Tag Archives: The Master

Internet Commenters Demand Legislation Against Complex Sentences

September 15, 2012 By in Meta, Misc. Media Tags: , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Hello, readers. How are you? I am hunky-dory.

Today was a good day. I got to rest. I ate good food. I watched some DVD extras. One was a documentary. It was about A Night to Remember. That movie was about the Titanic. The documentary was not fun. The photos were okay. The narrators were all very old men. They talked a lot. Sometimes they talked for many minutes. They talked very slowly. Sometimes there were very long pauses. Then they talked some more. They were nice men. I felt like a great-grandchild. I did not see the last fifteen minutes. I stopped the DVD early. I was sleepy.

Then I got on the Internet. It has interesting pages. I wanted to read a movie review. It was about The Master. I have mentioned that movie before. Joaquin Phoenix is angry and confused. Phillip Seymour Hoffman is charming and maybe evil. Amy Adams is happy and unhappy. I may go see it. I have not decided. My city is not showing it yet. Maybe they will show it in October.

The review was written by a movie critic. Her name is Lisa Schwarzbaum. Her boss is named Entertainment Weekly. She has worked there for decades. She likes itty-bitty foreign films. She also likes movies about sexiness. Sometimes I do not agree with her. Sometimes I do. She uses big words and long sentences. I can usually understand her. Sometimes I also use big words and long sentences. Sometimes she mentions really weird movies. That does not bother me. Sometimes I also talk about weird things.

Ms. Schwarzbaum liked The Master very much. She gave it an A. Her review had big words and long sentences. This was the last sentence of her review:

The cubism of the concluding third of the picture allows a disoriented viewer to consider this singular movie not only as a character portrait, but also as a photographic travel diary, from the days before Instagram, by an important artist following the itinerary of Americans seeking salvation and prosperity when an exterior world war was over but interior psychological battles raged.

The word “cubism” threw me for a moment. I looked it up on the Internet. It has dictionaries and WikiPedia in it. I found Cubism in there. Now I understand the whole sentence. “Cubism” is a good word for a Paul Thomas Anderson film.

Some readers did not like her review. They really did not like her last sentence. A few readers said mean things about her. One reader said this direct quote:

…it is exhausting – why does she have to create super complex sentences with thesaurus worthy big words – it doesn’t impress me, it belittles me. and that last sentence, WTF? I’d hate to be stuck next to a cooler with her, attempting to carry on a conversation about the latest small town drama. Know your audience.

Her audience does not like long sentences or big words. “Entertainment” is a big word. Lisa’s words are mostly shorter than “entertainment”. They should rename the magazine Things Weekly. The audience would like them better.

Another unhappy reader said this direct quote:

“the cubism of the final third……….” this sentence is not only THE most pretentious piece of critical crap I’ve ever read, it also convinced me not see the probable load of “important” blarney that inspired it.

The Internet has many pretentious pieces of critical crap. I have read some of them. I usually do not rank them. Some reviews can be pretentious and not crap. Sometimes I like pretentiousness. That word is even bigger than “entertainment”. It does not scare me. I used to be an English major. Other English majors scared me. One time our class talked about “Murders in the Rue Morgue”. That is an old story about gross murders. One victim was stuffed inside a chimney. One classmate had a theory about the scene’s meaning. He used the phrase “return-to-the-womb motif”. I was very scared. I wanted to leave class immediately. Now I am older. I have conquered that fear.

Ms. Schwarzbaum probably writes how she wants. Maybe she even thinks that way. Her writing made other people sad. She should rewrite her last sentence. It should be many sentences. The sad people might like the new sentences. They could look like this:

The movie shows you things about each character. Some of those things are very different from each other. It takes place in the past. The old places tell one long story. It is better than random photos. The story comes after a war. People were not happy yet. They had a lot to think about. They tried to make money and be saved. The movie is very good. The director is neat.

Shorter sentences can be happier sentences. The biggest word in those sentences is “different”. That word should not be scary. I think Liza Schwarzbaum is a different writer. Maybe I am a very different reader.

Well, got to go. Have a nice day. I will see you all tomorrow. My next entry may have commas and more clauses in it because of pretentiousness. I hope you will not hate my important blarney. I promise I will not read it aloud to you with extra long pauses. That might make it worse.

Anderson’s “The Master” Final Trailer: No Similiarities to Persons or Groups Living or Dead, We Totally Swear

August 30, 2012 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Readers who consider themselves unabashed Midlife Crisis Crossover completists (i.e., my wife and me) may recall my preoccupation with the trailers for Paul Thomas Anderson’s new film The Master, in which Academy Award Winner Phillip Seymour Hoffman plays a charismatic jack-of-all-trades who’s not named Hub L. Ronnard, who attracts followers to his self-invented belief system that’s not called Scientetics or Dianology, who has Academy Award Nominee Amy Adams as the wife by his side, and who’s trying to lure Academy Award Nominee Joaquin Phoenix to his side with vague platitudes and cryptic encouragement.

Recapping our first three installments for newcomers:

* Teaser Trailer #1: a reserved interrogation, a forgotten fight, some crawling through machinery, and adult sand sculptures, all set to spooky bass-‘n’-percussion from composer Jonny Greenwood, the Radiohead guitarist who also worked with Anderson on There Will Be Blood.

* Teaser Trailer #2: Hoffman takes center stage with his myriad talents and elliptical statements of purpose, all overlapping and fighting to surface in the consciousness of Phoenix, who chafes in a new, awkward chapter of his life. Adams loves her husband. The Greenwood score repeats.

* Full Trailer #1: an unbalanced Phoenix fails at life on the post-war homefront and instead follows a writer who’s big on doublespeak and revival tents. Adams is not at all happy this time around — glaring at doubters, questioning Phoenix’s sanity, and acting perfectly fine with her husband’s shenanigans. Greenwood is replaced at the 1:39 mark with Jo Stafford’s maudlin 1950 hit “No Other Love“.

And now, the four-part miniseries, “The Trailers of The Master“, concludes with the final, fragmented chapter:

Other than reruns from previous trailers, the core is a stilted speech about how human spirits trump the animal kingdom. A soft orchestra is drowned out by Joaquin Phoenix drumming like Buddy Rich on a locked window. Standard male viewers should now be excited by the prospect of fights, guns, motorcycle races, and sex scenes. (Yeeeey.)

The officially R-rated movie begins its limited-release rollout to American theaters on September 14th. IMDb lists release dates in several other countries over the next several months, mostly in Europe. (Is Scientology discussed or even heard of in Asia? I’d be curious to know.) My intrigue in the general concept has ebbed a bit, but we’ll have to see if Indianapolis’ only art-house cinema offers it before next Oscar season; how my curiosity, budget, and conscience are doing by then; and if I’m not yet tired of those involved repeating in every related interview like a holy mantra, “IT’S NOT ABOUT SCIENTOLOGY.” When I turn it over in my head, it’s funnier because I hear it in the voice of Arnold Schwarzenegger from Kindergarten Cop. In reality, it grows more disappointing every time I hear it.

Full Trailer for “The Master” Offers More Narrative Tidbits, Still No Mention of “Battlefield Earth”

July 24, 2012 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

I was previously intrigued by the first and second teaser trailers for The Master, the new film from writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson, whose psycho-oil-magnate character study There Will Be Blood remains indelible and haunting even though I only saw it the one time in its theatrical release. The Master is an alleged roman à clef, or perhaps a mere parable, about the introduction of Scientology to the masses by one man who at first glance doesn’t quite appear to be Moses or Mohammed.

A longer, less vague full-length trailer is now available, with new shots of Phillip Seymour Hoffman as the cagey author, Joaquin Phoenix as the agitated follower, and Amy Adams as the female.

The “cult” aspect is now unmistakably in the forefront. Hoffman has crowds at his disposal and detractors in the corners. Phoenix is all about the head-tilting, lip-curling, mule-headed arrogance. Adams has more than one line as the naive (?), supportive wife. Non-believers probably played by decent character actors will presumably either get on board with Hoffmanetics or suffer ignominious fates.

To be honest, I’m a little afraid to get too attached to this. If the movie turns out to be a three-hour sex scene and the only scenes with clothing are all in the trailer, I may have to bow out. If the plot takes a hairpin curve and ends with a surprise endorsement of Scientology in the form of an hour-long passionate hard-sell from the cast and crew, I promise I’ll pitch a fit. If we can tell early on that this was filmed during Phoenix’s bizarre rap phase, I’m out. If the next trailer is all about explosions and collisions, I’ll flip a coin.

2nd Teaser for PT Anderson’s “The Master” Stars Philip Seymour Hoffman as Bell Bon Bubbard

June 20, 2012 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

In the first teaser trailer for Paul Thomas Anderson’s next film, The Master, we saw Joaquin Phoenix as an uneasy rapscallion on the verge of doing something different with his life. In the new teaser, Philip Seymour Hoffman is a jack of several trades probing Phoenix with questions and strange reassurances. While the Internet is firmly convinced The Master chronicles the secret origin of Scientology with all the names changed, let it be known Hoffman here distances himself from the late L. Ron Hubbard in a very concrete way: he disguises himself with a mustache.

Not only do we finally see and hear costar Amy Adams, we also hear her hint at Hoffman’s character working on his most important text, a revolutionary self-help tome possibly to be titled Ianetics-Day.

Meanwhile at home, the most optimistic Scientologists hope this film will be, best-case scenario, their version of The Last Temptation of Christ. If it’s not, Anderson may look forward to being banned from working in their half of Hollywood in the future, and resigned to working in the Jewish half instead. If all else fails, there’s always work to be done in the malnourished field of Christian direct-to-DVD.

1st Teaser Trailer for PT Anderson’s “The Master” Avoids the 11-Letter S-Word

May 22, 2012 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

From Paul Thomas Anderson, the director of There Will Be Blood, comes another fictional biopic about a potentially disturbed self-made man whose work would come to affect millions in ways not necessarily for the better. Despite Anderson’s own denials, parts of the Internet swear The Master is thinly veiled nonfiction about L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics, and/or the creation of Scientology. Any similarities to any movements living or dead, real or fictional, will no doubt be left to the viewer to decide and write pretentious essays in response.

(That’s not meant as derogatory. Seriously, I look forward to reading said essays. Some days I thrive on pretentiousness.)

The cast includes Joaquin Phoenix, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, Laura Dern, and Kevin J. O’Connor (the lanky toady from Stephen Sommers’ The Mummy). As with Blood, Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood is composing the presumably eerie, non-traditional score. This first teaser avoids any overt hints of its ostensible subject, instead focusing on flashbacks of Phoenix’s shenanigans while an obscured interrogator watches his immature smugness melt into unease.

[Content warning: teaser contains brief clip of bawdy sand-sculpting.]

I’ve played this a few extra times for the soundtrack alone, but I’m also savoring the one-minute sample of Phoenix’s performance that hints at grander, controversial, hopefully pretentious things to come.