The Master

[MarkGrace]

Looks like Anderson held a surprise premiere last night. He showed it after a restored screening of The Shining, and apparently almost no one knew it was happening in advance.

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/paul-thomas-anderson-secretly-premieres-the-master-in-santa-monica-first-reactions-are-wildly-positive-20120804

[MarkGrace]

Also, the release date got bumped up. I'm going to try and see it in 70mm.

[Tim]

Also, the release date got bumped up. I'm going to try and see it in 70mm.

Have you found a list of venues showing it in 70mm?

[MarkGrace]

Have you found a list of venues showing it in 70mm?

No, I haven't. I just know which theater here in seattle will.

[MarkGrace]

Some reviews starting to pop up.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_master_2011/

[dabrockster]

Paul Thomas Anderson says The Master isn't about Scientology

http://www.contactmusic.com/news/pau...ethods_1409225

[MarkGrace]

Paul Thomas Anderson says The Master isn't about Scientology

http://www.contactmusic.com/news/pau...ethods_1409225

ha. News alert!

[MarkGrace]

Getting some major raves from certain critics. I was surprised by Scott's reaction, given that he usually just seems out to piss on everything (ok, not really, but he comes off that way sometimes):

“The Master,” Paul Thomas Anderson’s imposing, confounding and altogether amazing new film, is partly concerned with the life and work of one Lancaster Dodd, leader of a therapeutic, quasi-religious cult known as the Cause. Dodd’s “process,” a stew of Freud, hypnosis and carnival sideshow mumbo-jumbo, is based on a kind of mental time travel. The subject is led, by a series of pointed, painful questions, on a search for past trauma — earlier in life, before birth, in a previous existence — that can be identified as the source of negative emotion and destructive behavior in the present.

All of this striving — absurd, tragic, grotesque and beautiful — can feel like too much. “The Master” is wild and enormous, its scale almost commensurate with Lancaster Dodd’s hubris and its soul nearly as restless as Freddie Quell’s. It is a movie about the lure and folly of greatness that comes as close as anything I’ve seen recently to being a great movie. There will be skeptics, but the cult is already forming. Count me in.

Travers:

I believe in the church of Paul Thomas Anderson. Hollywood films give you zilch to believe in, tying up their narratives with a tidy bow so you won't leave confused and angry. Anderson refuses to do the thinking for you. His films mess with your head until you take them in and take them on. No wonder Anderson infuriates lazy audiences. What a roll call: Hard Eight, Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch-Drunk Love, There Will Be Blood.

The Master, the sixth film from the 42-year-old writer-director, affirms his position as the foremost filmmaking talent of his generation. Anderson is a rock star, the artist who knows no limits. Fierce and ferociously funny, The Master is a great movie, the best of the year so far, and a new American classic.

And Scott Tobias:

The Master means to unsettle—not through the startling violence of Punch Drunk Love and There Will Be Blood, or the emotional crescendos of Magnolia, but through a central relationship that’s played for the highest stakes. It’s ambiguous and jagged in shape, and perversely resistant to insta-reaction. Anderson has never made a more difficult film, but he hasn’t made a more mysterious one, either, or one so suffused with meaning: The Master’s function as an incisive shadow history of Scientology is almost incidental to the other tasks it’s trying to accomplish. Defiant in the face of rapid digital conversion, Anderson gives celluloid the victory lap it deserves. Seen in 70mm, it’s a processing session on an epic scale, an amplification of wounded souls.

But it's not getting raves from everyone, as some seem to find it to be too ambiguous and unresolved. Should be interesting. It's showing in the 70mm format at Cinerama next weekend and I'm getting stoked to see it.

Also nice to see Jonny getting recognition for his score again (I just ordered my copy ):

Time out to honor the astonishing look of The Master. Projected in the large-frame 70mm process Anderson favors, the film engulfs you. High praise to genius cinematographer Mihai Malaimare Jr. (Youth Without Youth, Tetro and Twixt), whose visual poetry is matched by Jonny Greenwood's haunting, hypnotic score. For their enthralling work alone, you'd follow The Master anywhere.

The cumulative artifice on display is beautiful — camera movements that elicit an involuntary gasp, passages in Jonny Greenwood’s score that raise the hair on the back of your neck,

The magesterial style, eerie mood and forbidding central characters echo Anderson's previous film, There Will Be Blood, a kinship furthered by another bold and discordant score by Jonny Greenwood.

Greenwood, whose score for There Will Be Blood was so daring and effective, provides eerie music with a life of its own that Anderson allows to whoosh and sweep through scenes in an unorthodox way that is sometimes supportive and elsewhere works as bizarre counterpoint. Like everything else about the film, it is highly particular and bracingly outside the norm.

With very fine cinematography by Mihai Malaimare Jr. and a textured, spiky score by Jonny Greenwood that chases the film along as much as the dialogue, The Master is a more opaque sibling to There Will Be Blood,

http://movieline.com/2012/09/13/review-master-joaquin-phoenix-philip-seymour-hoffman-paul-thomas-anderson-scientology/

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/master-philip-seymour-hoffman-joaquin-phoenix-367129

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/14/mo...=1&ref=aoscott
http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/r...aster-20120910

[MarkGrace]

Really enjoyed it. Lots of great scenes, though I'm not sure how all of them fit together at this point. There was also what seemed like a narrative shift in the final third that I'm not sure I got. And definitely a more character than plot driven movie. Anyway, incredible work from joaquin, psh and adams (who I wasn't thrilled about being in the cast but was used to great subversive effect given the expectation most have for the type of character she's going to play). Also thought jonnys score was great and gave the movie such an unsettled feel.

Will definitely see again at some point.

[Northwestcoug]

Just saw this. I had no qualms with the acting or cinematography. I think Joaquin Phoenix was born to play his role. There were a few scenes that were literally uncomfortable, because I wasn't sure how he was going to react. Hoffman was also great. A lot of scenes were done beautifully.

But, (and I really hate to say this, as I can't stand his movie tastes), I have to agree with Ebert on this one. I felt like I was supposed to understand this movie and its parallels to something in this world, but I just didn't get it. I wasn't sure if he was trying to tell me something more than what I was watching, if that makes sense. I saw the scientology parallels, yes. But was that the main focus of the movie? Or was it a secondary story?

And, if anyone understands it better than I do:

Spoiler for plot details:

Just how much of the movie is Joaquin's dreaming/hallucinating? I'm sure that Lancaster Dodd singing with all the naked women, Freddie visiting his girlfriend back home, and answering Lancaster's phone call in the movie theater was not quite reality. But was more of the movie supposed to be a dream?

Also, how much was Lancaster's interest in Freddy sexual? When he was singing 'Slow Boat to China' to him at the end, I wondered if that was supposed to connect a bunch of other scenes to his homosexuality. Maybe that was why he wanted to keep him near, when the rest of his family wanted Freddy out.

Anyways, it wasn't a bad movie, just difficult to follow. I agree with MG that the music worked beautifully with the movie.

[CardiacCoug]

Saw this tonight, too.

I guess broadly the theme is summed up by the part where Dodd says something about how Freddie should let him know if he figures out how to live without serving any master. Maybe that we all follow masters: alcohol, sexuality, religion, need for companionship and meaning in life.

Anyway I wasn't in a great mood to see it -- pretty tired and had a headache but I might watch if it again it comes to TV, but not in the theater. I wouldn't argue with those who think this movie is pretentious and overrated.

EDIT: Also I wanted to add that the Scientologists should in no way be offended by this. This movie was obviously tangentially inspired by some modern religions/cults, but sure doesn't seem to me like the movie aims in any way to attack Scientology or other religions.

[jay santos]

Saw this last night. Like I mentioned earlier in this thread, I have been excited for this film for a long time. Sometimes that hurts the experience, I don't know.

But I have to say thumbs down. I was really disappointed.

There were some great scenes. But in the end, it just seemed like a collection of scenes that didn't move the story anywhere. It was confusing with no point.

After the jail scene, I was thinking, this is getting good. Up to that point, scenes seemed to be building on each other, the characters were being developed, the tension was building, and you had a feeling it was going to get good. From that point on, the film seemed to fall on its face. Bummer.

[Northwestcoug]

Saw this tonight, too.

I guess broadly the theme is summed up by the part where Dodd says something about how Freddie should let him know if he figures out how to live without serving any master. Maybe that we all follow masters: alcohol, sexuality, religion, need for companionship and meaning in life.

I think I'll run with that. The hypersexual scenes were off putting initially. But viewed in that context, they're not so glaring. And even Dodd had moments where he wasn't 'master' of his usual calm self.

I like the movie more now.

[jay santos]

Spoiler for spoiler for a theory:

The motorcycle scene immediately followed the Phoenix convention where Freddie attacked the guy. As the motorcycle scene unfolded and the PSH character shed a tear as Freddie took off, I thought maybe they were killing him off. Like they set this up where there was a hidden canyon and know Freddie would drive straight into it? There's definitely a disconnect after the motorcycle scene, as MarkGrace points out, that points to a dream or alternate reality. I've been reading some posts on IMDB and it seems some people think everything after the motorcycle scene is a dream, or part of it is a dream, or that he's dead and maybe this is his last thoughts as he dies?

[jay santos]

Another thing that kind of pissed me off about this film was that the trailer that first was posted here in this thread that looked so cool and intense was not even in the film. wtf? There were also some other clips from a trailer where he was being chased that didn't make the film.