5 Off My Head - PTA Spin-Offs

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Somewhere right now Maya Rudolph is baking a cake! It's the director Paul Thomas Anderson's 43rd birthday today, and doesn't it just make you feel crazy that Paul Thomas Anderson is ONLY 43? With all he's accomplished he really ought to be several years older than that, if the world were a fair and reasonable place. (Ha.) Granted he's only made six feature films (with a seventh, Inherent Vice, filming right now) in his career, but we're talking breadth of quality here, not quantity. His six films are all important and individual and even if every single one isn't absolutely perfect from start to finish (although I'd argue that a couple of them are indeed just that) there is Greatness inside every single one, that much is for certain.

So rich are these worlds he created, so brimming with life and character, that it's only logical that we the people might want even more out of them. Which brings me to today's list in his honor. Here are the five Paul Thomas Anderson characters that I'd most like to see get their very own separate spin-off movie, all about them.

Helen Sullivan (Laura Dern) in The Master - Basically the entire inspiration for this list. I don't know anybody who came out of The Master satisfied with what PTA gave Dern to do - especially as we were concurrently being wowed by her tight-wire work on a weekly basis on Enlightened, where Mike White was foisting upon Dern a wonderland of character to play in, and she was dazzling us with every crazy nuance. What was Helen Sullivan's deal? How did she come into The Cause? And how did she react to Dodd's cruelty towards her in that late scene?

Young Stud (Greg Lauren) in Boogie Nights - Alright so I just want to watch two hours of Greg Lauren strut around in a speedo, I admit it. But who doesn't want to also watch 90 minutes of fun times as chicks keep OD'ing on him day in and day out? Nobody that's who!

Cosmo the firecracker boy (Joe G.M. Chan) in Boogie Nights - I could keep going and come up with fifty spin-off movies from Boogie Nights that I want to see, that world is so rich and full of amazing parts, but I don't think any of them would be as sordid and terrifying and awesome as Cosmo's life story. How did he end up in Rahad's drug den? And we don't see what happens to him as everybody else is gunned down - I like to think he got all the drugs, all the money, and all the firecrackers he could ever want. Maybe he went and found Rick Springfield!

Mary Sunday (Sydney McCallister) in There Will Be Blood - I can't be the only one who found themselves transfixed whenever McAllister was on-screen, right? Those sad eyes of hers! I want to know she turned out okay - that her father left her alone after Plainview told him to and that Eli didn't take it out on her when Plainview used her to open up the well instead of Eli's prayer. Mary has a long life filled with wonderful adventures free of her horrible family, right?

Brad the bartender (Craig Kvinsland) in Magnolia - Poor Brad! All these crazy weirdos annoying him at work every day. One dude even getting braces so they'd have something in common! (I bet he lets that old guy Thurston Howell blow him in the back-room for a stack of cash, though.) What's his wacky tale? Will he ever find love, or where to put it?
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