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The Master (2012)
Nov. 8th, 2012 22:41The Master. Dir. Paul Thomas Anderson, 2012.
I saw some very favorable and interesting reviews of this movie before it came out, and I remember really liking Magnolia lo these many years ago (though it's been long enough that I don't even remember what it was about). I don't precisely regret seeing this movie, but I also think that at some point Anderson basically jumped his own shark.
The fundamental problem with this movie, for me - it centers around an L. Ron Hubbard-like figure, played by Phillip Seymour Hoffmann, and the feckless ex-sailor who falls into the orbit of his cult played by Joaquin Phoenix - is that I didn't actually care about Joaquin Phoenix's character at all. He is fucked up, and it is not interesting, and I was way more interested in Philip Seymour Hoffmann's character, and his wife, played by Amy Adams in high and terrifying style. Really, it's an actor's movie, and a film critic's movie, and possibly an Oscar movie too; the rest of us are just the peons in the back, transcribing the ramblings of the cult master and being hypnotized to remember our lives trillions of years ago.
The movie could have ended at almost any point after the first act, and by the time Philip Seymour Hoffman started to sing "Slow Boat to China" in the end it felt both interminable and rather ridiculous. I didn't start laughing, the way one of my friends did, but it was more out of a sort of "really? really?!" attitude than still taking it seriously. There was some sort of metaphor for filmmaking in there somewhere, one suspects, but really, Paul Thomas Anderson: get over yourself already.
What makes the movie endurable is the film itself - shot in 70mm, and it's really well done, and interesting to watch - and the music, by Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead. I love his music, and this score was just as great as I expected it was going to be.
I saw some very favorable and interesting reviews of this movie before it came out, and I remember really liking Magnolia lo these many years ago (though it's been long enough that I don't even remember what it was about). I don't precisely regret seeing this movie, but I also think that at some point Anderson basically jumped his own shark.
The fundamental problem with this movie, for me - it centers around an L. Ron Hubbard-like figure, played by Phillip Seymour Hoffmann, and the feckless ex-sailor who falls into the orbit of his cult played by Joaquin Phoenix - is that I didn't actually care about Joaquin Phoenix's character at all. He is fucked up, and it is not interesting, and I was way more interested in Philip Seymour Hoffmann's character, and his wife, played by Amy Adams in high and terrifying style. Really, it's an actor's movie, and a film critic's movie, and possibly an Oscar movie too; the rest of us are just the peons in the back, transcribing the ramblings of the cult master and being hypnotized to remember our lives trillions of years ago.
The movie could have ended at almost any point after the first act, and by the time Philip Seymour Hoffman started to sing "Slow Boat to China" in the end it felt both interminable and rather ridiculous. I didn't start laughing, the way one of my friends did, but it was more out of a sort of "really? really?!" attitude than still taking it seriously. There was some sort of metaphor for filmmaking in there somewhere, one suspects, but really, Paul Thomas Anderson: get over yourself already.
What makes the movie endurable is the film itself - shot in 70mm, and it's really well done, and interesting to watch - and the music, by Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead. I love his music, and this score was just as great as I expected it was going to be.