By The post Home Video Hovel: Punch-Drunk Love, by Rudie Obias appeared first on Battleship Pretension.
After the success of Boogie Nights and Magnolia during the 1990s, director Paul Thomas Anderson went into the early 2000s with an unlikely collaborator, Adam Sandler. Anderson hasn’t been shy about his love for the “Sandman” and his films, especially Big Daddy and Happy Gilmore, while continuing to show his affection to the SNL alum with the script for Punch-Drunk Love. And after more than 20 years since its release, it’s tough to see anyone else in the role of Barry Egan. Sandler has a naivety to his performance mixed in with bouts of rage that comes off as endearing. It’s a balance that Adam Sandler plays perfectly.
The Criterion Collection gave Punch-Drunk Love the 4K Ultra HD treatment, while it serves as the only Anderson film in the collection itself (maybe Hard Eight and Phantom Thread might be added one day).
Written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, Punch-Drunk Love follows Barry Egan (Adam Sandler), a shy and awkward, yet very angry, man who owns a company that produces novelty toilet plungers, has overbearing sisters, and spends his free time collecting pudding tops to trade in for frequent flyer miles. And oh yeah, he likes to call phone sex hotlines in a misguided way to find love, intimacy, and affection. However, when he meets a mysterious woman in red, his life crashes and turns upside down.
Punch-Drunk Love is one of Paul Thomas Anderson’s best films and really shows off his range as a writer, director, and his ability to get the most out of actors. He won the best director award during the 2002 Cannes Film Festival for a reason. Anderson is truly working at “master filmmaker mode” here. After delivering two weighty pictures with Boogie Nights and Magnolia, Punch-Drunk Love is, by comparison, light and breezy.
It has a pulse, while Sandler’s full array of acting chops is put on display with vulnerability and nuance. The film is a great example of a director and an actor in full collaboration with each other. It’s tough to imagine Punch-Drunk Love without Anderson or Sandler.
As for the release itself, it’s pretty much the same Blu-ray and DVD that the Criterion Collection offered up from 2016, it’s worth the upgrade (during a half-off sale) for the new digital restoration and not the bonus features. This is a double dip situation. However, if this is your first time purchasing (or watching) the film, then it’s well worth picking it up in 4K.
The post Home Video Hovel: Punch-Drunk Love, by Rudie Obias first appeared on Battleship Pretension.
The post Home Video Hovel: Punch-Drunk Love, by Rudie Obias appeared first on Battleship Pretension.
