PT. Anderson
 

I think he's a good director. His best work is Punch Drunk Love.

Re: PT. Anderson
 

I'd like him EVEN more if his films were a wee bit shorter.

Re: PT. Anderson
 

PDL isn't long. Actually it just goes on for about an hour and 36 minutes.

Re: PT. Anderson
 

My favorite director :)

Re: PT. Anderson
 

What I've seen...

Boogie Nights C+
Magnolia B+
Punch Drunk Love C
There Will Be Blood A

So on average, this makes him about a B- in my books.

Re: PT. Anderson
 

Hard Eight
Boogie Nights
Magnolia
Punch-Drunk Love
There Will Be Blood

I've been wanting to give Punch-Drunk Love another chance, last time I saw it was when it was in theaters. His best work is most certainly There Will Be Blood.

Re: PT. Anderson
 

I found TWBB quite average. Good performances, and cinematography but the rest was average.

There Will Be Blood is the only PTA film that I've seen, but I doubt any of his others could beat it.

To me, absolutely nothing about the film is average. Performances, cinematography, score, aura, and direction are all top-notch. But, I could certainly see why the film wouldn't appeal to everyone's taste.

I think that the kid is excellent. Superb understanding of his craft and seemingly gives 110% to every film he makes. Boogie Nights is still his best film imo. I really liked There Will Be Blood for the fact that it was a change of pace for him and a highly ambitious piece of work, but Boogie Nights drew me in on an emotional level.

Re: PT. Anderson
 

http://laceysfilms.files.wordpress.c...re-will-be.jpg

There Will Be Blood

The best film of his that I've seen, and it's actually the only film from I've seen. It's just amazing, though. There are times were I think this should've beaten No Country For Old Men for 'Best Picture'.

Yeah he's a great director. His movies are like steel.

There Will Be Blood and Boogie Nights are two of my faves. To be honest, the only really good performance Mark Wahlberg has ever given was in Boogie Nights.

http://billsmovieemporium.files.word...03/boogie1.jpg

Re: PT. Anderson
 

You people need to get on his other movies :yup:

http://tbn2.google.com/images?q=tbn:...997-poster.jpg http://tbn2.google.com/images?q=tbn:...pg%3Fv%3D0 http://tbn1.google.com/images?q=tbn:...a/magnolia.jpg http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:...drunk_love.jpg http://tbn2.google.com/images?q=tbn:...l_be_blood.jpg

Each of films are heartily enjoyable for me , as far as technical skill goes he just might be the absolute best. He always gets the very strongest performances out of his actors and that's probably because he writes characters are understandable , but always bring something else to the story. He only directs his own scripts and always puts in the effort to realize his penned creations. Top-notch cinematography and constant "wow" moments lie in each of his works.

Hard Eight and Punch Drunk Love , both leagues apart in aesthetics and themes - but similar in their more intimate approaches to tell a story of only a few characters. While Hard Eight is set to the pace of luck and chance (gambling providing the contextual atmosphere) , Punch Drunk Love is more musical and attached to it's main character.

Boogie Nights and Magnolia are two massive ensemble pictures that tie in huge casts of characters into each other to realize a much bigger puzzle. They both encompass almost every major theme there is to explore , but each of them approaches it from a different perspective and attitude. Boogie Nights emphasizing money and family over Magnolia's complete understanding and acceptance of it's characters.

There Will Be Blood is a welcome change of pace to PTA's modernistic filmography (even if it's my least favorite of his). It also explores religious themes with a lead character who's entirely evil and impossible to comprehend.

Re: PT. Anderson
 

I've also seen Magnolia and Punch-Drunk Love. Don't really remember Punch-Drunk Love, and although I liked Magnolia a lot at first it didn't have a lasting effect.

One of the best around, no question. Everything he's made ranges from good to great, and I think that's rare; every director, somewhere in the space of their first five films or so, seems to deliver a clunker. Not Anderson. There Will Be Blood is an amazing film, easily his best work, and - as good as he is - I don't even expect him to top it. But if he does? Wow.......

Re: PT. Anderson
 

I like him and his movies, although I'm not a big fan of Hard Eight. It's just that I don't think he's anything all that great. He's interesting, and There Will Be Blood is worth , but as usual with most wunderkinds, he hasn't delivered on all that promise yet, so I certainly hope he tops his best work so far. Being a personal filmmaker is not the same as being a great filmmaker.

Could you elaborate on that a bit as it relates to Anderson? Because while I think he handles his characters very well, "personal" isn't the first word I would use to describe him, yet I apparently like his work more than yourself.

Re: PT. Anderson
 

Each of his five films seem very personal to me in that he always has a theme and idiosyncratic characters. I'll admit that his themes could seem to be all over the place although he does seem to latch onto a sense of belonging in all his films. His films seem to be about people trying to regain or form a family, and I'll admit that's not the most original of themes, but his personal side shines through in that the stories he uses to expound on his theme contain characters which most films don't really bother to highlight. He also includes just enough elements of fantasy/surrealism in them to make sure he keeps his audience off-balance.

So what, in your eyes, has kept him short of greatness? I agree with all the positive things you said re: the emotional content, and he seems to be a very technically adept director. I'm not saying he's perfect, but I'm hard-pressed to find any obvious flaws.

Re: PT. Anderson
 

To me, his characters and stories are mostly just too personal and idiosyncratic. I can get into the entertainment being provided but sometimes the characters just seem a bit beyond my own comfort zone. Punch-Drunk Love resonated with me because the Adam Sandler character reminded me of one of my best friends and his family, so the fact that I could get into the idea of my friend having a positive romantic fantasy was appealing to me. If I didn't have a friend so similar to that character, I'm not sure that I'd buy into the "outrageousness" of the entire story. Boogie Nights is very entertaining, but some of the scenes which people love the most (the Alfred Molina scene) just seem to go on-and-on to me well past the point they were trying to make. Magnolia crams so many characters into it I guess it's only natural to think that some are more interesting and successful than others. It's the fact that Anderson loves and feels for these characters which make him a personal filmmaker to me. I cannot totally relate to all his characters so at times, I have to step back a bit and question why I'm seeing what I am.

Exactly this movie doesn't appeal. All of his other movies have such personal and deep characters, There Will Be Blood had hardly none of that.