I didn’t mean to sound uncool or disrespectful when I tapped out last night’s Inherent Vice riff. I said a couple of times that it was probably more my fault than Paul Thomas Anderson‘s that the film didn’t turn me on that much (although some of it definitely made me feel spacey and swoony and half-baked) and…you know, tested my patience and all. But that’s almost par for the course. Starting with Magnolia my initial exposure to Anderson’s films have felt like stretching exercises or mindfucks of one kind or another — never easy, always a climb or a tangle, always in front of the line and beckoning to the folks in the rear…c’mon, guys…don’t hang back. And then with the second or third viewing they seem more engaging, less gnarly…of course! But you always have to come to them — they never come to you. And that’s cool.

Prior to start of last night’s 9 pm Avery Fisher Hall screening of Inherent Vice.

I’m fully down with the notion (as I said last night) that Inherent Vice may kick into place for me during my second or third viewing, or certainly when I watch the Bluray. I started to read the Pynchon novel about a month ago but then I lost the will. But I have it on iBooks so there’s always the flight back to LA (departing today at 4:30 pm) or…you know, within the next few days. I just wish I could have been a little more engaged as it happened. I never felt like I was “in the car.” I constantly felt like I was running alongside or eating the exhaust.

I think it’s a foregone conclusion all around that Inherent Vice was made for the edgies…for those who think strange and rarely concentrate on the obvious. Joe and Jane Popcorn…who knows? Naah, I’m evading. Joe and Jane are either going to avoid this puppy like the plague or show up for the sake of Martin Short‘s seven-minute cameo and come out fuming or confused. Vice isn’t a soother but it sure is an eye-opener of sorts. It’s candy for the kind of people who are on the bandwidth, but how many would that be exactly?

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I need to think about Inherent Vice a bit before writing anything. It just broke an hour ago and then I just hopped on the train. I was thinking about it while I was watching but that only got in the way. A friend wrote and said “how was it?” Here’s what I wrote: “Oh, dear God. Maybe it’ll come into focus after I’ve seen it a second or third time, or when I catch in on Bluray and can access the subtitles. Maybe by then I’ll have grown enough as a person or as a moviegoer or as a dog catcher. Maybe someday I’ll be as perceptive as Drew McWeeny or Scott Foundas. One thing is for sure and that’s that tonight I just wasn’t hip or smart or observant enough to really get down with Inherent Vice. I kinda got where it was coming from but I couldn’t get to a place of delight. I certainly got portions of it. I know I chucked at a few lines. But I’m basically too fucking stupid and my ears are too full of wax or something. So it’s me — I’m the problem and not PTA. Vice is a meticulous recreation of an early ’70s film complete with dirt and scratch marks…it’s like you’re watching a semi-decent print of a film made in 1971 at the New Beverly in 1986. It really is an immersion and a half. Beautiful atmosphere, perfect Nixonian vibe, bleachy lighting scheme, ultra-dry humor, Aryans, dopers, a Neil Young tune or two, endless manner of perversity and duplicity and what-the-fuck-ity…but I couldn’t figure out a whole lot. Some but not enough. It’s in, it’s out, it’s back in again, it moves left and right, it drops its pants, it takes a hit, it bongs out again…it makes your brain feel like cheese that’s been left on the counter overnight, and it goes on for…what, two and a half hours? If only I was smarter…if only I could hear more of the dialogue…if only I had several lines of heroin to snort while I was watching it. You know what? Forget the plot. Solutions are for squares, man. Just submit to the period-ness and let that be enough. Let Joaquin Phoenix‘s mutton-chops rule. Doobies, sandals, hippie chicks, waves, the residue of Manson, shiny 1970 cars…all of it, dude. Be a “yes” person. (Clips of today’s press conference courtesy of Blackfilm‘s Wilson Morales.)

I won’t be seeing Inherent Vice for a couple of hours (it’s now 7:03 pm) but Xan Brooks’ tweet is perfect. And a technical violation of the embargo because it constitutes a comment. He’s saying that Paul Thomas Anderson‘s film doesn’t add up in a whodunit sense, and if that kind of thing is a make-or-break then…what can I say? You’re probably not in the right head space, bro. Man, I mean.

Tweet from Indiewire‘s Eric Kohn: “THE BIG SLEEP, THE LONG GOODBYE, THE BIG LEBOWSKI, INHERENT VICE: Not a ranking, but a tradition.”

I don’t mean to nitpick but the headline copy on WildAid’s website about Kathryn Bigelow‘s Last Days, a short doc about how rampant elephant poaching is threatening extinction, isn’t quite right. If you were a stupid ultra-literalist you might infer that the director’s name is Kathryn Bigelow Tackles Blood Ivory. The copy should read Coming Soon: Kathryn Bigelow Tackles Blood Ivory With “Last Days”…right? Why isn’t Bigelow’s film available now? They just had the NYFF-related press conference…c’mon.

From Anne Thompson‘s report about today’s NYFF Inherent Vice press conference that followed the 10 am press screening: “Martin Short, who plays a coked-out dentist-cum-syndicate-member clad in a deep, nearly ultra-violet suit, received the biggest applause of the ten-person cast. Sitting in the seat furthest from moderator Kent Jones, Short was the only cast member who wore a suit (Phoenix wore black jeans and a hoodie — never change, Joaquin). One member of the press stood up and professed his love for Short, which spurred more applause from the audience, as well as a call of ‘about time!'”

Update: A Warner Bros. rep might be able to slip me into the 5:30 screening and definitely the 9 pm screening if it comes to that, he says. So I’m good…late but good. Earlier: I completely forgot about the 10 am New York Film Festival press screening of Paul Thomas Anderson‘s Inherent Vice. There’s a public screening at 5:30 pm and 9 pm…my only shot. Brilliant! No tweets or reviews until 9 pm eastern — I promised to adhere to this request yesterday. I guess I will one way or the other.

The abysmal reviews for Vic Armstrong and Paul LaLonde‘s Left Behind indicated the arrival of a classic wackazoid stinker — a movie so bad it might be hilarious. Alas, no. I saw it last night in the East Village at 10 pm, and I only chuckled four or five times. It’s fairly awful but never that outlandish — it’s simply a mediocre film made by untalented, not-smart-enough people. Among the least intelligent is Nicolas Cage, who really, really must have a screw loose to have agreed to be in this thing. Is he that desperate for a paycheck? Does he…what, hate himself on some level? In all fairness I should note that the fetching Cassi Thomson, who portrays Cage’s blonde daughter, handles herself reasonably well and somehow sidesteps much of the awfulness. She has a certain planted quality…calm, presence, conviction. Plus a nice rack. (Which director Armstrong is definitely pushing or at least allowing us to notice — don’t kid yourself.) Where Cage mostly comes off as a whore and a fool, Thomson manages to exude dignity.

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Two nights ago I caught Vanessa Lapa‘s The Decent One, a fascinating arm’s-length portrait of infamous Nazi exterminator Heinrich Himmler, at the Film Forum. Pic blends archival footage of Himmler and the his era (1900 to ’45) with actors narrating Himmler’s (and his family’s) private letters and journals. Discovered and then kept by U.S. serviceman, the documents were hidden in Tel Aviv for decades and sold to Lapa’s father. The doc is a portrait of the chief architect of the Holocaust who — naturally, what else? — saw himself as a decent, dutiful, sometimes heroic fellow. And whose family kept themselves ignorant of his evil as much as possible, if not altogether. I think we all understand that evil always figures out a way to justify or at least live with itself. I was fully engaged and never bored, but I would have preferred to see a detailed doc about Himmler’s strategic maneuverings and political relationships throughout the ’20s, ’30s and ’40s. The personal/family stuff merely affirms our capacity for self-delusion — what else is new? I stayed for Lapa’s q & a afterwards. Her film played Telluride a few weeks ago.

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I’ve been looking to re-experience Rafi Pitts’ 2003 documentary since seeing it at the Locarno Film Festival, the attendants of which were sweltering in the midst of a legendary heat wave. Ferrara doesn’t like the film but it’s definitely worth watching. From Leslie Felperin‘s Variety review: “[Pic] gets so close and personal with one of U.S. cinema’s most erratic talents that the focus, metaphorically and almost literally, gets slightly fuzzy. Fascinating and frustrating in near equal measures, pic benefits from the extra-large personality of its subject, seen here prowling the streets of New York, explaining how he shot key scenes from some of his movies, shooting a pop vid, but most of all shooting the breeze with his posse of friends and collaborators.

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I hereby apologize for being a bit late to a 5 pm interview yesterday with Pasolini director-writer Abel Ferrara and star Willem Dafoe. (I mostly blame the C train.) I was there for three reasons. I’ve admired both of these guys for exactly 33 years (Ferrara since 1981’s Ms. 45, Dafoe since Kathryn Bigelow‘s The Loveless). I was sufficiently impressed by Pasolini to warrant further inquiry. And I’ve been a lifelong worshipper of Pier Paolo Pasolini himself, or since I caught The Gospel According to St. Matthew on the tube with my parents way back when.

Abel Ferrara, Willem Dafoe — Friday, 10.3, 5:35 pm.

Our chat happened inside a small windowless room inside the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center on West 65th Street. Ferrara and Dafoe are amiable, easy-going guys who’ve spent their life scaling mountains and who know just about everyone and everything. Fascinating, occasionally flinty…nothing but the truth. They both live in Rome and, of course, previously collaborated on Ferrara’s Go-Go Tales (’07).

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The sometimes wonderful Richard Brody has joined the ranks of those who understand that Gone Girl is about much, much more than a friggin’ airport-thriller plot. And is much more than just a film about the Five D’s — despisings, deceit, disgust, deception and disappearance. I tried explaining to a friend earlier today that Fincher’s film is not really about the tale. It’s about the broader (and yet highly particular) strokes. The tale is just the clothes line. It’s the socio-cultural stuff…the rotting-yuppie-hell-vile-media wash that Fincher hangs on it — that’s what the movie really is. Brody also floats a Stanley Kubrick analogy. Yes, I realize that Fincher-Kubrick comparisons have already been kicked around on this site but you need to be patient as these arguments tend to pop up when they pop up.

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Gone Girl‘s Ben Affleck, Bill Maher, N.Y. Times columnist Nicholas Kristol, Michael Steele and author Sam Harris, a critic of severe Islamic repression and brutality, engaged in a spirited discussion on Friday night’s Real Time with Bill Maher. Watch Affleck’s body posture and particularly his hands — he’s very unhappy with what Harris and Maher are saying and is marshalling all his strength to keep himself in check. It should be noted that on three previous Real Time visits Affleck expressed frustration about Muslims and Arabs being unfairly characterized and/or painted with too broad a brush — on 10.18.12, 10.23.08 and 5.27.07.