Licorice Pizza (2021)

[BetterButter]

 

[BlackberryJam]

What am I missing? That looked like a dull episode of Happy Days filmed without the laugh track and no hair/makeup crew. It even had a geriatric Fonzie on a motorcycle. 

[blackwing]

15 hours ago, BlackberryJam said:

What am I missing? That looked like a dull episode of Happy Days filmed without the laugh track and no hair/makeup crew. It even had a geriatric Fonzie on a motorcycle. 

Agreed.  This movie looks so incredibly boring.  What's the point?  Schlubby-looking guy tries to find love with plain jane?  Oh and there's Bradley Cooper whose girlfriend is Barbra Strei-SAND.  I 

Nothing in this trailer was remotely interesting.  I know that Philip Seymour Hoffman was a favourite of Paul Thomas Anderson, so apparently Anderson cast Hoffman's son as the lead, in his first movie role ever.  Kid doesn't seem to have it.  I'm sure he will make an OK career getting cast in Anderson movies, so I guess the connection helps, but still.

Yet I see that this movie is on some prediction lists for Best Picture and that Bradley Cooper is a Best Supporting Actor favourite, and I just don't understand what I'm missing.  The trailer is supposed to make you want to see the movie and highlight what is great about it, right???

[WritinMan]

I have to agree this looks terrible. And silly. With kind of a dumb title.

[SeanC]

On 9/28/2021 at 2:21 PM, blackwing said:

I know that Philip Seymour Hoffman was a favourite of Paul Thomas Anderson, so apparently Anderson cast Hoffman's son as the lead, in his first movie role ever.  Kid doesn't seem to have it.

How could you possibly assess whether he "has it" based on a mostly dialogue-less trailer?  I find it very unlikely that Anderson would cast someone who couldn't act as the lead in his movie, sentiment or no.

As far as the trailer goes, it's very heavily skewing toward conveying a vibe rather than story or characters, so it's hard for me to say much about it.  But given the director, I'll being seeing it regardless.

[revbfc]

It looks weird enough that I’m on board.  

[Hanahope]

saw the trailer for this before Dunn yesterday and I have to agree with others in thinking, why was this movie made?  it seems to another 'coming of age/first love' movie that's set in the early 70s in Los Angeles.  yawn.  so American Graffiti a decade or so later?  i guess anyone nostalgic for that time line may like it.  

i had to look up what the movie title meant.  There were some record stores in the LA area called Licorice Pizza that was eventually bought out by Sam Goody (and of course no longer exist anyway).  

[StatisticalOutlier]

On 10/2/2021 at 3:51 PM, SeanC said:

As far as the trailer goes, it's very heavily skewing toward conveying a vibe rather than story or characters, so it's hard for me to say much about it.  But given the director, I'll being seeing it regardless.

Same here.  And it turns out the trailer gave me almost no hint of what the movie was going to be, other than the vibe.  And it contained quite a few scenes that aren't in the movie at all. 

But suffice to say, this is not a movie about two schoolmates finding love.

On 9/28/2021 at 12:21 PM, blackwing said:

I know that Philip Seymour Hoffman was a favourite of Paul Thomas Anderson, so apparently Anderson cast Hoffman's son as the lead, in his first movie role ever.  Kid doesn't seem to have it.  I'm sure he will make an OK career getting cast in Anderson movies, so I guess the connection helps, but still.

He was very very good, and Alana Haim even more so.  And it was the first movie for both of them. 

[NotMySekrit2Tell]

On 12/30/2021 at 6:48 PM, StatisticalOutlier said:

And it turns out the trailer gave me almost no hint of what the movie was going to be, other than the vibe.  And it contained quite a few scenes that aren't in the movie at all. 

Well, you know, actually seeing the movies is so last century. In fact, even trailers are too long. Let's just form opinions based on looking at the posters. Eliminating the few minutes the trailer takes will free up so much time for sounding off. "I saw a poster in the lobby for something coming soon. There was a guy holding a gun, flames, and some sexy women. Who keeps green-lighting this? Haven't we seen enough posters for movies about guys with guns? And sexy women? Why not a poster with a woman holding a baguette, and sad pelicans? I might even watch the trailer for that!" 

Licorice Pizza is good. Not great PTA, but sweet and with some great pieces, like the delivery truck out of gas being steered in reverse through the hills. I guess all of us looking at it from a 2021-22 vantage saw where the Benny Safdie politician story was going way before everything was made explicit, but I can see it not being as obvious in the world of the movie.  

Edited January 9, 2022 by NotMySekrit2Tell

[StatisticalOutlier]

6 hours ago, NotMySekrit2Tell said:

Licorice Pizza is good. Not great PTA,

It's up in the top for me, mainly because I liked the characters so much.  It's one of those that if it popped up on my TV screen unexpectedly (I'm old--these things happen), I'd stop what I was doing and watch it again.

6 hours ago, NotMySekrit2Tell said:

but sweet and with some great pieces, like the delivery truck out of gas being steered in reverse through the hills.

In the trailer, they should have had the scene where she says, "I'm going to blow through this" stop sign?red light?  And the kid says, "I trust you."  So people could complain that there are too many action movies out there.

6 hours ago, NotMySekrit2Tell said:

I guess all of us looking at it from a 2021-22 vantage saw where the Benny Safdie politician story was going way before everything was made explicit, but I can see it not being as obvious in the world of the movie.  

When the weird guy started hanging around outside a campaign's windowed streetfront office, I was fearing a Taxi Driver turn. 

[kiddo82]

While I don't think PTA is endorsing the relationship between Gary and Alana, I just don’t think the movie itself is a good enough satire to justify the storyline of a 15 year old in a relationship with a 28 year old.  A lot of the jokes just didn't land for me so it was missing that punching up element that other satires have.  PTA takes a big swing with casting first timers Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman and I don’t think it paid off.  I don’t want to be too harsh on either of them but it was hard to ignore how rehearsed and stagey Cooper Hoffman’s performance felt.  (Although the character himself is a bit of a snake oil salesman so if that was on purpose then it’s the performance of the year.  The cynic in me doubts that though.)  Alana Haim acquits herself better but she is still not immune to periods of the same throughout the movie.  I wonder if more seasoned performers could have made the material work better.  Also, a 2 hour plus run time was rather indulgent for this type of film.  And finally, where did Gary get all the capital for these business ventures?  How much money could he have made as a 15 year old fledgling child actor in the 1970s to support both a failed water bed business and then an arcade?  And he puts these businesses together in the span of weeks?  There was just a lot that didn't work for me.

[StatisticalOutlier]

21 hours ago, kiddo82 said:

While I don't think PTA is endorsing the relationship between Gary and Alana, I just don’t think the movie itself is a good enough satire to justify the storyline of a 15 year old in a relationship with a 28 year old.

I don't think the movie is intended to be a satire.  In a Vanity Fair interview, Paul Thomas Anderson said it was an idea he'd had for about 20 years:  "What happens when an 8th grader asks a grown woman out for a date and she actually turns up to it? That was the premise."  And he has a lot of affection for the San Fernando Valley and has bristled at how it's been portrayed, so I'm not detecting a satire.

Also, I don't think the character is 28.  Alana Haim was 28 in real life, and at one point in the movie she's asked how old she is (I think by Jon Peters) and she said 28 but quickly changed that to 25.  People see that as a flub, but I'm not so sure.  I wouldn't be surprised if her character was lying both times and she's actually younger than 25, but I could also buy her being 25.  But I see no indication the character is 28.

As for the relationship, in a New York Times interview, PTA said:  "There’s no line that’s crossed, and there’s nothing but the right intentions. It would surprise me if there was some kind of kerfuffle about it, because there’s not that much there. That’s not the story that we made, in any kind of way. There isn’t a provocative bone in this film’s body."  So I think he is endorsing the relationship between Gary and Alana--the relationship he's portraying in the movie, not the one people are conjuring up.

Personally, I was more in line with Alana's view (from the trailer):  "Do you think it's weird I hang out with Gary and his friends all the time? [pause] I think it's weird I hang out with Gary and his 15-year-old friends all the time." 

[kiddo82]

6 hours ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

I don't think the movie is intended to be a satire.  In a Vanity Fair interview, Paul Thomas Anderson said it was an idea he'd had for about 20 years:  "What happens when an 8th grader asks a grown woman out for a date and she actually turns up to it? That was the premise."  And he has a lot of affection for the San Fernando Valley and has bristled at how it's been portrayed, so I'm not detecting a satire.

Also, I don't think the character is 28.  Alana Haim was 28 in real life, and at one point in the movie she's asked how old she is (I think by Jon Peters) and she said 28 but quickly changed that to 25.  People see that as a flub, but I'm not so sure.  I wouldn't be surprised if her character was lying both times and she's actually younger than 25, but I could also buy her being 25.  But I see no indication the character is 28.

As for the relationship, in a New York Times interview, PTA said:  "There’s no line that’s crossed, and there’s nothing but the right intentions. It would surprise me if there was some kind of kerfuffle about it, because there’s not that much there. That’s not the story that we made, in any kind of way. There isn’t a provocative bone in this film’s body."  So I think he is endorsing the relationship between Gary and Alana--the relationship he's portraying in the movie, not the one people are conjuring up.

Personally, I was more in line with Alana's view (from the trailer):  "Do you think it's weird I hang out with Gary and his friends all the time? [pause] I think it's weird I hang out with Gary and his 15-year-old friends all the time." 

I'm going to push back a little against PTA for those statements above.  I don't have a problem with his premise but from the jump it puts the adult character in a dicey situation at best.  I feel like him not acknowledging that is wanting to have his cake and eat it too.  I think as far as the relationship that is portrayed in the movie, yes, there isn't much that is explicit that goes on between Alana and Gary but I still feel like it's in a gray area between physical and strictly platonic.  I think Gary definitely wants things to be physical and Alana doesn't exactly set boundaries.  At best she gives a mixed message when she flashes him, the act of which is not "nothing" if one is arguing that nothing provocative happens between them.  I'm not clutching my pearls over it but saying it's inappropriate for a 25, 28 year old woman to expose her breasts to a 15 year old is calling a spade a spade.  This isn't Belfast where we are rooting for two innocent second graders, or for the sake of argument, 2 less than innocent 15 year olds.  This is for all intents and purposes an adult and a child.   And we are watching to see if their relationship progresses in a way that both of them seem somewhat open to.  That's not seeing something that isn't there.  It's anticipating what comes next.  I think PTA is smart enough to know that that is a bit of a minefield.    

Funny thing is, even if Gary was 18 and Alana really was 25 (or even 28) I think the movie is screaming that pretty much any real romantic relationship between them isn't going to work out.  He is too immature for her and I feel like she only keeps literally running back to him because he is infatuated and she is floundering.  He is like her rebound but instead of getting rejected by other men she is getting rejected from where she is trying to steer her life.  (and she is also kind of getting rejected by other men.)  This is what I mean when I say that the movie, and by extension PTA, isn't endorsing their relationship anyway.

Also, I truly believe that Alana inadvertently reveals her age when she says she is 28.  I interpret that as her feeling there is less stigma around her quarter life crisis at the age of 25 than there is at her actual age.  I took that to mean she was fudging her age the entire time.

Edited January 11, 2022 by kiddo82

[Simon Boccanegra]

The way I see it is that the film is mostly about a close friendship that develops following a crush, and it's taking place in early '70s SoCal, a time and place when people were questioning the norms and behaving in a way that -- for that time -- was considered free and progressive. We know now that much of what was considered progressive led to unequal situations and exploitation, but in that cultural moment, people were living their lives and following fashionable social doctrines just like people today. I can't count the number of times the most "woke," cancellation-bandwagon people on my social media have paid tribute to early-'70s rock icons (on the occasion of deaths or the anniversaries of deaths), when those people have been credibly alleged to have had intercourse with girls even younger than 15. Alana and Gary never get past a flash and a kiss. Their connection is remarkably chaste, really. 

(I'm not sure how old the other young actor, the one who comes to dinner with Alana's family and confesses his atheism, is. He seemingly has a couple years on Gary, and Alana sees him as a more realistic serious partner.) 

It's a long way from a perfect movie, but I had some affection for it, and the central relationship didn't make me uncomfortable. I just thought the story portrayed these two as people who were challenging (in good ways) and helpful to each other as they went through transitional periods in their lives.  

[Browncoat]

I *finally* got to see this last night.  None of the major theaters in my area have even had it on their schedules!

I enjoyed it quite a lot, although all that running just exhausted me.  The age difference was a little problematic for me, mostly because Gary is a minor, but it also put me in mind of Harold and Maude. 

It might have helped some that I recently read Ron and Clint Howard's book, wherein they went into great detail how difficult it was to transition from cute kid actor to adult actor.  Gary was right at that age, as evidenced by his audition for the 10-way suit commercial among all the little kids.  I can believe he had the money to start those businesses, and I actually can believe he made money on the waterbeds before the oil embargo shut down the "Arabian vinyl" market.  I also don't fault him for seeing the pinball opportunity, although I can see Alana's side of that as well.

I loved all the cameos!  I loved how they either represented real people or reasonable facsimiles of real people (Jon Peters?  Real.  Under One Roof?  Facsimile of Yours, Mine, and Ours.)

I may have more thoughts later, but I really did enjoy the movie.  It did a great job capturing the vibe of the early 70s.  I'd watch it again just to see Alana drive that truck.

 

[lasu]

I watched this a few weeks ago, right after having watched Red Rocket. 

SPOILERS FOR RED ROCKET

Spoiler

I almost didn't go see Licorice Pizza, because even though Red Rocket is pretty good and the acting is excellent, the relationship between the 17 year old and the 40-something washed up porn star was, for me, really upsetting.  It was extremely predatory, and I'm not sure the movie leaned in how HOW fucked up what this man was doing was.  He's clearly not presented as a good guy, but...he's a predator.  He describes her age as "legal enough for me!", boasts about her not having a father around which makes things easier for him, and he blatantly is trying to use her to get back into porn.  Additional, they have sex on screen and the character is shown topless.  The actress herself is in her 20s, but she looks VERY young.  All in all, the movie just stayed with me in bad way.  I'd heard some comparisons between RR and LP, so I almost passed on this one.  

All that said, I do think that LP makes the situation at least interesting.  They really stack the deck - the actors visually don't look so much like a grown up and a child.  I thought Alana was also a high school student when she first appeared on screen.  Gary is someone who has already had success, has at least somewhat financial stability, and his mother works for him.  Alana lives at home with her parents and has a curfew.  She has a dead end job and no prospects.  One of the reasons (ONE of MANY) these situations aren't ok is because of the power imbalance, but there is clearly less of a power imbalance between Alana and Gary than there is between Alana and Sean Penn's character.  They were also smart to keep it just on the edge of becoming a truly physical relationship.  If they had slept together, game over I think.

And then of course, the final card in the stacked deck is that the child is male, the adult female.  As a society, we tend to view this differently than when the genders are reversed, which is where I DO have a problem with this movie as well.  Because no matter how much you stack the deck, I'm not going to sign off on something between a 25/28 year old and a 15 year old, and I think it's problematic that we do not view this as being as bad if the child is male.  I think this movie fed into that a bit, and I think that's a shame.

They did a good enough job overall that I still liked the movie (I literally laughed out loud more than once in the theater) and wasn't overly troubled by the relationship.  It was definitely interesting to watch the two movies back to back.

[StatisticalOutlier]

On 1/26/2022 at 10:24 AM, Browncoat said:

Under One Roof?  Facsimile of Yours, Mine, and Ours.)

In the Vanity Fair interview I mentioned upthread, Anderson talked about his friend Gary Goetzman, who played one of the Beardsley kidsand how Gary tells him crazy stories from his life, including about the time he went to New York to promote Yours, Mine, and Ours with Lucille Ball, and he had a chaperone.

On 1/26/2022 at 11:35 AM, lasu said:

They were also smart to keep it just on the edge of becoming a truly physical relationship.

Maybe I'm naive, but I don't think Anderson was intentionally walking that line, but instead that it's just how the story went.

[NotMySekrit2Tell]

On 1/26/2022 at 11:24 AM, Browncoat said:

I loved all the cameos!  I loved how they either represented real people or reasonable facsimiles of real people (Jon Peters?  Real.  Under One Roof?  Facsimile of Yours, Mine, and Ours.)

 

On 1/27/2022 at 6:53 PM, StatisticalOutlier said:

In the Vanity Fair interview I mentioned upthread, Anderson talked about his friend Gary Goetzman, who played one of the Beardsley kids and how Gary tells him crazy stories from his life, including about the time he went to New York to promote Yours, Mine, and Ours with Lucille Ball, and he had a chaperone.

I also assumed the older kid from Under One Roof, played by Skyler Gisondo, who moves in on Alana, is "supposed to be" Tim Matheson, who played the oldest boy in Yours, Mine and Ours. Matheson is someone who, unlike Gary, did make the transition from child acting to adult.

BTW, talking of acclaimed new movies that have a romantic relationship with a big age difference, 

Spoiler

Parallel Mothers is another. I haven't yet seen any complaints about Penelope Cruz "grooming" Milena Smit, who's said still to be a minor when the story begins. She's a couple years older by the time it takes that turn, but still very young. It definitely isn't written as if the Cruz character is predatory. It just...happens, and the young woman makes the first move.

Anyway, real-life Milena Smit is 25, and Penelope Cruz is Penelope Cruz, so maybe the way it's cast affects the way people experience it.

 

Edited January 31, 2022 by NotMySekrit2Tell

[Pickles Aplenty]

Well, this movie didn't do a thing for me.  The acting was very good, especially Alana Haim, but I couldn't get invested in the story and I kept checking the time every few minutes.  I don't need every movie to portray inappropriate relationships exactly the way they would go down in real life, but this was all surface level stuff to me, and I kept wondering what the POINT was.  Not my thing.

Edited March 25, 2022 by Pickles Aplenty

[Scout Finch]

I've streamed four of the Best Picture nominees in the last week and although this one never sounded that interesting, I thought maybe I should give it a chance in time for tomorrow's Oscars. Now that I have I'm really wondering how this got a Best Picture nomination. It did not hold my interest and just seemed to go nowhere, despite all the running! As a catty aside, I think Alana is homely and there was nothing winsome about her character's personality so it's difficult to believe that these older men were entranced by her, especially when they're constantly surrounded by a vast pool of desirable women in Hollywood and in all likelihood are just looking for casual sex, which makes the premise even more improbable. 

[SoMuchTV]

In case anyone is following waiting for it to stream free, it's on Prime Video now (free with Prime).

[EtheltoTillie]

15 hours ago, SoMuchTV said:

In case anyone is following waiting for it to stream free, it's on Prime Video now (free with Prime).

Thanks. Even now I’m not sure I want to watch.  

[SoMuchTV]

11 hours ago, EtheltoTillie said:

Thanks. Even now I’m not sure I want to watch.  

I watched once it was free. I had read a review that said, basically, there’s not a plot, there’s a vibe. I have to agree with that. Overall I liked it and I don’t feel like it was a waste of my time. I’m pretty close to the age of the main character but everything else in my life was the opposite of his.  

[Sarah 103]

On 1/9/2022 at 1:25 PM, StatisticalOutlier said:

When the weird guy started hanging around outside a campaign's windowed streetfront office, I was fearing a Taxi Driver turn. 

I had a similiar thought, but a different take on it. I was thinking something like Harvey Milk/something motivated by the candidate's sexual orientation, because once they started talking about the candidate being a confirmed bachelor, not having found the right woman yet, and being so focused on his career he didn't have time for a social life, it was pretty clear that he was gay.  

On 1/26/2022 at 11:24 AM, Browncoat said:

 I also don't fault him for seeing the pinball opportunity, although I can see Alana's side of that as well.

Agreed, but I'm not sure why Alana was surprised. She knew he was pint sized hustler, looking for the next opportunity. He's interested in money and had shown no interest in politics or global events. Of course he was going to be more interested in the pinball opportunity than the political discussion happening around him.