User:LancedSoul/sandbox/Licorice Pizza

Licorice Pizza is an upcoming American coming-of-age comedy-drama film written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, who also serves as co-cinematographer. The film stars Alana Haim, Cooper Hoffman, Sean Penn, Tom Waits, Bradley Cooper, and Benny Safdie.

It is scheduled for a limited release in the United States on November 26, 2021, before going wide on December 25, 2021.

Plot
In 1973 San Fernando Valley, teenager Gary Valentine meets Alana Kane, a photographer's assistant in her 20s, at his high school on picture day. They become friends, start a waterbed company together, audition for films, and get involved with Joel Wachs' mayoral campaign. They navigate a changing time politically and culturally while also dealing with a gas crisis. Valentine and Kane's journey leads to them interacting with figures of both Old and New Hollywood, including Jon Peters and Jack Holden.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) Jon Peters' odd behaviour, including but not limited to threatening to murder Gary's family if Gary ruins his house when installing a waterbed, bragging about dating Barbra Streisand, and threatening to set a customer at a gas station on fire. And when Gary and Alana finally get away from him, Gary decides to wreck Peters' car in retaliation... only for their truck to run out of gas right that moment, leading Alana to have to manoeuvre a truck backwards down a hill to get away.
 * 2) Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman both made their debuts in this movie (with Haim not having any professional acting experience before this point), but proved more than capable of handling the movie's blend of comedy and emotional intensity. Anderson's frequent collaborator John C. Reilly even described Haim's performance as being compelling in the same way that Joaquin Phoenix was, and both performances have been nominated for a number of awards already.
 * 3) Amazing soundtrack that contains the songs that were well fitting.
 * 4) * The trailer for the film makes brilliant use of David Bowie's "Life on Mars?", emanating the movie's 70's setting and even matching certain scenes with the song's lyrics ("The girl with the mousy hair" as the camera cuts to Alana, "Lawmen beating up the wrong guy" as Gary is pinned to a cop car, etc.)

Reception
Licorice Pizza received universal acclaim with praise going towards Haim and Hoffman's performances, Anderson's screenplay and direction, and the sentimental tone. The review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes reports an approval rating of 100% based on 29 reviews, with an average rating of 8.9/10. The site's critics' consensus reads: "Licorice Pizza finds Paul Thomas Anderson shifting into a surprisingly comfortable gear -- and getting potentially star-making performances out of his fresh-faced leads.". Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 94 out of 100, based on 16 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".

Videos
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