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

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.

http://motion.kodak.com/motion/Publications/InCamera/The_Master_Framed_in_65mm_for_Maximum_Visual_Impact.htm

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

― clemenza, Saturday, September 29, 2012 10:07 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol ya burnt

the master is vaginas

this movie was so fuckin boring but I like it now that I thik about it, it had like 20 endings btw that kind of bothered me but wtvr

the master is vaginas

i like to read that in the mode of "______ is bananas!"

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

willing to not be all constructed of perfectly interlocking pieces

This is...generous

if the movie theater sequence was a dream WHY does PSH follow up with his remembrance of them being together in paris in a past life that he suggested in the phone call

Ô_o

maybe, similar to the end of Super Mario Bros. 2, the entire film is a dream

definitely a lot of nods to super mario in this... the plumbing-like environment of the torpedo hold, the way joaquin seemed to "grow" in stature after eating the "mushroom" of PSH's knowledge

the koopa

the desert level

definitely a lot of nods to super mario in this... the plumbing-like environment of the torpedo hold, the way joaquin seemed to "grow" in stature after eating the "mushroom" of PSH's knowledge

― Author ~ Coach ~ Goddess (s1ocki), Monday, October 1, 2012 4:28 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

lmao

Bowser Jr

http://www.interviewmagazine.com/files/2012/09/13/img-jesse-plemons_123742304755.jpg

totally. i don't care what the character's name is in the film, he is now known as Roy Koopa.

omigod I finally realized it's the dude from "Friday Nite Lights."

ya! and breaking bad.

He's Todd Koopa to me.

Also called PSH's new son-in-law L. Ron Snafu.

if the movie theater sequence was a dream WHY does PSH follow up with his remembrance of them being together in paris in a past life that he suggested in the phone call

Ô_o

― Author ~ Coach ~ Goddess (s1ocki), Monday, October 1, 2012 4:02 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

joaquin mentions it and psh just runs w/it cause that's how he flows is how i read it

ppl are making this film sound like the road to wellville by sir alan parker

It's a little more like Of Mice and Toad adapted by Sir Chauncey Von Poopleberry.

Savages. Theres little plumbing and no Koopas in Mario 2

there is a deleted scene where phoenix dons the raccoon suit from Mario 3

Oh man, if it had been frog or tanuki suit...

one thing that bugged me about this movie is that they started calling him the master, i feel like it would have been better if they didnt?

agree

titular line, all movies have to have them #cinema101

Thought the movie's title was going to get slant rhymed when Amy Adams came up to PSH at the bathroom sink.

The Baiter

agree

with the naked dancing scene at first I thought we were seeing the world through Freddie's drunk eyes but then the Amy Adams / PSH at the sink scene made it seem like everyone really had been naked? like he was really trying to take The Cause down some "free love" road and she she was saying "don't go there." but if she felt that way why would SHE take her clothes off in the previous scene, that doesn't make sense