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

if i had seen this movie this is how i wouldve felt

clemenza going with the old dr. morbius "i slept through half this movie but i have opinions about it anyway" tack there, classic

also how do you know if something's going to stay with you for days and weeks afterwards until days and weeks afterwards?

this thread has all the worst ilx critical tics on display, which is really too bad because the master is quite an unusual movie

Oh god, PSH in Punch Drunk Love is maybe the worst performance of all time.

shocked no one has paraphrased kael yet

Oh god, PSH in Punch Drunk Love is maybe the worst performance of all time.

not as bad as PSH as the one with Ethan Hawke yelling a lot.

if i had seen this movie this is how i wouldve felt

lag∞n can we publish a whole zine of reviews taking this as our starting point

would collect

Critiques #1 (32 pp., center-staple, NC & parts unknown): an interesting collection of thoughtful essays on film. Editors adhere to strict policy of texting friends from their seats until they are removed from the theater, usually about halfway through the movie. In the event of home viewing, films screen in the next room while editors work on badass ramen recipes in the kitchen. $3.00

this thread has all the worst ilx critical tics on display, which is really too bad because the master is quite an unusual movie

code for "i disagree with what majority of posters are saying", a rationalization of which is a massive ilx tic, go fig

good try, but it is you granny dainger who have displayed an ilx tic

basically i want everyone who doesn't like this movie to list movies they did like this year so i can make fun of them

we all do.
you loved the movie. great! i wish i did. but rather than explain what made you love it or engage with any of the criticism, you paint all those who didn't love it as having diseased thought processes. it's just a dick move.

Pitch Perfect was better than this movie.

they do have a diseased thought process tho, its fair point that i havent explained my enthusiasm for the movie, ill get to that, i just wanted to complain abt the thread a lil first as i had to suffer through the dispiriting experience of reading it

Ditto (xxxpost). People see the film, they post their thoughts. To say I didn't get anything out of it is not meant as an attack on anyone who loved it. As far as "i slept through half this movie but i have opinions about it anyway," I could have simply not mentioned that I drifted through the second half--it's not like you'd know--but instead, I acknowledged it and also that anything I had to say was therefore slightly unfair. ("Slightly" because if the first half-hour had made more of an impact on me, I don't think the drifting would have been a problem.) Anyway, I will very likely see it a second time when it hits the reps.

pig fuck

right. anyone who doesn't have the same reaction has diseased thinking, your reaction is the valid one cause you're pure of mind, unsullied by ilx hivemind. yay you.

I actually really disliked "pig fuck" - it was a clumsy showing-of-the-hand in my opinion, kind of a "hey, I bet a lot of the people watching this will have heard this term elsewhere" thing. like if somebody here made a movie and at some point a character passed a poster that said BAN L0U1S JAGG3R.

lag∞n otm

its pretty standard for ilx film threads to be awful, this one is no different. no need 2 take it personal

how do you know if something's going to stay with you for days and weeks afterwards until days and weeks afterwards?

I don't know. I said that's what I was hoping. It's another way of saying I was hoping I'd love it. Films I love say with me for days and weeks afterwards.

this thread has all the worst ilx critical tics on display, which is really too bad because the master is quite an unusual movie

How do you even address something like that? a) "Unusualness" is a neutral term. There are great unusual films and awful unusual films. b) You assert The Master's unusualness as a statement of fact, rather than opinion.

there are aspects of this film that seem to be executed with such broad Melvillean (Herman, that is) strokes in terms of the symbolism and central conflict (which may turn a lot of people off), but then that's all undercut but these little grace notes of weirdness.

that being said, after my one viewing i am still left wishing there was a little more to PSH's character, but there may be nuances i missed.

Reviewer at nyrb taking the naked ladies scene literally is odd. Anybody else see it that way?

I had mixed feelings about this when I left but it's definitely lingered enough that I'd like to see it again.

I actually really disliked "pig fuck" - it was a clumsy showing-of-the-hand in my opinion, kind of a "hey, I bet a lot of the people watching this will have heard this term elsewhere" thing. like if somebody here made a movie and at some point a character passed a poster that said BAN L0U1S JAGG3R.

― Inconceivable (to the entire world) (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Thursday, September 27, 2012 11:25 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

yeah I agree with this, but moreso in the sense that it was a familiar flaw that made him a familiar character

i like because make laugh

like, really in-control character is maybe not so much in control after all, maybe has secret demons.

hey, kind of like tom cruise in magnolia!

notuomus but what was the pig fuck allusion supposed to be to?

tom cruise is a pigfucker iirc

I actually really disliked "pig fuck" - it was a clumsy showing-of-the-hand in my opinion, kind of a "hey, I bet a lot of the people watching this will have heard this term elsewhere" thing. like if somebody here made a movie and at some point a character passed a poster that said BAN L0U1S JAGG3R.

I don't think "pig fuck" is a term exclusive to the musical subgenre, if that's what you're getting at.

yeah wtf are you guys talking about

Also you can now order a BAN L0U1S JAGG3R at Pings on Nicollet.

finally saw this last night, so i'm rebookmarking.

- dream sequence - reading through the last few week's worth of posts i kept getting annoyed every time someone brought it up again, and yet here i am bringing it up again just so i can say of COURSE it's a dream! you guys really think that a theater employee is going to bring a telephone with a very long cord into a movie theater so someone can have a chat? "please turn your cell phones off and minimize talking during the feature...but please tolerate our employees who may, on occasion bring a telephone into the theater so that someone can have a little chat"

- the first processing scene was amazing (the one where he's asked to keep his eyes open while answering a bunch of questions). holy shit, watching JQ's face morph during those minutes. also, just that he managed to keep his eyes open that long. that's a stupid skill that i wish i had.

- i saw it in 70mm, and perhaps because my eyesight is absolutely terrible...i did not notice much of a difference as compared to "normal" film/pixels. then again, i don't really notice HD as much of an improvement on normal television, and i don't really FLACs as much better than mp3s, so i suppose my senses are just shot.

JQ = JP

i saw it in 70mm, and perhaps because my eyesight is absolutely terrible...i did not notice much of a difference as compared to "normal" film/pixels

Same with me on all three counts. I was also expecting a wider image, maybe getting things mixed up with certain processes from the '50s.

Just saw this. I'd have preferred a Dreyer-esque study of Joaquin Phoenix's eyebrows and weird ass fucking mouth for 135 minutes, or failing that, Phoenix farting on PSH's face every five minutes.

That's really too bad, because The Master is quite an unusual movie.

More unusual than a 135-minute fart a deux between two acting titans?

The first forty-five minutes or so, maybe the first hour, are grand, PTA's best work ever. He slowly loses control of the material.

Agree -- good set-up, but then there's no real lift-off or direction. Two hours in it's still kind of at the same place it is one hour in, watching these two guys be these two guys.

slowly loses control of the farting

i was the only guy in the theater laughing at all the farts

needed a milkshake scene to make sense of the farting imo

wait this movie has farting in it??

like am i to understand that there is a mentally ill character who...enjoys farting?

actually the "second half goes someplace weird" felt almost forced to me here - like a willful "this is what the grandmaster European auteur dudes would do" move

Hm! I thought the first half had the more classical auteur vibe: I even sensed America America-era Kazan.

Ha, you know it's funny this has late period Antonioni vibes for me, like perhaps The Passenger.

WAIT IT FELL OUT STICK IT BACK IN

The first forty-five minutes or so, maybe the first hour, are grand, PTA's best work ever. He slowly loses control of the material.

― taking tiger mountain (up the butt) (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, September 29, 2012 2:03 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Agree -- good set-up, but then there's no real lift-off or direction. Two hours in it's still kind of at the same place it is one hour in, watching these two guys be these two guys.

― something of an astrological coup (tipsy mothra), Saturday, September 29, 2012 2:26 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^^^^
This. Only saw this last night but it felt like a rehash of TWBB on a bunch of different levels...not just thematically but the physical spaces too, the meeting and worship halls, and in the ends of each film especially—the grandeur of PSH/DDL's new offices. Each character achieves new levels of cruelty when finally dwarfed at his desk by the master he has finally, fully exalted ($).

For me this pales next to TWBB mainly because Freddy Quell is an aberration. (Awesome, BTW, when PSH says "You are aberrant" and he's like "No I'm not.") We do learn that he had a psychotic mother but his impulses are more obviously the consequence of PTSD and alcoholism. What the character lacks is a through-line to his earlier self. His behaviors admit little evidence of the man behind the idiosyncrasies. In TWBB Daniel Plainview's greed/misanthropy/megalomania come through as distorted universals, or least "Americanisms"—independence, greed, "progress" etc. I'm able to unpack them, because they aren't "symptoms."I have no idea what Freddy might look like after "getting clear" or whatever, because he is essentially unclear.

Liked the music again.