A young man and a young woman grow up, run around, and fall in love in the San Fernando Valley, 1973.
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- Ray HopkinJanuary 24, 2025Another perfectly constructed meander through the lives of various people by PTA. It oozes atmosphere, the cast are brilliant and the soundtrack, and how the music is used, is sublime. PTA really captures the feel and style of 1973, and is very reminiscent (to me, anyway) of Boogie Nights. I thought the title referred to these two people, who shouldn't work as a couple, are brought together and somehow make it work, even though everyone else would think it's disgusting. Then I was told that it's slang for a vinyl record, and the name of a record chain in LA in the 70s, and nothing more! Oh well! But I loved this movie.
- jackmeatAugust 28, 2025My quick rating - 6.9/10. Popping on number 7 of the #Oscars2022 best pic nominees. Quick comment. This movie stars Alana Haim playing a sexual predator...or as they are calling it, a young adult, traversing their first loves in the San Fernando Valley, 1973. She is 25, and the first guy or kid she interacts with is 15, played by Cooper Hoffman. It took minutes before I was wondering how wrong this story is from the get-go. I doubt casting a 30-year-old woman as the star who could easily pass for 14 wasn't an accident. Hoffman plays a hustler who does a great job of being smug and youthfully ignorant. But he does it in such a believable way that it works very well. Haim, on the other hand, is a strange character. I don't know if I should be vilifying her or hoping she can get help for a mental disability. But that is something I noticed throughout this whole movie. The quirkiness of the characters is taken so far to the extreme that, aside from Hoffman, I didn't find any of them believable. Then again, his 15-year-old hustling also goes way past what could be accomplished, so I am having this dialogue with myself as I type LOL. Paul Thomas Anderson isn't a stranger to Oscar season and has again brought us a tale that feels more like short vignettes tied together into a story, than a start-to-finish flick. Makes sense, though, due to his ties to shorts and music videos. I noticed at the end that the entire family in the movie is played by actors with the last name of Haim, so looking into it briefly, apparently, that family has some close ties to PTA and is in a band for which he has directed music videos. I was completely in the dark about all of that until the film ended in exactly what you are expecting. Supposedly, this is a somewhat true memoir of what PTA grew up with, but being he is 3 years older than I, there is a ton of embellishment to that portion of the story. There are tons of nostalgic tidbits sprinkled throughout and quite a few characters that are clearly based on similar people from the time, which leads to the realism of the flick. I found parts of this quite amusing, but in the 133 minutes of it, I never got past the underlying issue of it just being about a sexual predator. Once you do get past that, you may enjoy this one. Not my pick for the gold statue this year, though.
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Licorice Pizza was released on December 10, 2021.
Licorice Pizza was directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.
Licorice Pizza has a runtime of 2h 13m.
Licorice Pizza was produced by Adam Somner, Sara Murphy, Paul Thomas Anderson.
A young man and a young woman grow up, run around, and fall in love in the San Fernando Valley, 1973.
The key characters in Licorice Pizza are Alana Kane (Alana Haim), Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman), Jack Holden (Sean Penn).
Licorice Pizza is rated R.
Licorice Pizza is a Drama, Comedy, Romance film.
Licorice Pizza has an audience rating of 6.5 out of 10.
Licorice Pizza had a budget of $40M.
Licorice Pizza has made $33.3M at the box office.