MovieChat Forums > Paul Thomas Anderson Discussion > Is PTA fading?...

Is PTA fading?...

posted 2 years ago by jcdugger (268)
12 replies | jump to latest

As you can see from my list here, PTA is slowing down!...

1. Boogie Nights (10 out of 10)
2. There Will Be Blood (10/10)
3. Magnolia (9.8/10)
4. Hard Eight (9/10)
5. Punch Drunk Love (8/10)
6. Inherent Vice (6/10)
7. Licorice Pizza (6/10)
8. The Master (6/10)
9. Phantom Thread (5/10)

First off, what a start... Hard Eight ('96), Boogie Nights ('97) and then Magnolia ('99)...Unreal. I'm not sure any director short of Tarantino can match those 3 movies to start a career. Then he threw in low-budget yet pretty decent Punch Drunk Love ('02) before making the historic There Will Be Blood ('07). At this point in his career, I'd rank Boogie Nights and TWBB in my Top 10 movies of All-Time. Magnolia, Top 50. Hard Eight, Top 150. That's one heck of a list! What a great start. But then...

I consider The Master ('12), Inherent Vice ('14), and Phantom Thread ('17) as PTA's Trilogy of Disappointment. Not terrible movies by any means...but when you start a career the way PTA did...I just felt they were major disappointments. Again, on their own, not terrible flicks. Well, Phantom Thread was pretty bad...but all 3 together, not terrible. They were all 3 carefully crafted pictures, they looked tremendous, but man...those are 3 pretty boring movies for the most part. I reserve my most loathing towards Phantom Thread though. I tried to like it. I tried 3 times to like it. I just can't get into it. Saddling Daniel Day Lewis with that feminine accent (and role) to end his career was a disgrace. It lacks any fun whatsoever, a staple of PTA's earlier movies. You can tell Phantom Thread is made by a master craftsman, no arguments there...it's just lame. I watch PTA movies because they are fun and they have an underlying intensity to them...Phantom Thread (and The Master and Inherent Vice for that matter) had very little to none of that.

Today I seen Licorice Pizza. It was decent, a 6 out of 10. Yes, made by a master craftsman. But to me, again, this movie lacked any real intensity. It was funny at times, but it wasn't a very fun time, ala Boogie Nights. I also like it when PTA's characters are flawed and heading downhill quickly (a staple of the top 4 movies on my list)...this was again missing. And a few things were just odd. A 15-year-old rich child actor being fascinated by a waterbed, then opening his own waterbed mattress store the next week? Huh? At one point, they deliver a mattress, with a skinny girl, a 15 year old boy and two kids much younger than 15...really, who's going to let that crew into their house?! There was a lot of similar minor things that were just highly implausible.

I gotta wonder...is PTA fading? Will he ever make a Top 100 movie again? I still love his movies, but I feel he's losing his fastball. What do u think?

[–] [deleted] 2 years ago

I thought the Master was pretty great.

[–] SteveG (1370) 2 years ago

Unfortunately he hasnt blown my hair back since 2007’s There Will be Blood. Usually a great director can make about 3 amazing films before they fade, I think he has made his. That being said he is still very talented and I will continue to watch all of his projects because he doesnt make crap. Even his films which I am not so fond of are better than most.

[–] WhereIsRent (1017) 2 years ago

As long as he keeps on making movies there's always a chance he'll achieve greatness again.

Look at George Miller for example, after the amazing Mad Max 2 in 1981 none of his movies blew anyone away again until Mad Max: Fury Road in 2015.

Just gotta have patience, maybe PTA's next film will once again be as great as his earlier films.

[–] BillHicksFan (10126) 2 years ago

I think you're right. I haven't seen his latest one, but I liked "Magnolia" when it came out, and think "There Will Be Blood" is the best movie of this century, but haven't cared for his movies since.

Maybe it's time for him to re-make another Altman movie? :)

[–] [deleted] 2 years ago

i personally rank phantom thread at or near the top of his films. i haven't seen licorice pizza yet (was going to go today, but it's far too cold out to walk 50m to the theatre), but i personally have really enjoyed his post-twbb films.

that said, i'm a bit of an outlier in that i actually like twbb the least out of all of his films, excluding hard eight, which is sort of like his minor league season & perhaps can be left out of the equation.

i rank them like this:

phantom thread
punch drunk love
boogie nights
the master
inherent vice
magnolia
there will be blood
hard eight

i genuinely like every one of those movies - the top 5 are all 5/5 movies in my books, & magnolia & twbb are 4/5.

[–] ABiggerBoat75 (26) 2 years ago

Nice post. I agree with your rankings and ratings almost exactly (Inherent Vice would be at the bottom of the list for me with maybe 4/10 or less - I found it exhausting to watch). Your top 3 are my top three as well - 3 perfect films. But I also agree with what a poster said below - as long as he's making films, there's always a chance that Anderson will knock another one out of the park. Here's hoping!

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

I've always found it interesting how "auteurs are born."

Usually it takes one big movie that everybody notices -- starting with the critics, whose raves - if the movie is audience-friendly -- then attract audiences and importantly, money.

With PTA and QT -- rough contemporaries -- each man had a first movie that "put them on the map" (Hard Eight, Reservoir Dogs) but then came a BIG one(the SECOND one) that established them as "potentially great." That would be Pulp Fiction for QT and Boogie Nights for PTA.

With the "second one" as establishing the potential for greatness, its that THIRD one(the sophomore film) that becomes a make-or-break item.

For QT: Jackie Brown -- very well reviewed, with a huge fan base (middle-aged?) but not nearly the moneymaker or cultural event that Pulp Fiction had been.

For PTA: Magnolia -- a classic example of "being given everything he wanted" after hitting big with Boogie Nights. Bigger budget. Unlimited running time. One really big star(tom Cruise). I don't know if it did as well as Boogie Nights or not, but it created the "beginning of the PTA canon" and he was given decades of greenlights ever since.

I'd like to stop here to notice some other "auteur" build-ups over the years:

John Frankenheimer:

Big event movie: The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
Sophomore movie: Seven Days in May (1964)

...and then a kind of wobbling career with art(Seconds), spectacle(Grand Prix) and a rather sudden collapse at the end odf the 60's(he came back in the 70's).

Orson Welles:

Big event movie: Citizen freakin' Kane
Sophomore movie: The Magnificent Ambersons

...and then a kind of "failed auteur" career...foreign films and indie films and failed financing and a kind of struggle for greatness -- though Touch of Evil (1958) was comeback and some of his foreign films (The Trial , Chimes at Midnight) are well regarded.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Steven Spielberg :

Big event movie: Jaws
Sophomore movie: Close Encounters(a big hit, but a little less of a box office performer)

...and then the "flop" of 1941

...and then the comeback of Raiders...and Steve never looked back.

Martin Scorsese

Big event movie: Mean Streets
(break in between for Ellen Burstyn to win an Oscar for "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore)
The REAL Sophomore movie: Taxi Driver

and...launched. Though the 80's were pretty hard on Scorsese and he needed GoodFellas as a comeback in 1990.

Peter Bogdanovich:

Big Event movie: The Last Picture Show
sophomore movie: What's Up Doc? (A big popular comedy hit)

and then Paper Moon (a hit) and then a slow motion collapse. 3 hits(Last Picture Show, What's Up Doc, Paper Moon...followed by Daisy Miller, At Long Last Love, and Nickelodeon (his girlfriend Cybill Shepard didn't help being in two of them.

William Friedkin:

Big Event Film: The French Connection
Sophomore film: The Exorcist (even bigger)

and then....failure with Sorcerer (Star Wars kicked its ass) and then up and down decades of failure and some success...the big "save" was marrying studio boss Sherry Lansing.

---

I think that's enough. What it shows me is that our "auteurs" make a splash with their first two or three movies and then...its up to the Movie Gods whether or not they REALLY keep making great stuff(Spielberg, Scorsese), or fail(Bogdanovich, Friedkin.)

Since I really love Licorice Pizza, I'd say that PTA is doing just fine...everywhere but the box office. But his movies don't cost much to make and make mild profits so...he'll keep working.

[–] jcdugger (268) 3 months ago

Thank you, that was an interesting read. I'm wondering now what you might say about Robert Eggers in about a decade or two. (I'd like to hear more if you have time to write a few more directors up!)

[–] Druff (1453) 3 months ago

I still haven't seen Inherent Vice, but I found Phantom Thread engrossing from beginning to end, and I almost stopped watching Licorice Pizza with no intention of ever coming back, I thought it was easily his worst movie so far. So based on that tiny bit of data alone I can see him losing momentum.

My opinion of PTA is that he has a ton of confidence, he does whatever he feels like doing, and he's not afraid to take big risks. No shit he's not going to hit it out of the park every single time.

[–] CountJohn (579) 3 months ago

Absolutely not. Licorice Pizza and Phantom Thread are 2 of his 3 best movies I'd say.

[–] jcdugger (268) 3 months ago

I don't get it...I've tried to watch Phantom Thread a few times and rigormortis starts setting in for me! :)

It's just lame and boring in my opinion. No real intensity. Like I stated before, Daniel Day Lewis talking/acting feminine in his final role was disgraceful. Who am I rooting for in this movie? Heck, who am I rooting against?! And...A woman poisoning her partner with both of them enjoying it was the 3rd act surprise?! Lame. No way it's better than either Boogie Nights or There Will Be Blood...there's just no way.