Inherent Vice review

It's only after the smoke clears and the euphoria wears off that we can look around at it all and ask "What just happened?" Cinema, pure and not-so-simple. That, my friend, is what has just happened. With Inherent Vice, Paul Thomas Anderson has deconstructed the gumshoe detective film genre and created one of the best novel adaptations of the past ten years. When I first saw the trailer for the movie, it looked quite a lot like a return to the hyper-energetic fast moving Anderson of the 90's. The man behind Boogie Nights and Magnolia. That couldn't be further from the truth. Inherent Vice is Anderson at his most constrained and wistful. He completely abandons elaborate and exuberant camera moves for slow dollying in on characters and very relaxed tracking shots, perfectly fitting the film's tone. This is the kind of movie I'd imagine an elderly man sitting on his front stoop in a rocking chair telling as he watches his fragile life slip from his fingers. It plays as a fondly looked back upon memory, with a hint of regret. It is very fitting Neil Young's song "Journey Through the Past" accompanies the soundtrack. The film takes place on the verge of change. An era of hippies and long-haired relaxation specialists being pushed to the fringes of society. The violent advent of Charles Manson certainly hasn't helped anything. Larry "Doc" Sportello (played by Joaquin Phoenix) is a good-natured P.I. holding on to the past with the help of plenty of marijuana and late night pizza. He's just a guy who wants to stay cool and do the right thing. Like a bowling ball dropped through a window, Doc is plunged headfirst into a complicated case involving a supposed dead saxophone player, a mysterious organization that might be a boat called the Golden Fang, and many other loose strands that require a very clear head to keep in place. The plot isn't as hard to follow as some may have said, but it doesn't matter. The convoluted case isn't what's important in this movie. Like it's spiritual predecessor The Big Lebowski, Inherent Vice is a movie about characters, tone, and setting. The many complications of the plot are also due to Anderson lampooning the noir genre, which is notorious for its numerous complicated plot strands. Just look at some famous examples like The Maltese Falcon or North By Northwest. They are all over the place, and that is part of their genius! Anderson understands this perfectly, and uses all of it to his advantage. The novel Inherent Vice is a personal favorite of mine and its writer, the famed Thomas Pynchon, is also a writer I admire very much. PT Anderson is also a fan of Pynchon. His film here is not just hero worship. He is taking his knowledge and love of film and applying it to his love of the work of Thomas Pynchon to create a perfect Pynchonion vibe filtered through the pot haze of early 1970's California. It's nothing short of beautiful. One thing Anderson added in that was not in the novel is voice over narration from one of the secondary characters, Sortilege (Joanna Newsom). In adding this, Anderson was able to capture Pynchon's wonderful use of language and apply his own personal literary touch. All of it works to near perfection. This was shot on 35mm, and it looks stunning on the big screen. There has been a shift toward shooting on digital recently, and this film is proof that film is a medium that still has its place. The whole thing looks gorgeous, mainly because of the celluloid it was shot on. It certainly helped that Robert Elswit, a long-time cinematographer for Anderson, was working here. He is one of the best (the best?) cinematographer working in Hollywood today and deserves some recognition for his work here. Holding it all together are the wonderful ensemble of actors working here. Joaquin Phoenix, channeling his inner Dude, does some great work (as expected) here. He truly embodies his character and never hits a wrong note. Josh Brolin plays a macho cop and opposite side to Phoenix's detective. Brolin has always been good. But this here may be his best work. He is funny, yet subtle, and delivers some of the movie's best lines. Joanna Newsom is great, Katherine Waterson is great, Benicio del Toro is great, Reese Witherspoon is great. Really, everyone is great. Overall, it's a masterpiece. A pot-fueled, funny, wistful, journey through post-60's California. While it might not be There Will Be Blood, Inherent Vice is more or less the best new film I've seen in 2014.

Gone Girl review

Somewhat spoiler-ish review ahead.You have been warned.

There's a particular shot, or shots I should say, from David Fincher's newest film that has stuck with me. The first part is a flashback to when Nick and Amy Dunne (played by Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike) had just met. Nothing but good intentions and a bubbly school-kid love between them. Amy leans in to kiss him, and the shot is quickly juxtaposed with Nick being examined by doctor at the police station with a tongue press. He gags on it. The juxtaposition perfectly encapsulates Nick's feelings about his marriage. The kiss to the gagging. He went from a love-stricken kid to a petrified husband with his balls held firmly by his rhymes-with-witch of a wife. One could even interpret it as a metaphor for marriage itself. It's a fairly low-key technique Fincher used, but an incredibly smart and effective one. With Gone Girl, David Fincher gets as fun and pulpy he's been since The Game and still is able to elevate his material to more than just a clever genre film. Gone Girl is based on the 2012 novel of the same name. It's a book I regretfully haven't read, I honestly don't mind. The film works perfectly fine without the flashy reveals and shocking twists, but experiencing those for the first time in clear and bloody celluloid is a devilishly wonderful pleasure of its own. Gone Girl is a man's horrible claustrophobic nightmare that quickly escalates into a psycho-sexual thriller of proportions just insane enough to work. Practically every element of this movie clicks excellently. My only real issue with it was some oddly stilted dialogue in the beginning, mainly in the flashbacks to the early relationship of Nick and Amy. The rest of the movie was terrifically written, so I wasn't exactly sure why those early beginning scenes felt so wrong. On further thought, I realized it's because it IS wrong. It shows that even from the start, the relationship between Nick and Amy Dunne is shaky at best. Their interactions aren't thoughtful or genuine. Amy is hiding behind a veneer and Nick is under her sway. Of course their dialogue is stilted, it's just a reflection of their relationship. Gillian Flynn may be writing a trashy crime picture, but damn can she do it well. It certainly doesn't hurt to have the people attached that the film does. Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike give magnificent and incendiary performances as the two main characters. Affleck has officially proved himself a terrific actor  (not that he needed to) and gives a fantastic controlled performance here. Throughout the film you can see his character being trapped in by the media and by everyone around him. Watching Affleck act you can really sense the tension and social claustrophobia that surround his character like a suffocating cosmic blanket. He gives such a great performance, that I was easily able to forget how famous he is. As great as Ben Affleck is here, Rosamund Pike is the real star here. She's always been an incredibly solid actress (ex. The World's End) but has never gotten a real chance to shine. I don't know if Gone Girl is David Fincher's masterpiece, but I think it's safe to say it is for Pike. She plays innocent, evil, manipulative, and sexy like no actress I've ever seen. The best comparison I can make is maybe Barbara Stanwyck or Eva Green. If she doesn't get an Oscar nomination, I will be shocked. Again, of course having Fincher behind the camera always helps things. This isn't his best work, but it's definitely up there. It's no Zodiac, but it doesn't need to be. Gone Girl is a different type of movie. One major complaints from Fincher detractors is that he often employs the style-over-substance technique of filmmaking. That's a remarkably off-base thing to say about his films, especially this one. Fincher uses his camera to create a tone so palpable you could cut it with a knife. You can really feel his talent oozing out of this movie. It's wonderful. The movie has loads to say about the intricacies and failings of modern marriage. It's certainly a cynical take, but a bitingly interesting one at that. Flynn also takes a satiric look at media. Imagine Natural Born Killers but a helluva lot more subtle about its satire. In my mind, Gone Girl is Blue Velvet, meets a killer-woman grindhouse picture, meets neo-noir. And it's all done so, so well. Subverting our views of modern society, and giving us a delicious murder story as cinematically filling as a thick steak. Is Gone Girl one of the year's best films? You bet.