Paul Thomas Anderson At NYFF: 5 Influences of ‘Inherent Vice’ Plus Curated Clips & Films You Should Know

Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Inherent Vice” is still swirling around in the heads of many who were lucky enough to catch it last night at the New York Film Festival. A loose-limbed, groovy, dazed and confused adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s stoner detective story of the same name, the dense and haze-of-pot-smoke-thick movie is also a kind of poetic elegy to the 1960s counter-culture era as the paranoiac era of Manson Family distrust curdled the peace and love generation. Funny, sad, absurdist and dreamy, it’s a lot to take in and also contains one of the thorniest noir-mystery plots to ever hit the screen. Don’t worry, you won’t figure it out — and it’s not for the average civilian viewer — but that’s not the point. Sit back and just let the sun-kissed experience wash over you like a humid fever dream (read our review here).

So it’s kind of Paul Thomas Anderson celebration weekend at the New York Film Festival. The movie screened for press, for the public and PTA and some of his...