What's a stoner noir without the munchies?

It was mid-January, exactly 6 years go, when I first saw it. My 20th birthday present: a new PT Anderson film. And thinking about it now, I partially blame the backdrop of an Alaskan winter for my initial reaction.

Fresh off that screening, I was confident I’d just seen PT’s weakest film to date (and I wasn’t alone). It had to happen sooner or later, I thought. And with my complicated feelings about The Master growing more complicated each day, I wasn’t altogether surprised PT had finally fumbled the ball. In fact, I might’ve even been a lil grateful: if this is what a ‘bad’ PT movie looked like, then fuck if he didn’t fumble with grace.

I rarely read reviews - mostly because I know what I’m gonna get, positive or negative: self-indulgent prose with little substance. But what’s funny is that sometimes when I re-read my own reviews I find I’m guilty of this, too. I don’t know exactly how that happens - even as I write this, I suspect I’ll look at it in a month and roll my eyes at the verbosity. I guess we - all of us - ramble until we actually say something, which is also a pretty good description of Inherent Vice. 

Reviews for the film were similar to the film itself: vague, confused, exhaustive attempts to unpack what happened. And nobody was in a rush to call the movie mediocre, it being a PT joint n’ all. Incidentally, this had nothing to do with my own feelings about the movie (which were clear to me from the outset), but I looked at the reviews because I was curious to see if anybody - bloggers, YouTubers, professional critics, friends - was able to look past the movie’s convoluted narrative and offer up a succinct diagnosis for why it didn’t work. Nobody was.

And more than that, if I’m being honest, I wanted to know how many Anderson stans out there were willing to call a spade a spade. None were. 

Needless to say, approximately zero reviews made mention of anything that actually pertains to the quality of a movie - any movie, not just this one. Everyone agreed it was meh, albeit reticently, but nobody seemed to know why. I won’t speculate as to other peoples’ reasons, but mine was singular: Joaquin. He was miscast -- unfunny, uncharismatic, and kind of a sore thumb. He couldn’t carry the story and, as a result, I didn’t much care for it. And if that sounds reductive then you’re starting to see my point: when you have a film whose tone and pacing are a teetering Jenga tower, one wrong pull can send the whole thing tumbling down. 

But here comes the fun part: that entropy works both ways. 

Now, to be clear, this isn’t one of those “the movie grew on me” things. This is something more specific to this particular movie: pizza (and cinnamon bread sticks). See, Inherent Vice is a vibe. No more, no less. Just like its predecessor. And sometimes all you need to tie a room together is a new piece of furniture... 

I, for one, have never been afraid of supplementing my moviegoing experiences. In fact, neither is anybody else: horror movies are better on Halloween, and Christmas movies are better on Christmas. Those are two universally-accepted examples of the true nature of cinema: the ‘quality’ of any movie is an amorphous and impermanent thing (which is why film criticism itself is sorta DOA, tbh). 

I watched Inherent Vice in mid January. I enjoyed it about as much as I’d enjoy Krampus on a July afternoon. But this isn’t even about seasonal context, necessarily. A hot, summery backdrop helps, but this is about something more tangible: PIZZA! (and cinnamon bread sticks)

(Actually, it’s mostly about cinnamon bread sticks.)

Flashback to the summer of 2018, while living in Florida, I revisited Vice for the first time in three years. By sheer happenstance, I also ordered myself some pepperoni pan pizza + the aforementioned cinnamon bread sticks from Hungry Howie’s. This cute little accident quickly became a routine for me, and now, on my 26th birthday, I pass it along to you, reader:

The pizza and Inherent Vice went together like pizza and Inherent Vice (it’s a thing). Linearly speaking, the paired aromas of the cinnamon and pizza sauce (not to mention your growling stomach) complement the breezy, zoned-out opening to the film. Ideally, you shouldn’t take your first bite til you hear “Vitamin C” 

Howie’s doesn’t go easy on the cheese or the sauce - or at least they didn’t where I lived - and for the better: it’s greasy and kinda gross, but in an endearing way, like our protagonist. And their dough is of a particularly soft and moist consistency, not unlike the dopey whimsy suffused throughout this hazy noir, but remember: this is a PT Anderson Picture, so the physical humor is directed with the photorealism of The Killing of a Chinese Bookie -- the pepperoni can help bridge this tonal gap. (You can order your crust stuffed if you want, but I found the fluffy, unstuffed crust was better suited to Bigfoot Bjornsen’s temperament.) 

Word to the wise: eat slow. If the pizza cools off a little, til it’s just above room temperature, that’s even better. Hopefully it’s the middle of June and the AC is broken.  

After the pie is devoured and you’re feeling disgusting, you’ll probably have to step away from the TV for a minute to nuke the cinnamon sticks and the icing, but don’t pause it -- you’ve seen the movie already and nothing in it makes any fucking sense anway, so as long as the vibe follows you to the kitchen then so does the movie.

And now it’s time for this B- movie to jump up a whole letter grade.

The proverbial (and in this case, literal) icing on a noir is, of course, the mystery. Vice is categorized as a ‘stoner noir,’ and if we’re calling it that then let’s not mince words: for better or worse, it is the stoner noir. Objectively, it’s twistier than any Coen yarn and more lethargic than fuckin’ Apocalypse Now. And the yarn is never unraveled either - it just twists tighter and tighter until it’s so tight it flattens into a straight line. Questions pile up atop one another without anything even resembling an answer. So, while the story tantalizes your imagination with empty calories, you can do the same to your stomach.

By the third act you’ll be feeling fat, sweaty, sleepy, and stupid, and with a little luck, you might be moved to tears, too, when Bigfoot eats Doc’s weed. 

And who knows, maybe one day, if I decide to switch up my beverage, the movie could nudge its way into my all-time Top 100.