Best review of this gorgeous film yet: "It was a little long, and in some places, a bit hard to swallow, but there was a surprise climax, and I left the theater with a good taste in my mouth."
One of the most interesting points made in the movie is the difference between the Seventies, which are portrayed as a gentle, swinging time of pot, booze, and easy morals and the Eighties, which correspond to crack, sobriety, and general puritanism. This distinction is made visually by filming everything Seventies in warm colors with lots of wood and other organic surfaces, and the Eighties with cold colors, and lots of grey stone.
The other anomaly is that the characters almost universally engage in what I can only describe as "pretty talk": they almost obsessively chat about sunrises vs. sunsets, flowers, poetry, and the like. This becomes nearly surreal in places when two middle-aged men get together and share a drink. You'd think they'd be interested in sports or something...