For the second episode of our special retrospective season, we’re looking back to our season on the awesome movie year of 1996 to feature another notable filmmaking debut, Paul Thomas Anderson’s Hard Eight. Written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson and starring Philip Baker Hall, John C. Reilly, Gwyneth Paltrow and Samuel L. Jackson, Hard Eight was based on Anderson’s 1993 short film Cigarettes & Coffee.

The contemporary reviews quoted in this episode come from Roger Ebert (https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/hard-eight-1997), Owen Gleiberman in Entertainment Weekly (https://ew.com/article/1997/03/14/hard-eight-2/), and Stephen Holden in The New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/28/movies/suspense-filled-puzzle-draped-in-a-dark-mood.html).

Please like, share, rate and comment on the show and this episode, and tune in for our next retrospective installment covering the awesome movie year of 2003, featuring our documentary pick, Jeffrey Blitz’s Spellbound.