PT Anderson

I've been on a Paul Thomas Anderson spree the last few days.

It all began when my friend started raving about There Will Be Blood and all it's cinematic genius...ness.

Sure, I took him seriously, but I had never heard of the film, and I had never heard of the director, but I didn't forget about it.

Give or takes three weeks and there I was, watching There Will Be Blood after craving three-hour epics for a few days prior. It isn't a three hour epic, but it is epic. It spans 30 years in two and a half hours, which sounds as tough as it was to pull. Anyways, I watched it and liked it enough to put it atop a pedestal within my pantheon of favourite movies.

And then I watched Boogie Nights.

I wrote a review for that film here in the website. I don't know how else to describe it than the way I did in that review. It is a trip, it is a two and-some hour trip, more epic than There Will Be Blood and ten times more profound. It changed the way I approached storytelling, and because that is one of the things that I like to do (story tell), one can say that the movie changed my life.

And then I watched Magnolia.

Many people don't like Magnolia. It was too long, too sad, and eventually too absurd. But if you watch it at the right time in your life, then I believe that it can change lives. And like Boogie Nights before it, it changed mine, way beyond my writing this time.

I have Punch-Drunk Love sitting on my desk, ready to be watched tomorrow (or today, whatever). I don't know if my PT Anderson trip will end with the movie (it may suck or it may even top Magnolia), but whatever the outcome, I will undoubtedly end up watching Hard Eight.