PTA on Why He Made IV

[Dave Monroe]

It ain't so.  Twice, so far.  And again today. But I've read the
novel.  But I was also ready to be disappointed, or worse, and I (by
and large--my quibbles are @ the beginning and the end) wasn't.
Twice. A-and ....

... a-and I'm no PTA fanboy.   Hard Eight (as I vaguely recall) is
alrigh (though I may be thinking of another film entirely by now)t,
Boogie Nights I've seen and enjoyed several times (even if it is
basically Pornfellas lite), Magnolia if anything of his is
pretentious/self-indulgent (the singalong was unbearable; I will
admit,though, that when I saw it [1st screening opening day here] the
film [!] broke just as the crucial [?] climactic {? climatic, at any
rate] event hit), Punch-Drunk Love is one of two tolerable Adam
Sandler movies, at least (the other being Eight Crazy Nights,
essentially the profane Hanukkah Frosty the Snowman, but I grew up on
Rankin/Bass, and continue to do so, so ...), There Will Be Blood is
his only truly great film (no in the least because of DDL's
performance + JG's score), The Master (which I saw once theatrically,
caught a bit of again the other day on HBO, but have had the
screenplay for since the IV project was 1st rumored + a film friend
scored me that one instead when I asked for the next PTA project [he
never did deliver on the IV one]), a-and ...

.... a-and, again, I liked IV fine, but it is indeed not for everyone
(though I've only seen five people walk out of two screenings now, and
I sit in the last row, on the aisle, if I can help it), and I did, so
... there are those I would recommend it to (the five friends who've
sen it with me, only two of whom have read the novel, another any
Pynchon at all {I THINK] have enjoyed it unanimously), those I
wouldn't, and this I would say, well, risk it, + let me know (I'm
taking one such with me again today).

But I am genuinely interested in any/all reactions/comments/critiques.  Thanks!

On Sat, Jan 10, 2015 at 4:43 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen
<lorentzen at hotmail.de> wrote:
>
> On 09.01.2015 23:48, John Bailey wrote:
>
>> PTA: "It's like Gravity's Rainbow—I've never got through it."
>>
>> Yikes. Perhaps he isn't our most qualified screen interpreter of
>> Pynchon's writing.
>>
>
> That's what went through my mind, too, when I read this. More and more I get
> the impression that watching IV will be hard work and nothing I should be
> looking forward to ...
>
> Commenting an article from the 'Guardian' (which Dave posted here a while
> ago), a reader, whose view on PTA's work before IV comes very close to mine,
> writes:
>
>> I loved Magnolia and Boogie Nights, and thought There Will Be Blood was
>> incredibly powerful if unsatisfying. Punch Drunk Love I hated: Sandler is a
>> totally unsympathetic human being and the story was trite. The Master had a
>> great two acts, then hit its head against the same damn beat for the last 40
>> minutes, because it didn't know where to go. But nothing yet directed by
>> Anderson was as pretentious and self-indulgent as Inherent Vice, which I
>> actually found insulting in its smug self-admiration. So yes, I was one of
>> those people who walked out in the first 15 minutes. It's a shame, because
>> he's a true original, but this director is way too far up himself right now.
>> <
>
> Say it ain't so!
>
>
>> On Sat, Jan 10, 2015 at 4:00 AM, Dave Monroe<against.the.dave at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> "A phenomenally good interview. Bear with it. It's worth the full two
>>> hours of your time."
>>>
>>> --George Toles
>>>
>>> http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0866014/
>>>
>>>
>>> http://umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/departments/english_film_and_theatre/faculty/toles.html
>>>
>>> On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 10:20 AM, Dave Monroe<against.the.dave at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> http://www.vice.com/read/inherent-vice-was-the-thomas-pynchon-book-i-could-make-into-a-movie
>>>
>>> -
>>> Pynchon-l /http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>>
>> -
>> Pynchon-l /http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=nchon-l
>>
>>
>
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l