Well, for one thing, Gary and Alana's relationship wasn't believable. And the way Gary talks made him sound like he was much older. Personally, I didn't care about the age difference but did PTA really have to make Gary sound a 30 years old?
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Well, the movie suggests that Gary has "aged ahead of his age." He works in show business, he's had to memorize lines(lines for kids, yes, but still they are WORK.) The movie is very big on showing that the adults in Gary's life treat HIM as an adult(the Tail of the Cock Manager, the Japanese restaurant manager, the waterbed salesman, the tailor) . One reason they treat him with respect is that he PAYS THEM. He earns his own way like an adult (his mother earns too, but he contributes.)
Sidebar: in real life, I've learned the concept of being "house friends" with restaurant managers. Just as with bartenders, the customer can establish a half fake/half real friendship with restauranteurs based on the fact that the customer is paying for the friendship and becomes a regular. But its kinda REAL. Gary has "house friend" relationships both at the Tail of the Cock and the Japanese restaurant. This is perhaps another reason he sounds like he is 30.
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Alana was on the immature side as well. I know that people have explained this in other threads but it just didn't work in my opinion.
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Fair enough. We have traded some comments here but I think there comes a point where a person who likes a story and thinks it works(me) should NOT try to change the mind of someone for whom much of it did not(you.) So...I won't.
I will say this: I liked Licorice Pizza even as I didn't think some of those elements worked much, either. The interesting scenes outnumbered the ones that were less so, to me.
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And when they got into the waterbed business, I thought that was when the film lost it's edge. It just wasn't interesting anymore.
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"Licorice Pizza" stands as something interesting: a story told by a man(PTA) who based pretty much every scene on some REAL circumstance of which he was aware, and which he decided to "connect up" as one storyline, as if FORCED to . The REAL Gary (Gary Goetz, PTA's older friend) DID sell waterbeds. He DID sell one to Jon Peters. He DID have an older girlfriend(actress Kay Lenz) who DID help him sell waterbeds and she DID appear in a movie with William Holden called "Breezy" (from which Sean Penn as Jack Holden and Alana Haim read actually lines from the script.)
The Haim family Shabbat dinner with the atheist date DID happen. And PTA DID see a teenage boy hit on a older girl while on line for school photos at his high school. And Joel Wachs was the council member representing the suburb where PTA (and Haim) grew up.
Because PTA is a "writer-director auteur" he got studio backing for this story and rather forced himself to tell it "as it happened, except different." I found out about all these true stories because I read all the PTA interviews. It would be interesting to consider an audience member who thought it "was all made up."
My feeling is that if all those true incidents were the "backbone" for Licorice Pizza, its true heart lies elsewhere: in the recreation of a time and place and people long gone, in a love story that always felt true(with a strong rooting interest for it to succeed), and with unique scenes we really had not seen before on screen (the gas-less truck drive; the movie star making a motorcycle jump for adoring fans at a restaurant..)
On the waterbed angle: I think I liked this better than some because when you think about it, the whole waterbed thing was a truly WEIRD 70's fad. I never had one, but I slept on some and they were unwieldy, "sloshy" in the noise, sometimes mildewed in the smell.
And they were sold for "sexual reasons" (Hence Alana's sexual sales pitch on the phone.) Everybody wanted to 'do it on a water bed." (In the 1973 Walter Matthau crime thriller Charley Varrick, crook Joe Don Baker laments that the brothel he is staying at for business reasons doesn't have a water bed.)
And like most fads...water beds died out pretty fast. Took a few years. (But doesn't Jack Nicholson's character in About Schmidt flop around on a water bed in a movie set in 2002?)
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ecarle (14979)
2 years ago
Sean Penn's character was a little pointless too. It was more or less a 15 minute cameo. I would almost be willing to call it the longest cameo in film history.
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Ha. I wouldn't say it was pointless, but one watched it wondering "why are we spending time with this character?"
Again..the REAL reason is that the REAL Gary Goetz's REAL girlfriend, actress Kay Lenz, can be seen in "Breezy" a 1973 movie with William Holden. But this scene crosses William Holden with an anecdote about Evel Knievel driving that motorcycle at Tail of the Cock -- and I feel that "Jack Holden" also had some Steve McQueen mixed in -- the director(based on who? John Huston? Sam Peckinpah? Mark Robson, director of The Bridges at Toko-Ri/Toko-San?) talks about Holden like he's McQueen.
I liked the scene for its "take" on aging movie stars as rather weird people. Penn's Holden never REALLY notices or cares about Alana, he may be too old and pickled to even be thinking about having sex with her -- she's just a prop to him. He MUCH prefers jabbering on aimlessly with the director when he's not repeating lines from his old movies verbatim.
Meanwhile, Gary is "on the case" -- taking a table with full "eye contact" with Holden's table, speaking to his friends about "gritted teeth, assasins focus", focused on taking Alana BACK from the old movie star. (And he does.)
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ecarle (14979)
2 years ago
Still, with that being said, I thought it was a solid film. I kinda liked it but not as much as some of the others in here. I think I gave it a 6.2 out of 10. Which means, good but not great.
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OK.
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My scale is like this..
9-10 Excellent/flawless
8-8.9 Great/might have one flaw
7-7.9 very good/but has a few flaws
6-6.9 good/ but has some glaring issues
5-5.9 above average/has issues but decent entertainment
4-4.9 below average/ only worth watching if you really like the cast members.
3-3.9 terrible/ full of holes, bad acting etc..etc..
2-2.9 garbage/not worth watching unless you just want something to laugh at.
1-1.9 Complete shit/don't waste your time.
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Wow...now THAT is a detailed range of reaction. I'm impressed.
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The last film I gave a 1 to was Legend Of The Mummy (1998). It's really bad. Without a doubt, it's the worst film I've ever seen that has at least one big name actor in it.
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I don't even remember that one. I remember The Mummy with Brandon Frasier and the unsuccessful Mummy with Tom Cruise(who has bounced back nicely, eh?)
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