Licorice Pizza Named Best Film by National Board of Review; Paul Thomas Anderson Named Best Director

 

Licorice Pizza took top prizes with the National Board of Review today, for Best Film and Best Director. Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman shared the breakthrough performance award as well!

While it's historically been difficult to call the National Board of Review a reliable harbinger for future awards season earnings, it is nevertheless exciting for the film to get this level of praise to kick off the Oscar races.

Will carve out some time very soon to post an interviews round-up for the recent press cast and crew have done in promotion of the movie and by the way, who am I seeing in Chicago this weekend??

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Licorice Pizza's Limited LA & New York Run To Be Exclusively 70mm - Tickets On Sale Today

 

Good morning!

IndieWire notes today that when Licorice Pizza opens in limited release in New York and LA later this month, it will be screened exclusively in 70mm.

Sadly, just three theatres in New York and just one (!) in Los Angeles have the capability of showing this format: AMC Lincoln Square / Angelika Village East / Alamo Drafthouse Brooklyn, and then Regency Village Westwood, respectively. Tickets for the movie's November 26th 70mm opening will be available for sale as of this morning on all four theatres' websites in the links above, per IndieWire.

You know what to do!

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UPDATE: The ticket-buying process for the various relevant venues has been consolidated and housed over at the movie's official website here.

UPDATE UPDATE: A new 30-second trailer has emerged in support of this!

Variety Gets PTA Cover Story & First "Pizza" Interview; Soundtrack Info Arrives (UPDATED)

Good afternoon, and we're off to the races!

Variety today published their cover story with Paul Thomas Anderson and his first print interview in support of Licorice Pizza. The below production stills aside, in the interest of keeping this site (and frankly this author) relatively spoiler-free for the time being, we'll forego sharing any excerpts directly but you can read the article in full right here. 

Additionally, the film's official soundtrack information has made its way onto Amazon. Again, we won't share the tracklist here, but we dare you to view it here; suffice it to say that the movie appears to be notably (though somewhat expectedly) light on work from a certain Radiohead guitarist...

We will also enthusiastically share this truly exceptional cover art:

We will amend this post when the release details, editions, and formats become more clear!

UPDATE: The Licorice Pizza official soundtrack will be released on December 10 and preorders are available right here including a nifty double-album for vinyl collectors!

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New Licorice Pizza Poster Arrives; Buzz Builds Amid First Public Screening

 

(h/t @jasonosia)

Paul Thomas Anderson's Licorice Pizza had its first public screening in 70mm at the Fox Theatre in Los Angeles for DGA members last night and with it, this spiffy new poster was rolled out.

Early reactions coming out of the screening seem to be overwhelmingly positive. Here's a spoiler free sample of what folks are saying:

Licorice Pizza was brilliant. Hysterical and charming. Nothing bad I can say about it. I absolutely loved it. Alana Haim’s performance is everything.

— Michael A. Bina (@michaelabina) November 7, 2021

LICORICE PIZZA is utter magic and continually unexpected. Wow.

— Riley Stearns (@RileyStearns) November 7, 2021 

LICORICE PIZZA IS PERFECT HOLY SHIT

— BenDavid Grabinski+ (@bdgrabinski) November 7, 2021

LICORICE PIZZA is so fucking good. God damn. Haven’t been to the theater since pandemic started and that was the most I’ve smiled in a long damn time. Movies are magic.

— Ben Hausler (@BenHausler) November 7, 2021

Truly incredible debut performances. There’s little better than going to a PTA movie. Be sure to see #LicoricePizza November 26! pic.twitter.com/LIUll03XbO

— JJ Abrams (@jjabrams) November 7, 2021

While we don't yet have any details about future screenings or events, this is -- it feels safe to say -- just the beginning so buckle in for plenty more to come!

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Alana Haim Begins Press For Licorice Pizza; Film Reportedly Getting 70MM Treatment

 

Well, we are suddenly only a handful of weeks (!) away from audiences seeing Licorice Pizza for the first time, and you know what that means: interviews!

This week, Alana Haim sat down with PTA-mainstay John C. Reilly for Interview Magazine to discuss the project and the process of working with Paul. The entire thing is well worth a read, but here are some highlights: 

REILLY: I’ve known Paul since before he directed his first movie, and he’s always been very private and very paranoid. He prefers to be the mysterious wizard behind the curtain of all his movies. I’m sure his face is twitching somewhere right now knowing that we’re even talking about him. When I came to visit the set, and learned that all his kids were in the movie, and that you would be in it, it felt like he’d decided to say, “Fuck it, this is the truth about me.” How did you come to be in the film?

HAIM: It might be the COVID of it all, but it’s hard to say how it happened. I remember when he emailed me the script. I assumed that if he sent it to one Haim, he sent it to all three. I fell in love with the story, especially being from the Valley. I read it three times the night he sent it to me. I think I stayed up till five in the morning with it. Later, when I actually asked my sisters what they thought of it, they were like, “What are you talking about?”

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REILLY: I’m an old dog, and when I did my first movie with Paul, he was the youngest person on set. It’s a beautiful thing that now, a new generation of people are carrying on the tradition of creating these special visions of his. But blah blah blah, enough about Paul. Let’s talk about Cooper [Hoffman]. You two really bonded during this film. Did you feel like you were two soldiers in the trenches who connected because of the extreme danger of their situation? I felt this way about Cooper’s father, Philip Seymour-Hoffman, when we did True West together. We had each other’s backs every step of the way.

HAIM: That was me and Coop, for sure. Neither of us had ever acted before, so of course we had anxieties about everything. We called each other every night, saying, “We’re the worst. What are we doing?” Having this experience with him was the biggest gift. Plus, the second that we read together, it was like, “Oh, it’s over.”

REILLY: Those videos Paul made of you and Cooper screen testing were adorable.

HAIM: I am terrified of the Beatlemania that is coming for Cooper when this movie comes out. I told him, “Now you have three older sisters that are rooting for you.”

-----

REILLY: That energy really transfers from you into your character. I felt melancholic after watching the film, even though it’s about a very sweet and innocent relationship. I think I felt that way because your character is really at sea in so many ways. She’s constantly looking for certainty about something—about anything—but she can’t find it. I remember that feeling when I was young. I would adopt the views of people I admired just to have an opinion. You mentioned feeling untethered and adrift from your family during this experience. Do you feel that way in life? Or can you say, “I know who Alana is, and I know what she likes”?

HAIM: I obviously have many similarities with my character. I’m about to turn 30, and I’ve been reflecting a lot on my early twenties, which is my character’s age in the movie. I had no idea what I was doing. I had a job, luckily, but performing for a living is so insane, and involves so much rejection. I couldn’t tell if what I was doing was fulfilling, or if it would do good in the world. In your twenties, you’re being pushed and pulled in so many directions.

-----

REILLY: It’s intense to be loved by Paul in that way. Even though you don’t feel like you’re capable of something, he seems to believe it. I know how it feels to have Paul as an audience, and I don’t think it gets much better than that.

HAIM: I never in my life would have thought I would be in a movie. When we finished shooting, I told him, “You saw a side of me that I’d always hoped would come out one day—finding my independence, doing something on my own—and you brought it out of me years before I was ready to do it.”

REILLY: Do you know how hard it is to give the performance that you gave, especially when feeling that way?

HAIM: It’s like a universe thing—two characters meet, and their lives change. That’s how I feel with Paul and Cooper. I met them, and my life was changed. That’s what the whole movie is about.

REILLY: When Paul sent me that first screen test, I was like, “Dude, if you can keep them feeling this free, I think you’ve got a movie.” You know the phrase, “You can’t take your eyes off her?” I’ve experienced that feeling before, watching a fireplace or a baby, but rarely with adults. When I visited the set, I remember sitting there and being glued to the monitor, even between takes. I turned to Paul, and I was like, “You can’t take your fucking eyes off her.” He looked at me like, “Right?”

Also last week, Alana Haim spoke to Vanity Fair about the forthcoming movie and that can be found in its spoiler-free entirety here. Some fun take-aways:

BELIEVE IT OR NOT, Alana’s mother was also Anderson’s grade school art teacher. When the Haims told the director that, “he went into his son’s room and brought out a painting of the mountain from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. He had painted it with my mother and then kept it all these years. And he was like, “I loved your mom. I can’t believe you’re Miss Rose’s daughters.”

----- 

ACTING WAS NERVE-RACKING: “Everything was so big, and I was so tiny.” But Anderson was her cheerleader. “Every time I ever felt like I couldn’t do anything, he was like, ‘You got this. Trust me, you got this.’ ”

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THE HIGHLY SECRETIVE film is about “an unlikely couple that change each other’s lives in crazy ways. It’s really fun.” Alana’s costar is Cooper Hoffman, son of Philip Seymour Hoffman, who is also making his acting debut. The pair first met four years ago, when Anderson asked Alana to babysit a then 14-year-old Hoffman during a trip he made to L.A.

Finally, Chicago's Music Box Theatre yesterday blasted out that they will be showing a 70mm blow-up of Licorice Pizza when the movie hits that market. This would mark the fourth straight PTA feature where some version of a 70mm presentation was offered, though it remains to be seen how wide Licorice Pizza's 70mm opening will be. 

See what the hype is about when the Music Box opens LICORICE PIZZA on 70MM....

John C. Reilly Saw ‘Licorice Pizza’ and Compares Alana Haim to Joaquin Phoenix: ‘Can’t Take Eyes Off Her’ https://t.co/Do5xqkxJJD via @indiewire

— Music Box Theatre (@musicboxtheatre) October 28, 2021

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Licorice Pizza Poster & Trailer Arrive!

 

Today's the day! The first one-sheet and trailer for Paul Thomas Anderson's newly-minted 9th feature film, Licorice Pizza, have arrived.

The poster boasts a cast of Alana Haim, Cooper Hoffman, Sean Penn, Tom Waits, Bradley Cooper and Benny Safdie!

Trailer below:

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UPDATE: The film's official website has launched at licoricepizza.movie -- along with the trailer and poster, the website holds the first official synopsis of the movie:

“Licorice Pizza” is the story of Alana Kane and Gary Valentine growing up, running around and falling in love in the San Fernando Valley, 1973. Written and Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, the film tracks the treacherous navigation of first love.

Licorice Pizza Receives R Rating From MPAA, Signaling Completion

 

Afternoon -

While in all likelihood Licorice Pizza completed post-production some time ago, the MPAA made it official by slapping PTA with his usual R Rating today. You can read the press release here.

The naughty bits are for language, sexual material, and some drug use.

Surely much more to come in the very near future!

(h/t @louismorelfatio)

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New PTA Film Officially Titled LICORICE PIZZA, Trailer Imminent

 

!!

G'morning

The Film Stage reports today that Paul Thomas Anderson's new coming-of-age high school film is no longer called Soggy bottom and is instead called... LICORICE PIZZA. 

What's more, a trailer establishing that title is completed and has been making the rounds in 35mm in front of some screenings in London and in Los Angeles and reportedly features Sean Penn and Maya Rudolph and *catches breath*  Tom Waits, among the other confirmed cast we've already reported on.

Seems fair to expect the trailer to reach the annals of YouTube soon and we'll post it here as soon as it has.

The typeface for the title has been revealed on the film's newly opened social media accounts (here, here & here)

Stay tuned!

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Happy Birthday, PTA!

Hello!

Happy weekend, happy summer, and a most especially happy birthday to Mr. Paul Thomas Anderson, who celebrates his 51st today.

In celebration, and in light of the 2021 Cannes Film Festival quickly approaching (Untitled PTA Project notably but not surprisingly will not be in contention), here's the full Punch-Drunk Love press conference from 2002 featuring Adam Sandler, Emily Watson, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Joanne Sellar, and the man himself. Enjoy!

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