Joaquin Phoenix In Talks For ‘The Master'

Potentially huge news breaking right now. According to Variety, Joaquin Phoenix is in talks to take the part once earmarked for Jeremy Renner in 'The Master.' This would also seem to imply that 'The Master' might be moving ahead first over "Inherent Vice." More on this as it develops...

Exclusive: Joaquin Phoenix, who hasn't acted since his "retirement" that precipitated "I'm Still Here," is in early talks to join Philip Seymour Hoffman in Paul Thomas Anderson's untitled religious drama.
Anderson is directing from his own original script, which chronicles a disaffected disciple's relationship with the founder of a new faith that closely mirrors Scientology.
Hoffman will play Lancaster Dodd, a charismatic intellectual known as The Master, while Phoenix would play Freddie Sutton, an alcholic drifter who becomes his right-hand man only to begin questioning his manipulative mentor.
Megan Ellison's Annapurna Pictures and Bill Pohlad's River Road Entertainment are looking to finance the period pic, which Universal was previously considering funding before having second thoughts about its mid-range budget.
Anderson and his longtime producing partner JoAnne Sellar will produce through the former's Ghoulardi Film Co., along with Ellison and Pohlad.
Phoenix has stayed out of the spotlight since starring in pal Casey Affleck's faux-documentary "I'm Still Here," a time-consuming vanity project that went on to gross only $698,000 worldwide. His last feature role was in James Gray's 2008 drama "Two Lovers."
Anderson is also developing an adaptation of Thomas Pynchon's detective novel "Inherent Vice," which is slated to star Robert Downey Jr.
Phoenix is repped by WME, while CAA reps Anderson and Ellison.

As always, you can get the latest news on Cigarettes & Red Vines on Twitter and Facebook.

Greg Mottola ♥'s ‘Magnolia'

As we wait for news on PTA's next project, (it has been especially quiet these last few months) we've seen more than a few people voicing their admiration for his work. (Absence makes the heart grow fonder, doesn't it?) The latest is Greg Mottola, director of "Paul," "Adventureland," "Superbad," "The Daytrippers" as well as episodes of "Arrested Development" and "Undeclared." He recently rewatched "Magnolia" and had this to say on his Twitter:

Watched 'Magnolia' on blu ray over the weekend and it was just as audacious, heartbreaking and lovely as the first time I saw it. Robert Elswit's cinematography is unbelievably great. [And] it looks incredible on blu-ray

Someone responded that they'd recently watched that and "Boogie Nights" recently on Blu-ray and he added that "the lighting is spectacular and perfect for both movies." He also admitted it was the first time he'd seen "Magnolia" since it was released over a decade ago.

"Magnolia" is still available on Blu-ray for just $10.49 at Amazon and Mottola's latest, "Paul" (no relation) is in theatres now.

As always, you can get the latest news on Cigarettes & Red Vines on Twitter and Facebook.

Name Drop Round-Up: Bill Nighy, Aaron Johnson, Justin Long

We recently mentioned Rotten Tomatoes "Five Favorite Films" feature and found PTA's films on a few more lists digging through the archives today. Happy Friday!

Bill Nighy ("Shaun of the Dead," "Love Actually") places "Punch-Drunk Love" among his Top 5:

"A relatively new film that went straight into my top five, I adore Punch Drunk Love, and I can almost recite it to you. It was on TV on a loop for a while, and it's like The Godfather, you hit that film on TV and you stay there. There aren't many, but you just stay there, thinking, 'I could keep flipping, but there's not actually going to be anything better than this,' and it doesn't matter that you've seen it sixteen times - you just dig it because it's such high quality.
I think Adam Sandler and Emily Watson are completely marvellous in it, and I didn't know anything about Adam Sandler, I've never seen any of his other films, so I've only seen him in this. I love Paul Thomas Anderson, and I think it's my favourite of his films. Possibly a controversial thing to say, as his other films are, perhaps, hipper, but I love the fact that it's this fucked up love story. I love it stylistically, the jokes, the visual attitude of it and those funky links that he does. I love the apparent arbitrariness of the plot, which hinges on upon the fact that you get free air-miles with a particular brand of chocolate pudding, and I love the way it dovetails at the end.
Everyone in it is magnificent, including Philip Seymour Hoffman, who's in The Boat that Rocked and who is beautiful in Punch Drunk Love. Adam Sandler gives one of the greatest light entertainment performances I've ever seen. It's a submerged light entertainment, it's so integrated, so authentic in terms of naturalism, that you surprise yourself by laughing, because it's so deadpan, so undercover in terms of comedy, and that's my favourite thing of all time, the highest level. For the first twenty minutes you think you're in art movie hell, but you're not, so don't panic."

Aaron Johnson ("Kick-Ass," "Nowhere Boy") says this about "Boogie Nights":

Paul Thomas Anderson -- what a fantastic director. These are all directors that I would love to work with, you know. I doubt any of them could give a sh*t. [laughs.] Boogie Nights. Pretty epic. It just captured that era so brilliantly. Mark Wahlberg, man -- great role. Julianne Moore, Philip Seymour Hoffman -- they just blow me away. I could watch it again and again. Great movie.

And Justin Long ("Drag Me To Hell," he's not a PC) also names 'Boogie' as one of his favorites:

I think a lot about Martin Scorsese and how heavily influenced Paul Thomas Anderson was by him. I feel like he learned so much from Scorsese in Boogie Nights, and so I feel like picking Boogie Nights is somewhat accounting for my Martin Scorsese love. But I'm also being very honest about a movie that I can watch over and over. Just the epic nature and the grandness of it, and some of the shots and the style of it, and the music -- my God, the way he uses music -- and that great shot where somebody jumps into the pool and you hear the muffled soundtrack. It's brilliant. I never get sick of watching it. And the acting is just some of my favorite actors at the top of their game. I love doing impressions and one of my earliest impressions of an actor was Philip Seymour Hoffman in that movie, when he's saying how much he loves the name and he's chewing on the pen.

As always, you can get the latest news on Cigarettes & Red Vines on Twitter and Facebook. Tell your friends.

Pixar's Lee Unkrich ♥'s ‘Punch-Drunk Love'

Pixar currently have the most consistent track record of any studio on the planet so you know they pretty much employ the best of the best. One of their in-house directors, Lee Unkrich ("Toy Story 3"), just did an impromptu Q&A session on Twitter yesterday and gave a little shout-out to Paul. When asked who his favorite contemporary director is he said "That's tough. But probably PT Anderson." And when someone followed up to ask which PTA film was his favorite he replied "Punch Drunk Love." We did a little digging and found that last year Rotten Tomatoes had asked him for his Top 5 favorite films and he said this about the film:

"Really, that just kind of encapsulates all of Paul Thomas Anderson's films for me. I'm inspired by the kinetic energy of his films, and the richness of the characters and the performances especially."

So there you have it, another admirable admirer. As you were. (via Yenni)

Luis Guzman Talks PTA, Getting Cast In ‘Boogie Nights'

Collider recently sat down with PTA regular Luis Guzman, promoting his new film "Arthur," and got a chance to ask him about his work with Paul. Nothing too revelatory here, just a few nice quotes from Maurice/Luis/Lance.

On how he ended up in "Boogie Nights"...

"He had sent me the script of "Boogie Nights" and it laid down on my desk for a while. One day I was cleaning my desk off and I found the script and said 'Maybe I should read this?' And I read it and was I blown away by it and I called him up. I said 'dude, are they gonna let you do this movie? It is so out there, it is so genuis.' His writing [is] really, really unbelievable, very passionate. And we hit it off, I showed up and then it was a hell of a ride doing "Boogie Nights." We had an incredible cast of people, we shot in some great locations and just the experience of being able to shoot with someone like Paul and seeing his vision come to life. It was really, really impressive."

On whether PTA has changed over the years...

"He's always been that passionate person. That's something that I respect about him, he gets what he wants as a director and I think that's really important, not to settle for less. Even if it means to go back and be shooting a certain scene, 3-4-5 times because you see it, it's just not there. So he's really passionate about those things and I've always admired that about him."

You can watch the entire interview over at Collider and as always, get the latest news on Cigarettes & Red Vines on Twitter and Facebook (including some pretty cool fan art we didn't post here on the site). Tell your friends.

PTA DVD Pick: ‘White Heat' (1949)

Another bit of new old news here while we pass the time. We recently came across this link that revealed Paul introduced an Academy screening of the James Cagney classic "White Heat" last year in LA. In lieu of an official DVD pick (if anyone has a transcription of what he said during his intro that would be great), we thought we'd pass that recommendation along here. Synopsis below (via Amazon):

This superb 1949 crime drama takes elements of plot, character, and theme familiar from '30s melodramas and orchestrates them as an existential tragedy noir. James Cagney, in a towering performance, is Cody Jarrett, a transparently psychotic robber with a molten temper, feral cunning, and mercurial charm that are finely calibrated extensions of the doomed gangsters he played a decade before, this time coiled not around a Depression-era impetus of greed or class rivalry, but an Oedipal bond. Cody's beloved, calculating "Ma" (Margaret Wycherly) is the compass for his every move, her iron will and long shadow acknowledged not only by Cody but by his gang, his bored, restless wife (Virginia Mayo, radiating sensuality and guile), and the undercover cop (Edmond O'Brien) planted in Jarrett's path.

In other news, actor Jonah Hill recently joined Twitter and made "Punch-Drunk Love" his Movie Of The Day. You'll remember he also had "Boogie Nights" in his Top 5 so it looks like he's officially a fan.

As always, you can get the latest news on Cigarettes & Red Vines on Twitter and Facebook. Tell your friends.

Paul & Maya Expecting Child #3

It looks like some major congrats are in order because according to People Magazine Paul and partner Maya Rudolph are expecting their third child together. Their new baby will be joining daughters Pearl (5) and Lucille (1). Congratulations guys! (via xixax)

As always, you can get the latest news on Cigarettes & Red Vines on Twitter and Facebook.

Could ‘Inherent Vice' Be PTA's ‘Big Lebowski'?

Vanity Fair seems to think so. In a recent article the magazine draws some (vague) similarities between the two (both LA-set stoner mysteries) following up films that won critical kudos ('Vice' following "There Will Be Blood," 'Lebowski' following "Fargo") but lost Best Picture. VF also compares 'Vice' to Altman's 70s LA mystery "The Long Goodbye" and suggests that a finished script is now circulating in Hollywood though it doesn't appear that they've read it.

Thomas Pynchon’s novels are notoriously unfilmable, and in functionally illiterate Hollywood, the idea of any agent or film executive reading one—let alone wanting to make it into a movie—is funnier than this weekend’s S.N.L. Charlie Sheen opener. At least, that was the case, until Pynchon wrote Inherent Vice—which foregoes his usual cerebral, paranoid, scientific-philosophical synthesis of Western civilization for a more genial, pot-hazed look at psychedelic-60s Los Angeles. It’s a kind of Altman-esque take on The Long Goodbye—with a lot more Mary Jane. It’s not surprising that the L.A.-themed project would appeal to native Valley boy Anderson, whose entire oeuvre, from Boogie Nights to Magnolia to Punch Drunk Love, features Southern California as a kind of background character. (To boot, There Will Be Blood is dedicated to the late, great Altman himself.) And if there’s one filmmaker whose talent feels up to the task of adapting any Pynchon novel, it is the bravura Anderson, especially if he’s armed with Robert Downey Jr.’s nuclear charisma.

You can read the full piece at Vanity Fair.

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Robert Elswit Talks PTA & How He Almost Didn't Do ‘Boogie Nights'

A bit of new old news here while we wait for new news. Robert Elswit, cinematographer on all of PTA's films (who won the Academy Award for "There Will Be Blood") and his wife Helen (a visual effects person) gave a talk in 2009 at Principia College and thanks to Youtube that hourlong talk has now surfaced. (It was actually put up about a year ago but just now made it's way to our site.) The interview ranges from topics like exactly what a Director of Photography does to how to break into the business ("write a screenplay") and naturally Elswit brings up Paul several times during the talk. He calls Paul a "luddite" when it comes to technology and says that even though he's a young guy he likes to work with very old fashioned methods. He also says Paul is "a director who hopes that movies will come to life if accidents occur. There's a certain amount of planning, but some of it, he hopes will be serendipitous." He goes on to say that even though he liked Paul, he almost passed on "Boogie Nights".