Award Snub: Despite a nomination for its screenplay, the film failed to receive any major Academy Award nominations, with some especially angered at the snubbing of Josh Brolin and Katherine Waterson.
Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The entire movie. The overarching plot is about finding a missing person but large chunks of the film are intentionally composed of non-sequiturs. Whether this helps the film or not is up for debate.
Critical Dissonance: Critics were over the moon about it and the film received numerous mentions on top ten lists from critics of 2014. On the flipside, it was a Box Office Bomb and audiences reactions were severely more mixed due to the film's Kudzu Plot.
Dancing Bear: The mere fact that Paul Thomas Anderson even attempted to do an adaptation of a novel by a writer whose work is usually deemed unfilmable guaranteed it a lot of attention.
