I've mostly liked PTA's movies, but "LP" left me largely cold. Too long, too self-indulgent, too pointless, honestly. The relationship between the leads never became especially compelling, and we never got a great sense of what made the pair click. The whole movie feels like it consists of the pair taunting each other with alternate romantic partners, mixed with random episodes that seem out of the blue and largely unrelated to the "plot" - if the movie has one. The Jon Peters episode? Entertaining but irrelevant. The "Jack Holden" episode? Not entertaining and irrelevant. The scenes with the politician? An awkward attempt to shoehorn in some social commentary, with a weird nod toward "Taxi Driver" for good measure. The entire movie feels like an excuse for PTA to fetishize the 1970s of his early childhood. The film seems like an homage to the look and feel of that era's SoCal but it's all just production design windowdressing. As I mentioned, I like PTA's movies for the most part, and I hoped a return to the 1970s would spark his creativity. "Boogie Nights" remains his best movie, and "Inherent Vice" - another 70s SoCal based tale - is very good as well. "LP" is just a random series of events in search of much purpose and/or meaning. We spend time with underdrawn characters who bop through one escapade to another and never really grow or change. Maybe "LP" is a good acronym, for the movie plays like a bunch of unrelated songs on an album. They're vaguely connected due to the relationship of the leads, but mostly they play as random tracks. Glad others got something from this one, but outside of occasional moments of entertainment, this one felt like a snoozer to me. It's just far too padded with scenes that enjoy no real narrative of character purpose, and it feels much longer than its 133 minutes.
Damn, I was psyched to see this, but you have harshed my mellow. Any recommendations for a good film?
I'm excited to see this new PTA movie, as I was just reading in a magazine how they turned an old restaurant in California, into one that Paul's dad (the great Ernie "The Love Boat" and "Ghoulardi" Anderson used to take him and his sister when they were young and they drank Shirley Temple's, which I used to do when my dad used to take me out to our local restaurant. Speaking of Paul's late father Ernie, if anybody reading this ever needs a voiceover guy who can do a great Ernie Anderson impersonation, give me a PM, because I'm your guy!
I have to admit that your criticisms are valid. However, the movie was charming enough to override all of those seeming faults imo. It was a pleasure to watch
"Licorice Pizza" Wonderful film. The two leads were great, I was invested in their arc and was moved by the ending. It is all of course subjective but take heart in the fact that it was pretty universally embraced by critics.
Yeah, I certainly don't intend my opinion to be the be-all, end-all. I was sorely disappointed by "LP" but a lot of people like it!
I probably would've been more "charmed" if it'd been a good 30-45 minutes shorter. I really did find it to feel like a looooong 133 minutes. There's definitely some entertainment there, though I think a lot of it depends on how much you enjoy the recreation of early 70s SoCal and other era-related trappings. I just think there are enormous chunks of the movie that could be dropped and the movie would lose nothing - indeed, it'd be better for those omissions!
BTW, since so much of "LP" seems to have been loosely based on real events, does anyone know if there's a real-life story behind the Japanese restaurant owner? That's actually one of my favorite parts, just because it was so bizarre! Curious to know if PTA invented it out of thin air or there's some reality behind it...
Yup. Like I said, I'm just one voice here - a whole lotta people like the movie! I just felt so disappointed, though. I've liked so much of PTA's work that I thought "LP" would be on a par, but it's just not, IMO. I mean, "Boogie Nights" had scenes that could possibly seem gratuitous, but they didn't - they still felt like part of the overall narrative, even if the movie would've been fine without them. Or maybe I just want a movie about the John Michael Higgins character and I'm bitter we see so little of him!
Big PTA fan and this was the only movie that got me out to theaters since the pre-Covid days. Sooo looking forward to it and when the "buzz" around it seemed solid, it only made me look forward to it even more. And as a HUGE fan of Boogie Nights and Tarantino's "Once Upon a Time...", I really wanted to get sucked back into the zany 70's in Cali all over again... But, man what a disappointment. I still can't figure out what the point of it all was - if any. Maybe, I don't like "charming". Well, actually I don't - and I'm not a fan of quirky "love" stories either...(although I liked Phantom Thread probably 'cuz it was so insane, had Day-Lewis, and had depth). This one fell flat - real flat. Not funny, not dramatic, just...meh. I'll prolly watch it again sometime down the road (to see if I missed something), but I'll not be spending any cash to see it again.
We used Ernie as the "big voice guy" announcer, at one of the radio stations I worked for in the '80s (it was my first "big-market" gig, and the fact that they had paid to hire him, was pretty impressive for this small-town boy). I think the program director probably had a climax every time he would hear Ernie's voice saying "WE'RRRE HAWWWWWT!" in-between the records, although we used to tease him mercilessly about it. He only did two pages of sloganeering for us, but that was enough to cement the image in the market. In fact, I believe it's one of only two stations I worked on, that is still on the air and in their same format to this day.
Just left the theater and man does this film meander for its entire length. It’s not a movie I would hate but I did not love it like other PTA movies. It felt just like Once Upon In Hollywood (many people found that one boring and meandering) but minus the violence. Many scenes just went nowhere. The whole Bill Holden thing, the Lucille Ball thing and finally the Jon Peters section but at least that had a few laughs and some mean driving in reverse through Hollywood by the character Alanna. Glad I saw it at the movies because I would have tuned out watching it on my television. I don’t even feel I have the need to see it again on Blu. Usually a movie like this (and other PTA movies) have a scene or scenes that stand out and become classics but not this one. Not one sequence stood out. It was all the same for 2 and half hours. Disappointing.
Honestly, this is turning out to be the most compelling reason to go to the theater...so many of these movies I would just pause at home and never finish.
I’m frankly surprised that this movie is getting such universal praise from critics. It just seems like a movie a lot of critics would pan, but would be cherished by a niche audience. One of the scenes that stood out for me was when Alana went to the talent scout woman. That old lady’s interactions with Alana were priceless. I really loved all the running that took place in the movie. It was obviously intentional by PTA. It really symbolized the freedom and excitement of youth.
Do ya think they end up together in the end, soul mates? And is he still 15 at the end of the movie? I wasn’t sure how much time was passing.
When I saw the film, there were about 8 people in the theater , counting us. 1/2 way through, looking at the audience , 4 of the 8 were sleeping , and I mean sleeping soundly. The Blu/DVD will be sold in the sleeping aids aisle at the Pharmacy in a couple of months
Licorice Pizza (2021) - Financial Information they were thinking even with COVID , this was doing 40 Mil US ... some of these analysts , must have been shipped LSD with their "Screener" copy
We hear an ad for February 1972's "Something/Anything" early in the movie - IIRC, the ad presents it as a new album, so if I'm right, that dates the start of the film around early 1972. Late in the movie, we see a marquee with "Live and Let Die" on it. That came out June 1973. Of course, movies stayed in theaters much longer back then, so this doesn't mean the movie formally ends in summer 1973, but it does indicate that the movie continues at least until summer 1973. Based on this, I'd estimate the movie covers probably about 18 months of "real time" - give or take.
Reading more into the characters of the movie, the part of Gary Valentine is based on a real child actor that did work with Lucille Ball and start a water bed company. That actor Gary Goetzman did end up having a very successful career as a producer of many Tom Hanks films. That is fascinating. It is also cool that Gary Valentine is played by Cooper Hoffman, son of the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman. The kid’s got chops.
School pictures were usually taken at the beginning of the school year in September. So maybe the movie started at the beginning of the school year in September 1972 and ended at the conclusion of the school year in June 1973. Although we never once saw Gary attend school ha ha.
yeah Gary is quite the hustler, starts two businesses in that one year. Back in 1973 I was turning 13 so I experienced many of the events the people in the movie do like Nixon, the Gas Crisis, waterbeds and the great music (like Todd). That era looks a little bleak on film (and the 70s were rough) but I enjoyed every minute of it. No computers, cell phones, internet, total freedom.
