Brolin Says 'Vice' Will Stray From Book; Greenwood Calls Film "Romantic"

Since shooting wrapped on the film last August, pretty much the entire cast of Inherent Vice has been mum about the nature of the project. That is, everyone except Josh Brolin. A month after principal photography had been completed, we broke a story where Brolin vomited praise on the experience and process of the shoot, calling it "great" and "absolute fucking chaos." Since then, other soundbites from JB have trickled into the ether.

Well, it would appear he is back at it. Via The Independent, Brolin took an aside from discussing his film Labor Day and Oldboy to reveal, in a small way, what we can expect from Inherent Vice:

"I just did a movie for P T Anderson that I didn't understand," he says of the experience. "The writing of Thomas Pynchon is so Shakespearean. It was crazy, chaotic but really, really gratifying. 

"We took it, I think, in a direction that the book doesn't necessarily go, hoping it will work." The film represents something of a risk, but Brolin is okay with that; after all, if you don't try, you won't know.

 Brolin recently had more candor to share with Yahoo UK Movies News:

"More than any woman I've ever worked with, I absolutely fell in love with Joaquin Phoenix," [Brolin] admits of his time on the project, which is being directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. "Joaquin is the most wonderful human being and actor." 

[Brolin] cites Anderson's as an example of a situation in which humiliation breeds quality. "Joaquin and I would do these scenes together and Paul would say, "This time do it with the table upside down, and you guys get under the table and I’m going to put a blanket over you, and I want you to whisper your lines. And now this time, no lines and no dialogue at all, and I want you to just dance your dialogue. Whatever that next line is, I want you to create a movement that’s going to be what that line of dialogue was going to be if you spoke it.'

“It was just craziness, you know, but really fun. After that, we’d go back to the scene and it would be fed by all those other things that you can create something magical. But you have to do some pretty weird things.”

In other news, a source of ours caught up with Jonny Greenwood recently and was able to confirm that the score for Inherent Vice was indeed recently completed, with Greenwood describing the film as "more romantic" than his other two collaborations with PTA.

How any of these anecdotes will translate on the screen is anybody's guess, but hey, at least we're getting to some specifics!

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WATCH: PS Hoffman (A Tribute)

Good afternoon.

We were passed along this beautifully constructed, and extremely moving tribute to the colorful career of Philip Seymour Hoffman, which was tragically cut short last month. The piece contains highlights from all five of the films PSH made with PTA, alongside countless other memorable PSH screen moments. It is sure to put a lump in your throat.

Thank you to the creator of this piece, Caleb Slain, for reaching out to us personally with this.

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INHERENT VICE: Coming To A Theatre Near You On 12/12/14

Voila. Just like that, Paul Thomas Anderson's seventh feature-length motion picture "Inherent Vice", has been given a release date. According to Box Office Mojo, you should set your calendars for December 12th, 2014. It is unclear at this time whether this date indicates a limited or wide release, though given the history of PTA's previous films, it might be safe to assume major cities will get a peak before it hits theatres throughout the rest of the country.

What this release date means for the film's possible contention in any of the major festivals this year is hard to tell. The film could be well on its way to completion with a December release mapped strictly for awards consideration -- an ideal status for the Venice and Toronto festivals' summer run dates -- or the December release could be budgeting some time for additional tinkering in post-production, making the Cannes Film Festival's run in May somewhat of a long shot. Or it could forego the festival route altogether, as There Will Be Blood did. At any rate, the finish line has been charted and the countdown has begun (290 days and counting, fyi).

With this development, as well as the recent news that Jonny Greenwood has completed recording his new soundtrack for the film, it's hard not to feel as though we may be closing in on a teaser. Just keep in mind: it's a long time between now and December, with still plenty of wiggle room for the ad campaign to begin. We know. The suspense is killing us too.

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UPDATE: We have it on good authority from a source close to the production that, despite this official release date, Inherent Vice is prepping for three days of  pick-ups and reshoots in late March. So while most of the picture is likely locked and completed, there is some more work to be done here; something to keep in mind when analyzing possible festival premieres and trailer drops.

Jonny Greenwood Returning To Score Inherent Vice

We won't kid you guys: For pretty obvious reasons, it's been a somber week here at C&RV.

Fortunately, today some bright (if seemingly inevitable) news has arrived at our desks via Film Music Reporter to help keep our chins up: Jonny Greenwood, as suspected for months now, will in fact be reteaming with Paul Thomas Anderson to lend music to Inherent Vice, marking their third collaboration in a row. Recording sessions are expected to take place this month with The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London. For those not familiar with the phases of post-production on a movie, once scoring has begun in earnest, it generally means that the film has locked picture and the final edit is in place(!)

But don't get too excited: scoring/mixing can still be a pretty laborious and time consuming process, and it could very well be a while before we see any footage. Regardless, we are now a few steps closer to a brand new motion picture from Paul Thomas Anderson!

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RIP Philip Seymour Hoffman (1967-2014)

We are deeply crushed to report the passing of Philip Seymour Hoffman. Easily one of the elite and best we've ever had. Thank you for everything, sir.

Joaquin Phoenix Talks 'The Master' on Fresh Air

Joaquin Phoenix visited Fresh Air with Terry Gross to discuss Her -- his new, Oscar-ladened venture with Spike Jonze. But a funny thing happened on the way to the forum. Five minutes in, the conversation derailed and The Master took over. Among other things, Joaquin discussed having special orthodonture placed in his mouth to give Freddie Quell his famous sneer and deleted battle sequences which more explicitly showed what was behind the character's trauma. The conversation is embedded in its entirety for your listening pleasure.

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WATCH: PTA Interviews Scorsese, Somner on 'Wolf of Wall Street'

If you'll remember back in 2011, Paul Thomas Anderson conducted a Q&A with Martin Scorsese and his creative team over their film "Hugo". Paul was in post-production on The Master at the time. Now, in 2014, with Paul in post-production on his follow-up to The Master, Martin Scorsese has released his follow-up to Hugo: The Wolf of Wall Street. Wouldn't it be great if these two contemporary maestros teamed up again for another Q&A?

Ask and you shall receive.

Over at Awards Daily, Sasha Stone has kindly uploaded over 30 minutes of footage of a post-Wolf-screening Q&A with Marty, a shaggy-haired Paul, and Adam Somner, who has served as First Assistant Director for both directors ('Wolf' for Scorsese; There Will Be Blood, The Master, and Inherent Vice for PTA). The conversation that transpired is extremely insightful, and with not a little humor.

Needless to say, If you haven't seen the film, watch at your own discretion.

PART I


PART II


PART III


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LISTEN: PTA-Moderated Q&A with Jonathan Demme from Austin Film Fest

Remember back in October when we announced that PTA was going to be traveling to the Austin Film Festival to moderate a Q&A with iconic filmmaker Jonathan Demme? And remember how that was the last we heard of it, save for a few low-res phone-pics of the event on Instagram?

Well, today the convo is available for free download on iTunes via The On-Story Podcast. You can click this link for the podcast's site, or you could save yourself a few steps and just do a simple search on iTunes. The whole thing runs about 45 minutes, and it is a highly candid and fascinating discussion.

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C&RV

Scott Rudin Teases Potential New Project With PTA; Scorsese Commends The Master's 70mm

Hello all, we're still here and we hope you've had a safe and happy new year.

While we don't have any Inherent Vice news for you today, we've got a couple other lovely unrelated little tidbits for you this evening.

First up, in an interview with Deadline, legendary and prolific Hollywood producer Scott Rudin, who had an Executive Producer credit on "There Will Be Blood", indicated that he currently has a project in development with Paul Thomas Anderson. The details surrounding it are scant at best, as it was mentioned within a myriad of other projects, but here is the quote:

DEADLINE: You continue to have a prolific output of high quality work on the screen, the Broadway stage and now in television. I imagine there’s a lot of producers looking at your output and wondering, how the hell does he keep up this pace?

SCOTT RUDIN: One of the things we got good at is how to protect filmmakers and play makers. We’re a very effective force field of resistance to what I would call not productive input. I think we are a good front line for the filmmakers we work with, and we’ve had a lot of success being that. I’m really proud of that. This is our third movie with the Coens, we just made our fifth with Wes Anderson, our seventh with Noah Baumbach. There’s another with Paul Thomas Anderson. We work with the same people over and over and it’s because we put a huge, huge amount of time and energy into making sure that they all get well taken care of. 

We're trying to keep our suspicions measured, given the limited nature of the comments, but it's exciting to imagine that PTA might already be scrambling to get his first post-Vice project off the ground. More to come, if and/or when the news becomes available.

In other news, Martin Scorsese took some time away from doing press on his [seriously great] new film "The Wolf of Wall Street" to pen an open letter to his daughter Francesca on how he sees the future of filmmaking. We highly recommended reading the whole thing, but the real cool part is that Mr. Scorsese singles out PTA as an especially important directorial presence in the modern era:

"I don’t want to repeat what has been said and written by so many others before me, about all the changes in the business, and I’m heartened by the exceptions to the overall trend in moviemaking – Wes Anderson, Richard Linklater, David Fincher, Alexander Payne, the Coen Brothers, James Gray and Paul Thomas Anderson are all managing to get pictures made, and Paul not only got The Master made in 70mm, he even got it shown that way in a few cities. Anyone who cares about cinema should be thankful."

Couldn't have said it any better ourselves, sir.

Wanted to take a quick sec to say: Now is as good a time as any to be following us on Twitter and Facebook. We will never break a major story exclusively on one of those platforms, but sometimes we post fun/cool/old-school links/photos/etc there, which, for redundancies' sake, don't get front-page attention on this site. Things have been mega-quiet lately, as Inherent Vice is deep into post-production at this point, but make no mistake: we have been here all along, we're as alert as ever, and we're brimming with positivity over the plethora of really groovy stuff we will have to share with you this year. It's going to be a great 2014.

C&RV