Paul Thomas Anderson Says the "Good Shit" Never Wins Awards

Every year, during awards season, we all pick our favorites and hope they take home the statues. But let's be honest, lots of times the movies we loved the most go home empty-handed. Maybe they're too weird, or too mainstream, or just sit somewhere in the middle, and thus no one votes for them, but that's how it goes.

Well, the same goes for filmmakers. 

When it comes to the Academy Awards, we often find that the people voting haven't even seen all the movies available. which can be maddening for the people sitting at home who actually paid to do the research. 

Recently, Paul Thomas Anderson sat down with IndieWire to chat about his movie, Licorice Pizza, and Awards season.

When asked about watching the other movies up for awards this year, Anderson told Indiewire:

"I’ve seen most of them. I’ve seen one of the documentaries, and the stuff that becomes my favorite is documentary short subject. They’re always the most inventive and interesting. Also, I really want to see Drive My Car. The only reason I haven’t seen that is because I will not start that movie after six or seven in the evening, which is when I’m free. I understand it’s quite long and I do not want to mess around with breaking that up into two parts. I’ve made no secret of the fact that Worst Person in the World is an absolute joy of a movie, so brilliant. It’s kind of like the current-day Licorice Pizza. They share many things, particularly astonishing lead performances from actresses you’d never really heard of before. At least, I’d never heard of that actress and she’s totally incredible. That film really got me. One other film: obviously not enough people saw Spencer, because there’s no way you could pay attention to what we do and not give that film more recognition. Not just for Kristen Stewart’s performance, which is astonishing, but just across the board it’s an incredibly well-done film. But it’s not unlike all the other categories. Good shit never wins."

Sometimes it feels that way, but I was happy to hear Anderson spends his time watching everything, which is more than you can say about most of the Academy. 

Licorice Pizza is an expansive movie that covers many characters and spans the course of a few years. When he sat down to write, Anderson had to track all of these people and spent time just exploring every option. 

He said:

"This is definitely not a case of writing and seeing where it takes you. This is a case of having tons and tons of ammunition and individual pieces that I thought about for a long, long time and I tried to think about it long before I started writing anything about it, which can be quite a healthy way to start if you can enjoy the patience. Usually, you just want to rip your presents open on Christmas Eve. I was disciplined and waited to put this down until I’d more or less thought it through. The trick there is that you still have to have some room for discovery, because otherwise, what’s the point? I’d get bored. I don’t really outline it and sit and write. I’m working from memory and thought. I remember what has to happen: I’ve got to get from here to here, there’s this episode that I think is interesting. Where am I heading toward?"

I find that the only way I can sit to write anything is if I know the end and can work toward it, and I feel smart thinking Anderson feels the same way. His writing on Licorice Pizza is amazing, and watching it brought to life by Alana Haim, Cooper Hoffman, and Bradley Cooper is a blast. At any moment it feels like anything can happen.

As Anderson said, "We treated the whole thing like a play. The only way to approach it was to learn it from top to bottom. As novices, they understood there would be enough discovery on the day without having to figure out the overall scheme of the story."

That chemistry felt like it would lead to nominations for the actors in the movie, but alas. 

What were your favorite awards movies this year? Think they have any chance to win? 

Let us know in the comments.