THE MASTER (2012) P.T. Anderson's film on the origions of Scientology (sort of), Starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, and Laura Dern

"And what's with all these wizards. ENOUGH WITH THE WIZARDS ALREADY"

I don't get the "...but what it's all ABOUT?" criticisms. Seems a backwards way to approach this movie.

yeah. i'm totally prepared to be unimpressed by this movie, but ebert's review in particular seemed dim in this regard.

This paragraph is amazing in its detail

With so many amateurs who run what’s left of the once-great movie industry making bad movies that pander to an easy-to-satisfy youth market that doesn’t care what it’s watching as long as the projectors keep running, and with so many bogus producers who used to be parking lot attendants at the Brown Derby always miraculously raising the money to make more, one thing is certain: no matter how rotten the movie is that you just suffered through, there’s always another one on its way that is 10 times worse

*gasps for breath*

Rex is really getting his Andy Rooney on, lol

god i love that he threw Brewster McCloud in with a pile of movies from the 00s

we should poll that list

would love to know if he did that stream of consciousness or if there was a logic to having one stray bit of old hippie horseshit in with all the modern hipster horseshit

also how the fuck i have never heard of this history of mankind movie

lol brewster mccloud

Harpo Marx played Isaac Newton?!

i dunno if there's some other bit with dennis as napoleon but he's pretty damn unhysterical in this clip

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ae9O1jAEIo

and though the movie looks like bad idea jeans, the harpo bit seems on par with your average harpo bit re: overacting. Did Rex just have the DVD in his eyeline when writing or something?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7de1sTeD6w

rex gets a B- in trolling

so is this horribly boring or what? I am going to go see it tomorrow, maybe. I wasted my money seeing cosmopolis two weeks ago and would like to avoid that.

leaning towards Rodriguez at this point

i dont think it's boring! my SAT word description of "desultory and stultifying" wasnt really meant as a criticism but kind of a "theme" of the movie.

i wish the "master" himself had been more charismatic--that is, i have a hard time understanding why someone, even someone in a lot of pain and quite lost, would take what he says at face value. but then actual history belies that complaint so what do i know.

And seeing it in 70mm is totally worth it.

I figured that was part of the critique of scientology/cult itself - like these people, cult leaders, aren't particularly charming or pied pipers, but tend to take advantage of people who are at a bad crossroads

like, they're not so much charismatic and charmers as much as exploitative and manipulative.

is equally is a lil mystifyin what PSH sees in joaquin but i think both ways they are getting something they need from the other, & ppl irl often do that even when its not completely sensical, etc

Rex also reviewed a film last year that was set about 20 years ago, but he didn't notice it. "Why don't these teenagers have cellphones?"

Story of Mankind got a lot of retro attention cuz it was an Irwin Allen bomb from the late '50s full of a lot of (fading) stars in cameos. It showed up in all those "golden turkey" Medved books in the '70s.

the harpo bit seems on par with your average harpo bit re: overacting.

hey croup go to hell

haha what the hell

are you saying that harpo WAS indulging in "hysterically misguided overacting" compared to his earlier work or did you just have a kneejerk capn save-a-harpo shitfit right there

i think the 'overracting' question is kind of moot when ISAAC NEWTON IS PLAYING THE HARP ffs

seriously! i'm surprised morbz disagrees

actually I kind of meant that to side with morbs, lol

what I meant was isaac newton playing the harp = harpo = harpo is harpo. there isn't really any 'overacting' to speak of? unless you object to harpo in which case >:(

but seriously should we let a dickwad like stupid old rex come between us when we could unite in ridiculing the stupid old bastard

yeah i'm sorry if you guys got me confused with some anti-harpo philistine. rex claimed he hadn't seen "hysterically misguided overacting" like in The Master since Dennis Hopper and Harpo in Story Of Mankind, and upon watching the clips i simply meant to note that, while the concept of the film is ridiculous, hopper and harpo didn't seem to be indulging in the most "hysterically misguided overacting" of the last 50 years.

whew

(hugs)

don't know how i feel about this. need to see it again.

yeah me neither but i don't have any desire to see it again, it kind of destroyed me tbh but i'm not sure it deserved to.

Rex Reed was a drooling baboon even in his 30s and 40s, u don't think I read more than a quarter of his 'review' do you?

lol

Freddie abandons The Cause to find his own salvation, tracks down his wartime sweetheart and finds her married, then goes on a binge that makes The Lost Weekend look like a Disney cartoon.

??? did Reed see a different cut of the movie than the one I just got back from? Post-return to Massachusetts, what binge?

Yeah he seems to be conflating things there.

I thought this was all right -- well made and acted, definitely seeds of something interesting in it, but it never really grabbed me. I wadn't bored, for the most part, but not compelled either.

the internet seems to think the bathroom handjob scene was dour or grim or whatever. fuck you internet that scene was totally hot

It's a good scene, Amy Adams' best in the movie.

^ genius on the genius rock

I thought this was all right -- well made and acted, definitely seeds of something interesting in it, but it never really grabbed me. I wadn't bored, for the most part, but not compelled either.

― something of an astrological coup (tipsy mothra), Saturday, September 22, 2012 10:52 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

Yeah this is about my reaction. It's like... this movie sure exists. It had my attention the whole time and I enjoyed looking at joaquim's face, but I can't find much else to say about it. i can't really even figure out what the movie was missing.

This kinda reminded me of Raging Bull in a weird way.

― latebloomer, Friday, September 21, 2012 5:00 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

i can see this

also i noticed jackson pynchon credited as an assistant on this... pta's next film is an adaptation of Inherent Vice

This is still rolling around in my head a few days later at least.

I find it interesting that Dodd's son is given such a key line but is really only a peripheral figure in the movie. I suppose that's intended to foreground the father/son relationship between the main characters.

Also heavy symbolism with the opening shot (water roiling in the wake of a boat) and, like, boobs placed in the extreme foreground.

Yeah the water shot is gorgeous but as symbolism pretty over-telegraphed. (He's a sailor, I get it. Adrift! Just like all of us! etc etc)

And I thought there was an interesting implication at the end that Dodd's son had really thrown in his lot with the Cause, for mercenary reasons obviously. He'd be a more interesting character to carry a movie, really.

its not screening in 70mm in my town, but the 4k dcp i saw still looked great.

Trying to skim recent posts for general impressions, but not read too closely--hope to see it tomorrow.

And I thought there was an interesting implication at the end that Dodd's son had really thrown in his lot with the Cause, for mercenary reasons obviously. He'd be a more interesting character to carry a movie, really.

― something of an astrological coup (tipsy mothra), Sunday, September 23, 2012 11:02 AM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah thats not a bad idea actually. i have trouble with insane protagonists, there's almost always this remoteness where you're observing their craziness instead of feelin their humanity

its really a lot of fun just watching joaquim though. i love the way his face is photographed, all these deep pools of shadow in his crags

yeah always seemed like one, but only one, of his eyes was in shadow

i was bored at this but i didn't dislike it; i will see it again. it was so long and still felt like bits clipped out of a more complete story, but a little imaginative work (like tipsy mothra theorizing re dodd jr above) can make it feel very rich. hope i can see it in 70mm sometime cuz yeah the faces and the sunlight were gorge. PSH was very scary, actually, especially in closeup.

The War is behind the whole story, behind the setting, and behind phoenix's performance, but there's none of it in the movie, not even much talk about it, which is prob a good move (i don't want PTA to spend a morning inventing some ghastly but pleasantly clockwork pacific-theatre horror to befall this guy in the first reel so we know he Has Bad Memories) but which does make the whole thing feel that much more skeletal. still i think there's more in here about the early years of the pax americana, and about why the utopian huckster's "scientific" blend of psych and spirituality (cf. not just scientology but stuff like "moral re-armament") plays so well in a place where people are fighting to banish war-trauma and bomb-fear with optimistic conformity, than there was about the california oil boom (or capitalism, or religion, or filial estrangement) in there will be blood. this is a much better period movie per se.

so according to the stuff you guys have posted this looks as ahistorical as PTA's other films.