Punch Drunk Love discussion - Page 2

Forgot to mention that the scenes between Sandler and Hoffman were classic. The phone conversation was ABSOLUTELY hilarious!

And another great scene with Guzman was when he was with Sandler in the grocery store.

Fucking it better be!

ONE OF? How do you pick from such a wealth of riches?

Yeah...nothing like people screaming "Shut Up!" and "Fuck!" over and over and over.

If Tourette's comedy is your cup of tea, this movie may be a classic for the ages.

Tourette's! Ahh, going for the 'Disability-Oscar Nomination', is he?

The emotional range he displayed in Happy Gilmore left little room for improvement, IMHO.

I haven't seen the movie so I'll shut-up now.

When I say I LOVE this film, I mean I love the film. Everything in it. Every moment it protrays and gives me feels, given the oddness of the film, strangly real. This is the type of film for me. The type of film I want more of and need more of. Sandler plays someone close to my heart, Watson plays the girl I need and want. This could be my story and the wonderful thing about this film is it could be anyones story. It is so damn specific, yet so universal.

I loved this movie and I love the love it brings to the screen.

Pretentious means gay cowboys eating pudding.

PDL had no gay cowboys eating pudding.

Therefore, PDL was not pretentious.

Problem solved.

Bravo. Well, WELL said.

I just got back from catching this flick. I didn't expect to get such an uneasy feeling from it. I felt love was surpisingly absent from the film and it was either poorly done or a satiric stab at movie romance.

I don't know if I'd say the film was "pretentious". It certainly lays the symbolism on pretty thick. I haven't been able to figure out most of it, but I'm sure if I gave it time I could probably do so.

I think Anderson has done a fantastic job as a director, but has used a script that's not so fantastic. Everything is the movie is either visceral or aural. The writing and the performances don't really carry this film, although I thought that Anderson really harnessed Sandler's limited range to bring something great.

Punch-Drunk Love is certainly one of the more interesting films I've seen this year. I think film school students who love french films will certainly get a hard-on from it. However, if I begin to hear raves about this film, I think it could quickly begin to sour.

7.5 out of 10

I loved this friggin movie.

You'd be surprised how many people I have encountered who think his movies are the comedy BIBLE.

So....THAT is where I am coming from.

Me, I really only like Happy Gimore.

Besides, I thought you didn't like this movie.

Bullshit.

Welll...say bullshit all you want, but Devin's right. It's thrown out every time a person doesn't want to think, or has a bit of content that's just the slightest bit not literal, or talks about something a wee bit deep.

It's like Americans' current hate for poetry. It takes too much effort to figure out what all those silly words mean, so out comes the "pretentious" stamp. It's the favorite word of your average mouth-breather.

Since I've been debating on message boards, I've gotten into fierce arguments when someone labeled the following films as pretentious: Three Kings; Citizen Kane; Fight Club; Se7en; LOTR; Lawrence of Arabia; Out of Sight; The Manchurian Candidate. And I remember all those for the single reason that I got really, really hot about some damn fool ignoramus tossing it out when they didn't want to take the time to do any mental heavy-lifting. It is the EPITOME of laziness.

Does that mean that saying something is pretentious is always just a cop-out? Naaah. It can be valid; I think it's an interesting debate over whether PDL is pretentious; I didn't think so myself, since I loved the whole magic music-box feel of the film, but it's certainly got enough flourishes that lots of reasonable arguments can be thrashed out.

But a valid arguments on this don't come up often. The term doesn't MEAN anything to the average person; it's just an easy way to dismiss something. It's like the time I was in film class, and we were discussing the beautiful, unprecedented jump cut in 2001 from the bone to the satellite in orbit, talking about what that choice meant. And sure enough, some moron in the front row said, "that's the stupidest, most pretentious thing I've ever heard." Anything that didn't exist on exactly face value was worse than worthless for this space monkey.

Apparently, meaning is pretentious.

I think it's generalizing a bit. I'll agree completely that 'pretentious' is used by some people too much when they don't get or understand stuff, but there is a lot of times, especially with contemporary cinema, where it's a valid criticism.

Totally. Someone like M Night Shyamalan makes very pretentious movies, but that doesn't stop them from being great.

Pretentious (adj):

1. Claiming or demanding a position of distinction or merit, especially when unjustified.

2. Making or marked by an extravagant outward show; ostentatious.

Most of our favorite filmmakers are by definition, pretentious. Film's a showy medium and people flaunt their stuff, because they're on the grandest stage of all.

I think MAGNOLIA was incredibly pretentious at times, but I loved it. There's nothing wrong with that kind of filmmaking. Hell, I don't even remember saying PDL was pretentious. It's really not, just disappointing and a lesser film than I feel Paul Thomas Anderson's capable of making.

My problem is that some of the people on this board immediately think anyone who doesn't get some deep impression from a film (something I think really is determined by the viewer both before and after they see the film, sometimes irregardless of the film itself) is some primate who has no culture.

Then again, there are people who immediately call a film pretentious because it didn't work for them.

Such is life, but that's a small group of people here.

I personally feel a lot of people decided they were going to worship this film way before they saw it, and I see a little defense mechanism popping up in this thread.

Relax. Discuss... but god damn it, don't start any more bad blood. The boards (aside from the recent crap going on in the political forum) have been VERY good for well over a month.

Don't start sinking it.

Apologies if I got a little overheated on this one, Nick. I know my button got pushed not by anything that happened in this particular discussion - I think it was going pretty well, actually - but by a general pet peeve of mine.

And hell, I'm proud that you could even examine what the word 'pretentious' means over here. As usual, this is a place where people DO think, and better yet, are encouraged to do so. If it came out argumentative or badly reflective on the calmer participants in this discussion, for my part, I apologize.

(For the record, I don't think PDL is either pretentious or has any real deep meaning; I think it simply works as a nicely modern fairy tale in every sense of the word.)

Count me with the people who consider "pretentious" not to be a bad thing, at least not the way it's usually used. Most of the Coen brothers movies, Charlie Kaufman, David Lynch, heck, even parts of movies like "Minority Report" could be considered pretentious. And I love 'em all. (Of course, you could narrow the definition down to "a movie that's pretending to be more intelligent or interesting than it is", in which case, obviously, pretention IS a bad thing.)

In the same sense, I'm not sure PDL is particularly pretentious. Unless you equate weird with pretentious. But it didn't seem like "artsy" weirdness, so much as just goofy, exuberant weirdness. And the symbolism seemed more like the kind that exists just to encapsulate the characters, instead of the kind that's supposed to be "unravelled". For example, the scene where Lena calls Barry back up to her apartment, and he runs through the building, getting lost and flustered...that's "symbolic", but it's also just representative of how Barry reacts to the world, so it feels honest. Not like having a squid swim by in the background of one scene and say, "All is emptiness..."

I had a lengthy missive all typed up for this when my cat decided I was being long-winded and extraneous and decided to hit the computer power button.

Let's just boil it down to this.

I do believe in good and bad pretentiousness. It's not necessarily a bad thing. But I think bad is the default for the most part. It's where it leaps beyond imagination and ambition, and then lands squarely in showiness for the sake of showiness.

M. Night is a pretentious, showy director. But the show serves his stories and I can't imagined them being told properly in any other way.

P.T. Anderson is a pretentious, showy director. But I think his prentention tends to sabotage his storytelling, and when you clear all the sound, fury, and Scorcese closeups away, you're not left with a whole lot.

Here we have a relationship story that gets us to the beginning of the relationship, and then stops.

Now, in and of itself, that's not bad IF the journey there were worth watching.

But it wasn't to me. A female stalking a retard with a bad family. That was the first 70 minutes to me in a nutshell. Not much else to it. Then the last 20 was supposed to redeem our hero because he finds enough backbone to cuss out and scream over his sisters on the phone, beat up some thugs, and to confront a merciless phone sexline-owner.

EXCEPT...nothing ever really changes. Now he's under the control of Emily Watson's character who's just using him for whatever comfort she can get from him. I never got that she loved him or truly cared. She's still a stalker, but she's a successful one that has her prey for now.

Meanwhile, his sisters will still whip him into obedience when they get the chance. Eventually, his relationship will fall apart since it's based on less than nothing.

And all of that would just be a bad movie, but then you add in the pointlessly profane and painfully UNFUNNY phone conversations, the "reject from a bad Looney Tunes cartoon" score, and the "mystical" moments of whimsy sprinkled in....and well....voila....another P.T. Anderson "coulda been a contenda" flick that places style over substance.

I thought Magnolia succeeded despite his pretensions. Boogie Nights didn't. And I remember so little of Hard Eight, I won't comment on it before I see it again.

But we're talking about this film. And how it - TO ME - is an utter failure. Interesting for brief moments, but ultimately FAILURE.

Also, there's got to be more to it than "stalking". Women like Lena Leonard do not stalk men like Barry Egan.

90 minutes to setup some quirky characters, put them on a path we will never see and to show us ONE little step that MAY signal a change in the protagonist's life?

Sounds like bad storytelling/filmmaking to me. A better director would've made it the first act at most.

I don't need perfect relationships or storybook endings or even endearing characters.

I do, however, need characters that go somewhere, a story that does as well, and a point to it all, and I felt the movie was missing ALL of those elements.

Honestly, I got that LOTR:FOTR feeling where the movie was a REEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLY long trailer for the film it was supposed be in the first place.

I think that Adam's character was one of the most unlikable, unredeeming characters to headline a film in a long time. That hurt my take on the film. Did he deserve love?

Not in my mind.

Saw this today.

MAJOR disappointment.

Will there EVER be a really good Adam Sandler movie?

Interesting take. Why do you think he's unreedemable to the point of not deserving love? That seems a bit harsh. Yeah, he lashes out, because he's incapable of expressing his repressed anger in any other way. (Of course, when you're mocked and humiliated when you manage to reach out for help - like he was when he confided in the dentist - I don't know anyone who wouldn't wind up desperately bitter.)

In my eyes, he's a simple guy trying to make his way in the world, maintain his own business, looking for nothing more but a little happiness and just a bit of success - but paralyzed by fear and self-loathing. I dunno, I identify with that, I thought it was the single most truthful thing in the whole film. It's easy to get that way when you're constantly whipped.

"If you go to the movies long enough, you will see your story on the screen, and believe me, The Natural wasn't mine."
--Roger Ebert

Punch Drunk Love was like watching my story on the screen. Only I'm still waiting for my Lena Leonard.

That's all I have to say about that.

I got at least a point out of it: a lonely man finds the courage to face life. It's certainly not a love story. There's no coincidence that PTA used a song from Popeye, since I think that's the template. An ordinary man gets a special - love, can of spinach, whatever - and suddenly finds himself with an indomitable strength. End of story. It might not be a *strong* story, but I think that was where PTA was trying to go.

<strong>Honestly, I got that LOTR:FOTR feeling where the movie was a REEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLY long trailer for the film it was supposed be in the first place.</strong>

Well, unlike Punch-Drunk Love, in LOTR you definitely only got a third of the story, so of course it felt like a trailer.

He lies. He steals. He breaks things.

It's OK if this is a crime caper with George Clooney playing a lovable thief. It's not OK in a film claiming to be a romance.

I love seeing the outcast, loser, or put upon win in the end.

This to me seemed like an undeserving guy getting something special, and honestly not seeming like a much better person when the smoke cleared.

Well, I *really* related to Barry, so that must have coloured my judgement. I wanted to see him find love and happiness.

There have been two, in my opinion - 'Billy Madison' and 'Happy Gilmore'.

Have yet to see 'Punch Drunk', but I will soon.

Devin, the Piano thing.

Mikah, the part where their relationship shows some merit is the scene in bed where the two show common offbeat masochistic penchant. This shows these two people fit together as like something out of "Origin of Love" by the incredible Hedwig.

Loved it. Not as much as Boogie Nights or Magnolia, but I have a thing for "showy," I guess. I was surprised at how "small" a movie this was, considering Anderson's past work, plus Sandler's rep for broad comedy.

I'm really surprised Nick had a problem with the character of Barry, since I found the guy extremely likeable and sympathetic. "Stealing" an abandoned piano and breaking something in a fit of rage are not reasons enough for me to dislike a character. Barry's been henpecked to an outrageous degree and is managing to suppress his rage as best as he can. I think he saves most of it for himself, something I can empathize with. But, I think, with sisters like that, an occasional window has to be broken.

And I think saying this stuff is acceptable for a character in a certain kind of movie, but not in another, is missing the point a little. As Quentin Tarantino has defended True Romance as being a love story (complete with drug deals, pimps, the Walken/Hopper showdown, massive amounts of violence), I think this is a PT Anderson love story (complete with fits of rage, pudding, phone sex, etc.). It defies the genre, which is a GOOD thing, I think.

Also, mikah's complaints that it only shows a hint of things to come? This is also the hallmark of some of the best American short stories of the last 100 years or so. It's the small things that count. Considering the length of this movie, I consider it the short story or novella in Anderson's ouvre, with Boogie Nights and Magnolia being the full-fledged novels with more characters and closure.

I agree that it's a novella in PTA's directorial career. Or a burp in between rich meals.

Were Barry's sisters a pain? Yes... but I think they treated him the way they did because of his years and years of being a weirdo. He's like that shrunken head you bring out at parties to freak people out with.

A short or small story is fine. A story that tries to go somewhere, and then stops at the slightest hint of real progress is not, IMHO.

Disclaimer: I liked BN, hated Magnolia, liked PDL.

I couldn't help feeling that Barry's sisters were to have more to do in the story than what came off of the editor's bench. I felt that they were supporting players at the beginning, maybe into the middle of the second act. But then they become little more than set pieces, playing stereotypes of the bad big sisters. I kept expecting something more to become of them, but the characters dead-ended with Barry's rant at his sister. On that point, was that supposed to be a big moment for Barry? Going off on his sister? I didn't get the right vibe off of that moment.

And what was with the truck flipping over at the beginning?

I have to admit that it takes some mighty fine minimalist storytelling to get me involved in the least, and I think P.T.'s attempt at that style is a failure.

I am pretty new on these boards, so this will likely be ignored but I want to say my peace about this movie.

Punch Drunk Love is a horrible movie. I have seen thousands of films at theaters. This is the one and only film in which I have walked out. I didn't even walk out of Trapped in Paradise.

I had high expectations for this film. PT Anderson's Boogie Nights is a remarkable film showcasing how to do character development. For all of the quirkiness of Magnolia, I enjoyed it (especially the first 10 minutes which were amazing).

The reason I walked on Punch Drunk Love is not because the acting was poor...it wasn't. It was Adam Sandler playing Joe from Joe v. the Volcano mixed in with some Happy Gilmore anger. The other actors were good. The direction was excellent. Everything else was well done...except...

The message and story in this film drove me crazy. Let me explain why. Unfortunately, I don't have an affinity for films that are either social commentaries or about real people in horrible situations. Let me clarify, if the story is about a real person in a horrible situation and they have a gun - its ok. I used to tell people I didn't like a movie unless it had a gun. It was a lot simpler than what I came to realize, I hate movies about ordinary people. When I go to a movie, I want to forget about everyday life - its escapism. I don't go to feel better about myself through watching the misery of others.

In any event, the mix of the soundtrack which was like taking a metal file and grinding it against my skull, the horrific situations and the sadistic joy in which PT Anderson seemly has in this movie - it really got to me. Maybe that "worked." Ultimately I decided it wasn't worth any more of my time to watch something that is basically a rock candy coated cockroach - it looks sweet, but its all vermin inside at its core.

This is why its horrible. Not because of any technical aspect, but because I simply hated the story.

Heehee...would you like fries with your Paul Thomas Anderson Happy Meal, sir?

Hmmmmm, kinda chicken-and-eggish there...I tend to think they didn't so much react to Barry as actually create him, like he's the by-product of seven terrifying hydra-like overprotective mothers in training. They certainly implanted tricks in him for their own amusement, like the gayboy thing. "Watch him flinch while we hit him with an emotional 2x4! Isn't it just a scream how he jumps!"

Never has a film made me so happy to be an only child.

Carver was exactly the example I was thinking of. Interesting how Magnolia was sort of a riff on Short Cuts, which was composed of Carver stories, but PT Anderson gave his own stories more of a unity. In this, Anderson is doing his own take on a single Carver-esque short story.

It's obviously far more elaborate and odder a tale than Carver ever devised, but they're similar in the way that we're left with some small epiphanies and some questions rather than big moments and closure.

And I've gotta say, no offense, but...

This may be one of the weirdest posts I've ever seen. And, incidentally, I think if you stuck with Punch-Drunk Love, you'd see how this movie is NOT about feeling better about yourself because of the misery of others. It's about feeling how Barry manages to pull himself out of that misery.

I don't feel he did, but when Nick says he stole I think that is what he meant.

Watching this movie was simply painful. I had enough and left.

I watched Magnolia, and tried to analyze afterward what I had seen. Not a bad film, but not a film where you were handed an explanation.

Watched PDL Friday night. Enjoyed it for the most part. I thought Sandler was wonderfully "demured" in it, not going apeshit and then getting back at "the man". An excellent break from his norm. And then we will have Eight Crazy Nights.

Robin Williams, Jim Carey. They did the straight comedy route at first too. Overboard. But in the end, they have, for better or worse, attempted drama. I would like to see Sandler try a bit more in this area.

Not saying PDL was perfect, but I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Oh, and then we rented Boogie Nights Sat. night as another insight into PTA. I would rate the three flicks PDL, Magnolia, and Boogie Nights last.

Boogie Nights. Some great moments. Liked Cheadle. Liked Burt Reynolds. The flick was exhausting, boring, and had my least favorite final shot of all time.

But I digress...

'Magnolia' is well-acted and nicely shot, but it's not a deep movie. I can see why it's being compared to Carver, but I don't even think it can stand up to Carver's minor work. I keep waiting for PTA to deliver a really good film. Hopefully, 'Punch Drunk Love' will be the one. But, I gots mu doubts. His past three films have been all style over substance. Good ideas executed poorly, in my opinion.

Actually, I think Magnolia is really only Carver-esque in that it's obviously inspired by Short Cuts, which happened to contain Carver stories. Anderson uses a similar framework (though concentrates more on the unity of the stories), but the stories are a little more obvious than Carver - the symbolism is all pretty obvious.

PDL isn't really THAT much like Carver, either, but it's got something in common with his stories and other 20th century American short stories in that the ending isn't clear cut, but is characterized by a slight epiphany that points to a new direction rather than leads you right to it. I'd say the very last words and shot of Magnolia have the same effect, actually. Just to illustrate where I'm coming from, I'd say You Can Count on Me has a similar 20th century short story bent to it, though it's a far different film than PDL.

Naturally, these things are less subtle than Carver and his literary ilk (as was Altman's take on Carver's stories in Short Cuts), but I think that's the nature of film.

I was about to post this same response to Nick's comment. Ah well, I'll just second.

Good, but not great.

I felt the entire phone sex subplot was a pretty clumsy and out-of-place way to get Sandler to finally stand up for himself -- there had to have been a more organic way the story could have gotten him there (though I did love the phone call to Hoffman).

I don't think anyone has mentioned that the great romantic gesture Barry makes -- flying to Hawaii to be with Lena -- is motivated not by love but by fear that the brothers know where he lives. He goes because he's scared to go home, not because he can't live without Lena. Once again, he's motivated by his fear. I don't think he realizes how he truly feels about Lena until he gets home and she gets hurt in the car crash.

I agree with those who say the sisters drove Barry into being the way he is, which keeps him from being completely unlikeable -- I felt a lot of pity for him.

And Barry standing up to the brothers was a scene I knew was coming the minute the plot thread was introduced. Terribly telegraphed, in my opinion, and an easy way to bring Barry out of his shell.

Still, it was a very watchable film and I was never bored by it, but it never reaches the heights I feel Boogie Nights and Magnolia did.

I think that Barry loved Lena before he went to Hawaii. The fear was just the catalyst the pushed him over the edge and sent him there.

Going tonight to see it!!!

Fucking rights. Finally gets to our city tonight. Can't wait to go see it.