I’ve definitely become more cynical in the decade since I started writing regular movie reviews. I’m sure of it after my reaction to seeing Jason Reitman’s new paean to the comedy institution known as Saturday Night Live. Reitman’s film, Saturday Night, is enjoyable enough as a peek behind the curtain at the madcap goings-on in the lead up to the first episode of what would become the longest running sketch comedy show in television history. It’s also cliché-ridden, offers practically zero insight into any of the characters, and features a made-to-order climax wherein everything magically falls into place at exactly the right moment. An exercise in subtlety, it is not.
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Though very different in story and theme, Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza is destined to play on a double bill in repertory theaters and stoners’ home theaters alongside Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Both films are fantastic examples of the hangout movie: light on plot, heavy on atmosphere, these are movies that are more about an aimless, meandering pace and watching the characters simply be and not necessarily do. Tarantino himself coined the term to describe perhaps the first ever hangout movie, Rio Bravo.
Other examples include Fast Times at Ridgemont High and American Graffiti – Anderson has credited both as major inspirations for Licorice Pizza – as well as Anderson’s own Boogie Nights and Magnolia.
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