Article: Film: The Big Picture - My unfunny valentine PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE (15) DIRECTOR Paul Thomas Anderson STARRING Adam Sandler / Emily Watson / Luis Guzman 95 MINS TWO WEEKS NOTICE (12A) DIRECTOR Marc Lawrence STARRING Hugh Grant / Sandra Bullock / David Haig 101 MINS

There is no use trying to second-guess a Paul Thomas Anderson picture. Like the frogs that rained down at the end of his previous movie, Magnolia, his new one, Punch-Drunk Love, is mined with jack- in-the-box surprises and booby traps. Early on, the camera surveys a beautiful pearly pink dawn spreading over a quiet road in the San Fernando Valley; then the calm is suddenly shattered by a truck jackknifing across the screen and skidding out of view. Seconds later, a car stops, deposits a harmonium on the kerb and drives on. Nothing more is seen of that road accident, but the harmonium does play a part, wheezing eerily through the film's soundtrack.

A bemused witness to all this is Barry ...

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