{"id":393,"date":"2012-10-09T16:34:28","date_gmt":"2012-10-09T16:34:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/movieox.com\/?p=393"},"modified":"2012-10-22T18:16:41","modified_gmt":"2012-10-22T18:16:41","slug":"the-master","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieox.com\/?p=393","title":{"rendered":"The Master"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paul Thomas Anderson is never boring.\u00a0 From Boogie Nights<\/em> to There Will Be Blood<\/em>, he always has a story to tell that is worth hearing.\u00a0 Even if his stories had nothing to tell us (not the case) the way he tells them is worth the price of admission.\u00a0 And who knew Marky Mark could act?\u00a0 Paul knew.\u00a0 Somehow.\u00a0 He was able to see an artist in the frontman for the Funky Bunch and that takes quite an eye.<\/p>\n

So, what the fuck am I rambling about?\u00a0 When you see PTA on the director’s credit, the movie’s not going to suck.\u00a0 So I was already going to see his next film (and follow up to the AMAZING There Will Be Blood<\/em>) and then you add Phillip Seymore Hoffman (Mission Impossible 3<\/em>) Hakim Phoenix (Gladiator<\/em>) fresh from his bout as a pretend homeless person and Amy Adams (Drop Dead Gorgeous<\/em>); I’m obviously pre-thrilled.<\/p>\n

The film begins on or around VJ day with Phoenix as an able seaman in the Navy.\u00a0 He fills his free time with making dangerous random chemical mixes and consuming them, and imagining rampant fornication.\u00a0 He is so aroused by his own anatomically correct sand sculpture of a well endowed woman, he very publicly masturbates (right on the beach standing up).\u00a0 When he leaves the Navy he slowly descends into being a homeless drunk.\u00a0 His very amusing lack of give-a-fuck costs him several boring but solid opportunities for employment.\u00a0 And apparently there’s method to his drink mixing madness as others seem quite fond of his elixirs.\u00a0 I’m going to consult a photographer on one mix he makes from a collection of darkroom chemicals.\u00a0 I’m clearly not enough of an old-school drunk to tell what all’s going into the mix.\u00a0 But people seem to like his product.<\/p>\n

Anyway, as he’s drifting drunkenly across America, he ends up on a well appointed yacht.\u00a0 On said yacht is Hoffman who is a charismatic leader of a scientology-type cult.\u00a0 Hoffman seems intrigued by Phoenix’s lack of give-a-fuck and also takes a liking to Phoenix’s drink mixing skills.\u00a0 So Phoenix joins this world traveling bunch of seemingly well-heeled vagabonds as they solicit donations from upper class across the eastern seabord.\u00a0 Phoenix embraces Hoffman’s system (I’ll not go into specifics, for a concise summary of the focused retardery of Scientology see South Park) and enthusiastically defends it against those who raise reasonable doubts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It becomes clear that Hoffman’s fascination with Phoenix is really a desire to master this man who will not be mastered.\u00a0 The Navy and society couldn’t control him, what a coup for Hoffman if he can bend this man with dianetics, oops I mean the movement.\u00a0 And that is the crux of the story.\u00a0 Is the answer to what plagues man to surrender to a higher authority no matter how insane or silly?\u00a0 Is there healing in surrendering free will?<\/p>\n

Phoenix’s character embodies the answer no.\u00a0 He will not be ruled.\u00a0 Did the cult help him discover himself in its processes?\u00a0 That is the question the film asks you.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Solid film, well worth seeing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Paul Thomas Anderson is never boring.\u00a0 From Boogie Nights to There Will Be Blood, he always has a story to tell that is worth hearing.\u00a0 Even if his stories had nothing to tell us (not the case) the way he … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieox.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=393"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":399,"href":"https:\/\/movieox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393\/revisions\/399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieox.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieox.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieox.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}