):
alfa Molina again, louise Guzmanagain.
Yeah, yeah, star-studded cast.
This one will hook you inbecause it's a bunch of
different stories that seemdisconnected but become
connected by the end.
(10:40):
Everything's a little relatedand you don't realize until it
all comes together at the end.
You know the popular versionsof this but not necessarily good
versions of this are stuff likeValentine's Day and New Year's
(11:00):
Eve and what's that other one?
He's just not that into you.
I mean those are all romcoms,but it's a similar type of thing
where they bit off this a onfirst appearance, disconnected
(11:20):
stories that all blend at theend.
Yeah, and also a surprisinglyfeel-good movie.
There's a lot of bad stuff thathappens in this and a lot of
dark moments as well, mostlybecause of the love story
(11:41):
between John C Riley and MaloraWalters.
It's really very touching andit's one of my feel-good movies.
It's one that I'll put on ifI'm feeling kind of down and
stuff like that.
It's also a very long movie.
I think it's his longest one ata little over three hours.
But I had found this one on TVonce and just couldn't stop
(12:07):
watching it.
You know, I was just flippingchannels and I think I
recognized one of the massivestars in the cast and was like
I'll check this out and justkept watching and watching and
watching and then two and a halfhours later it's like, oh shit.
But yeah, real, real good movie.
Yeah, that's Magnolia from theyear 1999.
(12:30):
All right, moving on.
Next we got Punch Drunk Love.
This was probably the firsttime I heard of a Paul Thomas
Anderson movie, because it was ahuge deal in 2002 when Adam
(12:53):
Sandler was trying to get intomore dramatic roles and
obviously now we see him succeedin both.
He's making hella money onthese comedies that everyone's
like a little hard on on Netflixbut he's making hella money
from that.
But then we're also like tryingto get him an Oscar for uncut
(13:17):
gems and stuff like that.
So we're used to seeing bothsides of Adam Sandler at this
point.
But in 2002 it was.
It wasn't.
There wasn't the duality ofSandler, it was just a comedy
guy going into drama and he'snot the first to do that.
But you know they, even thoughit happens all the time, people
(13:41):
always make a big deal about it.
But this is another like realfeel good movie.
Great performance by AdamSandler.
Love interests is Emily Watson.
She does a great job.
Philip Seymour Hoffman, kind ofthe antagonist.
You got Louise Guzman, marylandRise Cub.
(14:03):
Robert Smigel, the SNL writer.
He's got a cameo in there.
Yeah, a bunch of other, likesmall cameo parts from different
comedians and stuff like that,but it's a real, real good, real
good story, real beautiful lovestory and also funny too, like
(14:26):
it's obviously like way moredramatic than Sandler's other
stuff at that time, but veryfunny as well, you know, and it
kind of just lives in this realmof acceptance of people with
different mental states andthings like that, because Adam
(14:48):
Sandler suffers from kind ofhe's like very socially awkward
and a little bit of an anchormanagement and things like that
and like his family is likealways super down on him and
everything like that.
But he's also very successfultoo.
So it's not like you know he'scompletely, he's not like a
complete failure or anythinglike that, not that anyone ever
(15:09):
is, but yeah, just real, realbeautiful movie.
Another another feel good oneI'll put on.
It's the only one that is oncriterion collection, which I'm
hoping that changes.
I know Boogie Nights was in thelaser disc days, but so I'm
(15:30):
hoping someday they go ahead andput that on 4K or Blu-ray
criterion collection, because Imean I mean all these movies
belong, but I know it's justalways stupid rights issues and
stuff like that, and I mean newsflash the studios suck.
So who knew?
All right, moving on.
(15:52):
Next we got there will be blood.
Like I said before, this was myfirst Paul Thomas Anderson
movie.
I think my favorite.
But it's like I said, it's veryhard to decide to pick a
favorite.
I'm going to try at the end I'mgoing to try to rank them all
in real time, so bear with methrough that there will be blood
(16:16):
.
This is the first time he workswith Daniel Day Lewis, first of
two times.
Very different movie, like fromthe other ones so far.
The other ones are very big.
Like I said, star stud cast alot going on, a lot of plot
(16:39):
going on.
This is not a plot driven movie.
I mean there is a plot, butthis is definitely character
based cinema.
This if you want to look atperfect acting Daniel Day Lewis,
(17:00):
and there will be blood.
I mean he did win the Oscar forit, so no surprise there.
But just, I want to say, likethe first 20 to 30 minutes
there's only one word ofdialogue and it's just.
But even with that, and it'sjust a couple scenes of him
(17:26):
Mining for gold, getting injured, crawling to town to get the
money, buying land and drillingfor oil, and even even in those
scenes there's not really anydialogue and you're still just
captivated the whole time.
It's literally just a guy inthe desert trying to get oil and
(17:49):
but you're glued to the TV, tothe screen, whatever, wherever
you're watching it.
But Daniel Day Lewis, paul Dano, he plays this small town
revival like tent revival stylepreacher.
(18:09):
Also an incredible, incredibleperformance.
Kevin J O'Connor he's been in afew things.
He'll be in a couple more PaulThomas Anderson movies coming up
, I think the next one KevinHines, then a couple like random
(18:35):
cameos from different comedians, like Paul F Tompkins.
He's got a small part in there.
But yeah, this, like I said,it's about oil tycoon.
Underlying theme is just greedin general, like I don't want to
(18:55):
give away the ending for anyonethat happens to not have seen
this movie.
If you haven't like it,honestly, like the only one that
I wouldn't flat out recommendof this of Paul Thomas
Anderson's whole filmography isinherent vice.
But I've only seen it the onetime and I feel like if I give
(19:17):
it another chance I might likeit this time.
You know, because I'vedefinitely Uh, I've definitely
appreciated some of the moviesmore on a second view.
Some of them were 5 stars rightoff the bat and then a couple
of them were like I don't knowabout that.
(19:37):
And then I watch it again andlike, oh my god, this is amazing
.
But I haven't done that yetwith Inherent Vice.
But, like I said, all thesemovies, highly recommend them.
Go watch them if you haven't.
Yeah, there will be blood.
Just maybe one of the fewperfect movies.
(19:59):
Alright, moving on the Master.
Now, this is one that I wasn'tcompletely sold on the first
time I saw it, but gotta tellyou rewatched it last night.
Yeah, this is another like fullon masterclass of acting right
(20:20):
here.
And it's not just Daniel DeLuislike in there Will Be Blood,
it's literally the whole cast isjust putting on 150%.
You got Joaquin Phoenix.
He's the main character.
You got Philip Seymour Hoffman.
He plays the leader of thisreligious cult.
(20:45):
It's very like.
I mean, everyone was like, oh,the guy that made there Will Be
Blood's making a Scientologymovie.
It's not fully Scientology, butit's pretty much Scientology.
So yeah, he plays basically theL Ron Hubbard of this cult.
(21:05):
In the Master Did I even say thetitle the Master?
Yeah, my brain's like all overthe place right now.
But so just bear with me.
I know I'm like probablygetting pretty rambly.
You got Amy Adams plays PhilipSeymour Hoffman's wife, rami
(21:28):
Malek, laura Dern, jesse Plemons, kevin J O'Connor's back again
for this one, yeah, yeah.
And then just a few other.
You know he always gets hiscomedian friends in there.
You got Julian Bell in this one.
(21:48):
Yeah, this one.
It's another one of thosethat's just very captivating.
There's definitely a lot moreplot going on in this one than
there Will Be Blood and it'sjust I don't know Like.
I know I'm just saying like thesame things about all these
(22:09):
different movies, but it's justpowerhouse performance after
powerhouse performance and then,even if you took all the acting
out of it, you have some of themost beautiful shots like ever
put on the screen.
My personal favorite it's likepretty early on in the movie
(22:31):
because Joaquin Phoenix'scharacter is a war veteran.
This is right after World WarTwo that this is taking place.
And there's this shot of him ona where he's like hanging or
not kind of hanging, but likejust laying down, like up high
on a naval ship, and you couldjust see the ship like the waves
going like amongst the ship,and it's just a downward shot of
(23:00):
him.
You know, and there's no way Icould explain it and do justice,
but like, when you see ityou'll know, because it's just
incredible.
But yeah, this beautifully shotfilm, great music and that's
another thing A lot of thesoundtracks done by Johnny
Greenwood from Radiohead, but heis an amazing composer and I
(23:28):
think, for me personally andI'll get into it more later on
in the episode but to me themark of a good score for a movie
is if you're like humming it onthe way home, you know, or just
(23:48):
later that day after you watchit, say if you did watch it at
home.
You just can't get that scoreout of your head and that's like
that only happens with a fewand it's.
You know, it's easy now, whenyou were born in 89 and just
grew up with Star Wars, to belike, oh, that score is so
(24:08):
iconic because it is, because itwas already iconic by the time
you had ears and can identifystuff you know.
But so it's a lot harder now tobe like, oh, like that that
score is so amazing because youdon't know if it's going to have
that staying power.
And so I think if, if you can'tget like those like melodies
(24:35):
out of your head, then I thinkthen you got a good.
You got a good film score, youknow and the master definitely
has a great score Harder topinpoint the good parts of the
score and there will be bloodbecause it's a very minimalist
(24:57):
score.
But when we get to PhantomThread, I'll talk more about
that and I might have mentionedit in the Phantom Thread episode
.
But if I didn't, or if I dideither way, I'm going to be
reiterating that should be thetitle of this episode.
Travis reiterates everythinghe's ever said.
(25:19):
Alright.
Next we come to my leastfavorite but still probably a
pretty good movie Inherent Vice.
You got Joaquin Phoenix's back.
You got Josh Brolin, you gotOwen Wilson, you got Katherine
Waterston, reese Witherspoon,benicio del Toro, jenna Malone,
(25:41):
joanna Newsom, oh man, hong Chao, she was just nominated.
You got Paul Thomas Anderson'swife, maya Rudolph, michael
Kenneth Williams, omar from theWire, martin Short, yeah, I'm
(26:03):
sure a bunch more.
This one takes place in the 70s.
Joaquin Phoenix is a detectivewho is on drugs because it's the
70s and he's investigating thedisappearance of an
ex-girlfriend.
Basically, like I said, I'veonly seen it the one time.
(26:25):
It's visually very cool, that'sgreat visuals, which is the
case for all of these movies,but don't remember much about
the plot, at least in my opinion, after one viewing, pretty
forgettable.
(26:46):
Nothing's really sticking outto me other than how good it
looked.
But, like I said, I'll give itanother shot and maybe I'll
update you guys when I do.
Maybe I'll like oh, this isactually his best movie and do
an episode on it, but notholding my breath.
So, moving on from InherentVice to Phantom Thread, now I'm
(27:11):
not going to talk too much aboutthe movie because I already did
a full episode on it, butprobably my other, the one I'm
back and forth between thereWill Be Blood and this, which
shows you how powerful DanielDay-Lewis is, the two movies
(27:31):
that he's in and those are thetwo that are in contention for
which one's my favorite Amazingmovie.
Now, what I was saying about thescore, that Phantom Thread
theme is just incredible.
Like, oh man, it's.
(27:54):
I just couldn't get it out ofmy head.
I was thinking about it likeall the time.
I downloaded the soundtrack.
I'm always looking for it onvinyl.
I'd love to have the record ofit.
I probably at one point on mySpotify wrapped Johnny Greenwood
was number one, just because Ikept like listening to the
(28:16):
Phantom Thread soundtrack when Iwas going to sleep.
So, yeah, amazing, amazingscore on that.
Just finished watching,rewatching that before I
recorded, just because I wantedto get in that headspace of Paul
Thomas Anderson and everything,yeah, but oh man, just such a
good movie.
(28:36):
So now we come to his mostrecent one, and this one's a
pretty divisive one, even withme, because the first time I
watched it I wasn't sure how Ifelt about it, but I also just
had a really bad no, not reallybad, but just a difficult
viewing experience of it.
(28:57):
I'm not going to go intodetails on that.
So, licorice pizza Like I said,first time didn't really know
how I felt about it, but also itwasn't an ideal viewing
situation.
I watched it again yesterday,over the course of a few days
(29:19):
because it was on Amazon, and,yeah, loved it a lot more this
time, appreciate it a lot more.
I'm still not 100% sure how Ifeel about the plot, because
it's about a young child actorand by child actor I mean 15,
but still a child who falls inlove with this girl in her 20s
(29:45):
played by Heim's.
Is it Alana Heim?
Yeah, alana Heim and the otherHeim sisters are in there too,
but he's in love with this girlin her 20s, and there's this
huge age gap, and it's theydon't make it too weird, but
(30:09):
what bothers some about it isthe fact that if the genders
were reversed, everyone woulddefinitely have a problem with
it.
So that's just, basically, andmaybe that was the whole point
of it is like to be makeeveryone examine their own
prejudices and like, oh, lookhow you're okay with that, but
(30:32):
like should you be?
I don't know, maybe I'm lookingway too into it, but if you
don't think about that too much,it's a really good movie.
It's really funny, it looksgreat.
Another great score it's takenplace in the 70s.
It's all like in the Valley.
It's in San Fernando Valley, soa lot of great location shots.
(30:57):
If you are from that area orfamiliar with that area, it's
great.
It's really fun.
It's a lot of good jokes too.
I think one of my favoritethings about it, though, is that
the main character, GaryValentine, is played by Cooper
Hoffman, who is Philip SeymourHoffman's son and man, and he is
(31:22):
incredible, and it's like.
It's one of those things thatwhen you, if you think about it,
while you're watching him likebe this amazing actor just like
his dad was, then it can be likea little emotional because it's
like, oh man, like we lostPhilip Seymour Hoffman,
obviously, but look how good hisson is too.
(31:44):
I'm not saying that that makesit, you know, if everything fine
and was like, oh, we don't needhim because we have a son.
That's not what I mean.
I just mean like he's just soincredible and it just makes me,
it made me smile to see thathis son's out there doing just
as good as him, you know, and Ihope he does have a long career
(32:06):
if that's what he wants.
You know, maybe he just wantedto do this one because a lot of,
like the, there's a lot ofcameos from Nepo Babies in this
movie and I think that's kind of, you know, part of it.
But yeah, great, great, great,great movie.
Little weird the more you thinkabout it, but still very
(32:27):
enjoyable and it's like soenjoyable that it's easy to
forget, like, what else is goingon.
Yeah, so yeah, that's thecareer of Paul Thomas Anderson,
looking forward to whatever elsehe has coming up.
So let's go ahead and rank these.
I'm gonna say least favorite.
(32:52):
I already said inherent vice.
Next I'll put punch drunk love.
That might go up after arewatch, but because it's been a
long time since I've watchedthat one, but right now I'm
feeling like that's second tolast, but I love that one.
(33:14):
So what does that tell youabout this guy's career?
You know, next I think I'll gohard eight, then the Grish Pizza
, the Master, magnolia, boogieNights, Phantom Thread and
(33:43):
number one, there will be blood.
Yeah, okay, so that is mydefinitive ranking for now.
As of 2023, november 2023, thatis my ranking of the Paul
Thomas Anderson movies.
All right, so thank you guys forlistening.
I hope it wasn't too rambly orincoherent and I hope I gave you
(34:09):
any sort of like maritalinformation.
I hope it was fun to listen to.
At least I'll be way moreprepared for the next one, I
think.
But yeah, it's just one of myfavorite directors.
(34:30):
Love is work.
Can't wait to see what he hasnext.
Can't wait to revisit some ofthose ones that I wasn't sure
how I felt about.
And that is it for me.
Follow me at, or follow the showat, movies.
They're Pretty Good, with noPunctuation on Instagram, that's
(34:55):
where I'm the most active.
I'm gonna do two more of thesedirector episodes.
I'll have a special guest onone of them.
I don't know if it's gonna bethe next episode or the last one
of the month, and then, onceDecember hits, I'll be doing
some holiday movies, probablymostly Christmas ones, just
(35:19):
cause that's the winter holidaythat I celebrate.
But yeah, that's it.
So stick around.
Hope you enjoyed the episode,hope you were enjoying the show,
even if you didn't enjoy thisepisode, and see you next week.
(35:40):
Thanks, bye.
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