Hard Eight - 6.0

Hard Eight is P.T. Anderson's first feature film and deals with an old-school con artist/gambler (played by Philip Baker Hall, aka Bookman from Seinfeld) who takes a young loser under his wing (John C. Reilly). It also features decent supporting turns from Gwyneth Paltrow and Samuel L. Jackson and one good scene with Philip Seymour Hoffman. It's not nearly as polished or stylish as Anderson's later films but is effective as a more or less straight forward character study. Watching it, I kept thinking of Thief, one of Michael Mann's first features - the two movies don't have a whole lot in common, but like with Thief, there are moments of brilliance where you can really see the genius of the filmmaker but that potential isn't yet fully realized. Lucky for us, PTA followed up Hard Eight with Boogie Nights and Magnolia. As for Michael Mann, even luckier for us, since the dude hasn't ever made a bad movie and has made several flat-out great ones - Heat, Last of the Mohicans, The Insider being the best with Manhunter, Ali, Collateral, and Miami Vice behind - hadn't expressed my man-love for Michael Mann in a while, good to get it out of my system. Anyways, back to P.T., I've now seen all 4 of his movies and he's definitely up there as one of my favorite working directors with Spielberg, Mann, Tarantino, Chris Nolan, of course the Mexican contingent (Innaritu, Cuaron, Del Toro), and several others. I'm really looking forward to P.T.'s new film coming out this winter, There Will Be Blood, featuring Daniel Day-Lewis (!!!). Even a pretty weak trailer hasn't dampened my excitement for that one.