Thomas Pynchon, oh you wily old bastard. Always hiding out, never showing your face in public. Lurking in dark corners and leering at the pretty girls in cut-off tops and bikini bottoms that pass you by on the beach. Your imagination drags us by the hair into dark subterranean spaces, sparse suburban housing development sites, like, zomes?, dirty-mattressed surf
And, dang, dude--can you write a sex scene!
We tittered at your made-up song lyrics, rode shotgun with Doc those times he nearly burned a hole in the front seat of his Datsun dropping doobies while speeding away from bad-guys, we shook our little rebel fists at the likes of Bigfoot Bjornsen when he scolded Doc, then we had to admit we liked the guy and that they were kinda in the same business all along.
Overall, most found Inherent Vice to be a righteous, sandal-trippy, Gordita Beach flippy, hippie-dippy good time. There were plenty of highlights including when neighbor buddy Denis dropping his cosmonaut musings on us ("Dude, Drug? Store?"), hot random sex in a dark closet on a bare mattress with the maid, the reunion of MIA characters with their loving families and of course, a good old-fashion shoot-out at the end. Raymond Chandler would've been proud.
There were some things we weren't 100 percent AOK with. Namely that every lead wraps up pretty nice and tidy, most endings come up happy and all roads lead to Golden Fang (even probably-madeup words like Chryskylodon).
But in the end, you left us with a very nice, love your neighbor, Catcher in the Rye message. As Doc Sportello drives away into the fog, we know that where ever his road leads, he's going to be doing good for others, piecing together puzzles and figuring it all out, man. Thanks for the jokes, the tokes, and the memories... --Jenna
P.S. JW -- thanks for the link to the trailer: http://www.thomaspynchon.com
