'Inherent Vice' Set To Expand Nationwide On 1/09/15

Unfortunately, film fans who do not live in any of the major cities in the U.S., or have convenient access to the film markets therein, will have to wait just a little bit longer to see Inherent Vice. Via Box Office Mojo, Warner Bros. has announced that the film will receive a nationwide expansion on Friday, January 9th, 2015, a full four weeks after opening in limited markets on Friday, December 12th, 2014.

As if there was any doubt at this point, the expansion date further suggests a strong awards push for the film from Warner Bros, who plotted a very similar release strategy for Spike Jonze' Her last year. (Thanks Eric Edge!)

At any rate, the countdown stays the same:
212 days until Inherent Vice is made available to the buying public.

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WATCH: 90 Minute DGA Talk On Francis Ford Coppola's Career, Featuring PTA & Others

Back in March of 2011, when Paul Thomas Anderson was in pre-production on The Master, he and fellow filmmakers David O. Russell (The Fighter, Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle) and Catherine Hardwicke (Thirteen, Twilight, Red Riding Hood) sat down at the Directors Guild of America to discuss the career and influence of one of America's most important filmmakers, Francis Ford Coppola. 

You can watch the full, 90-minute talk here.

With each director selecting clips from Coppola's career to showcase and then discuss, PTA presented scenes from 1974's The Conversation and 2007's Youth Without Youth - the latter of which he would go on to accredit as influential in his decision to hire Coppola-veteran Mihai Malaimare Jr. as cinematographer on The Master. Though the talk is fairly evenly spread out between the four filmmakers, PTA had some interesting remarks to make when asked about Punch-Drunk Love by Coppola. That part of the talk comes in around 26:27.

FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA: Did you know what you were doing when you made Punch-Drunk Love?

PAUL THOMAS ANDERSON: No, I was just trying to get through every day. It started to feel -- it was horrible for the first three weeks. Just felt terrible, like I didn't know... none of it looked good, none of it looked right, and [we] stopped and started again, and then somewhere along the way, everything started to feel better, and it felt better...

FFC: And do you notice as years go by, people say, "I love that, that was so beautiful! That was so unique!"

PTA: Yeah, no, and I thought... it turned out that everything I thought was terrible was really good. Just with some distance, it felt good. And then I edited it together, and I thought, "I think I made a film that every single person is gonna see, and it's gonna make like 500 billion dollars, you know? I finally did it!" And no one saw it, and people didn't like it, but...

FFC:  I mention it because each of these wonderful directors each has made a film, if not more than one, that's one of my favorites. And Punch-Drunk Love, not to mention the others and certainly Boogie Nights, but... when I go to the movies, I like to go out and say, "I never saw anything like that." That's my favorite thing to say, you know? And that leaves you - that filmmaker - in a tough spot for a while, you know? It tends to come around, though.

If you have the time, we highly recommend sitting through the whole thing. There are many interesting anecdotes from FFC's career, notes on his technique, and, perhaps most importantly, perspectives from three prominent filmmakers who have been deeply influenced by him.

Special thanks to Cinephilia and Beyond for the news.

IV: 225 days

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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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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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"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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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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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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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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