Inherent Vice: Pynchon 101

This poster, aside from tweaking Leonardo DaVinci, gives an idea
of the many wonderful cameos in Inherent Vice. Martin Short
(far right) is particularly funny and strange.

After dinner last Friday, the wife and I stopped by the Redwood City 20 to see what was playing. We spontaneously decided to see Inherent Vice. I love that sort of thing-- we went in unprepared for Paul Thomas Anderson's newest film-- and it ended up being a total delight.

It's the story of "Doc" Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix) a hippie P.I. who is hired to find a missing girl who also happens to be his ex. thus begins Doc's strange journey through 1970 Los Angeles-- both helped and hindered by Detective "Bigfoot" Bjornsen (Josh Brolin), a flat-topped, hippie-hating, brutal/delusional LA cop who also carries a SAG card (we see him as an extra in "Adam-12," in fact). On the long, winding path of investigation Doc encounters all sorts of odd and historically appropriate types: Nazi bikers, cultists, a Laurel Canyon mansion full of hippies, a hidden cabal of dentists and drugs. Lots and lots and lots of drugs. River Phoenix does an amazing job, in fact, of conveying an amazing range of stoned: mellow high, totally baked, buzzed, flying' and everything in-between.

"Doc" Sportello (River Phoenix), doing what he does
dozens of times in the film.

Compared to any other sort of film, I'd say it was not unlike The Big Lebowski- but it's a LOT more like Kiss Me Deadly, a film noir saturated in the light of Los Angeles and the darkness cast by the greedy and evil.

This is the first Thomas Pynchon book ever committed to film, and the script was apparently personally approved by Pynchon as well. Thomas Pynchon and Paul Thomas Anderson were made for each other-- their mutual approach to storytelling is spacey and convoluted yet brimming with insight. Inherent Vice perfectly embodies a lot of Pynchon's favorite motifs: Los Angeles, complex whodunits, subtle mysticism and conspiracies by shadowy, powerful organizations. The 2009 book was considered considered "Pynchon Lite," one of his most accessible novels. If this is so, than the movie version is an even better introduction to his distinctive literary style. Pynchon 101.

Thomas Pynchon, as seen on "The Simpsons." According
to Josh Brolin, the reclusive author has a cameo in
Inherent Vice. Forget it: we'll never figure it out.

Paul Thomas Anderson has developed an elliptical and indirect narrative style, especially in his later films: Inherent Vice could be described as being comprised of a series of close-ups and medium shots of Joaquin Phoenix interacting and reacting. He is an example of a filmmaker whose core relationship with cinematic storytelling has clearly evolved: his beginnings as a teller of Tarantino-like multiple-storyline widescreen films like Boogie Nights and Magnolia to a focus on nuance and dialog, as in The Master and Inherent Vice. This refocusing gives these later films a rambling feel as the plot slowly snakes from one scene to another. It take a little getting used to, but when it all clicks together it's exhilarating.

Inherent Vice is also very funny-- which is sort of unusual. P.T. Anderson doesn't really do funny: There was some situational comedy in Boogie Nights, and Punch Drunk Love was supposed to be funny (it wasn't), but this is the first time he stretches out for some Coen Brothers-style sardonic humor.

Check it out, you'll enjoy it. See it high, and you might enjoy it even more.

Movie Weekend: How Novel!

So I'm sitting in an art theatre in Long Beach which is literally CALLED The Art Theatre on Friday night, waiting to see The Hunger Games. Yes, this thing is so saturating the market that it's even playing in a single-screen art house. I check my email and Variety says that at press time, the movie has already pulled down $70 million. I look around me; the place is packed. Last time I was here it was a French-language film about Algerian monks and there were 12 people watching. The money the Art Theatre makes for the next month is going to pay for a lotta monk movies.

Predictable phenomenon it may be, but it's hard to find a bad thing to say about Hunger Games. It's an adaptation of a novel that young adults embraced, which means we aren't post-literate yet. The movie itself is solid, well-made with few missteps, shows more than it tells, and doesn't embarrass anyone involved. Is it plausible? Welllllllllll.... when you're in the same situation, you tell me.

The Hunger Games takes place in a future North America (now called Panem) where some unspecified unpleasantness has resulted in an economic collapse. All the wealth is concentrated in a central city but most people live in 12 surrounding districts which make the world in The Road Warrior look luxurious. Once a year, the overlords of Panem televise a contest in which two teens from each district are drafted and made to fight to the death over the course of several days. The story follows a plucky underdog from District 12 as she struggles to survive without killing anybody, except in self-defense.

And of course, even if no one finds you to kill you, you're still at risk from exposure, starvation, attack from wolves, attack from genetically engineered wasps, infection, and whatever. And there are cameras everywhere. It's like Big Brother only instead of getting voted out of the house, they hack your head off at the neck.

Tucci, Tucci

Most of the fun in the movie (let's put fun in quotation marks, because this ain't no party) comes from the city folk. Decadent to a fault, they are an excuse for production designers to binge like Bukowski on his first day out of the tank. Stanley Tucci, as the host of a talk show for contestants, has a foot high blue pompador, George Hamilton's tan and a suit made out of rainbow trout skins. All-American girl Elizabeth Banks is like some sandpapered Marie Antoinette doll. Weirdly, Lenny Kravitz (the rock star) is probably the most subdued city character, and even he wears gold eyeliner.

Any good fantasy story is actually about reality, and this is no exception. If you're a teenager it's important to be popular; here it's REALLY important because if sponsors like you they'll airlift medicines or weapons to you. If you think reality TV is immoral in real life, imagine it jacked up like this. And even in a fight to the death, the show is at least a little scripted.

As I said, The Hunger Games ain't no party. The one thing I'd fault this movie for is sincerity. Everybody is terribly, terribly earnest and I think they couldn't have thrown in a little slyness without upsetting the mix. But then, I haven't made $70 million bucks in a single day. 

***

Similarly sincere to a fault is the movie I just finished on streaming Netflix: Atlas Shrugged (Part 1), based on the libertarian's favorite novel by Ayn Rand. It's pretty interesting as a document and kind of a sad misfire as a movie. It takes place in our future, but since the source material was written in the forties and they wanted to remain faithful to it, it's all about trains and manila folders and maps on walls. There are computers but no one uses them. 

I kind of got the feeling that the filmmakers have been enraged by the way Hollywood depicts capitalists as sneering 2-dimensional villains, and all they had to do was depict Government regulators the same way. It doesn't work. "I'll force your company to pay extra taxes so that the poor will be able to eat, muah-hah-hah" turns out to be a bigger leap than they anticipated. You keep returning to the problem that the poor are going to starve. When I say you there, I mean me. And unlike The Hunger Games, here there is little at stake and the lack of laughs provided by the filmmakers gradually makes you start to supply your own. Well, maybe Part II will be better. Will there be a Part II? I hope so. I'd still rather see a movie that read that damn book.