PTA Headed To Austin Film Festival To Moderate Jonathan Demme Q&A, "Greaser's Palace" Screening

According to many on the ground, including the local presses, Paul Thomas Anderson will be attending the Austin Film Festival this coming weekend to moderate a Q&A with long-time filmmaking idol and friend Jonathan Demme. That talk will be this coming Saturday at 3:45pm in the Stephen F. Austin Ballroom.

On Sunday, PTA will be co-hosting a screening of Robert Downey Sr.'s 1972 film "Greaser's Palace" with Demme. That'll start at 5:30pm at the State Theatre, with another Q&A between the two directors following.

If you live in or around Austin, TX, and haven't made up your mind to get passes yet, it's probably worth looking into here. Aside from these talks, some phenomenal titles are screening this year.

And here's an outlandishly amusing clip from Greaser's Palace

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"The Master" is now available on Blu-ray and DVD. 

Punch-Drunk Love Was Released 11 Years Ago Today

Eleven years ago today, Paul Thomas Anderson's fourth feature-length motion picture, Punch-Drunk Love, met commercial theatrical exhibition for the very first time. Some weeks back, a reader of ours passed along a small video of PTA at Cannes 2002, accepting his award for Best Director (Thanks Diego). On top of that, now is as good a time as any to review all the Cannes interview footage with PTA circa 2002 from the ol' cigsandvines YouTube channel. Enjoy!

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"The Master" is now available on Blu-ray and DVD. 

Eric Roberts Boasts Mysterious Involvement in 'Vice'; PTA Responsible For Anchorman?

Friends, it has been far too long. We have a bit to get caught up on.

Firstly, if this October 6th edition of The Dr. Drew Podcast is any indication, it would be appear that Eric Roberts is also going to be in Inherent Vice. He has some brief, nice things to say about the experience of working with PTA, but keeps it mostly very (very) tight-lipped. The good stuff comes in around 15:20, and here's our loose transcription:

What's coming up for you? 

Uh, what's coming up for me -- you know what? Uh... a Paul Thomas Anderson film is coming out, and um, uh, I can't talk about it, I can just say it's coming out. And um--

When? 

Uh. Eliza? When's the Paul Thomas Anderson film coming out?

[VOICE: No idea!]

No idea when it's coming out.

She has no idea. So we're not helping you, bud. Sorry.

We will -- we will post it when we find out. 

But -- but that was a great experience, and you know, and, and uh... and making movies these days is a lot like making instant coffee; it is fast and it is not particularly tasty. And uh... but working with him was like the old days.

Uh-huh.

He shot on 35mm, and you got three or four takes. It was like wow. 'Cause now you get one take. You might get two. But you get one take.

As you can probably guess, we have not been able to surmise who Mr. Roberts will be playing in the film, as it seems pretty deliberately under wraps. Time shall tell. Thank you to the number of followers who passed this along to us today!

In other PTA related news, SplitSider is currently running a story called The Lost Roles of Anchorman, which chronicles the various incarnations and collaborations of Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy that never came to pass. Much to our surprise, Paul has a spot on the list, and not a particularly dismissible one at that. The story purports that Paul was in early talks to produce the film prior to making Punch-Drunk Love, and even has a direct quote from Will Ferrell on the matter:

He was the reason why we wrote the script. 'Cause he had read a script Adam [McKay] and I had written called August Blowout that he thought was really funny and it was stuck at a studio and they weren't making it... To his credit... very nice of him, [he] loved that script. He said, "Why aren't you making this? What if I help you guys get something made? You just write whatever you want and I will be the producer. So, we wrote Anchorman on spec. He was kind of the impetus to get it going. He went on to do other things. Punch-Drunk Love. But he got the ball rolling for us.

You can listen to the audio of the interview that quote was lifted from here, it being pretty much the first topic discussed. The story lists Maya Rudolph and Bill Macy as ones to hit the chopping block before production started in earnest as well (Thanks to Joe for passing this along!)

Also in order is a big (albeit belated) celebratory note about the 16th theatrical anniversary of Boogie Nights, which happened on October 10th. Director Jason Reitman, who hosted a live-read of the script for 'Boogie' at TIFF a few weeks back, directed another read of it on the 10th at LACMA with some new faces. The cast for that reading was as follows:

Mae Whitman in the role of Rollergirl, originated by Heather Graham

Kevin Pollak in the role of The Colonel, originated by Robert Ridgely

Jim Rash in the role of Buck Swope, originated by Don Cheadle  

Jarod Einsohn in the role of Todd Parker, originated by Thomas Jane.

Jurnee Smollett in the role of Jessie St. Vincent, originated by Melora Walters 

Judy Greer in the role of Amber Waves, originated by Julianne Moore

Nat Faxon in the role of Scotty J, originated by Philip Seymour Hoffman

Nick Kroll in the role of Reed Rothchild, originated by John C. Reilly

Don Johnson in the role of Jack Horner, originated by Burt Reynolds

Taylor Lautner in the role of Dirk Diggler, originated by Mark Wahlberg

It's not too late to sneak in a viewing of Boogie Nights in honor of the fact that it's another year older and another year wiser, until later this week week, when we'll have another anniversary to be posting about.

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"The Master" is now available on Blu-ray and DVD. 

Josh Brolin Talks Inherent Vice, Calls Experience "Absolute Fucking Chaos"

With the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival officially behind us, the swirl of press inevitably left in its wake is now slowly unfurling onto the internet for cinephiles worldwide to consume. As a consequence, David Poland, whose utterly invaluable "DP/30" series tracks down a major player from just about every significant film from these festivals and talks candidly on camera with them for a half hour, sat down with Inherent Vice-star Josh Brolin, who was there promoting his work in Jason Reitman's Labor Day. As you may have guessed would happen over the course of thirty minutes, the conversation meandered a bit toward Brolin's past, present, and future projects near the middle, and here's what he had the following to say about working with Paul Thomas Anderson around the 14:40 mark (transcribed (roughly) by yours truly):

[Reitman] always seems to get these performances out of people--

Which is incredible... Because I can't go back and say, "Oh Jason does this thing," whereas like Paul Thomas Anderson, having just worked with him... [it's like]  let's go this way, or let's whisper the lines, and let's actually take out all the lines and we'll do it like charades once. Or, you know, like, hold him -- put him on your shoulders and let's do the whole scene like that. He's all over the place. It's just absolute fucking chaos every day, all day. Which is great, 'cause you feel like you've done something. But, you know, we'll see how it turns out.

Do you have a preference for all of that --

No... they're isolated experiences. They just are what they are, you know? I appreciate Jason's just as much as I appreciate Paul's. I think I'm more attuned to Paul's...even though that was crazy and nuts and created insecurity and this and that, this created a different, very much deeper insecurity and vulnerability... 'cause you just wanna hide.

Later in the interview (around 17:40), Brolin brings it back to PTA.

I see Paul, after this movie that we just did, and he was just exhausted, man. Exhausted. Like, he just took off and died somewhere, you know? Not literally, but figuratively. 

Crawled into an editing room somewhere --

Crawled into an editing room. But he was into it. He called me in the middle of the night, goes, dude I'm working on this thing, it looks amazing, it's so cool. It's like a kid. It's like being around a bunch of kids. That's fun.

It's exciting that he's working so quickly.

Yeah.

For him, that's a big deal.

I know, right? It is a big deal. I know, I know. Yeah. No, it was a lot of fun. Joaquin's amazing. Amazing. I love him.

Damn skippy. Have a happy Monday, everybody.

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"The Master" is now available on Blu-ray and DVD. 

'The Master' Was Released 1 Year Ago Today

Paul Thomas Anderson's six feature-length motion picture The Master was formally released into the world one year ago today, on September 14th, 2012. Time flies, right? To commemorate this occasion, here's every available trailer for the film. Have a good weekend, everyone!

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"The Master" is now available on Blu-ray and DVD. 

Paul & Maya Welcome Fourth Child

Looks like some congratulations are in order for Paul Thomas Anderson and Maya Rudolph, who have reportedly welcomed their fourth child into the world. The baby joins sisters Pearl and Lucille, and brother Jack. Congratulations, guys!

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"The Master" is now available on Blu-ray and DVD. 

Actor Michael Cotter Talks "Inherent Vice"; Boogie Nights Script Read At TIFF

An interview over at examiner.com has been making rounds today, wherein actor Michael Cotter talks a bit about his experience working with Paul Thomas Anderson & co. on Inherent Vice, and here's the nitty gritty of it:

What can you tell us about your role in the upcoming Paul Thomas Anderson film "Inherent Vice"? 

I play A.D.A. Rhus Farthington and I work in the District Attorney's office in LA, where I am co-workers with Reese Witherspoon's character Penny. It is a period piece set in LA in 1969-1970, and it's always fun to be able to play in a different decade, especially for the wardrobe and set choices which were both great.

How was working with A-listers Reese Witherspoon, the always unpredictable Joaquin Phoenix and director Paul Thomas Anderson?

It was an amazing experience! I think all three of them are brilliant at what they do and I felt lucky to be able to play in the same game as them for a few days. Once the cameras started rolling, they all welcomed me into the fold and were all very generous in the moment.

Any interesting stories from the set you can share with us?

One of the coolest things that we did was for one of the scenes we shot, PTA ended up letting the three of us basically improv through this interview scene. And once we all started to improv together, it became this really fun game of finding our way through the scene together and just feeding off of each other. It was really fun to be able to do that with Reese and Joaquin and just trust that we would find our way to the end of the scene each time, but always find cool new moments on every take.

Among other things, this should finally help put to rest any lingering suspicions you may have had that Reese Witherspoon was somehow no longer involved in the film. It also fills in a couple casting gaps that were a bit more justifiably up in the air: that Witherspoon will be playing Penny Kimball, and that the role of Rhus Farthington has gone to Cotter. Our Inherent Vice page has been updated accordingly.

In other news, north of the border right now, the Toronto International Film Festival is in full swing, where just over a year ago The Master was having its North American premier. There with his new film Labor Day, filmmaker Jason Reitman hosted a special live reading of the Boogie Nights screenplay tonight, in the tradition of the live script readings he frequently directs at LACMA. The final casting breakdown is something to behold:

Marc-Andr� Grondin in the role of Scotty J, originated by Philip Seymour Hoffman

Dane Cook in the role of Reed Rothchild, originated by John C. Reilly

Jason Sudeikis in the role of Buck Swope, originated by Don Cheadle

Jarod Einsohn in the role of Todd Parker, originated by Thomas Jane

Jordan Hayes in the role of Jesse St. Vincent, originated by Melora Walters

Olivia Wilde in the role of Amber Waves, originated by Julianne Moore

Scott Thompson in the role of The Colonel, originated by Robert Ridgely

Dakota Fanning in the role of Rollergirl, originated by Heather Graham

Josh Brolin in the role of Jack Horner, originated by Burt Reynolds

Jesse Eisenberg in the role of Dirk Diggler, originated by Mark Wahlberg

So this is now the second PTA script that Josh Brolin (who stars in Reitman's new film) has performed from within a year. We are doing our damndest to get ahold of any video taken from the event (big or small), and will share it here if/when it materializes. In the meantime, there's a flourish of images from the event online now, so here's a low-quality one, as they all seem to be at the moment:

 

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