Licorice Pizza

It's a stylistic statement, a case for naturalism, a movie for people interested in movies, defying narrative convention. It unfolds life-like, rife with loose ends and dead ends, chaos tumbling forward but advancing on average. Some real stories can be made into sports dramas or crime podcasts, but most can't. Most of life is vaguely tumbling forward, like Licorice Pizza. Paul Thomas Anderson generates a lot of leads and then, I think, deliberately drops them in a statement of style. We expect things to build and climax; instead, time passes, things happen, and we slowly progress. I know he's capable of tying lit threads -- he's done it before -- but it would have been a tall order anyway to cohere this flotsam/jetsam. It's baffling, sometimes excessively, threatening the naturalism with outlandish cameos. But keeping the all-stars where they should be, in the periphery, this is just the unfolding of a meager relationship, played by two deliberately unproven actors. So that's another statement: Sean Penn, Bradley Cooper, and the several others are highly superfluous, while the kids are essential. Attract people to the movie with a couple of studs (would anyone be attracted otherwise?), then baffle them with loyalty to a couple of unfortunate randos.

I thought Cooper was great. Is it just me, or was there a moment he stood with the phone in one hand and the fingers of the other pressed to his eye, directly recalling his father in PTA's Magnolia? I don't think it's this exact moment, but it's this scene:

I think I rooted for their relationship, but not unreservedly. I wasn't a huge fan of Alana. I liked Gary, he really impressed me. But both made numerous questionable moves. Gary is forgiven easier, for his age. Hannah did not easily sympathize with Gary, but I did. He's 15 -- how is he supposed to act? I rooted for their relationship because it felt like home, despite substantial flaws. Again, they're young -- time can iron out some of this crap.

I liked the movie, I thought it was good. It's not profound or passionate for me, but I appreciate the experience, and the idea. I'd appreciate more movies like this, though I'd probably rarely find them worth my time. The naturalism seems noble to me, like a balm for every other cultural irritation. But the thing about conventional storytelling is it's easier for the viewer to justify, since they can take something home with them. Movies cost time and often money -- it's nice to feel like you took something away: a moral lesson, an experience that can be neatly tied off... Licorice Pizza doesn't provide much other than a vague warm experience, and a study in modern movies perhaps. I think it's noble, but if it wasn't PTA, I don't think I'd be very interested. Realism isn't really where I gravitate, not because I don't appreciate the idea, but because it's just a little harder to justify for someone really selective with his time. If I want realism, why am I watching a movie? It's easier to justify fantastic fantastical movie experiences, because I hardly get those experiences elsewhere. To me, movies must prove themselves worthy of my time. My default state is never watching movies (or never letting myself watch them). I wait for worthwhile movies to reveal themselves, or for the temptation to watch movies to occasionally intensify. A lot of it is connecting with my past (which is why I keep up with PTA). But I do love movies, generally. I love them and they connect me to my past -- but they're hard to justify for me, rationally. Realism and naturalism are especially handicapped, though often artistically noblest.

I've clung to the concept of ecstasy lately. When I spend time absorbing art or entertainment, I'd like it to be fascinating and/or ecstatic. I'd classify some of my older PTA experiences as ecstatic, along with older Bob Dylan and Dylan Thomas experiences, and many others. But I rarely touch this anymore. Licorice Pizza isn't ecstatic -- but I'm a lot less emotional than I used to be. Maybe it would change my life in high school. That's not saying much -- everything changes high school lives. My "favorite movies" are fossilized in what was high school plasticity. Experiences don't embed so easily anymore, hence my stale "favorite movies" list. 

PTA and Kaufman embedded in my adolescent plasticity, forever fossilized. It's hard for anything new to penetrate. It's not impossible, but it often requires new forms. Maybe there are ecstatic and fascinating experiences to mine throughout classical, jazz, and traditional music; the visual arts; all kinds of literature; adventurous experience; new philosophies; new relationships; and more. I don't expect film to lead that charge like it used to. In high school it was film and music: Bob Dylan, PTA, Kaufman, and Radiohead. Music still matters a lot to me, though I have to be creative with it. But film is more of a relic for me. I love movies, and I'll probably continue to keep up with them, but I won't expect them to change my life like they used to. Or maybe I will expect it, and be repeatedly disappointed. I certainly still seem to use old experiences as a standard. How could hormonal adolescent experiences be my standard? My faculties were really unevenly developed, some mature, so I can't assign that time a deceased identity -- much of that person is very alive now. In some ways I'm actually working toward that identity again, and foundering. Bob Dylan said "I was so much older then; I'm younger than that now." He probably didn't mean much by that, but I definitely idolize my high school persona in some ways. I was more mature in some ways. And I was more emotional. And less mature in most ways. But there's an angle at which I can reflect on high school and catch a glimpse of my greatest self, like sunlight through the crevasse at Moon House ruins.