843 Punch-Drunk Love

[exte]

Wait, did you move out of the bible belt to pursue a life in film?

[Gregory]

I watched Punch-Drunk Love (again) and There Will Be Blood recently and am trying to get a better grasp of how they might fit together. This paragraph from the New York Times piece that zedz quotes makes no sense to me.

Like “Punch-Drunk Love,” “There Will Be Blood,” based on a novel by Upton Sinclair, concentrates on a protagonist, who is defined more as a father than a son. And with his most recent film an upstart filmmaker elbows his way into the pantheon. The child is father to the man.

How is Barry Egan (Adam Sandler) defined more as a father than a son? I'm at a loss to see how he's a father in any sense of the word, and I'm not sure his being a son has any bearing on the character. Even in reference to There Will Be Blood, I don't see how this statement says anything very interesting. The Hopkins allusion seems totally inappropriate, and I really dislike it when works like this are overused and shoehorned into something just so a writer can say something catchy and get a piece into his editor on time. I don't think I'm in a foul mood at present but I'm certain I sound like it.

[Magic Hate Ball]

No, but duuude, it's so deep...

Yeah, it sounds like the guy was just really trying to tie the movies together in some sort of way. They don't really match up in any way, unless his sixth movie is something totally different from anything else he's ever done, then this, Blood, and the sixth movie would form some kind of eclectic trio.

[flyonthewall2983]

A.V. Club's The New Cult Canon: Punch-Drunk Love

[miless]

I saw this in the theater this past monday, and I have to say it really works best on the big screen. It's all about the little details or moments that often get missed on disc. I was really quite in awe when I noticed that the scars/blisters on Sandler's hands after punching the wall spell out love on his knuckles... an homage to Night of the Hunter?

It's these small discoveries that generally make rewatching a PT Anderson film so worthwhile (at least for me).

[mfunk9786]

I saw this in the theater this past monday, and I have to say it really works best on the big screen.

Was this theater screening an anomaly at a local theater, or was it some sort of touring print? I'm guessing the former, but have my fingers crossed for the latter.

[miless]

It was a special screening put on by some romantic comedy nerds.

[flyonthewall2983]

What else was playing?

[miless]

I don't really remember, but they kept on mentioning Garden State... so it's kind of mostly not good movies

[Cold Bishop]

It's a Summer long "Independent Film Revival"... Ironic, since none of the films are truly independent films, and most are downright studio films.

At least, I got to see Annie Hall on the big screen. Would of went to see this, but it slipped my mind.

[pianocrash]

Would of went to see this, but it slipped my mind.

Did you at least bring the Paul Simon tape?

...Night of the Hunter?

The opening sequence with the morning sun's flaring and blowing the frame out with white light is truly stunning on film, too, as with the bloody knuckles (the Blake montage they featured on the old website featured more of this, which is on the dvd I think), and the headlights of the blond brothers' truck. The sensory elements just get lost on a home system, unfortunately.

[domino harvey]

It was Lex Hare who put the saw in the cake

[LavaLamp]

Really enjoyed Punch-Drunk Love - the events in the film are so unexpected & startling, and it was a big departure for Adam Sandler. Especially strange were the scenes when he went off in the restaurant's bathroom & at the party/get together with all of his sisters; these sequences were both somewhat funny & also unnerving..

Several years back I saw a documentary regarding strange but true events, and one section was on the real-life guy who went out of his way to buy all that pudding with the Air-miles bonus attached. The fact that this was actually true adds another dimension to the similar scene in the beginning of PDL, i.e. where the Adam Sandler character has boxes & pallets of pudding in the warehouse.

[AMalickLensFlare]

Does anyone have any idea if or when this is ever going to get a Blu-ray release?

[mfunk9786]

It's in the works, but there's no indication whether it'll be Sony or Criterion, and when Anderson/Elswit's going to find the time to finalize the transfer.

[AMalickLensFlare]

Interesting. Yeah, I suppose Anderson is staying pretty busy right now, prepping Inherent Vice for release. Thanks for the info.

[domino harvey]

In honor of this thread bump, here's a relic I stumbled upon while moving the last of my stuff out of my parents' house: My Punch-Drunk Love longsleeve t-shirt, an officially licensed piece of merchandise bought around the time of the theatrical release:



I never even wore it, so in a couple more years I hope to retire on it

[mfunk9786]

Wow, that thing is sort of hideous. Marketing, marketing, marketing - this shirt is clearly the reason why this film didn't light up the box office, Sony

[colinr0380]

They certainly seemed to drop the ball by not printing the "I want to smash your face in" intimate lovers chat inside the heart!

Either that or some entry rules regarding a pudding promotional offer if they wanted to keep the bureaucratic tone.

(dom, I'll trade you the T-shirt for my enormous UK theatrical poster for Moodysson's A Hole In My Heart that I somehow won in a BBC contest years ago! Still mint in its cardboard tube! )

[swo17]

Phantom pages were just added for:

Joann Sellar
Daniel Lupi
Robert Elswit
William Arnold
Jon Brion
Mark Bridges
Jeremy Blake
Kassandra Kulukundis
Adam Sandler
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Luis Guzman
Mary Lynn Rajskub

[Luke M]

Oh my god.

[FrauBlucher]

This Anderson in the Collection, huge!

[mfunk9786]

I shit you not, I was just thinking this morning "Really, no Blu-ray for this yet?" and was going to post something here about how miserable the wait has been for an upgrade on the existing DVD. I could not possibly be any more excited - and this is the film of Anderson's that is the best fit for the collection, too.

[FrauBlucher]

Even mfunk would frown at delayed announcements today.

[mfunk9786]

What's another few days? It's been years of waiting for this. This is one of my five favorite films of all time and I'm elated