Licorice Pizza was Overrated!

There, I said it. Now, let me explain. Ever since I had seen the trailer wayyyy back last fall, I had wanted to go see it. Nearly everyone I’ve talked to about it has raved about how awesome it was, and how it was a movie of the year candidate. I mean, people are stealing God damn bus bench posters of the movie because it’s so popular. So I’ve had a lot of hype riding on this movie. I was VERY excited.

Well finally, last night, I parked my ass (the only ass in the seats at this entire AMC theater, quite cozy mind you), sat down and watched it. I have to say, the performances were all really good- Alana and Cooper Hoffman had some real swank to them. Bradley Cooper was fantastic in it (as expected), and had one of the funniest lines fo the entire film. Generally, most of the other performances were pretty great.

But now, my big gripe. While sure, I liked the nostalgia, and the music, and even the snippets of dialogue were great, the movie certainly did not deserve the two and a half hours it begged for. Especially when there were lull periods of honestly, nothing really new happening. If that movie was an hour forty, maybe an hour fifty… it would’ve been absolutely perfect.

Perhaps this is the era of cinema we’re in right now where the story doesn’t need to be commercially moving, it can just be two hours of nostalgic look-porn that gets everybody riled up, and that’s what I think we have a case of, right here. So, in saying that, I can definitely commend the cinematography. It was really good (there was one shot outside of a jail that I thought was one of the most brilliant shots I’d ever seen in a movie).

However, while all the various subplots were interesting, if you’re gonna go on all these tangents they gotta pay off in the end. Unfortunately, it really kinda didn’t. If you want engaging story, you won’t find it here, it’s just a case of a lot of things “happening.” And that’s why I really don’t think it deserves all the hype it has been getting.