As the Butterscotch Stallion turns 55, we look back at his most memorable roles, from a courageous navy officer to a cute sports car to a doltish male model
Inherent Vice is a film about a stoner which itself seems stoned. This is just one small part of what makes it distinctive.
Adapted from Thomas Pynchon s 2009 novel, the movie has been compared by many to the Coen brothers The Big Lebowski, a drug-fueled LA comedy with a similarly labyrinthian mystery (or mystery ) and some shared themes. But Vice is a richer, deeper, sweeter, equally funny movie. It owes a great deal to laid-back, character-and-atmosphere driven 1970s L.A. films such as The Long Goodbye and Cisco Pike, but it never makes too big a deal of that lineage. As adapted and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, it s a historical and political picture about The American Soul, though not too strenuously so. Mostly it s a long, shaggy, knockabout comedy about eccentrics who pursue their own appetites and manias and indulge their private demons while remaining oblivious to their effect on others. As such, it s a great people-watching film, showcasing a diverse cast