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(Clicka qua per la versione Italiana)
Paul Thomas Anderson (USA, 1970) debuted with
Hard Eight (1996), a character study disguised as a slow-paced
noir thriller.
An elderly man in a suit and tie, Sydney, a professional gambler, picks up a
young bum, John, who needs money to bury his mother.
Sydney refuses to lend him the money but offers to teach him how to earn it.
He takes him into the casino and shows him how he can get a free room and
inexistent money by pretending to be a big-time gambler.
Two years later, Sydney and John are still working together
Sydney is a gentleman, who respects the girls who work at the casino,
which other customers treat like prostitutes. One of them,
Clementine, is John's girlfriend.
Sydney meets her outside: she's obviously coming from a sexual appointment.
She tells him of a hard and unhappy life, of trying to save money.
Sydney behaves like an extraterrestrial observer, watching from a distance,
apparently indifferent, perhaps compassionate, but mostly inactive.
John has a new friend, the vulgar Jimmy, a security advisor. Sydney is
uncomfortable with his rude language. He also resents when Clementine thinks
he wants to have sex with her just because he is being nice to her.
He bets (and loses) a lot of money when a young, arrogant kid makes fun of his
old age in front of everybody.
John gets in trouble and calls Sydney for help. He has taken a man hostage,
a customer of Clementine who refuses to pay her, and has called the wife to
ask for a ransom. Sydney assails the hooker, but John is truly in love with her,
and, worse, he married her that very afternoon. He is emotionally hooked.
Sydney tries to convince him to run away, but she does not want to leave without
her money. Finally, they accept his plan and take off for their honeymoon,
while Sydney makes sure they don't leave any clues behind.
But John is stupid enough to call Jimmy and tell him what has happened.
Jimmy gives Sydney an appointment and tells him that he knows the secret
that Sydney has been hiding all the time from John: Sydney shot John's father
in the face. Sydney has behaved like a father to John out of guilt.
Now Jimmy wants money to shut up. Sydney gives him the money and Jimmy disappears.
John calls from a telephone booth. He is really in love with the hooker.
After he hangs up, Sydney drives to Jimmy's house, breaks in and loads
a gun. When Jimmy comes home with a hooker, Sydney shoots him without saying
a word, takes his money and leaves.
( Translated by DeepL)
Boogie Nights (1997) feels like a documentary, an overlong one with
several pointless scenes, but it is certainly powerful in the description of
a historical phenomenon.
Jack is a pornographic film director who hangs out at the Rodriguez club where "rollergirl" (a girl who always goes around on roller skates) and Eddie, a lowly scullery boy, work.
Jack sees in Eddie a future porn star and offers to work with him.
Jack is skeptical, but convinces him (after "rollergirl" gives him a blowjob in a closet).
Jack asks him to give them an essay by fucking rollergirl on the couch in his house.
One of the men on Jack's team is a loser whose wife fucks everyone in his house and in front of him.
Black Buck's dream is to sell stereos, but he is fired from the store and has no choice but to work for Jack.
Eddie's mother scolds him for not wanting to study, and eventually Eddie has to leave.
At one of Eddie's parties (the loser's wife is screwing someone else in the middle of the street), amid cocaine and beautiful girls, the filming of the new movie opens.
The lead actress is Jack's favorite, Maggie.
Eddie makes waves and soon becomes a star, as well as Maggie's pet, rollergirl lover, homosexual's forbidden dream, and Jack's protégé.
Eddie wins award after award.
At an end-of-the-year party the loser kills his wife and yet another lover and then commits suicide in front of everyone.
Eddie indulges in a life of vice, increasingly succumbing to cocaine.
The erection becomes increasingly difficult.
Eventually he quarrels with Jack, who fires him.
He already has his replacement ready.
Eddie tries to be a singer, but he smokes all the money and cannot pay for the tapes he recorded with his friend.
Black Buck meanwhile got married and is trying to make a new life for himself by opening his own stereo store, but the bank won`t give him loans because he`s a pornographer.
Maggie tries to see her son, but the judge denies her because she is a pornographer.
One night Jack videotapes rollergirl screwing a random boy in the back of the limo, but the boy mounts his head and offends them: first Jack and then rollergirl smash his face in.
Eddie tries to masturbate in the car but fails; he is attacked by a gang of thugs.
Buck is buying pastries in a store when a robber breaks in and a shootout ensues.
Everyone but him dies, and the hoard remains on the ground.
Buck grabs it and makes off with it.
Eddie and two friends try to make money by swindling a rich cokehead.
The fool pays them on the nail but then holds them back.
One of Eddie's friends decides to try the big score, pulls out a gun and demands the safe.
A gunfight ensues and eventually the young man dies.
The rich man chases Eddie and the other friend down the street, shooting them in the back.
Eddie, desperate, returns to Jack begging for help.
Jack forgives him and Maggie consoles him.
Buck has opened his store with the money from the robbery and is about to have a baby.
Rollergirl goes to high school.
Rogriguez opens a new club.
Everyone in Jack's house is one big family: Jack is the grandfather patriarch, Buck the father, and then on and on to the other generations.
Magnolia (1999) is a very long film about a number of separate stories
that somehow intersect. Unfortunately, the intersection carries no meaning
and the film remains simply a snapshot of life in the city.
Donnie is a humble superstore salesman who used to be famous as the "whiz kid"
of a tv show. He drives his car into the window of a store.
Earl is a rich old man who is dying, assisted by his young and attractive wife
Linda and by a nurse, Philip.
A very religious cop, who is looking for a girlfriend, responds to a call
and finds a corpse in a black woman's apartment.
Every now and then the screen is occupied by the weather conditions
("partly cloudy", "rain", etc).
Linda begs a doctor to help the dying man, but the doctor can only write her
a prescription for even stronger morphine. In the meantime Earl tells
Philip that he hasn't seen his son Frank in many years.
His son is a sex freak who makes money with seminars that promote a macho
view of how to treat women. His show is vulgar to the extreme. A
reporter has come to interview him.
Jimmy is an old man who goes to visit his daughter Claudia.
She is in bed with a man,
but says he is not her boyfriend. Jimmy tries to talk to her but she's
hysterical and asks him to leave. Jimmy tries to tell her that he's dying of
cancer, but she won't listen. She screams until he leaves.
Donnie is being fired by his boss. He begs in vain.
The cop has been joined by many other cops on the scene of the crime and
somebody else is taking credit for the discovery. A black kid chats with
the cop.
Another child, Stanley, is in a library studying a lot of books. He is the new whiz kid
at the tv show. The entire show revolves around him, who is very close to
establishing the new record. Jimmy is the host of the tv show.
Jimmy talks to his wife over the phone about Claudia.
Claudia is doing drugs in her apartment. The cop knocks at her door: there
is a been a report of loud music.
Earl begs Philip to find his son. Philip finds out that his ads are in Playboy
and orders the magazine from the store.
Frank is being grilled by the interviewer. He believes in the disgusting
persona he impersonates and the interviewer tries to find out why he is
so macho and shows so little respect for women.
Donnie goes to the bar. He is secretely in love with the (male) bartender, who
is courted also by a rich old pervert. Donnie, half drunk, talks to the
pervert and describes how his parents took all the money he made from the
tv show.
The cop is trying to make friends with Claudia.
Linda buys medicines at the pharmacy and is outraged that the clerk thinks
she's using them to do drugs.
Jimmy is asking questions and Stanley is answering most of them, as usual.
Philip is trying to get in touch with Frank.
Stanley pees in his pants because they won't let him go to the restrooms
and from here on he shuts up. Jimmy is visibly sick, but hangs on.
The interviewer has cornered Frank and proven that he is lying.
Linda is talking to her lawyer. She confesses that she married Earl for
his money, the she cheated on him. But now she loves him and can't stand
the thought of inheriting his money, so she wants the attorney to change
the will. At the same time she doesn't want Frank to inherit the money.
Claudia is doing drugs again when the cop comes to pay another visit.
At the end the cop asks her for a date and she's excited like a teenager.
The interviewer knows that Earl left Frank and his mother and Frank had to
take care of his mother while she was dying of cancer. Frank, petrified,
kicks her out.
Donnie confesses his love to the bartender. The old pervert, jealous, shows
dollar bills to the bartender.
Stanley refuses to answer and is losing the game.
Linda is back home but hesitates to turn off the car: she contemplates
suicide.
Philip finally gets Frank on the phone and tells him that his father is
dying.
Stanley bursts out that he's not a toy.
The cop loses his gun while running after somebody and that is very
embarassing for him.
Philip gets interrupted by Linda who is mad at him for calling Frank.
Frank was hanging up anyway, annoyed by the news.
Frank on stage again, basically preaching that men should behave the way his
father behaved with his mother.
Earl regrets what he's done and tells Philip.
Jimmy is back home with his loving wife.
Donnie has duplicates of the supermarket keys.
Linda in the rain drinks the medicines and mixes them in a fatal manner.
The cop arrives on time at the date with Claudia.
Frank has driven to Earl's house.
The black child finds Linda unconscious and calls the police.
Jimmy tells his wife that he cheated on her. She would forgive him that,
but then she he admits that he may have also molested Claudia, and then
his loving wife runs out disgusted.
Donnie robs the supermarket.
Frank talks to Earl who is unconscious and vents his anger, but his voice
is broken.
Claudia is afraid that the cop would not like her and runs back home.
Frank is crying like a baby.
Donnie changes his mind and drives back to return the money. But the key
broke in the lock and he has to climb the wall to break in. The cop sees him
and turns the car.
At that moment frogs start falling from the sky, all over the city.
All the characters are scared. Millions of frogs smashing windows and roofs.
The ambulance that is carrying Linda at the hospital overturns.
Jimmy is about to commit suicide but is saved by the frogs that fall on his
gun. Donnie is hit while climbing and falls to the ground. The cop helps
him find shelter. Jimmy's wife arrives at Claudia's place and they hug.
The noise wakes up Earl who sees Frank and dies.
Later, Frank gets a phone call from the hospital.
The cop helps Donnie return the
money. The cop's gun falls from the sky.
They are all lonely and desperate.
Punch-Drunk Love (2002) is a weird amateurish comedy that goes nowhere
and the portrait of a schizophrenic disturbed delusional man who is prisoner
of an incredibly boring life.
The plot is beyond implausible: it is just plain silly. And it is frequently
incoherent.
If it's meant as a parody of Hollywood's romantic comedies, it makes those comedies look like profound masterpieces.
Jon Brion composed the soundtrack which is an artwork in itself, although hardly
related to the movie. The dissonance between the music and the action is often annoying.
Barry Egan is first seen doublechecking on the phone a special offer by a company according to which buying enough of their cans of pudding will result in a free air ticket.
We then suddenly see a terrifying car accident which results in a harmonium dropped in the middle of the road. A woman in a red dress, Lena, shows up and asks Barry to help her with her car. He shyly accepts. Then he rushes to pick up the harmonium and installs it on his office desk.
We then see Barry at work, selling toilet plungers and other unusual household objects.
His many sisters keep calling him and reminding him to show up at a family dinner.
At the party his sisters make him uncomfortable. He is still single and they
are trying to find him a wife.
He snaps and, out of the blue, smashes the windows of the apartment.
He tells one of their husbands that he needs a psychologist.
The following day, while buying the pudding, he spots the advertisement for
a phone sex line. He calls the number and the receptionist
asks for his name, address, credit card, and social security number.
He asks that his name be concealed. She puts in through to a girl
calling herself Georgia who knows that his name is Barry (but he doesn't
seem to notice). Not much happens during the phone call. She tries in vain
to get him excited. One of his sisters shows up at work (he doesn't seem to
do much in the office) with Lena and confesses that she's trying to set him
up with Lena. Barry seems to resent the arrangement. Just then the sex
operator calls him and asks for money. He hangs up and returns to Lena in
more friendly mood. They make a date. Meanwhile, the sex operator is revealed
to be a woman who works for the owner of a mattress store. They decide to
punish Barry by sending four brothers to beat him up.
Barry has the date with Lena but has one of his attacks of anger and smashes
the bathroom of the restaurant. Later they kiss. As he's returning home,
he gets attacked by the four brothers who force him to give them money, after
which he runs away terrified.
His behavior at work is increasingly erratic. Everybody wonders why he has
a piano on his desk and why he piles up cans of pudding.
Lena told him that she's going to Hawaii for business and
Barry decides to redeem the miles accrued with his pudding purchases, but
the company informs him that it will take several weeks to get the air
ticket. He then decides to buy his own ticket for Hawaii. He struggles to
track down Lena in Hawaii but eventually they have their romantic love story.
Barry calls again the sex phone line and demands that they return his money.
When Barry and Lena return home, they are attacked by the four brothers.
Lena is injured in the car accident. Barry this time doesn't get scared:
he brutally attacks the four brothers in one of his fits of anger.
He then calls the sex phone line and threatens the male owner who insults him
and threatens him back.
Barry drives all the way to the mattress store, all the way holding the phone
that he yanked out of the wall in anger.
Barry and the male owner yell at each other but then nothing happens.
Barry returns to Lena, who has been released from the hospital, and tells her
that he plans to follow her in her trips thanks to the free air ticket.
There Will Be Blood (2007) is a historical drama of sorts, with more
atmosphere than action. It flows very slowly, retelling the kind of story
that has been told many times
(of the self-made godless millionaire who ends his life alone).
The most interesting part of the film is perhaps the context between the atheist and
the preacher, that, left in the background for most of the story,
comes to the fore only at the end, and tragically so.
Several scenes could have made a lot shorter, but overall the historical
reconstruction is impeccable and the slow pace adds a majestic tone to
what would otherwise be a Zola-esque saga.
The film opens with two mining accidents, one in 1898 and one in 1902.
In the first one the lone miner, Daniel, survives and manages to save a sample
of gold to claim the mine. The same man is the boss in 1902, carrying a
little child around to show him the oil well that they own.
The child, HW, is the son of the miner who died in the accident.
The child is almost a teenager when Daniel has become an experienced
oil man looking for investors and for miners.
One day a young man shows up, Paul, offering him a tip for money.
Daniel pays him and Paul reveals that there is oil coming to the surface on
land owned by his family in a very desolate place. Daniel travels to the
ranch pretending to be hunting for quails with his "son". Paul's father is
an extremely nice man who lets him camp on his property for free and even
gives him food. Paul's brother is actually a twin.
And they are very religious people, and Eli is actually a pastor.
While hunting in the rocky terrain, the child trips on
a rock and indeed finds oil.
Daniel offers to buy the ranch for very little, but Paul's twin Eli is not
stupid and knows about the oil. Daniel has to pay a decent sum to Eli's church.
After making the deal with Paul's father, Daniel quickly buys the land around
the ranch, promising schools, roads and irrigation with the money raised from
oil.
Only one man refused to sell his land to Daniel, Bandy.
Within days the train brings Daniel's team to the ranch. There is
no town to talk about. Eli, as the pastor of the community,
offers to bless the well, but, instead, Daniel forgets about him and has his
own son start the well.
But tragedy immediately strikes and one worker is killed.
Daniel watches a possessed Eli perform exorcism at his church, and then
approaches Eli to say a prayer for the funeral of the worker, but Eli
blames the accident
on sinful behavior (drinking alcohol).
Another accident (a huge explosion) almost kills HW and turns him deaf.
The fire burns down the derrick.
Eli comes to ask for the money that Daniel owes him just when Daniel has
learned that HW's hearing is permanent. Daniel mocks Eli's healing skills,
Eli blames the accident on the improper blessing. Daniel
kicks him in the butt and drags him in the mud while Eli keeps
screaming that Daniel owes money to the church.
At home Eli shows his devilish persona by insulting and attacking his father
for believing Daniel. Eli knows that Paul is the one who tipped Daniel and
caused all this trouble. Eli is full of hatred for both his father and his
twin brother.
One day a man introduces himself to Daniel as his half-brother Henry, son of
his father from another woman, whom Daniel has never met.
Henry read about Daniel in the newspaper and decided to trek all
the way there to look for a job. Daniel hires him but causes HW's jealousy.
HW sets fire to the house. Daniel takes HW on a train ride and then abandons
him on the train, to be taken to a school far away.
A big corporation makes an offer that would make Daniel an instant
millionaire, but the pipeline needs to run across the Bandy ranch that is
the only place not owned by Daniel.
Daniel now suspects Henry to be an impostor, and, interrogated about childhood
facts, eventually Henry admits that he simply knew the real Henry,
who is long dead. Daniel pulls out a pistol and shoots him dead, then buries
him in the night. He then makes a fire, gets drunk and cries looking at
childhood memorabilia.
He is found in the morning by an old man, who happens to be Bandy himself, who
happens to know about the plan to build a pipeline. Bandy, indifferent to money,
demands that Daniel saves himself by joining Eli's church, hinting that he knows
about the murder.
Daniel has to go through the humiliating process of being redeemed and exorcised
by Eli in public on his knees.
Daniel gets his pipeline project in return for bringing back HW and taking care
of him.
Eli leaves to preach the gospel around the world.
The film fast forwards suddenly to 1927, when HW, still deaf, marries Eli's
sister Mary . Daniel lives in a colossal mansion, but has lost any interest
in life: he has become a lonely alcoholic
Technically speaking, HW is a partner in his business. HW is deserting him too,
and to start a competing oil company.
A drunk and angry Daniel makes the ultimate revelation, that HW is not his son
and that the only reason Daniel adopted him is to have an innocent face when
buying land. HW leaves, deeply hurt.
When Eli returns, he finds Daniel drunk and asleep on the floor of the
bowling alley of his huge mansion. Eli is unusually friendly. Eli tells
Daniel that Bandy is dead and that the land is for sale through the church.
The land should be valuable because it is the only one that has never been
drilled. Eli is clearly anxious to sell that land and make money for his church.
Daniel realizes it and demands that first Eli admits
that God does not exist and that he, Eli, is a charlatan.
Eli, who is obviously desperate to make the deal, eventually accepts.
Daniel lets him humiliate himself and then tells his the truth: that the
Bandy land is worthless because Daniel's oil company has already sucked all
the oil that there was through surrounding wells.
Eli breaks down and tells Daniel that he has sinned and lost money.
Daniel makes fun of him and starts throwing bowling balls at him.
Eli runs around frightened and Daniel chases him until he hits him in the head
with a bowling pin. Then Daniel keeps hitting the lifeless body to death.
The butler comes to check on the noise, not quite surprised to see a bloody
body on the floor, and Daniel simply says "I'm finished."
The Master (2012),
the first film filmed in 65mm stock since Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet (1996),
is set in the mythological "Far West" like its predecessors.
None of them is a "western movie" though.
The film is visually impressive (and chromatically rich)
but psychologically cold with a fragile
storyline that feels more like a patchwork of independent stories
(and that apparently refers to Scientology, a popular cult in the USA at the
time).
In fact, it feels mostly improvised.
Its analysis of cult religions seem to start where
There Will Be Blood ended.
It is not even clear who is the main character. On one hand, the film focuses
on Freddie, a psychotic loser with an insatiable appetite for sex,
but the story is mostly about the cult created
by a narcissist self-appointed prophet, Lancaster, who sounds like a blend of Elmer Gantry and
Citizen Kane.
The relationship between the two is interesting at the beginning, and so is
the camera's swinging from one's point of view to the other's point of view,
but then the relationship gets confused and, ultimately, tedious
The main reason to watch this film is really the visual experience.
World War II has just ended.
Sailors at the beach make a woman of sand.
Freddie tries to have sex with her, another sailor masturbates into the ocean.
Freddie has problems, mostly related to sex, and psychologists try to cure him.
While talking to one of them he starts a flashback to his parents.
He becomes a photographer in a shopping mall.
He has sex with a client, then beat up another one (her husband?).
He takes refuge in a rural village, but one night, drinking with villagers,
offers something too strong to a man who almost dies of it.
Freddie has to run away through the fields, chased by the villagers.
He ended up walking at night along the pier.
He wakes up on a ship and the commander tells him that it was him who applied
for a job as a sailor. The commander thinks he looks familiar.
He is also a scientist, philosopher and a writer.
The commander, Lancaster, invites him to his daughter Elizabeth's wedding.
The commander is inspired by Freddie to write.
On the ship he witnesses psychological experiments with five people recording
everything that the patients reveal during therapy.
Everybody on board is connected with a cult that the commander is creating,
the Cause.
The commander asks him to volunteer for a psychoanalytic session from which we
learn that he had sex with his aunt, he doesn't know where his mother is,
his father died drunk and he is still in love with his
old sweetheart Doris (described in a long idylliac flashback).
At the end interrogator and victim drink hard alcohol together.
Later at a cocktail party Lancaster is confronted by a skeptic who laughs at
his claims that the Earth is trillions of years old and that his quasi-hypnosis
process can cure leukemia, and, more importantly, the core assemption that one
can travel in the past of previous lives. Faced with the weakness of his
science, Lancaster loses his temper and insults the stranger.
They all move into the mansion of a devoted follower of the cult.
Later Lancaster is shown frantically typing on a typewriter what his wife Peggy
is dictating, perhaps implying that he is just the mouthpiece for his wife's
theories. Freddie takes revenge on the skeptic: he walks to his apartment
and beats him up. But Lancaster reprimands him for behaving like a beast.
Freddie watches as Lancaster leads a dirty dance with a bunch of naked girls
during a party. In private his wife threatens him and punishes him sadistically.
She seems to be in total control of his mind.
Freddie, at the same time, has become his guard dog, intolerant of any criticism
against the boss. When the police come to arrest Lancaster for running a
medical school without a license,
Freddie loses his temper and attacks the cops, thus ending in the cell next
to Lancaster's. Even in jail Lancaster continues the psychiatric analysis of
Freddie, who runs around his cell like a caged wild animal.
During a dinner the daughter tells his parents that she suspects Freddie is
in love with her. Peggy tells her husband that she feels Freddie is dangerous.
Freddie becomes both a subject of Lancaster's research (hitting his head against
the wall in front of entranced spectators) and a devoted organizer
and recruiter of the cult (wearing suit and tie).
Peggy is pregnant when Lancaster gives a rousing speech to his congregation
(looking a lot like Orson Welles in Citizen Kane).
Freddie hasn't lost his psychotic manners: when the publisher tells him that
Lancaster's book stinks, Freddie takes him outside and beats him up.
Lancaster takes Freddie and others to the desert to play a game in which each
person has to ride the motorcycle to a distant point as fast as possible and
then come back. When it's Freddie's turn, he simply rides away.
Freddie returns to his home town and looks for Doris, whom he has last seen
seven years earlier when she was 16, when he told her he would be back soon.
Freddie learns that Doris is married with two children.
Freddie is watching a movie in a deserted theater. He falls asleep and he
dreams that Lancaster is calling him on the phone and telling him that he has
found out a cure for him. In the dream Lancaster is calling from England.
Freddie believes the dream and travels to England. Surprisingly, the dream had
told him the truth: he does find Lancaster. Or this is now happening only inside
his dream. Lancaster is working in a much more glorious establishment.
This time it is Peggy ho interrogates him, and she sounds hostile.
She has not forgiven him for leaving them. She tells her husband in front
of Freddie that she doesn't believe Freddie is serious about getting cured.
Peggy leaves and Lancaster tells Freddie that he has to choose: stay forever
or disappear forever. Freddie criews but then leaves.
Later as he is having sex with a prostitute he recites phrases he heard
from Lancaster.
The last scene is the first one: Freddie lies down at the beach next to
the sand woman that the sailors built. Maybe the whole film was just an
invention of his troubled mind.
Inherent Vice (2014) is an adaptation of Thomas Pynchon's 2009 novel.
The story is narrated by Sortilege (Joanna Newsom).
In 1970 Larry "Doc" Sportello is a weird private investigator, a hippy who smokes weeds all the time.
His old girlfriend Shasta shows up unexpected at his beach house.
Her visit is just business. She tells Doc of her imtimate relationship with
a rich real-estate developer, Mickey Woldmann, whose wife knows and is having an extramarital affair of her own. Shasta thinks that the wife is plotting to
commit Mickey to a mental hospital. Shasta knows because they asked her to cooperate.
Doc offers Shasta to stay with him but she ignores the offer. She is clearly not interested in getting back with him.
Davis and his friend Denis meet Sortilege at a restaurant. Doc later calls an aunt who knows everything and asks about Mickey. She warns him to stay out of it:
Mickey is protected by Nazi bikers, the Aryan Brotherhood.
Mickey is known to have become a drug addict.
The aunt also mentions the brutal city detective Bigfoot, who does commercials for Mickey.
A young black man, Tariq, comes to see Doc at his office, asking for help to
recover money that Mickey's bodyguard Glen owes him. Tariq is a member of a black communist gang and can't get near Mickey because the Aryan Brotherhood are racists.
Tariq mentions that Mickey is building a new development on the site that used to be the turf of Tariq's gang.
Doc visits the development, where only one business has opened: a massage parlor which doubles as a brothel and befriends sexy hostess Jade. Doc is looking for information about Glen. Jade gives him a demo of lesbian love. As Doc is walking out,
he is hit unconscious by someone. He wakes up next to the dead body of Glen
and found in that compromising position by Bigfoot and his squad.
Bigfoot accuses him of murder. Bigfoot provokes him by mentioning that Shasta
is now Mickey's lover. Bigfoot suspects that Doc killed Glen out of jealousy after Shasta slept with Glen. Bigfoot also informs Doc that Mickey has disappeared,
presumably kidnapped. Doc's friend and lawyer Sauncho shows up to rescue Doc.
Bigfoot in person drives Doc home and tells him that Shasta has disappeared too.
Doc is clearly upset.
Then he is summoned by a woman, Hope, whose husband Coy, in theory a simple saxophonist, had been declared dead by overdose but she thinks he may still be alive, just in hiding. Coy was friend with Shasta and that's how Hope learned of Doc being a private eye. Hope and Coy used to be heroin addicts. They had a daughter who almost died. Then they decided the only way to rehabilitate was for them to split. Hope is now clean and a drug counselor. Hope shows Doc her new teeth and explains that heroin drains the body of calcium. She thinks that Coy is alive because one day someone deposited a lot of money on their bank account. Hope hires Doc to find Coy.
Sortilege keeps narrating the story, with frequent references to astrology.
Doc visits Mickey's wife Sloane at her rich mansion and meets her sexy maid Luz and her lover (and "spiritual coach") Riggs.
Sloane tells Doc of a community in the north, Chryskylodon.
Luz tries to seduce Doc and gives him information about the community.
Doc then meets with another female friend, Penny, who works for
the city's district attorney. She is a very straight woman and makes fun of
Doc's drug use. She knows he is suspected of Glen's murder.
He tells her what he has learned so far.
The FBI summons Doc because he has met with Tariq, a known terrorist.
Tariq has been killed but the FBI is mainly investigating Mickey's disappearance.
The FBI offers Doc money to become an informant.
Jade, after apologizing that she helped the police frame him for Glen's murder, warns Doc against the Golden Fang.
Jade brings Coy the saxophonist to Doc. Coy wants Doc to check on his wife Hope and confesses that he went into hiding in the outskirts. Doc doesn't tell Coy that he already visited Hope.
Doc talks to Sauncho about the Golden Fang and Sauncho tells him that Golden Fang is the name of a schooner, a boat that comes at night for mysterious deliveries.
It was owned by a movie star who got blacklisted by the government as a communist and fled the country but then reappeared in good standing. Sauncho also knows that Mickey was using the ship for a few hours each day. And he saw Shasta with him on the boat before they disappeared.
Sauncho is convinced that Mickey is not missing.
Sauncho explains that the government wants Mickey to start working in Las Vegas to offset the Italian mafia.
Doc is clearly distressed every time Shasta is mentioned even if he pretends he doesn't care about Shasta anymore.
Doc sees on television that Coy caused a disturbance during a speech by the president. Penny, who came to visit him and had sex with him, reveals that Coy
worked as an informant for the FBI and appearing on television as a protester
increased his credibility and made it easier to infiltrate terrorist groups.
Doc and Denis drive to the community in the outskirts. They find Jade there
who warns Doc that Golden Fang is an international drug cartel, and her brothel is just a front for laundering money.
Doc also finds Coy, who admits that he went into hiding fearing for his life.
This time Doc tells Coy that his wife Hope and his daughter are fine.
Denis takes a picture of Coy.
Doc knows that Bigfoot was very affected by the shooting and killing of his partner on the line of duty.
Doc decides to visit Bigfoot at the police station, despite being always harassed and mistreated by the cops. Doc shows Bigfoot the photo of Coy taken by Denis, which proves that Coy is alive.
Glen's sister Clancy visits Doc. She hated Glen but nonetheless wants to find out who killed him.
Clancy suspects bodyguard Puck, who disappeared after Glen's murder.
She too heard that Mickey has become a drug addict and wants to give away his money.
Clancy mentions that Shasta was in love for real with Mickey and Doc is visibly hurt.
Doc receives a postcard from Shasta that helps him locate the Golden Fang's
headquarters, a building shaped like a golden fang.
There Doc meets dentist Rudy Blatnoyd, who initially tells him that Golden Fang
is a legitimate dentist syndicate but then shows him cocaine and invites him
to share some. Doc sees the laboratory where several heroin addicts are having
their teeth redone (and remembers Hope's words about heroin destroying teeth).
There Doc also meets Japonica Fenway, the daughter of a wealthy lawyer: Doc's very first case was to track down and bring back home Japonica. She is still escaping and mentions Chryskylodon.
Japonica gives a ride to Rudy, Doc and Denis. They are all high and the dentist has a bag full of drugs. They are almost arrested by a cop but he lets them go when he realizes that Japonica is the daughter of an influential man.
Back home Cop draws a big diagram on a white board about the connections between Shasta, Coy, Mickey, etc.
Bigfoot calls Doc and talks about loan shark Adrian Prussia, who was dealing drugs to both Puck and Coy. Bigfoot also reveals that Rudy has been found dead,
bitten on the throat by a big animal. Doc insists that the marks are not from an animal but from golden fangs, and explains to Bigfoot what Golden Fang is.
Bigfoot tells Doc that Puck is at Chryskylodon, and so Doc and Sortilege decide
to drive there. Along the way, Sortilege explains that
Chryskylodon is Greek for... "golden fangs".
Chryskylodon is a luxury private clinic for drug rehabilitation. Sortilege's voiceover explains the cartel's business plan that connects the drugs and the clinic.
The director is happy
to give Doc a tour. Doc realizes that the clinic is actually brainwashing the members of a cult.
Doc finds Mickey, who has repented from his greed and indeed wants to give his money away. Doc asks in vain about Shasta. Mickey refuses to answer.
Doc also sees Puck and Coy in the crowd of the cult.
Doc returns home and finds Shasta waiting for him.
She claims that Mickey is going back to his wife.
Shasta reveals that Mickey took her to the boat and offered her to friends.
She strips naked and lures Doc into violent sex but then tells him that she
doesn't want to return to him.
Doc visits Penny asking for information on Adrian Prussia and she gives him all the files:
Adrian Prussia is actually paid by the city police to assassinate people. Adrian is the one who killed Bigfoot's former partner.
Prussia also works for the Golden Fang, and killed Glen for them.
Doc is not afraid to confront Adrian, but is drugged and locked into a room by Puck.
Doc manages to free himself but has to kill
both Puck and Adrian in order to escape.
Bigfoot shows up and pretends to help him get home.
Doc finds out that Bigfoot has planted drugs in his car.
Doc outsmarts him by returning the drugs to the Golden Fang in return for Coy's freedom.
Doc drives Coy home, where Coy can finally reunite with his family.
Bigfoot breaks into Doc's house furious, but only eats an entire bunch of marijuana leaves that Doc was about to smoke, and then leaves.
Doc and Shasta leave town together.
Phantom Thread (2017)
Licorice Pizza (2021) is an elegant period piece and psychological
portrait, but overlong and at times frustrating.
Perhaps the film is more notable for showing a love romance between a teenage boy and a woman who is ten years older. Over the course of the film he proves to her that age doesn't matter.
The film is set in 1973 in suburban California.
The 15-year-old Gary is walking out of his high school
when he sees an older haughty girl, Alana, ten years older.
He insists to take her to dinner.
He's an aspiring actor, she is
an assistant to the photographer who is taking pictures of the students.
She rejects him but then in the evening she shows up at the restaurant.
She is impressed that he's already an actor playing in the movie of a star and his mother runs a public-relations company.
She sees herself still being a photographer's assistant when she's 30 while he may already be rich in a year.
When his mother tells him that she cannot accompany him to a press tour in New York and that a guardian must be with him, Gary simply invites Alana to be his guardian and they fly together to New York.
On the plane Gary flirts with the flight attendant while another actor, Lance,
flirts with Alana. Back home Gary sees them out on a date and gets jealous.
Alana invites Lance, who is a Jew like her, to a Jewish dinner with her very
religious family. Lance declines to pray at the dinner declaring that he is
an atheist. This results in Alana having a fight with her entire family as well
as with Lance.
One day Gary has the idea to start a business selling waterbeds.
Alana shows up during an expo but the cops suddenly arrest Gary for murder.
Alana runs to the police station to help the hapless Gary, who is soon released
because it was just a mistake. Alana and Gary are friends again.
Alana starts working for Gary and proves to him that she's a good actress,
so Gary finds her an audition.
At the audition she's asked if she'd be willing to show her breasts and she said yes. Gary is upset because she wouldn't show them to him. And so Alana shows them to him.
Gary flirts with a pretty girl, Sue, during the grand-opening party and Alana
is disappointed to be ignored.
Alana has an audition with a famous actor who then takes her to a restaurant.
Gary and his friends come to the same restaurant and Gary witnesses the two
flirting at their table. An old director approaches the famous actor and
then announces to the whole restaurant that the famous actor will reenact
a famous motorcycle scene.
The crowd walks outside in the dark and the director prepares the scene.
The actor invites Alana to ride on his motorcycle but she falls as soon as he
starts riding at very high speed to perform a dangerous stunt.
Only Gary pays attention to Alana while everybody else crowds around the famous actor and cheers him. Alana and Gary gets close again.
During the oil embargo, when it's difficult to get gasoline, Gary and Alana
deliver a water bed to the mansion Barbara Streisand's boyfriend, an obnoxious arrogant producer who threatens to kill Gary's entire family if he damages the mansion while he's out.
Gary deliberately causes water damage and Alana sees it and doesn't stop him.
As they leave the house in the evening, they run into the producer who has run out of gasoline and, unaware of the damage, asks them for a ride to a gas station.
There is a long line of people at the gas station trying to get gasoline.
The producer tries to get gasoline from a driver by threatening to burn his face, and Gary and Alana take the chance to drive away. They stop when they see
the producer's car and Gary enjoys vandalizing it. Unfortunately, they too have
run out of gas.
Alana lets the truck roll downhill to a shop where they find gasoline.
But the business is dead due to the economic crisis. Alana enrolls as a volunteer working for a politician running for mayor.
Gary joins her and one day overhears the politicians discussing the legalization of pinball (which was illegal since 1939 in Los Angeles) so
Gary has the idea to open a pinball arcade.
Alana has become an idealist and resents that Gary only thinks about making money. Alana treats Gary like a stupid child who doesn't understand the importance of politics.
It helps her self-esteem that the politician really likes her work.
She notices that a weirdo keeps spying on the politician's office.
Gary and his friends (all children, just like in the waterbed operation) publicize his new pinball arcade all over town.
On the same evening Gary has the grand opening of his arcade while Alana is
invited out by the politician. Another staff member is in love with her and
she has to find an excuse to run out.
The grand opening is a big success, but
Gary is disappointed that Alana doesn't show up and one of Alana's friends encourages him to go look for her.
At the restaurant the politician introduces Alana to his boyfriend: the politician is gay and needs Alana to leave with the boyfriend so nobody would suspect that the two men are lovers.
Alana finally heads to Gary's arcade but he's not there because he's looking for her.
When they both lost hope of finding each other,
they finally meet by accident in the street.
They run to each other and hug. Gary drags her back to the arcade where he
publicly declares that he wants to marry her. She calls him an idiot but she
kisses him.
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