Licorice Pizza: Quite warped

Licorice Pizza (2021) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five). Rated R, for sexual candor, drug use and considerable profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

Well, this one’s all over the map.

 

That’s no surprise, since we’re dealing with writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson; outré is his calling card. Who could forget the rain of frogs toward the end of 1999’s Magnolia, or the freakishly violent finale in 2007’s There Will Be Blood?

 

Alana (Alana Haim) surprises herself by agreeing to act as chaperone and driver for her
new "business partner," Gary (Cooper Hoffman), and his younger brother, Greg
(Milo Herschlag).

Anderson always is more concerned with atmosphere, attitude and location, than anything remotely approaching credible human behavior. And there’s no denying that Licorice Pizza nails its 1973 San Fernando Valley setting: the clothes, cars, strip malls, seedy pop-culture palaces, and the vibrant, awakening youth culture sense that anything was possible, and anything could happen.

Anderson also handles much of the cinematography here, alongside Michael Bauman; between them and production designer Florencia Martin, they’ve re-created the razzle-dazzle Valley vibe to a degree that’s almost spooky. That said, this is a heightened reality, laced with sidebar characters who usually are more burlesque than believable.

 

In fairness, though, this is a kinder, gentler Anderson: possibly because — in his typically outlandish way — he intends this film as a valentine to the area where he grew up. The on again/off again mutual crush that bonds this saga’s two primary characters is quite sweet at times … even as everything around them becomes aggressively weird.

 

(The film gets its title, by the way, from a once-famous chain of record stores that ruled Southern California from 1969 to ’85.)

 

Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman), a 15-year-old child star, meets cute with 25-year-old Alana Kane (Alana Haim) at his high school’s yearbook portrait day; she’s assisting the photographer. He boldly chats her up, much to her initially amused annoyance … but he’s so self-assured, so persistent, that she can’t help being curious.

 

Gary is an anomaly, in that all the adults in his orbit respect him as an equal (even if some roll their eyes when he leaves the room). He’s on familiar speaking terms with the manager at the iconic Tail o’ the Cock restaurant, who respectfully reserves Gary’s “special table” and also tolerates his presence at the bar (sipping only sodas, of course). Alana finds it hard to resist when he suggests that she meet him there, and it’s emotionally deeper than that; she surprises herself by accepting.

 

Although Hoffman’s Gary ostensibly dominates what subsequently transpires — frequently through sheer force of personality — this really is Alana’s story; she’s the character trying to figure out how to become a better version of herself, whereas Gary never really changes.

 

Alana is a failure-to-launch decades before that phrase became a thing, still living at home with her parents and two older sisters (Haim’s actual sisters, Danielle and Este), who also still are stuck with their parents. The high school photography gig obviously is just the latest in a long string of dead-end temp jobs that give Alana a reason to get up each morning.

 

Initially, she’s seduced more by Gary’s lifestyle and environment, than the boy himself. She agrees to become a combination chaperone/handler, leaving his mother Anita (Mary Elizabeth Ellis) more time to focus on the business side of his career. 

Masterminds: Wishful thinking

Masterminds (2016) • View trailer 
One star. Rated PG-13, for crude humor, cartoonish violence and brief profanity
By Derrick Bang

On the evening of October 4, 1997, the Charlotte, North Carolina, regional office of Loomis Fargo & Co. lost $17.3 million during a slapdash scheme orchestrated by vault supervisor David Scott Ghantt, his girlfriend Kelly Campbell, her friend Steve Chambers and his wife, Michelle, and four other participants.

After David (Zach Galifianakis, foreground left) fills the getaway van with countless stacks
of money, his confederates in crime — from left, Eric (Ross Kimball), Steve (Owen Wilson),
Kelly (Kristen Wiig) and Runny (David Ratray) — stare at the haul in utter disbelief.
Enduring this misbegotten comedy prompts an entirely different kind of disbelief.

In early March of 1998, all eight were arrested by the FBI, in large part because Steve and Michelle Chambers had spent so much of the loot quite brazenly. Subsequent prison sentences ranged from eight to 11 years, and the entire affair became known as the “hillbilly heist,” because of the blindingly stupid behavior of almost everybody involved.

Now, close to two decades later, what was the second-largest cash robbery on U.S. soil — at the time — has “inspired” a new comedy by director Jared Hess, best known for overly broad farces such as Napoleon Dynamite, Nacho Libre and an episode of the TV series The Last Man on Earth. Not to mention additional big-screen flops such as Gentlemen Broncos and Don Verdean.

It’s further telling that the scripting credits for this new film — which cite Chris Bowman, Hubbel Palmer and Emily Spivey — make absolutely no mention of the 2002 book Heist: The $17 Million Loomis Fargo Theft, written by Charlotte Observer investigative journalist Jeff Diamant. Why bother sourcing the official record of what obviously was an incredulously juicy saga to begin with, when hack film writers can deliver an inferior script instead?

Better still, why bother with the script, when Hess willingly tolerates a free-wheeling shoot that feels as if 90 percent of the dialog was ad-libbed?

After all, isn’t that why one hires comedic personalities such as Zach Galifianakis, Kristen Wiig, Owen Wilson and Jason Sudeikis?

Ah, but here’s the rub: Not one of those stars is anywhere near as spontaneously sharp, fast or funny as s/he seems to think. Every line in this film feels stiff, forced and tin-eared; very few earn laughter. Worse yet, Hess holds his camera far too long on each dialog exchange, exposing the noticeable pauses that occur when actors haven’t yet figured out their next line.

Or, alternatively, can’t remember a legitimately scripted riposte.

We also endure the usual flatulence jokes and exposed butt cracks that pass for humor these days, along with — the height of humor — a bout of diarrhea in a swimming pool. Seems awfully easy to write moron comedy movies.

To put it bluntly, Masterminds is a train wreck of near epic proportions: a 94-minute slog that absolutely butchers what could, should and would have been a great heist comedy in better, less narcissistic hands.