Punch-Drunk Love (2002) - ***1/2 Director: Paul Thomas Anderson A man suffering from his own social problems falls in love as he falls into trouble with a phone-sex line/scam.
This finalizes it. P.T. Anderson is the best young director out there. I've seen all of his feature-length films except Sydney, which I just can't find anywheres. Each of these films have been amazing, and just show his broad range. He did an excellent job at the comical but equally dramatic Boogie Nights, and the 1999 drama Magnolia, which I feel was the best film of the year. Now, he has wowed me again with Punch-Drunk Love. Sandler gives a great performance, the best in his career (even if that's not saying much...). His supporting cast gives equally great performances. I love to see people like Luis Guzman and Phillip Seymour Hoffman return in Anderson films, who I now immediately associate with Paul's movies. I also found myself laughing yet again at Anderson's great comedic relief which was absent from Magnolia, but justly so. However, the fact that it is Adam Sandler loading up on an extensive collection of pudding, or running away with a miniature piano certainly helped produce laughs. While this wasn't AS good as Boogie Nights or Magnolia, you must remember how tough it is for this film to hold its own against these two, which I am confident that at least one of if not both will go down as classics. But I'm still surprised that Anderson, the guy who writes 300 page scripts and has to somehow scrape them down to 150 or 200 pages, managed to tell such a great story in only one and one half hours...
Confesstions of a Dangerous Mind (2002) - ***1/2 Director: George Clooney Follows the life of television producer Chuck Barris, who claims to have been an assasin for the CIA.
I enjoyed this. Clooney prooves that he can not only act, but direct, and quite tastefully. While his camera tricks may have seemed a bit repeatative at times, it was a great debut as a director. The performances are all great as well, including one of the best roles I have seen Sam Rockwell in so far, next to Matchstick Men. Highly reccomended.
"Somebody told me when the bomb hits, everybody in a two mile radius will be instantly sublimated, but if you lay face down on the ground for some time, avoiding the residual ripples of heat, you might survive, permanently fucked up and twisted like you're always underwater refracted. But if you do go gas, there's nothing you can do if the air that was once you is mingled and mashed with the kicked up molecules of the enemy's former body. Big-kid-tested, motherf--ker approved."
