"SHUT UP, SHUT UP! SHUT, SHUT, SHUT, SHUT, SHUT UP… SHUT UP!"
#3 on Berken's Favorite Movies Of All Time

Everyone involved in the making of Silver Linings Playbook should look on this movie and despair. This is how you make an offbeat indie rom-com with a bipolar protagonist, David O. Russell. You can, for that matter, give your audience a happy, uplifting ending without resorting to Hollywood cliches and ending everything with a "you had me at hello" style rom-com one-liner, you just have to put a little bit more effort into it.

It's sort of incredible how Paul Thomas Anderson reinvented his whole toolkit to fit the protagonist and universe he was working with here. My favorite touch…

I couldn't have asked for anything more from a comedy / romance film, that also works remarkably well on a dramatic level. Punch-drunk Love is constantly very funny and entertaining to watch, but there's so much more to it. We dive into the life of Barry Egan, who had a tough time growing up with his many sisters, suffering from bullying and humiliation. Now he has a lot of difficulty to connect with people and is also mentally unstable. Adam Sandler really surprised me with this powerful performance, showing so many different layers to his character. Barry is a very lonely person and when he finally meets someone he can relate too, things start to fall apart and he encounters…

Taken at face value this is an inconsequential film without substance. And to be honest, when I first saw it ten years ago I wasn't impressed. I wanted another Magnolia. PTA taking on love? It should be grand, soul-searching and deeply moving. Instead I got Adam Sandler (who I find extremely annoying), a silly plot and a stylistically uneven film.

That film apparently is not this film I have just watched, ten years later.

It is amazing how time changes your perception on things. Having loved and lost a whole lot more than I had when I first watched it, it is so much easier to chip away at the seemingly lighthearted narrative to expose the underlying themes and sentiments…

I always get strange looks when I tell people this is my favourite Paul Thomas Anderson film.

“But what about There Will Be Blood?”
“Have you not seen Boogie Nights?”

These are both sensible questions and brilliant films but it doesn’t change the fact Punch-Drunk Love is still his true masterpiece. It is his best film for numerous reasons - it is his best because it has a creative freedom rarely seen in his work, before or since. Anderson has become famous for making epic movies be they convoluted and complex ensemble dramas or films on a vast canvas. Punch-Drunk Love, on the other hand, is a small movie in every conceivable way be it cast size, narrative complexity and…

I don't know what was more surprising with this movie; Adam Sandler's performance, or Luis Guzman NOT having a mustache and a goatee...

But I think I'll have to go with Adam Sandler on this one. Wow. That came out of nowhere. PTA has a knack for pulling great performances out of unexpected people, and pulling unexpected performances out of great people. Sandler plays his character Barry with so much wounded and mysterious depth. The film only gives us little snippets of information regarding his past and I could see why that would be frustrating to some. But just like in real life, you have to forget the past to really begin the healing process. The past isn't important when…

Barry, a bathroom supply salesman prone to spasms of rage, tries to escape constant harassment from three thugs and his seven sisters. He finds his life refreshed when he meets Lena, who falls in unconditional love with him. (Netflix)

I don’t know if it’s a good or bad thing that I identified so much with Barry Egan while re-watching PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE.

What I do know for sure, though, is that I f’n loved every second of it.

It had been a long time since I’d first seen this movie and I’d forgotten quite a bit about it. In fact, I think the first time I did actually see it, I only paid minimal attention. Now, after finally seeing it again…