Paul Thomas Anderson's seventh film, Inherent Vice, is a surreal, kinky, and stoned epic of mammoth proportions. The fact that Anderson decided to be the first director adapt the wild prose of Thomas Pynchon is an achievement in of itself. Set in Los Angeles in the early Seventies, Larry "Doc" Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix) awakens from his stony stupor when his ex-girlfriend (Katherine Waterston) tries to find sanctuary from her real-estate mogul boyfriend, his wife, and her boyfriend. In traditional noir fashion, not all is simple as it sounds as a bigger presence is involved with a cavalcade of characters thrown into Doc's world; a heroin-addicted sax player from a surf-rock band (Owen Wilson), a coked- up dentist with the libido of a rabbit (Martin Short), and an LAPD officer/failed actor (Josh Brolin) busting anyone with long-hair and forming a strange love/hate bond with Doc.

Starring:

Joanna Newsom, Katherine Waterston, Joaquin Phoenix, Jordan Christian Hearn, Taylor Bonin, Jeannie Berlin, Josh Brolin, Eric Roberts, Serena Scott Thomas, Maya Rudolph, Martin Dew, Michael Kenneth Williams, Hong Chau, Shannon Collis, Christopher Allen Nelson

Genre:

Comedy, Crime, Drama, Mystery, Romance