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Originally Posted by Murmer99
Just finished watching this and it's really my favorite thing I've seen by Anderson. All four of the main roles delivered and it tells an excellent little crime story. I love how it's neither too long or too short, it feels just right. I say this because I often find that his films sort of drag. Not sure why I neglected this for so long but thanks to demonrail for encouraging me to check this out. The father/son thing he seems to play around with in his work is most powerful in Hard Eight I think. |
YES!!!!! Brilliant film! I've a feeling PTA himself isn't that big a fan, that it wasn't quite the film he wanted to make, but it's close to perfect for me. Philip Baker Hall and John Reilly are fantastic together. And I love Gwyneth Paltrow in it, too - although I'm becoming a bigger fan of her the more films I see her in (being largely put off in the beginning by stuff like Shakespeare in Love). I also just love the whole dead-end Vegas feel to it all. I've still yet to see The Master (not released here until next month) and would probably count Magnolia as his great artistic achievement but Hard Eight is the one I could watch over and over again just for the sheer pleasure of it. A mini masterpiece that, if I were to redo my all-time top ten, I'd be hard pressed not to include it. And while we all know how great an actor Philip Seymour Hoffman is, John Reilly is maybe my favourite working acting at the moment. He has a face I could watch forever. Either way, both of them are making a mockery of all those claims that 'they don't make 'em like that anymore'. Both of them would've been incredible in any era.
What a face
