Perhaps it’s that films are sold to us now in packages of “pre-awareness” that we’ve mostly forgotten how to receive something wholly original. High stakes in film production now from the major studios in Hollywood require that “pre awareness” because it can mean the difference between $100 million and $200 million. Sequels, remakes and book adaptations of popular novels sell better than films cut from whole cloth.
All the same, it is always irritating when films that have just been seen get compared immediately to classics. Out of Toronto, the brilliant breakout hit Nightcrawler was being compared to Taxi Driver and Network – it is neither of those films, not even close and comparing them instantly diminishes the film. The other comparisons I’ve heard this year is that Interstellar is 2001 (yeah, no), Inherent Vice is The Big Lebowski, etc.
Nightcrawler is a film about a reedy, dark sociopath nothing like Travis Bickle. Bickle was a war vet with nothing to fight for who must then find someone he thinks needs protecting. What he does has a specific purpose and it isn’t necessarily for fame and glory, although that could be part of it. He thinks he’s doing something significant. Such is not the case with Nightcrawler, who merely slips into his job, does his best and thinks nothing of the consequences. He’s a flat-lined sociopath who doesn’t care about anything. He has no primary driving motivation to do what he does other than the thrill of doing it. The two films could not be more different and yet when you say it’s like Taxi Driver that sets people up to immediately dismiss it as the film that couldn’t live up. Not that Nightcrawler has been dismissed. Good word of mouth has generated buzz and people are paying to see it. Is it like Network? Only in so much that it depicts network news as being so greedy it loses its moral line. That is true about Nightcrawler but the film doesn’t really partner with such a strong message as Network does. The scary thing about Network and Nightcrawler is that they depict the life we’re living now. We see that stuff on the news and the internet every day. There is no moral line.
Interstellar is nothing like 2001 except the two films have to do with space. Comparing them greatly diminishes Interstellar because how could any film ever live up to Kubrick’s abstract masterpiece? Interstellar is laden with dialogue throughout – 2001 has none of it. Kubrick’s film is about mankind overall, a sweeping statement about our species, where Interstellar is more like Noah, a cautionary tale about where we’re headed because we refuse to look at climate change and GMO environmental disaster, which will lead to our ultimate destruction. These are vastly different ideals. The second you start thinking 2001 you start hating Interstellar because one is never going to be, nor should have been intended to be, the other. Therefore you can enjoy the three legged jokester monolith without having to be annoyed that it lampoons the monolith in 2001.
Finally, one of the best films of this year has to be Paul Thomas Anderson’s brilliant and perplexing Inherent Vice, which too many people out of the New York Film Festival wrote off as being like The Big Lebowski or even The Long Goodbye – I myself did that after seeing it, thinking he was channeling Robert Altman. If that’s what you’re looking for in this film you will miss everything that’s great about it and go looking for something that isn’t there. First off, The Big Lebowski has an easy to follow caper that has a clear through line. They pissed the dude’s rug, he wants it back. Two Lebowskis, a kidnapping, Bunny Lebowski. Though both films could be seen as kind of modern, abstract renderings of film noir cop films like The Big Sleep (which also makes no sense, by the way) or The Maltese Falcon. The joke being neither Jeff Lebowski or Doc Sportello are Bogart. I guess that’s where the comparison comes from.
But Inherent Vice goes so much deeper than The Big Lebowski, though if you’re on the film’s wavelength you will laugh just as much, particularly with Josh Brolin’s unbelievably funny performance as the cop. It is a film about longing, about emotional and sexual ache. It is a film about loss — a lamenting of the vanishing of the good stuff hippie culture brought to America. All the while, throughout Inherent Vice, there is that curious juxtaposition of very conservative California with wildly out of control California. If you’ve grown up here in LA during the 1960s, 1970s you will appreciate it all the more. He captures so much about life back then and the weird part is it feels just like America in 2014. The “silent majority” are out in force and have become the vocal minority – the shrieking Anita Bryants of the world are everywhere.
In a perfect world no film would ever been called an imitation of another unless that film was vastly inferior and truly a copy of another. But these films are originals.
@Paddy http://youtu.be/BUa5oHgYV2k
SPOILER
Matt Damon
“He has no primary driving motivation to do what he does other than the thrill of doing it.”
SPOILERS
He was motivated to make himself a big shot. I have brought up TAXI DRIVER and Travis Bickle when talking about NIGHTCRAWLER. But just because I did that, doesn’t mean I’m saying they’re the same thing. Travis Bickle was a hero in his own mind, and Jake’s character was trying to build an empire for himself. He wants to be the head of a conglomerate or something like it. Yeah he doesn’t give a shit about people but I don’t think that necessarily makes him a sociopath. He decided to not like them. It’s not like he doesn’t have the ability. I was reminded of TAXI DRIVER but it’s because you have this abnormal individual on the fringes driving around at night basically. It doesn’t mean it’s the same. Every time someone compares a new film to a classic it doesn’t mean they’re saying their the same or as good. It just means they’re giving the person they’re talking to an idea what some part of the film is like. It doesn’t mean they’re saying they’re equals. I did get a TAXI DRIVER vibe from NIGHTCRAWLER but I know the difference.
In fairness Sasha, you do this yourself…look at how often your Gone Girl posts reference ‘Vertigo.’ No shame in it, we all use references to other (usually better films) as shorthand in describing new movies.
I’d actually be pretty fired up to hear a movie described as an improved version of a movie that had an intriguing premise but ultimately fell apart or was flawed in some way. If I was going into a sci-fi movie and heard it described as, for instance, “Sunshine but with a way better ending,” that would be of great interest.
Good quote, Bryce. Doesn’t have enough sentiment to be stitched into a pillow, but I’m sure JLG doesn’t care.
Paddy – you’re not getting off that easily. We all love the Oscars not for what they are, but what they could be. That’s why we’re all here, so you’re not going anywhere 🙂
Fuck it, let’s all just stop commenting.
Steve’s comment. That is all. All for this Oscar season, see y’all next year.
I was thinking something similar just the other day.
Christopher Nolan’s referential tendencies in Interstellar rubbed me up the wrong way at first, bringing to mind superior sci-fi classics in a manner I found derivative… yet effective. It was upon this realisation that I determined that my ennui was entirely self-imposed and that it was nothing to do with what Chris Nolan had done at all. Maybe he piles on the references to other films pretty heavy, but he does so lovingly, respectfully and in a manner which is detrimental neither to the film he’s referring to nor to the film he’s making.
It seems that people are comfortable with a director revisiting devices or themes or styles used in existing films so long as those details come from only mildly-revered films at best. Borrow from a ‘classic’, or from a film (such as 2001) that has rarely been borrowed from and that has never been matched, and you’re in the shit. Who’s to say Stanley Kubrick’s methods in making 2001 were entirely of his own rendering? That they were wholly unique? Lest y’all forget, the screenplay is technically an adaptation. And his directorial choices are not sacred artistic actions suitable only for worship, not for homage or re-appropriation. They’re good ideas, and effective means of filmmaking, and who’s to say Christopher Nolan can’t draw on them for inspiration, especially when it’s of service to his own vision?
Btw Nightcrawler is no Drive. Different feels entirely. Different commercial performances too, and different release / campaign strategies. It’ll get nowhere near as much love from critics’ groups, and it’ll gain nowhere near the same instant cult status as Drive; it may get more Oscar nominations though.
Brilliant compilation, Steve. I wasn’t going to get into this subject because defending 2001 strikes me as altogether unneeded, ditto Malick, Welles — but I’ll join you with one of my go-to quotes, this one from this feller who made great movie in the decade of the 1960’s, went extravagantly Marxist in the 70’s, and haven’t heard from since:
“To me, style is just the outside of content, and content the inside of style, like the outside and the inside of the human body—both go together, they can’t be separated.” — Jean-Luc Godard
Ah, the old “style over substance” chestnut. Following are little-known decisions made by Kubrick, Welles and Malick that damned them for all-time and, more importantly, cost them Oscars. We can only imagine what might have been.
2001: Nobody realizes that Dave was actually the lovechild of Elena and Dr Heywood, conceived on one of their many trysts at the space station. Kubrick rewrote the script where Dave, not HAL, actually kills Frank, and therefore subsequently cut the scene where Dave goes on a remorse-filled crying jag over Frank’s death. It’s interesting to note that there was also a weightless striptease by Dave, but Kubrick knew that Roger Vadim had already filmed one for Barbarella, so it, to was dropped. Kubrick, always decades ahead of everyone else, wanted to add an Apple logo to the monolith, but MGM execs were confused by what they thought was a connection to the Beatles. Shame, really – Kubrick might not have won BP, but he would have been a shoo-in for BD.
Tree of Life: Malick foolishly changed the gathering of souls scene and relocate it on a beach. It was originally set in the Alps, where the characters were joined with lots of nuns and children who had outrun some Nazi’s were singing an inspirational song. It would have been Oscars for all and studio execs complained that the scene now meant nothing.
Citizen Kane: That idiot Welles could not be convinced to add the ghost at the deathbed who would guide Charles Foster Kane through his past to show him how terrible everyone’s lives would have been had he not lived. Instead of ending up with a film that nobody enjoys watching, he could have had a holiday hit that’s revisited year after year. What do we have now? A snowglobe and a fucking sled. WTF does that mean?
“Style over substance” has a nice ring to it, somewhat like “moon over Miami, but the theory doesn’t hold water. It only means that the user has missed the bus.
Style over substance” has a nice ring to it, somewhat like “moon over Miami”
style over substance
mind over matter
head over heels
get over it
Christophe, I think they have the most enlightened, cosmopolitan, and dare I say the most avant-garde of tastes! The viewing of each of those titles is utterly sacrosanct (he he)
In fact after going over this list of canonical feature I can confidently assert that The Holy See > (1000X) > AMPAS
Full Disclosure: I’ve always been a good catholic boy, have completed all my pertinent sacraments, and I adore Pope Francis I just by his virtue of being born in The Argentine — so there!
I mean I’ll take the “Catholic take” over a number of celebrated critics and not particularly because I agree with them about everything (I don’t):
“Freed from Kowalski, Stone makes her way into the Soyuz and finds the pod on which she hopes to fly to a Chinese vehicle, which will finally take her home. But to her infinite chagrin, she discovers that there is no fuel in the Soviet pod and that she is, accordingly, surely doomed. With tears and much hesitation, she commences to pray, though she admits she doesn’t really know how to pray, and at this point, we notice an icon of St. Christopher on the instrument panel of the pod. Her prayer apparently unanswered and resigned to her demise, she then allows the oxygen to run down, so as to commit suicide by hypoxia.
But just as she starts to drift into unconsciousness, Kowalski, to our surprise, suddenly opens the hatch and bursts in. With bravado and confidence, he switches on the lights, turns on the oxygen and shows Stone how to activate the pod. However, just when we thought that the day had been saved by this deus ex machina, we discover, in the next scene, that Stone is still alone.
Had Kowalski’s appearance been just a hallucination produced by oxygen deprivation, or had it in fact been a visitation from a figure now in heaven, or was it, perhaps, the latter by means of the former? At any rate, she took it to be a link to the transcendent, for she immediately asked Kowalski to communicate her love to her four-year-old daughter who had died some years before in a freak accident. None of the vaunted technology that she had mastered had ever allowed her to contact her beloved daughter, but now she had found, precisely through a figure who had manifested perfect love, a route of access, a means of communication to a realm beyond this one.
Inspired by her supernatural visitation, Stone summons the courage to fly to the Chinese spacecraft and hurtle on it back to Earth. While she navigates the vessel, she sees, over its instrument panel, a little statue of the smiling Buddha — the third explicitly religious symbol in the film. After splashing down in an unidentified body of water, Stone crawls to shore, grasps the wet sand in her hands, and mutters the final word of the movie: “Thanks.”
The one who had admitted that she didn’t know how to pray utters, at the end, a beautiful and altogether appropriate prayer.
The technology which this film legitimately celebrates is marvellously useful and, in its own way, beautiful. But it can’t save us, and it can’t provide the means by which we establish real contact with each other. The Ganges in the sun, the St. Christopher icon, the statue of the Buddha, and above all, a visit from a denizen of heaven, signal that there is a dimension of reality that lies beyond what technology can master or access.
The key that most effectively opens the door to the reality of God is nothing other than the kind of self-forgetting love that George Clooney’s character displayed, for God, as the first letter of John tells us, is love. In and through that love, which permeates and animates the whole of the creation, we find connection to everything else and everyone else — even to those who have passed from this life to the next.
How wonderful the technology that allows us to explore the depths of space, but infinitely more wonderful is the love which, in Dante’s unforgettable phrase, “moves the planets and the other stars.”” http://bit.ly/11meb7K
Vatican review of 2001 (and a couple personal remarks at the end):
“2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) Director Stanley Kubrick’s epic work, co-written with Arthur C. Clarke, is both science fiction and metaphysical poetry using an unconventional mixture of visuals and music to bridge humanity’s reconstructed past, identifiable present and projected future, all tied together by the recurring image of a monolith as symbol of a superhuman existence. The central narrative follows the struggle of two astronauts (Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood) to wrest control of their spacecraft from HAL, a talking computer (voice of Douglas Rain), on a half-billion-mile trip to Jupiter and the unknown. For young people and imaginative adults [That’s ME!] but too long, deep and intense for children [LCBASEBALL22 and Danny?].”
http://web.archive.org/web/20131029191543/http://old.usccb.org/movies/vaticanfilms.shtml
F*** typos!
Has anyone ever heard of the 1995 Vatican’s List of Greatest Films?
I was looking for confirmation on the religious/esoteric interpretation of 2001 ASO and I found out that it was part of a list of 45 films published by the Vatican to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Cinema. The list is divided into 3 categories: Religion, Values and Art. 2001 is listed under Art not Religion, so I’m not sure the Vatican would agree with my theory, but they did like it enough to include it!
Though I haven’t seen everything on the list, it seems pretty solid, and I would love to hear your cinephilic opinion: does the Holy See has good taste in film?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vatican%27s_list_of_films
Bryce? Ryan? Anyone?
“Also, without having seen Nightcrawler it seems to me like that might be this year’s ‘Drive’, a critics darling but ignored by the Oscars”
Again, agree with Sasha that it’s not much like Drive. It may be like Drive in that it shows all sides to LA and not just the glamorous. But Drive is more of like a hybrid of 2 different eras. Talk about abstract, Drive is more abstract and less plot heavy than Nightcrawler, which was more substance over style. I love both movies but the only connection I would say, other than the locations, is the use of the electronic music.
I think I’d say Tomas Alfredson, maybe Fincher, is more Hitchcock and Paul Thomas Anderson is more Kubrick.
LCBaseball, Kubrick’s films are often meant to be emotionless whereas Nolan wants you, truly wants you, to connect with his characters. I don’t think Kubrick would give a shit. I think that’s why people criticize Nolan more than Kubrick on that front…and I’m a huge fan of Nolan. Kubrick is, as Sasha says, more abstract. Nolan is trying to be relatable and for me he usually succeeds but I totally get how he doesn’t with other people. Sometimes I fall in love with his passion rather than the characters or the finished story, and yes I say story and not movie because his movies are generally technically flawless.
Agreed with this. I try and judge what is on screen in front of me despite hype, marketing, or whatever. I think the comparison game is borne out of twitter shorthand, which allows anyone with a cell phone to drop a knee jerk reaction to a film they just saw. It doesn’t start a discussion about what film presents, instead it only brings attention to whoever the reviewer was. It’s like that scene in Birdman where Riggan is reading over one the reviews from Tabitha. All the comparisons are labels and don’t get into the form or function of the art.
2001 is “style over substance”? No, its boundless substance is suggested by its style. It’s such a lazy notion, that style and substance are inimical elements…
Benutty, 🙂
But yeah, I love when fully formed conversations can be had from comparisons, whether book to movie or movie to movie.
From now on, if and probably more, when we hear people saying things like, “Nightcrawler is Gyllenhaal’s Taxi Driver”, we should respond with “no, Nightcrawler is Gyllenhaal’s Nightcrawler.”
on the same page then, Al 🙂
What’s funny is, in the future, people will be looking at a new movie, and comparing it back to Nightcrawler or Interstellar.
Benutty,
I get and agree with what you just said. No argument there. I’m coming from the place of, I’ve had too many conversations where people didn’t like a movie just because it wasn’t like the book, or it wasn’t as good as the book. To me, “it’s not the book” isn’t a good reason to like or not like a movie.
re: “But I also find this behavior annoying when people compare movies to the books they’re based on. No movie is ever the book.”
But if the point of the comparison is to explore which version tells the story better, or to suggest ways in which one handled a certain aspect of the story better/worse, than it is useful. An argument that begins and ends with “the movie is better than the book” is bland, lazy and problematic, I agree. But there are conversations to be had that go much deeper than that.
I do agree however that at times Nolan needs to abide more by the “show don’t tell” rule of thumb. I too was annoyed by some of the chit-chat in the tesseract and feel that I could have followed fine or made my own deductions without some of that exposition.
Luckily for me I guess I get more Hitchcock vibes from Nolan’s work (even from this latest film) than I do Kubrick. Nolan and Fincher are vying for the title of modern day Hitchcock.
Often any similarity these movies have to 2001 revolves around some imagery the filmmakers used that was inspired by 2001…is that really all it takes these days to be compared to 2001 or to be called “Kubrickian”?
Completely agree. Assuming this is exclusively taking a swipe at the current state of “film criticism” and not the works themselves. It also speaks volumes about widespread genre illiteracy, which persists to this day amongst the overwhelming majority of critics/bloggers, that they will invariably retort with 2001 comparisons to any film involving outer space — someone ought to tell them to get some new material already. Not only are GRAVITY and INTERSTELLAR wildly dissimilar to 2001 in many aspects, but they have little to do with each other as well — much like comparing TITANIC to THE KNIFE IN THE WATER because boats, and water…and humans.
*beautiful
Yeah well, guess what? I’m of the opinion that Citizen Kane is mostly “style over substance” as well. There’s no denying that both are well crafted innovative films in many ways, but they lack a compelling story and fancy camera work and images are not enough to carry a film, sorry. Terrence Malick is the modern day master of “style over substance” and I feel much the same way about The Tree of Life as I do 2001.
I think the reason why people compare a movie to another movie they find similar is because they’re lazy. They don’t want to do the work of realizing the movie for what it is. (I myself have occasionally been guilty of this.) It’s easier to compare a movie to another previous movie so that way they don’t have to explain the new one, they can just think of the previous one. Someone would ask: “So, how would you describe Interstellar?” They would answer: “Have you ever seen 2001?”
But I also find this behavior annoying when people compare movies to the books they’re based on. No movie is ever the book. A movie should be reviewed for what it is, not for what it’s not, and it isn’t now, nor will it ever be, the book.
Thank you for this, Sasha! One of the most annoying things people do every year is grab hold of a movie they just saw and liked and sort of rashly and reflexively compare it to a film masterpiece, often without even attempting to explain WHY they think it deserves comparison to the masterpiece. A movie like 2001 has proven to truly deserve the word “groundbreaking,” and yet it seems today that any sci-fi movie with state-of-the-art special effects or breathtaking visuals is loudly proclaimed as “groundbreaking” or “game changer,” as we saw last year with Gravity and this year was Interstellar. When the terms are used so easily and with a sort of fawning fervor, they lose all meaning. Often any similarity these movies have to 2001 revolves around some imagery the filmmakers used that was inspired by 2001…is that really all it takes these days to be compared to 2001 or to be called “Kubrickian”?
“2001 on the other hand is style over substance…”
Or maybe its substance is more mysterious and elliptical and isn’t spelled out for you in CAPITAL LETTERS with clunky dialogue and monologues about the importance of love and earnest characters who weep moistly for their daddies and their children. “Style over substance” has become another somewhat empty criticism people throw around so much without explanation that it ends up sounding like a cliche.
Great way to put it, Ryan. I agree with your take. To add to that, comparative [literature, cinema, etc.] is a branch of study for a reason–it’s a useful tool of understanding new and old art forms together.
“2001 wasn’t really interested in science at all. Interstellar is (perhaps too much) interested in it. 2001 was an extremely influential, detrimentally boring piece of philosophy”
Not only that but it’s completely devoid of emotion. Even Nolan’s most “cold” and “emotionally detached” films are a step above Kubrick’s work I’d say.
Chris, yeah. The whole “tesseract” part could have been briefer. I mean, I’m all for the tesseract, but all that goddamn speech. I’m not familiar with Spielberg’s version. I should read up on it.
“That said, I never thought of this in terms of Pynchon riffing on Altman — but rather how they BOTH were riffing on LA Noir tropes, both using similar ingredients to show us how good neo-noir can look when soaked in a neon-noir stew.”
Oh my gosh I thought the exact same thing. Totally lying. This never crossed my mind, but now that you’re illuminating it (to me) I can only agree 100%.
Bryce, if you’re talking about the black hole scenes and the magical bedroom, I agree. Its the “back on Earth” denouement that I couldn’t get behind. Felt like leftovers from Spielberg’s iteration of this story that Spielberg would’ve handled better.
so glad we share this sentiment….i think this also goes hand in hand with the “what is an oscar movie” argument, another super annoying tactic of modern day “critics” who will blatantly begin their reviews with a films oscar chances instead of discussing the film itself..luckily time cures all its just unfortunate we have to deal with these annoyances in the present because they do effect opinions and the landscape by altering expectations
Chris Price,
I loved the ending scenes so much. So powerful in its implacability. I did find some overly saccharine stuff in the movie, but at different points.
“O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not” (Jeremiah 5:21)
While Interstellar may have a bit too much exposition at times there’s still plenty to debate as evidenced all over the internet the past week..
2001 on the other hand is style over substance, nothing more nothing less…and the only fully satisfying film that Kubrick directed was The Killing
2001 wasn’t really interested in science at all. Interstellar is (perhaps too much) interested in it. 2001 was an extremely influential, detrimentally boring piece of philosophy. The volumes of film criticism it’s spawned over the years have been far more entertaining than the actual film.
“Interstellar is better than 2001, just saying…”
Oh now you’re just asking for trouble!
Interstellar is better than 2001, just saying…
Also, without having seen Nightcrawler it seems to me like that might be this year’s ‘Drive’, a critics darling but ignored by the Oscars
Also, without having seen Nightcrawler it seems to me like that might be this year’s ‘Drive’, a critics darling but ignored by the Oscars
It’s way different from Drive. It has a clear plot that’s easy to follow – and more than that, it has a point to it. The acting is off the charts great. I think it’s one of the year’s best films, weirdly enough, though it took some time for it to sink in.
Nightcrawler is awesome, plain and simple. Gyllenhaal gives the best Lead Actor performance I’ve seen thus far. Interstellar has some extremely powerful moments but a painfully sappy ending (that I might still let slide because of the aforementioned powerful stuff). Seeing Inherent Vice on Friday.
But Whiplash and Boyhood are still my favorite films of the year. The film We Are The Best! sits at number 3 for me and is perhaps the most overlooked great film of 2014. Nightcrawler would be #4 and Gone Girl #5.
Exactly my thoughts on the 2001/INTERSTELLAR comparison. The latter was sold like a new staple of Science Fiction, so I couldn’t help but scoff at its ridiculousness, even though I now realize it was a very enjoyable experience nonetheless. I’m still obsessing over some issues that leave me wondering whether I was too dumb to understand the film, or whether its writers were too lazy to make any sense out of their premise.
On the other hand, 2001 is such a deep and beautiful masterpiece, it works on so many different levels, it can yield dozens if not thousands of interpretations, each perfectly valid and coherent within its own realm.
Classic films have smth unique and radical at their core, so you can’t make a classic film by trying too hard to borrow the magic of those classic films that have come before.
Not unlike with Alfonso Cuaron last year, this year I’m standing with Chris Nolan. I have their backs right when they’re being put down and their names are being dragged in the mud. Soldier on, Mr. Nolan. We’ll get through this one.
WHAT DID SHE JUST SAY MIKE?!!!! Kidding.
Thanks for the write-up, Sasha. I think you are spot-on with some of the greater themes of Inherent Vice, as well as the feeling of it. To play devil’s advocate, I think making comparisons is a natural thing to do internally (the brain likes to immediately categorize in order to understand and process) as well as externally (in film criticism or even just talking about the movie with friends, it’s a shorthand for sharing the feel of the movie without spoilers or excess plot details). You can certainly spot superficial connections to the Big Lebowski. And some of that melancholy and confusion you write about certainly harkens back to the Long Goodbye for me. It seems we make comparisons first based on genre (sci-fi space drama, Los Angeles-based neo-noirs), then on more specific details. But there are probably a hundred other movies that Inherent Vice more closely relates to outside the narrowly-defined genre, we just can’t think of them as quickly off the top of our heads.
Inherent Vice is one I want to re-visit as soon as possible. My love for it has blossomed in the days since seeing it.
Hey, and at least people can stand sitting through Interstellar. I don’t know anybody who actually LIKES watching 2001. Ok, break out the pitchforks!
I will say that when I first read Inherent Vice 5 years ago, I wasn’t past the first chapter before I thought to myself “ah-ha, Pynchon is doing the same sort of spin on California Noir that Altman did with The Long Goodbye” — the wooly unravelling of convoluted plot, the shaggy-dog tangents, the outlandish beachfront eccentrics, the wry laid-back copacetic private eye, even the plot point of rich guy tangled up with dubious psychotherapists.
That said, I never thought of this in terms of Pynchon riffing on Altman — but rather how they BOTH were riffing on LA Noir tropes, both using similar ingredients to show us how good neo-noir can look when soaked in a neon-noir stew.
So when I first heard Paul Thomas Anderson was adapting Pynchon’s most entertaining novel, I thought: perfect! Nobody lathers on the flaky period aura of a funky era like Anderson.
So, for me, I can see the common DNA of two movies without the need to compare different examples trying to see if one lives up to the another. I like to see how movies of the same genre relate to one another as similar branches of the same species but I don’t need to say, for example, whether humans are better or worse than apes — because I’m glad the world has both.
Since The Long Goodbye and The Big Lebowski are two of my favorite movies of all time, I’m freakin thrilled to hear that another movie of comparable value has been created to join them on the same shelf.
But I agree absolutely with your primary point, Sasha: I see no need to measure new movies against classics. Just because they’re the same genre, I don’t automatically revert to “let’s rank them, best to worst” mode. After all, it was years before Lebowski and Long Goodbye attained their proper cult status.
It would be silly not to assume Anderson is well aware how his movie connects with and disconnects from The Long Goodbye, and equally silly at this point for anyone to think that Anderson is trying to live up to Altman.
The movie INTERSTELLAR reminds me of more than anything is CONTACT (they even share a co-star).