Portland Fans of Paul Thomas Anderson Must Seek His Film’s New Trailer at the Hollywood Theatre

According to the theater, the trailer for “Licorice Pizza” will be “popping up before select films for the next few weeks.”

The Hollywood Theatre's Head Programmer Dan Halstead holds a reel of film. (Rocky Burnside)
By Suzette Smith

[UPDATE: On Monday, Sept. 28, MGM Studios released the trailer for Licorice Pizza digitally.]

Paul Thomas Anderson fans take note: He’s released another movie house scavenger hunt.

Similar to the specialized distribution approach to the music video he made for Radiohead’s “Daydreaming” in 2016, Anderson has again locked down a hotly anticipated cinema nugget inside a few select movie houses.

The trailer for his new film Licorice Pizza—known up until this trailer debuted as Soggy Bottom—was quietly released last week on 35 mm to a number of movie houses still capable of (and in the practice of) running 35 mm prints.

Portland is lucky that one of those movie houses is the Hollywood Theatre. They tweeted about their score, saying: “We got a special surprise gift this week: a 35 mm trailer for Paul Thomas Anderson’s new film LICORICE PIZZA!”

Set to David Bowie’s “Life on Mars,” the Licorice Pizza trailer is a jump-cut rundown of angsty young love in the ’70s, replete with Chevrolets, moptop haircuts and wide-stripe earth tone shirts.

The trailer played before the Hollywood’s showing of Jacques Tati’s silent comedy Playtime on Sept. 16. The movie theater says the trailer will continue to be shown before select 35 mm screenings.

If you are swift—and can find one before it’s taken down—you can also see some pirated, phone-recorded versions of the trailer online, complete with audience tittering.

However, if you want to see it the way Paul Thomas Anderson intended, you’re going to need to check on which of the Hollywood’s upcoming repertory screenings might be in 35 mm—for instance, Lamberto Bava’s 1985 Italian horror classic Demons on Tuesday, Sept 28.

Update: While Demons is a terrific and highly entertaining specimen of Italian horror, MGM Studios released the trailer for Licorice Pizza digitally this morning. It also announced the film will have a limited release in select theaters on Nov. 25, with a wider release by Dec. 25. Check out the trailer for Licorice Pizza below:

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