PTA on Why He Made IV

[Monte Davis]

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

To take you at your word: my reaction is "meh." Phoenix is stoned and
passive throughout, which is appropriate (see caveat below). Brolin made me
smile often, LOL a few times. Waterson's so Thorazine low-key that I
couldn't imagine Doc or anyone carrying a torch for her.  Everyone else is
cameos.

Most problematic for me was  Sortilege as voiceover/sidekick -- not because
the movie differs from the book, but because this Sortilege is so obviously
a hack to solve multiple challenges of book-to-screen translation. That
won't be an issue for most of the movie audience.

Caveat: I thought the book P's least successful by a margin so large that I
probably came to the movie with a chip on my shoulder. I like being stoned,
laugh even more than usual in that state, and relish stoned humor of the
Firesign / Saturday Night Fry strain, but can't recall liking much any
"stoner comedy" book or movie.

On Sat, Jan 10, 2015 at 6:04 AM, Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com>
wrote:

> 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/?listpynchon-l
>
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