Free to Air 29th August
Hard Eight is PTA’s first feature and his first collaboration with the great Robert Elswit. The movie was born from the success of PTA’s short film Cigarettes and Coffee also starring Philip Baker Hall. This is the dream right? Make a short, it blows up at Sundance and now your making movies.
On display is a young film maker finding his own way, working in a medium where the mundane is so often accepted, encouraged and (sometimes) praised. If this flopped we’d probably never have Magnolia, Punch Drunk Love, There Will be Blood, The Master and Inherrent Vice, some of my favourite films of all time. I wish studios would take a chance on fresh talent more often, arming them with an accomplished cast and crew.
As Wayne Gretzky once said “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”. PTA, thankfully, took his shot.
Philip Baker Hall and Gwyneth Paltrow are magnetic, it’s shot beautifully and the soundtrack by Jon Brion and Michael Penn is on point.
Hard Eight is free to air on SBS (it’s a good print too).
