Genre: Film
Grade: A-/B+
Notable People: Joaquin Phoenix, Josh Brolin, Reece Witherspoon, Owen Wilson, Benicio del Toro, Katherine Waterston, Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
Title: Inherent Vice
Review – Quite a ride this one. Anderson is a totally whacked out director, who has taken a pretty complicated novel by Thomas Pynchon (most people believe you can’ t make films from his esoteric books) and given us a film that seems to mate Sam Spade with The Big Lebowski with Quentin Tarentino. It’s a lot of fun and Phoenix is wonderful…Brolin is a great match too. The movie is 2 ½ hours long and I did find myself glancing at my watch, but still what’s not to like from a tripped out story of a stoned private detective living the life in a 1970s San Francisco beach town? The spirit of the times is well represented and the story has every crazy character you could imagine…..with some absolutely great lines of dialog. Good winter’s afternoon diversion.