Capital Celluloid 2017 - Day 16: Mon Jan 16

Inherent Vice (Anderson, 2014) & The Big Lebowski (Coen, 1998):
Prince Charles Cinema, 6.15pm



This 35mm double-bill is part of a 'Double Features' season at the Prince Charles. Full details here.

Chicago Reader review of Inherent Vice:
Inherent Vice would be a landmark in movie history even if it weren't good. More than just an adaptation of Thomas Pynchon's 2009 novel—indeed the first official Pynchon adaptation, period—the film engages with the author's literature on the whole, attempting a filmic analogue to his virtuosic prose. Arguably the James Joyce of postmodern American fiction, Pynchon created a new kind of epic novel with V. (1963) and Gravity's Rainbow (1973), combining literary references high and low, probing considerations of postwar history, goofy counterculture humor (frequently about drugs and sex), and flights of formal experimentation. His books can be overwhelming on a first read, as they feature dozens (sometimes even hundreds) of characters and interweave multiple conspiracy plots, some of which touch on real historic events. How could one make a movie that conveys the depth of Pynchon's literature, to say nothing of his polyphonous language?
Ben Sachs ... continue reading the review here ...

Here (and above) is the trailer.

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Chicago Reader review of The Big Lebowski:
Probably the Coen brothers' most enjoyable movie—glittering with imagination, cleverness, and filmmaking skill—though, as in their other films, the warm feelings they generate around a couple of salt-of-the-earth types don't apply to anyone else in the cast: you might as well be scraping them off your shoe. The Chandler-esque plot has something to do with Jeff Bridges being mistaken for a Pasadena millionaire, which ultimately involves him as an amateur sleuth in a kidnapping plot. A nice portrait of low-rent LA emerges from this unstable brew, as do two riotous dream sequences. Set during the gulf war and focusing on a trio of dinosaurs—an unemployed pothead and former campus radical (Bridges), a cranky Vietnam vet (John Goodman), and a gratuitous cowboy narrator (Sam Elliott)—this 1998 feature may be the most political Coen movie to date, though I'm sure they'd be the last to admit it. With Julianne Moore, Steve Buscemi, David Huddleston, John Turturro, and Ben Gazzara.
Jonathan Rosenbaum

Here is the trailer.

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