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

the rest is good tho

wow "nute" is a weird GiS

the ending is incred

you just hate it because he falls in love with a sandface

i hate it bcuz the song is dumb

talkin final confrontation in office not sandface sex time

lol you dont know what an ending is

the climactic scene in the room was great much tension, a sense of shared history, the ruins of a love affair, iirc need to rescreen only saw it once but i liked it a lot, i liked how hoffman and Phoenix just wanted to party and go on adventures and lose themselves and no one else understood them cause they thought they were doing a srs religion

gr8080 otm

re: you're all nute and re: awesome as a whole

http://graphics.fansonly.com/schools/nd/images/pictures/rockne.jpg
^ all of you rn

http://www.wearysloth.com/Gallery/ActorsH/7829.gif

Went back for a third look. Like There Will Be Blood, it gets better every time. Still not there yet, and still not sure what it's trying to say (not a bad thing, obviously). I have three or four half-theories. Impressive, elusive, frustrating.

That sounds a little too schematic--a great film doesn't have to try to say anything. But I think this one does, and I'm coming up short trying to figure out what that is.

YouTube video essay/cult crit guy takes a look at the "auditing" scene and how it compares to actual Scientology.

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

I liked their relationship, just two guys who want to have adventures surrounded by a band of joyless pedants

― lag∞n, Monday, October 1, 2012 9:23 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark

Still think abt this often

― Forks I'd Clove to Fu (silby), Sunday, July 20, 2014 10:04 AM (three years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Phoenix's twisted grimace, hunched posture, antisocial behavior, and chemical-booze-poison intake were oddly, painfully satisfying for me. Like pushing your tongue against a loose tooth as a kid. My favorite PTA movie, I think.

Watched it tonight. The word salad coming from Hoffman's flushed, fleshy face has some fresh resonances.

this movie is fuckin awesome. not my favorite pta film but that shot where phoenix runs from the alley into that the wide shot of the field is my favorite thing pta's ever done

and that opening shot of the cruiser's wake, my heart swells in my chest when I see it

hi brad

Someone can make a case for its predecessor as the transition but the Bergman-esque chamber drama qualities of this film augured a new phase even if you count the yuks in IV (a chamber drama with yuks).

watched this for the first time since the theatre, cuz psh. he reminded me of welles a lil here. first half, maybe a little more, is riveting, and i love the jarring elisions: the cut from phoenix hopping onto the yacht to him asleep in the bunk, and then hoffman filling him in with "you became aggressive because you drank too much alcohol" -- huge laugh for me this time. excellent use of pop songs, including the paired set of "don't sit under the apple tree" (longing to be home) and "slow boat to china" (longing to be away) but also that great gratuitous circuit the coat girl does of the dept store to ella singing "get thee behind me satan". finally, i loved hoffman striking goldwater poses in the arizona desert. nevertheless i spent most of the second half trying to remember the exact wording of this hilarious post:

This guy thinks HE'S the Master...but his wife just ordered him around while yankin his crank, so who's REALLY the Master, bam.
― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Sunday, March 17, 2013 7:03 PM (5 months ago)

bam.

― i want to say one word to you, just one word:buzzfeed (difficult listening hour), Tuesday, February 4, 2014 12:59 AM (six years ago) bookmarkflaglink

a wonderful post

love the department store scene

I saw this in the theater with my mom and she was hoping for more weird cult-y CoS type stuff. “I didn’t know it was just gong to be about... these two guys” <3

twbb introduced elision and ellipses into pta's scripts (though, idk, you could argue this started with punch-drunk love), but the master is tonally... quieter? more intimate? it's so sunk into its world that almost everything is understood via facial expression. this carries through into the next two films

Someone can make a case for its predecessor as the transition but the Bergman-esque chamber drama qualities of this film augured a new phase even if you count the yuks in IV (a chamber drama with yuks).

― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, March 31, 2020 6:16 PM (eleven minutes ago)

I think the focused exploration of doubled characters does start in There Will Be Blood but there Daniel Plainview's doubles just orbit around him . Here's where the identification-with-the-other across impossible barriers seems to become of central interest.

so anyway thinking abt this I found it mysterious beautiful and hella raw. his other film have been super crafty and all v well laid out from a plot and character development pov. this one was willing to not be all constructed of perfectly interlocking pieces. it felt like a play how there were two miserable dudes yelling at each other and no resolution. also ACTING. I liked their relationship, just two guys who want to have adventures surrounded by a band of joyless pedants. Amy adams being all this is a thing you do for billions of years was such a hilariously wrong reading of psh's seat of the pants bullshiting. it looked amazing I thought, all this clear light. also the spacious 50s vibes when there werent as many people around, America was a small town.

not sure if it was really as good as boogie nights or there will be blood but it was def more mature and operating on a deeper level. and I loved joaquin phoenix riding off on the motorcycle and not coming back

― lag∞n, Monday, October 1, 2012 6:23 AM (seven years ago) bookmarkflaglink

gotta C+P lag8ns post again

such a good post

a ton of wrong terrible opinions in this thread but the good ones are jewels

also all of pta's films are full of yuks, i guess inherent vice's are more prominent bc you've got the combined forces of pta and pynchon but like... phantom thread is fucking hilarious. i'd say one thing distinguishing modern pta is the yuks are much less straight up funny things and more incidentally funny bc the movie's just being itself, incidentally is a very novelistic way of bringing the yuks, etc.

def

. I liked their relationship, just two guys who want to have adventures surrounded by a band of joyless pedants. Amy adams being all this is a thing you do for billions of years was such a hilariously wrong reading of psh's seat of the pants bullshiting.

yaassss queen

I loved PTA until Inherent Vice which totally threw me. Maybe I need to see it again with my expectations lowered? Still haven't seen Phantom Thread.

I work for a museum in Houston and every once in a blue moon I'll be sent somewhere to witness one of our artworks that has been loaned out getting installed or taken down. When The Master was released I happened to get sent to NYC and I had some free days. The museum set me up in a nice hotel room with enough money for decent food, managed to hit all the happening record stores, saw Grizzly Bear at Radio City Music Hall and watched The Master in 70mm.

Sigh. All that sounds really fucking nice right now.

<3 pig fuck scene is all time

one of my favorite PTA shot scenes is when freddie comes back from jail and he hug/wrestles lancaster to the ground. everyone on and off screen for that hitting their respective note.

i need to watch this again. at the time it was my favorite PTA movie but it might have been surpassed by phantom thread now

I remember being very irritated by Joker because Phoenix had already played Freddie Quell

at its heart it's the "me and my bro goofing around" movie

a buddy road trip film

buddy boat trip

philip: buddy the sea is our road
joaquin: yes

pig fuck!

this is the best movie

All anger and sadness and failure and violence and American vistas

Paul Thomas Anderson is a brilliant director who recurrently fumbles the endings of his movies - except for this one. I was holding my breath watching it, hoping he wouldn't stick in some last-minute change of tone or thesis statement. As someone says above, he had the right idea to keep a delicate touch to the end.

If you don’t like the end of Phantom Thread I don’t know what to tell you but I do think the end of this one is a beautiful gentle relief

i'm sorry but no way is the end of inherent vice fumbled

the way this one winds down is perfect tho yes, otm

i actually don't have a problem with any of pta's endings so maybe i'm the wrong person to assess this

I think they’re all pretty good

It’s hilarious that Dodd’s imagination is so impoverished is that when he tries to make up a game with a motorcycle the game is “drive the motorcycle in a direction”