Are you having a mediocre Monday? Is your day feeling sluggish? Are you a little sad that summer is ending, that the days are getting shorter, that winter is approaching?
Not anymore. The trailer for Paul Thomas Anderson’s ninth feature, “Licorice Pizza,” just dropped, and it will be impossible to feel anything but joy after you watch it.
The Haim sisters have been collaborating with Anderson on music videos for a while. (Apparently, their work together grew out of a mutual love of the Valley discovered at a party? Anyway.) Now, Alana has stepped into PTA’s world, starring in a new film that takes place in the 1970s San Fernando Valley — a setting the director last explored in “Boogie Nights.” Alana — who, unsurprisingly, appears to be a great deadpan comedian as well as a rockstar — stars opposite Cooper Hoffman, son of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, another favorite collaborator of Anderson’s.
The trailer is one of the best I’ve seen in a while, set to the David Bowie classic “Life on Mars.” And there’s a lot for Jews to love here: In addition to Haim, the trailer teases appearances by film director Benny Safdie and Jewish queen Maya Rudolph (also PTA’s wife!!), looking skeptical in a curly pixie cut she is rocking. (Supposedly Ben Stiller also plays a role, though his name is neither in the trailer nor on the poster.) My favorite moment might be when the music pauses for Bradley Cooper, playing movie producer Jon Peters, to correct Hoffman’s character’s pronunciation of Streisand: “Strei-sand.” Do we even deserve this??
The movie is due to be released on November 26. Take that, seasonal depression! Now we have something to look forward to.
