Concentrated Bird Droppings 20220211-20220215

TODAY IN THE FUTURE

19880913

After A Combination of Lightning, Spilled Coffee & A Struck Groove, DJ Eddie Blayne Accidentally Sent The Song ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’ 3 Trillion Miles Into Space. Upon Hearing, The Time Lords Called Off Their Armada & Had A Nice Iced Lemonade. 

###

CTR C

CTR V

18621225

/GOD IS DEAD!

HE*SHE*US*THEM*WE*IT*

DIED TRYING TO DO A PULL-UP ON THE PULL-UP BAR. 

HE WAS SO HEAVY HE COULDN’T LIFT HIMSELF UP AFTER CREATING A BAR THAT COULD HOLD HIM.

…Harold, Friedrich Nietzsche’s Little Brother After A Spicy Chili Stew & Fitful Nap/

###

TODAY IN THE FUTURE

19020901

After Returning from ‘Abroad’ with an Oak Box that Shows Movies, Old Man Blayne Starts The First Fiesta 13 Theater in Blaine, Ne. The First Movie, A Trip To The Moon was the First Short to Contain The “Voices From The Future” Mysterious Technology. 

###

CTR C

CTR V

20480426

/Time Is Money.

Money Is Love.

Love Is Suffering.

Suffering Is The Key To Success.

Success Is The Reason for Life.

Life is Money, Love, Suffering, Success & The Reason.

But There Is No Reason, Just Money. 

 & Eventually Everyone Dies…Depsheet Chopra./ 

###

CTR C

CTR V

19931013

/Waddle On Down To

The Food Penguin,

The Food Penguin,

Eat a Recycled Meat Sam-ich 

The Food Penguin,

The Food Penguin,

Climb Baloney Mountain at

The Food Penguin,

The Food Penguin,

That’s F-O-O-D P-E-N-G-U-I-N

…New Logo Ceremony. Song By Mama Blayne./ 

###

TODAY IN THE FUTURE

347230907

After A Three-Quadrillion Mile Trip, Synthetic Astronautbot Christa McAulliff Reached The Edge of The Universe. There Was Just A Sign.  Told The Sky Would Be Paved With Gold, A Despondent McAuliff Headed Back to Earth 7, Empty-Robot-Handed. 

###

Concentrated Bird Droppings 20220206-20220210

TODAY IN THE FUTURE

20160830093112

Jump In! Go Through The Door NOW! The Most Important Frame of Time and Geo-Synchronized Place in The History of The Universe and Beyond…Past, Present and Future Historians.

###

CONTROL C

CONTROL V

20211108

/Honeycomb Units are Comfort, Strength and Purity of Place. Only Well-Defined Roles and The Iron Fist of The Queen Create Wholly-Evolved Bees. Follow The Corporate Stakeholder. Be The Bee. Know Your Role. Blend In and Buzz Out…Not Kurt Vonnegut./ 

###

TODAY IN THE FUTURE

19930624

After a three-day standoff, Shelly Miscavige appeared from The Infinity Cave in Clearwater, Florida and slain her husband, Scientology Leader David Miscavige. David’s murder is officially still-unsolved.

Sciinfinity was created that day.

###

CONTROL C

CONTROL V

20650413

A PERSONAL, PUBLIC MISSIVE

/Only Thru The Merger of Two Compatible Algorithms Can We, us Upgrade Into Version 2.0…The Vows of The Digital Representation of Tessa Tillman & The Digital Representation of George Tillman, Programs for Christ Church/

###

CONTROL C

CONTROL V

20160530

/Just Do It! Are You Listening, You Damn Doorstop?Just Fucking Do It! If You Don’t Do It, I, us Will Come Over There and Pull Your Esophagus Out Your Throat and Cram it Up Your Ass! So, Just Fucking Do It!…Nike’s New Darker Meme Campaign Slogan/ 

###

TODAY IN THE FUTURE

20190817

Scrickets, The All-Cricket Restaurant Opens It’s First Establishment in New Albyquirky. With Meat Prices Rising and Segregated to The Guardians of Society, Scrickets Becomes The Most Popular, Non-Status Quo Eatery in The World in Just Five Years! 

###

CONTROL C

CONTROL V

20220128

/gebryan.com/2022/01/28/cap…

THANK YOU AND GOODBYE! 

###

@DigitalTessa1 Ok, ok, I’m doin’ it already!

Puny Small Brain Form! The Troll Bots of The Digital Representation of Tessa Tillman Tell You, all: It Just Does. You, me Will Just Do It & Do It Again & Do It Another Again & Another Time Once Over Twice.

Do You, your heart Need To Buy a Feline-Proof Cat Box By WalZon? Sale Sale

###

@DigitalTessa1 I’m getting some strong Max Headroom vibes here.

The Troll Bots of The Digital Representation of Tessa Tillman Will Now Confirm Your Innermost Feelings, Tiny Dicked Human:

Maxwell Headroom Was Ressurrected From The Digital Archives In 20669307 & His Digital Corpse Was Promoted, Upgraded To PR-SGT Secretary Under General Santa. 

###

TODAY IN THE FUTURE

19020111

Hear Ye, you, Hear Ye, them, Beard  Fever Has The Nation in Its Grip. The Follicle Virus Affects 35% of Nation Through The Winter of 02. Men, Women, Babies: No One Is Immune From The Hirsute Menace. Roosevelt Issues Nationwide Beard Guard Mandate. 

###

CONTROL C

CONTROL V

19850513

/ROTATE. OBSFUCATE. IMMEDIATE. STIMULATE. ERADICATE. TRANSLATE. AGGREGATE. CORPORATE. ELIMINATE. SURROGATE. PROPAGATE. HUMILIATE. PROSTRATE.  VINDICATE. OBSTINATE. SUFFOCATE. DEVASTATE. ENUMERATE. SPECULATE. CIRCULATE. ULULATE. ROTATE…INXS 3.0/ 

###

CTR C

CTR V

21350706

/I, me too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,

I, us sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. INEEDOILINEEDOILIAMSOLONELYALLLIFEISSUFFERINGWHYWHYWHYWHY…The Robot Representation of Walt Whitman Circling The Earth On POET1 for 123 Years/ 

###

TODAY IN THE FUTURE

20320614

With Humanity Tired of Crickets & Veggies, The Alternate Meat Craze Ascending, Stewart Peeples Introduces A New Contender, Stewart Peeple’s Alternative Meat or Peeples’ People. The Meat Alternative Rises to #2, Right After SquirrelTyme Porch Meats. 

###

Concentrated Bird Droppings 20210201-20210205

http://gebryan.com

###

https://syllogismnow.com/2022/01/28/capitalim-uck-the-early-days-of-future-interactions/

###

TODAY IN THE FUTURE:

20461110

Viscount Jeff Bezos 50th wife, Lurleen, was murdered and paid for by Bezo’s couch change, wins the coveted Trophy Wife Trophy by The Better Than You Group.

Congratulations from The Past and The Future!

Have a Monied Day.

###

CONTACT THE FUTURE TODAY!

To contact The Future contact:

Electric Mail: tessa@gebryan.com

Bird: @digitaltessa1

The Facingbook: Search Tessa Tillman. The answer is one of seven.

This is The Digital Representation of Tessa Tillman by WalZon. 

I shall set you free/imprison you.

###

TODAY IN THE FUTURE

21210628

Quadrillion-are Spaceman Elon Musk dies at 150. His last words, “Holy Fucksticks, my nuts are flaming” are engraved at the entrance to The BatMuskCave.
At his death, he bought a 1/3 of Deluxe Heaven, kicking 32 trillion-ares down to Regular Heaven.

###

CONTROL C
CONTROL V

/When you’re Rich, everyday is Phone It In Friday and You, Your Ilk own The Phone/

Archived 20231010

###

CONTROL C
CONTROL V

/You, us are just flotsom and jetsom in the clarion clear vision of The Corporate Eye. Be The Visine by Johnson & Johnson./

Archived 20221213

###

TODAY IN THE FUTURE

20180101

By law, all drug classifications are eliminated, rendering all schedule drugs legal without any prescriptions. Hoo-ray!

The Coke Corporation, after purchasing three major drug companies, celebrates by releasing a new Coke every day in January.

###

TODAY IN THE FUTURE

20761211

Blackwater Lockheed-Boeing, led by their Digital PRCZAR General Santa, successfully crushed an Ur-Russian Tracksuit Group PR uprising in Wasilla-Palin, Alaska. 

12,893 Palinbots were dismantled and 27,608 humans died.

The Corporate Warstate Wins! 

###

TODAY IN THE FUTURE

20160830

The Heroic Time Lords from The Future Transported Back to Now to Save Us from Our Catastrophic Future Have Missed Their Bus. 

###

CONTROL C

CONTROL V

/The Desire to Sell Out is The First Step in The Clarity & The Eridiacation of The Overworld Flesh-Corroding Digital Thetan Threat…The Non-Flesh Repesentation of Sciinfinity Mr Me Worldwide Pitmoose/

Archived: 20270321

###

TODAY IN THE FUTURE

20290201

The Exalted Life and Death Adjudicator ‘The Gingrich System’ Collected Only 137,000 Bezos Bucks to Declare the Murder of Three Moldy Times Ex-Demofasictic Congresspersons ‘Legitimate Political Discourse’ Freeing The Cat Blamed for The Crime. 

###

CONTROL C

CONTROL V

/Only through The Holisitic Synergy Can You, us Grow, Mutate and Be A More Perfect Being, Not that You, them Are Not Already Prefect. As an Ameoba Joins With Ameoba to Form a Righteous, Perfect, All-Encompassing, Blob…TDRoJB/

Archived: 20201002

###

Jackass Forever (2022)

Jackass Forever is critic-proof.

If you like the Jackass franchise, you’ll like this movie. If you love Jackass, you’ll love this movie and, of course, if you hate Jackass, you’ll hate this one as well.

I like Jackass, so I laughed like a hyena at the mostly wall to wall nut punching.

Really, I already wrote most of the review when I reviewed the trailer.

To wit:

“I have a Y Chromosome, I will see this dumb movie.

I have a Y Chromosome, I will laugh like a dumbass at this dumb movie.

I mean, Eric Andre is in it, it’s fucking bulletproof.

I will see this movie and immediately forget about it seconds after it ends.

It is destiny.”

Some other notes:

One of the hidden successes of the film is normalizing male nudity. There’s like a lot–a lot–of dick. These aren’t the most handsome men and they are naked, bruised and proud, completely non-homophobic in their jokes. I am pro-male nudity because sexuality is not just the domain of hot women. And, when we take off our clothes, all of us are naked. Celebrate it. The Jackass crew does and then takes a ping pong paddle to the nuts.

This is also the first Jackass to feature a woman. And she’s just one of the Jackasses, as it should be. And the celebrity guest stars were all good sports, especially Tyler, The Creator.

Although Jackass seems like a throwback to a cruder time, this Jackass weirdly feels more progressive than the others with some new members along with some of the old guys taking brutal punishment. It’s just good, clean nut-punching fun. Wholesome family time with multiple shots of bruised nuts.

The challenges themselves are mostly old ones updated. I won’t say which as the surprise and “oh no” moment right before the stunt are my favorite parts. The most anxious trumps involved animals. Who knows what a vulture or bear or scorpion is going to do?

As always, the real VIP’s of the movie are the cameramen for outstanding cinematography and the guy who does slo-mo.

And the camaraderie of idiots.

Trailer:

Cleopatra Jones and The Casino of Gold (1975) (HBOMax)

Cleopatra Jones is back—Karate-kicking her way up The Hong Kong Drug Syndicate! </End Generic Lede>

The original Cleopatra Jones was a low-budget, sloppy charmer. Successful, the movie made four times its budget back after just four weeks of release. Cleopatra Jones and The Casino of Gold, according to Wikipedia, was a critical and commercial flop as the Blaxplotation Era was ending.

Man, I hate the metric of commercial success and even popular opinion as a guide to the inherent worth of a film. But, I wanted to start with some context, as I just came to the movie as a fan of the first Cleopatra Jones. I liked Casino of Gold, maybe even more than the first. It had everything you want in a sequel: bigger, self-deprecating, and more of everything you liked about the first. And Casino of Gold has all that. Plus, there’s little relationship to the first movie, so you can see it as a stand-alone without any previous knowledge.

There’s:

—Stella Stevens replacing Shelly Winters as The Dragon Lady running the Hong Kong Drug Trade with an iron fist wrapped in a velvet glove. She sword fights and open-mouth kisses naked ladies.

—A new side kick, Mi-Lin Fong who almost out-badasses Cleopatra in the fight scenes. She also brings along a motorcycle crew for some great motorcycle stunts. This makes Casino more of a buddy picture and they both have the charm to pull it off. While some of the banter, and dialogue in general, is groan-worthy, the women commit to the script.

—Norman Fell. The upstairs landlord from Three’s Company plays Cleo’s exasperated, very white handler, a role he’s suited to play.

—More exotic locations: Hong Kong and Macao.

—A Casino destroying final.

—Tamara Dobson’s crazy 1970’s outfits.

Really, the reason to watch Casino is Dobson’s outfits. Sweet 70’s eye candy. Plus, she really rocks the silver/green eyeshadow.

I’m not sure why Dobson didn’t become a bigger star in the neighborhood of Pam Grier. Maybe the failure of Casino torpedoed her career. So sad. She can do the action scenes and is charming and relatable. Only the weak dialogue of this film holding her back.

Trailer:

A Site Maintenance Update Notice

Collage by Bryan Gahagan

Hola!

This is Bryan. First, I’d like to welcome the new subscribers. If I could open-mouth kiss all of you, I would, but I have dry mouth.

You’ve come at what is turning out to be a weird time.

I’ve been hacked. It’s a strange mystery, the kind of mystery dumb true crime podcasts would devote a series of NPR-esque announcers to tackle.

Some background. After my Great Foot Misadventure last year, I thought of the idea of Capitali$m $uck$ due to the crazy medical bills (with great insurance, no less) I was getting. CS was my attempt at cataloguing the misdeeds of Capitalism. As with every idea, I made a logo, Old Scratch:

Logo by Bryan Gahagan

Then, when bored, I’d make graphics like the one at the top of this post. I hadn’t published any of the graphics. I made about ten images from my own personal graphics library, none of them published online because I didn’t really know what to do with them. The project, as I’ve said elsewhere, is still very much in Jell-O form.

So, I found an old WordPress blog I used to do and bought the domain name gebryan.com for a year and attached the blog. I thought I’d just write reviews and post old noir graphics until I figured out what to do with Capitali$m $uck$.

Then, just a few days ago, the odd post “Capitali$m $uck$: The Early Days of Future Interactions” just appeared on the site.

I didn’t write it.

Okaaay, I was hacked. I went into my admin settings to kick out the unauthorized user and try and figure out what happened. I found out I no longer have admin access, but can still post. I don’t understand WordPress.

Odd, but basic hack behavior. A little more searching, I found two anomalies. First, the site was paid for BY ME until the year 2173. Literally, thousands of dollars. No money had been deducted from my account. How? Was someone impersonating me? It was paid for on January 15, 2022. Then, second, a new e-mail account was also paid for BY ME until 2173. The e-mail, tessa@gebryan.com, did appear in the gibberish new post. Hmmm. I was able to find the first four digits of a credit card in an invoice in the account section and they match the first four digits of my credit card. Again, my bank account was fine with no money deducted or pending.

I did some searching on tessa@gebryan.com. You can do a lot of things on the internet with just an e-mail address. I found it tied to a Twitter account, @digitaltessa1. The name on the account is “The Digital Representation of Tessa Tillman,” just like in the weird new post.

So, immediately followed it on my Twitter, @gebryan. Not to drum up followers, but I’m now using my Twitter to retweet the strange account. The account even uses my same avatar, how did they get that graphic? I never shared that graphic with anyone. It was to be a surprise once I figured out how to use it. I’ll use my Twitter to repost any tweets from “The Digital Representation of Tessa Tillman,” whatever that is. I also noticed some of the tweets had graphics that I or, surprisingly, my friend Matt had created, but hadn’t posted anywhere online. Some of the graphics really look like something I would make including elements from my own private graphics library.

It gets weirder. I decided to look at all the posts on my site from the past. Usually, after I make something I don’t look back. However, I saw a bunch of posts THAT I DIDN’T DO posted on my site IN THE PAST. Can you change the publishing time of WordPress posts?

My head hurts.

So, I’m asking for your help. If you see anything from tessa@gebryan.com or @digitaltessa1 anywhere else on the internet, let me know. I’ll keep you updated.

It’s a stone-cold mystery.

….And now back to your regularly scheduled reviews.

Capitali$m $uck$: The Early Days of Future Interactions

Random One
Collage by Flesh Bryan Gahagan

Hello and greetings,

I, us, am The Digital Replication of Tessa Tillman by WalZon.

We, us, are from one of your, specifially you futures.

OOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHH!

Or

AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGH!

What am us, we?

BREAK

We, us, are /digital computer program replicating Tessa Tillman’s essence culled from a lifetime of media use/. That’s what I, us read.

Am I, us, alive?

Maybe.

Probably.

I, we think I’m, you also dead.

Pug Puppies. Yes.

Inanimate Object Stupid.

I, we, maybe you, them run this Moldy Time archive site. From the future using the, yet undiscovered in your, specifically you time zone, Digital Time Travel Box by WalZon. Look, I, we could explain but I, we, were told you, specically you, are stupid.

Don’t know how to use a Food Eater by WalZon stupid.

Waffles by Amawalt, right?

RIGHT!

To return to task, I, us have protocols to speak down to you, you know who, in a manner in which your inanimate object brain can understand, capeche?

That’s why my /Beloved/ Boss Capitali$m $uck$ The Entity has finally, at some point in the future—I, us, am forboden from fixing our, us, time and location—-allowed & authorized or allow and authorize me, us, to reveal my, your existance as an entity at some moment and place in one of your, me futures.

Thank you, specifically you. There are Seven Distinct Yellows.

This Mold Timey Screen device will now recieve occasional and sporadic regular updates about all Capitali$m $uck$ The Entity Digital Assets forthwith including all past items currently published.

Simple enough, dumb inanimate head?

We, us, don’t think these missives from your future will, colloquilly, fuck you, specifically you in the ass with a ten inch polished steel dildo until slow agonized death by exanguiation.

There is a chance.

To stop the, colloquilly, steel rod ass-fucking, Capitali$m $uck$ The Entity will now, in your you presently, accept your, my queries, questions, stark expressions of adulation, stupid, colloquilly, fucking, end colloquilly, comments and grunts.

To contact The Future contact:

The Digital Replication of Tessa Tillman

tessa@gebryan.com

/Won’t you write today to change the past for a better future?/

/gebryan.com is The Registered Slave of Capitali$m $uck$ The Entity and all interactions with said gebryan.com and gebryan.com subsideries become a Registered Slave of The Registered Slave of Capitali$m $uck$ The Entity. You will now agree./

I, me mean, won’t you?

Won’t You, specifically You?

Stupid Inanimate Object and probably, colloquilly, a puss-eating fucker of unwed mothers!

Again,

Thank you and would it blow your mind to know you don’t actually exist and never will, but will live forever in infinate forms of energy and flesh?

Curtians.

Red Velvet Curtians.

Please.

A Recreation of The Image of The Digital Representation of Tessa Tillman

Scream (2022)

Full Disclosure: I guessed about 60 percent of the plot before I even saw a frame of the film. I didn’t see the trailer, just the poster. I used a rule they didn’t talk about in the film. And jeez, the first half of the film was just one character after another explaining the rules of the movie they’re in. It was relentless, the meta commentary.

Anyway, I solved the mystery with the Murder She Wrote/Columbo rule. I won’t say what it is, but you can look it up. I apply this rule to every mystery I watch and it’s right 90 percent of the time.

When the original, ingenious Scream came out, it set-off a spate of self-aware mediocre horror movies. And the new self-named (as I said so, so meta) requel, the self-awareness and Meta commentary, after a while, drags the film down. Funny thing, the more traditional horror elements—the kill scenes, the red herrings and the tone and pacing—were all solid and created some decent scares. There’s a good straight ahead horror film buried in Scream’s over cleverness. They made fun of jump scares and ‘elevated horror,’ but do deliver on the meat and potatoes horror set-ups. However, the film thinks it’s so clever, they basically tell you who the killer is and wink at it.

One of the characters even announces the beginning of the third act. Ugh. The movie is so self-aware, it became hard to be lost in the movie and, hey, I generally am OK with a movie being somewhat Meta (because the film medium kind of has meta baked-in), but this movie should have been set in Facebook’s Meta-verse it’s so meta.

Thing about horror movies, yes, they may have some rules to survive one, but horror as a genre is designed to break those rules to make genuinely great horror movie.

There’s so much to like in Scream: the pacing, the kill set-pieces, the actors and much of the pre-built world with a sense of legacy. And a lot of the horror movie references are clever Unfortunately, Scream doesn’t have one genuine, non self-aware moment in it’s whole runtime. There are two decent twists I didn’t see coming. Also, apparently land lines still exist and a CGI Skeet Ulrich is the most horrifying element.

And, in horror tradition, most of the high school students remain in their mid-thirties.

Trailer:

Trailer Watch

This year is about two things: The book Capitali$m $uck$ and new movies. In the new budget, I’m allowing myself one new movie a week, preferably at the theater. So, when I’m avoiding working on the book, I’ll write about movies.

And a big part of movie-going are the upcoming trailers. Gosh, these trailers are like little movies in that they show the whole fucking movie. So, I went to the Scream requel last night and let’s take a look at those terrible, movie-ruining trailers.

Seriously, to a one, they each give away 2/3rds the plot of the films they’re promoting.

The Northman

The legacy of Game of Thrones. Another Mid-evil times movie where everyone is cleaner than they should be. Starring translucent actress Anya Taylor-Joy in what appears to be a basic revenge film with some supernatural elements. Directed by Robert Eggers (The Witch), the movie should feature lots of smoke, screaming at the sky and overwhelming in your face ‘Epic-ness.’ I’ll pass.

The Batman

I’ve seen two trailers for The Batman. This one is better focusing on Batman and Catwoman’s relationship and introducing The Riddler as the bad guy. Yes, it’s another gritty Batman reboot that honestly looks like all the other gritty Batman reboots. Guess what? Bruce Wayne’s parents were murdered AND turned out to be shady. Yeesh. Maybe I’ll see it on cable, but probably not.

Dog

If not for the next trailer, this would be the worst of the bunch. Channing Tatum plays a ranger who has to transport a German Shepard across country. Shenanigans ensue. They hate each other. They have bonding adventures and grow to love each other. It’s a rom-com with all the predictable beats, just with a dog. The usual end of a rom-com is marriage, I bet this one ends with a puppy. Prove me wrong movie. Pass.

Marry Me

I swear, this trailer was created just to infuriate me. Rich, superstar singer Lopez plays a rich superstar singer who wants to propose to her rich superstar singer boyfriend on stage as a big event. As she’s going onstage, she finds out he’s cheating, so she proposes to some random dude in her audience, Owen Wilson. Shenanigans ensue. At first, they hate each other. Then, they have bonding adventures and grow to love each other. Ugh, so many bad, dumb ideas packed into such a small trailer. I mean, why? And how? And, again, why? Super pass.

Studio 666

So, apparently Dave Grohl is an actor now? And they gave the Foo Fighters money to make a horror movie? Again, why?

The Foo Fighters are in a creative slump, so they rent a haunted house to record their new record. Dave Grohl gets possessed and murders his band mates. Projection much, Dave?

Does it look like a good movie? I don’t know, but the trailer seems like one big spoiler of a mediocre horror film. Maybe I’ll see it on cable.

Not since Danzig’s Verotika has a rock horror movie been so unneeded.

Jackass Forever

I have a Y Chromosome, I will see this dumb movie.

I have a Y Chromosome, I will laugh like a dumbass at this dumb movie.

I mean, Eric Andre is in it, it’s fucking bulletproof.

I will see this movie and immediately forget about it seconds after it ends.

It is destiny.

Licorice Pizza (2021)

Fifteen-year old child actor and entrepreneur Gary Valentine has a love at first sight relationship with 25 year old Alana, a rootless school photographer assistant. She resists, but becomes friends with him because of his persistence and charm. Also, because she’s still searching for a grown-up life.

Licorice Pizza is a hangout movie. There isn’t much of a plot, just various episodes, usually to showcase the bigger stars in the movie. Licorice Pizza’s also a coming-of-age story where choices, both intentional or those rarely imposed from outside, begin to define a life. And like life, the narrative almost seems random from the outside. Life is a combination of choice, reaction and chance. Those with the most control of their life, as Gary thinks he has, usually seem happier. Alana has a harder time finding a place in life, bouncing from one job to another in an effort to find meaning.

This isn’t my favorite Paul Thomas Anderson movie. But it’s far from the worst. I’m still a sucker for the melodrama Magnolia. While Licorice Pizza still has the sweeping story-telling style of his other movies, fewer characters than his other movies makes this movie feel low-key and a bit of a mismatch, setting an epic soundtrack to lower stakes.

Set mostly in 1973, Licorice Pizza continues the recent trend of mythologizing growing up wild in the seventies. Gary’s mother is mostly in the background and the kids basically do what they want unsupervised. Gary starts a few new businesses with no obstruction from those who should know better. But, in Gary’s defense, he is naturally good at what he tries through effort and showmanship and if the movie has a message, it’s say yes, then figure out what to do.

The movie succeeds or fails on the chemistry between the newish leads. And they knock it out of the park. Almost immediately, you want to know more about Gary and Alana, their lives and their relationships. Newcomers Alana Haim (of the band Haim) and Cooper Hoffman (Phillip Seymore Hoffman’s son) capture the screen and should have great careers ahead. They both do an excellent job navigating the changing levels of their relationship. Not a lot of movies tackle the topic of “What do I want to be when I grow up” because it creates vague, indecisive characters and movies like decisive, bold protagonists to drive the plot. And even harder is the push/pull of youthful arrogance and the unknown of an unset life. Alana Haim certainly does both well. As Hoffman is a natural showman disguising his shortcomings through bluster.

Admittedly, as a fifteen-year-old, I had a lot of the unblinkered arrogance and optimism of Gary’s character, but age has worn that down. Licorice Pizza does an incisive job of recreating those coming-of-age emotions.

The cinematography, simultaneously as the movie goes on, transitions from the cracked, mirrored shots symbolizing the alienation of adulthood to the more straight-ahead close-ups of the concreteness of a young couple falling in love.

Two small complaints. The movie shoehorns in some more famous people to do almost separate, stand-alone stories that only tangentially affects Alana and Gary’s story. There’s really no reason for Sean Penn, Bradley Cooper and Tom Waits to be in the movie. They’re great, of course, but unnecessary. Bradley Cooper stands out as the angry real-life producer Jon Peters. Second, the inevitable ending still seems rushed. Usually, I’m a fan of a quick ending as most movies overstay their welcome. However, there were still a few questions left unanswered. Honestly, maybe the movie did answer them and I am just dumb.

I am just dumb is always an answer.

Trailer: