Tuesday, April 29, 2014

UPDATE: Jonny Greenwood To Score "There Will Be Blood" Live In London AND NYC

If you're planning on chilling in London at some point this summer, you would be well advised to leave the dates August 6th and August 7th open, as renowned performing arts and concert venue Roundhouse is poised to host two (2) screenings of Paul Thomas Anderson's 2007 masterpiece There Will Be Blood, with the 50+-piece London Contemporary Orchestra performing the film's iconic score live. The performances will be conducted by Hugh Brunt, with none other than the score's composer, Jonny Greenwood, on hand to perform the ondes Martenot elements of the piece. (The ondes Martenot is an early 20th century synthesizer, which Greenwood has specialized in for many years. It is used prominently in many Radiohead songs, and in Blood perhaps most notably here)

Tickets are on sale now, and we assume seats will go like hot cakes, so head over to Roundhouse now for pricing and other event information.

UPDATE 5/7/14 : Greenwood will also be doing a live performance of There Will Be Blood on September 19 and September 20 at the United Palace Theater in New York! Tickets for those performances will go on sale on May 14. 

IV: 227 days.

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Thursday, April 24, 2014

PTA Joins American Genre Film Archive Advisory Board

Via ScreenDaily, Paul Thomas Anderson has joined the American Genre Film Archive's board of advisors. As of 2009, the AGFA has specialized in preserving old, rare film prints, primarily of horror, action, independent and international genre cinema. PTA will be joining fellow filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn (Bronson, Drive, Only God Forgives) and Tim League, CEO of the Alamo Drafthouse theatre chain and co-founder of Fantastic Fest, which you know as the genre film festival out of Austin, Texas that was home to the There Will Be Blood world premiere back in 2007.

Right now, the AGFA is primed to a launch an Indiegogo campaign in support of a project to complete high-definition digital transfers for rare and endangered 35mm film prints, with a longer-term goal of being able to strike new prints for these films.

No doubt a worthy cause and, of course, something right in PTA's wheelhouse.

IV: 232 days

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Thursday, April 17, 2014

"Inherent Vice" Will Not Play Cannes

As expected, Paul Thomas Anderson has forgone the 2014 Cannes Film Festival as a means to premiere his new movie, Inherent Vice. You can read the full line-up here, including out-of-competition titles and Un Certain Regard. Our eyes now turn to Telluride, Venice, and/or Toronto film festivals as more probable first homes for the film, whose lineups will all be announced this summer.

In the meantime, enjoy this video of PTA winning Best Director at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival for Punch-Drunk Love.


239 days.

Find more information about the film on our Inherent Vice page. 
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Monday, April 14, 2014

First 'Vice' Reactions Roll Out From Industry Insiders; Doubts Cast On Cannes Premiere


8 months before Inherent Vice is set to hit theatres, and nearly 8 months after it officially entered post-production, we are starting to get some faint glimmers of what form the film's exhibition will take. With the 2014 Cannes Film Festival's full competition lineup slated to be announced this Thursday, April 17, we will finally have concrete resolution for one of the film's most hyped-up potential premiere venues once and for all. Unfortunately, according to a new report by Jeffrey Wells over at Hollywood Elsewhere, an Inherent Vice debut at Cannes is not looking likely.
This morning I spoke to an industry friend who's seen Vice and who thinks it's brilliant and mesmerizing in an atmospheric, non-linear sort of way. He says that [Paul Thomas] Anderson, currently doing the sound mix, doesn't really want to subject Vice to Cannes and would rather take his time and tinker around over the summer and then unveil it in Telluride/Venice/Toronto. 
This follows what a friend told me a week or two ago, which is that Cannes topper Thierry Fremaux "has been courting and wooing PTA like mad to get Inherent Vice to Cannes, and that PTA has been telling him since January that it would be very tight for him to get post-production done in time and that he wouldn't show it to Thierry until then. Perhaps PTA would privately like to go to Cannes, but I'm also told that Warner Bros. is against the idea, considering it too early given its December release date. If PTA insists and finishes the film to his satisfaction over the next couple of weeks, he could probably prevail over WB, but the latest I hear is that everything is still very much up in the air."
 Of course, a healthy grain of salt should be taken with this information, given that the sources are all anonymous and that the situation appears to very much still be fluid. In any event, we will know one way or another in only a few days' time.

The much less nerve-racking take-away from this development is that the film (to the few eyes that have seen it) is apparently as astonishing as we all want it to be. The Film Stage provided some other anonymous impressions of the movie from one lucky insider today:
Mix together The Big Lebowski and [Robert] Altman's The Long Goodbye and turn it into a two-and-a-half hour PT Anderson epic and you're getting close to the awesome experience of Inherent Vice. Even Joaquin Phoenix's performance has echoes of '70s Elliott Gould with a touch of The Dude. But don't get me wrong, the film is its own animal. A drug-fueled detective story filled with great psychedelic music and beautiful, grainy cinematography. It's both hilarious and confounding at times. But Anderson does an incredible job of making the incredibly complex plot both comprehensible and entertaining. Even though he's apparently said he's still tinkering, it felt like a finished film and will definitely go down as one of my favorites of his.
242 days.

Find more information about the film on our Inherent Vice page. 
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Tuesday, April 01, 2014

Image From 'Vice' Mixing Session Shows First Frame of Doc Sportello

We'll keep this one short and sweet. Via xixax, an image of Jonny Greenwood during what appears to be a mixing session for Inherent Vice has surfaced online today, with Larry "Doc" Sportello, in all his glory, accompanying him.

We'll be honest. This is not how we expected to see the first frame of film from the movie, but really... doesn't that make it even more exciting?

255 days and counting.

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