I’ll never watch Licorice Pizza and keep forgetting it exists due to the awful age gap premise, but of the movies I’ve seen, I think Inherent Vice is my least favorite PTA.
I’m very close to your overall rankings.
I’d go
- There Will Be Blood
-gap- - Magnolia
- Punch Drunk Love
- Boogie Nights
-gap- - Licorice Pizza
- The Master
-gap- - Inherent Vice
- Phantom Thread
I actually haven’t seen Hard Eight.
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I put it ahead of Phantom Thread because at least it wasn’t as boring, but my bottom three are pretty interchangeable.
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Only seen 1, 3, 7, 8, 9 and I would probably have them in that order.
Tossup between Phantom Thread and Licorice Pizza. Phantom Thread bored me to death, whereas Licorice Pizza just pissed me off. I don’t think I’d like Phantom Thread on a rewatch (and I don’t really have any desire to do so), but I know I’d hate Licorice Pizza if I watched it again.
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I will never understand what people see in Magnolia other than the Tom Cruise stuff, which was awesome. All the other vignettes seemed pretentious and forced and I didn’t buy into any of the other characters.
Boogie Nights is my second favorite movie.
TWBB was awesome.
I don’t think I’ve seen any other PTA movies.
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No one could have seen this flop coming
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it’s certainly the worst performer for expectations vs reality ratio
phantom thread being the opposite for me, it sounded awful and (I guess I’m an outlier here) I really liked it though it’s definitely not like in his top 3.
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I thought Magnolia was terrible, I was actually angry walking out of the theatre. Short Cuts is great though.
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Found this out today:
Billy Redden filming the “Dueling Banjos” sequence on the set of Deliverance in 1972. Behind Redden a young musician named Mike Addis performs the actual fingering of the instrument.
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I understand the Magnolia hate, because if like you say you don’t buy into the various characters/stories that movie is going to be a SLOG. The only storyline that didn’t really land for me is the present-day quiz kid/prodigy with the leech of a father. For me everything else worked. Also it is pretty much my wife’s favorite movie of all time, which probably makes me like it more. She is a native of the valley and that plays a part in her affection for it.
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Agree. I like the absurdity of magnolia.
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This will get the benefit of the doubt from me since the first one is fantastic, but it appears to be going from a profound commentary on capitalism and greed to an action/horror film which seems like a big sideways step away from what made the first one great.
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When I was young, I loved The Shining but didn’t really understand the Duvall performance to be great. Over time, I came to understand that it’s an incredible performance and one I’m forever glad she gifted to us. Everything that once felt to me like a person who could barely recite her lines or perform her physical actions properly was clearly all very deliberate and designed to vividly convey the character she was given, that of a wife and mother living with an unhinged monster who she was frightened to death of. Of course clumsily flailing a baseball bat like she had no idea how to do it was the proper choice; it would have been far worse for her to display a Barry Bonds technique as she timidly begged off and flailed weakly in a situation where her character was slowly retreating and wanting to do anything but actually hit the guy. She was really good in Popeye also. That movie is pretty stupid, but that performance took some chops, and she brought her character to life much more than Robin Williams did with his IMO.
RIP to a strong actress who left some great material behind.
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Further on the topic of Punch Drunk Love…
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