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

sorta thought the broad Freudian symbolism was appropriate to the milieu.

was really happy to see some bigass sand titties on the big screen

finally

borrowed this for the weekend

excited but a little trepidatious.

smoke weed first

ysi

It's good!

mordy otm

you won't be disappointed, alfred otm

smoke weed first

i thought that was just for politics posts?

you forgot the pope thread. What are you – high?

it makes everything tedious better xp

it makes everything tedious worse imo

i am looking forward to seeing this again, but i fear it'll never be quite the experience that seeing it in 70mm was.

just sit really close to the tv

thx for the encouragement! I feel less trepidatious now

I rewatched this tonight with my granny. I thought she would like it but her judgement was "oh this is your intellectual shite". idk it has a TRAINING MONTAGE

granny otm

okay this is fucking GREAT

also: v regularly hilarious!

you dont know how relieved I am

the blu-ray comes with a little postcard that has a funny little caption

lagoon still otm with this:

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 2:23 PM (5 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

All pta's films are comedies hiding behind seriousface, tho I'm never quite sure of the extent to which they realise this. His work makes me think of thomp's amusing formulation from awhile back, guy writers vs lady writers. That only goes so far but Anderson is def guy writer par excellence. I'm not surprised he's adapting pynchon.

Highlights apart from TRAINING MONTAGE: go no more A-roving & subsequent handjob, and of course pigFUCK. That got a chuckle from granny, even.

last 1/3 is underwhelming, but i enjoyed this way more than i thought i would - knew it would be gorgeously visually but the pace was pretty tight, esp for a dude who once made me stare at a harmonium for five minutes

My favorite movie of his since Hard Eight.

It's funny how this movie has the "I. Am a man. A man with a vision. And a mustache." dude from TWBB and has him interact with the angry, hapless "I got so much love to give...but I don't know where to put it!" dude from all previous movies.

the shouting in the prison was hilarious too

I liked it so much I'm going to watch it again today :D

oh and can we commision PTA to do a male beach wrestling movie? 3 hours no talking...just point the camera *there*

applause-worthy bit of film, that

Apparently the toilet in the cell was not made to be broken.

Also (can't remember where I read this), the guy having his photo taken in the portrait sequence didn't know what was going to happen.

i dont buy that he was on a movie set literally anything can happen on a movie est

i watched it again just last weekend! the first 30 minutes are so strong, it's like a highlight reel. the beach babe, the PTSD, the masturbating, the interview with the military officer, macy's, the weird fight with the guy he's taking a picture of (love that), sharecropping, escaping, onto the boat. everything up to the processing session where he has to keep his eyes open. the movie tails off in the last 1/3, sure, but pretty much anything would pale compared with the unsustainable momentum of the first half of the movie

kinda wish that, once it got into the first processing scenes in the boat, it morphed into a fuzzy terrence malick kinda thing, drifting back and forth different flashbacks, bits and pieces of processing interspersed, drifting through his life before and during the war, for the rest of the film

I'm glad it didn't do that

Yeah this was great, I'll definitely watch this again a few more times.

The jail freakout was WONDERFUL. JP is a caged animal, or a gargoyle, or something, for most of this.

he's constantly responding to people with that same wry laugh.

That scared/nervous laugh is one of the things that sticks with me a couple of weeks later.

the mannerisms & the way he stands in that awkward hunched way with his hands on his hips - he reminded me of a jack in the box on the verge of being sprung

otm. His face is usually shot in a very angular manner too.

I love when they go to the party (the one where the skeptic gives PSH what for), and Phoenix is standing in the hallway pretending to be relaxed but not at all pulling it off with this look on his face like BOOZEWHERE'STHEBOOZEWHERE'STHEBOOZEWHERE'STHEBOOZE

That's the thing--this seems to be more about alcoholism and maybe PTSD than Scientology.

I had no idea there was booze in torpedoes

also drinking the photo development chemicals O_O + lols

and the torpedo booze is/was an actual thing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torpedo_juice

"The standard recipe for torpedo juice is two parts ethyl alcohol and three parts pineapple juice."

good to know!

mmm

Just saw this for the first time and was sort of quietly blown away. It's been a very long time since any movie left me wondering what to make of it, or whether I would even recommend it, or what it all means, or even whether it is good or bad. A lot more challenging than something like "Tree of Life," which I loved but was shocked to see was such a controversial, divisive ("I want two hours of my life back!") movie. "The Master" is really all so remarkably unstable, yet rigidly and thoughtfully constructed. I, too, kept thinking of "Hard Eight" (and Marlon Brando), but this is like a "Hard Eight" paternal face off blown up to epic, even imposing scale. It's the rare major work that I can't imagine influencing a single filmmaker.

yeah I was thinking about Brando watching this. The tiniest mannerism choices just made all the difference to the way Quell came over as tragic/comedic character yet wasn't ever really a caricature, he felt like a real person

if only I had a grasp of written grammar uggggh

eh i didn't think this was great. PTA seems v much about intensity, focus, performance and synthesising grand metanarratives out of material i might charitably describe as 'thin'

there's very little sense of an outside, a relationship with different realities. it's highly controlled and precise, surgical almost. it wears after a while, no matter how great individual scenes are (scenes are a PTA speciality - notable talk upthread of a 'highlights reel') - the whole is decidedly less than the SOP. he can't put together something that exhibits an evolution of perspective - he's the master, if you will, of the portentous vignette

processing scenes were really good fun, but the fact an entire segment's dramatic import is based around the word "pigFUCK" is indicative of what i'd call a paucity of imagination - there MUST be a scene where PSH's cultist tyranny is challenged by a 'rational' type and he shows cracks in his exterior mienne - the film MUST seek to show that There Will Be Cracks - the cracks are the point, perhaps, but curiously they only tend to reveal themselves in dramatically hidebound ways - where's the poetry? oh wait, there's a sand woman with breasts. phoenix is lonely and finds it hard to relate to other people. but now look, he is a trained dog that won't quite domesticate! perhaps domestication of humans is wrong!

pynchon comparisons make me shudder

It's a watchable movie that never becomes great imo. Its power is mostly in the first 45 minutes.