Tim Knight posting a clip of a scene from Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia on his blog reminded me of when that movie came out, in 1999. The stock market was soaring, unemployment was around 4%, the World Trade Center was still standing… a different time.
Anyhow, one sunny Sunday afternoon — maybe a week or two after Magnolia came out — I met a date for brunch on the Upper West Side and after brunch, we were walking down Broadway when we ran into a co-worker of mine. His name was Mike, I think. An interesting character — he was a former broker from Tennessee, who moved up to New York to pursue acting and writing. He worked in NJ at the same investment company I did, but lived way uptown in Manhattan.
Mike asked what we were up to, and we mentioned that we were thinking of seeing it. When he mentioned he’d already seen it, I asked him what he thought of it. He said it was “like getting kicked in the groin for three hours”. An accurate description, as it turned out.
After Magnolia, writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson got reined in a little, in terms of budgets and running time. Which was a good thing, in my opinion, because under those constraints he made a great little movie called Punch-Drunk Love. Don’t be put off by it starring Adam Sandler — it has nothing in common with his unwatchable comedies.
Casting Sandler in Punch Drunk Love was brilliant. I think Anderson saw the sad and angry man inside of Sandler when he picked him for the role (either that, or Sandler is the Olivier of his generation and no one’s mentioned it). Casting Mary Lynn Rajskub (24’s Chloe) as one of Sandler’s spiteful sisters was another great call. Here’s the trailer for Punch-Drunk Love:
Give it a watch and see what you think.
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