POP UP CINEMA BRIGHTON

 ALT-VALENTINE'S SPECIAL 
PAUL THOMAS ANDERSON'S
PUNCH- DRUNK LOVE
 NEW 4K REMASTER 

DIRECTOR: Paul Thomas Anderson​

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STARRING: Adam Sandler. Emily Watson, Philip Seymour Hoffman, & Luis Guzmán

Perhaps the pre-eminent filmmaker of his generation, Paul Thomas Anderson has directed such contemporary classics as One Battle After Another, Licorice Pizza, Phantom Thread, There Will Be Blood, Magnolia, and Boogie Nights. This Valentine’s Day, we bring you (as ever) a Valentine’s film that celebrates romantic love through an alternative lens: Punch-Drunk Love, Anderson’s wonderfully idiosyncratic, off-beat ode to loneliness and the act of finding love.

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In the grand Hollywood tradition of casting gregarious comedic actors in deeply sensitive roles (think Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society or Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), Anderson deploys Adam Sandler in a way that completely defies expectation. Sandler stars as Barry Egan, a socially awkward small-business owner whose overwhelming loneliness is matched only by his erratic temper and obsessive hoarding of frequent-flyer mile coupons. When Barry inadvertently attracts the affection of another lonely soul, Lena (an incandescent Emily Watson), their tentative, star-crossed romance is threatened by a swindling phone-sex operator and her con-man boss, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman in one of his most unforgettable and maniacal performances.

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Completely original and unlike any other love story, Anderson blends the realism of cinéma vérité with the heightened fantasy of classic MGM musicals and the whimsical inventiveness of Jacques Tati. The result is a delirious, art-house, technicolour dream that surprises, charms, and creates chaos at every turn. Bright and breezy yet deeply melancholy and emotionally complex, the film features breathtaking cinematography by Anderson’s frequent collaborator Robert Elswit (Oscar-winner for There Will Be Blood) and a sweeping, fairy-tale baroque-futurist score

from genius music producer (working with artists as varied as Fiona Apple and Frank Ocean), Jon Brion, who also scored the likes of Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine... and Greta Gerwig's Lady Bird. 

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Punch-Drunk Love is an oddball, intense, goofy, classical, and dreamlike journey from isolation to connection, and a testament to the inner strength love can provide. Don’t miss this gorgeous spectacle on the big screen in its director-approved 4K remaster this Valentine’s Day. Bring your significant other or fly solo, it matters not.. this Anderson masterpiece will satisfy a previously unknown corner of your soul, with its beauty, naivety, complexity, and its powerful punch of human empathy.