#003 The Master

I delayed reviewing this one for a few days since I watched it in the hopes I would have somehow gotten my head around it... I haven't.

I've been a MASSIVE fan of Paul Thomas Anderson's work since I saw magnolia and it absolutely floored me as a film. When I heard about this one and that it centred around a cult and Amy Adams (my favourite actress of ALL time) was going to be in it, I couldn't wait.

However, I cannot help but feel that the film I wanted, wasn't what this film was and what it was, wasn't something I was particularly after...

The story... or what one can gleam from the films very deliberate slow pacing, is about a young-ish war veteran who find himself caught up in a cult being led by a gentleman known to his followers as "Master" played quite masterfully by Philip Seymour Hoffman. The protagonist is played by Joaquin Phoenix and he has some wonderful moments... that is when you get to see them at least.

The thing is that the movie spends an awful amount of time pondering itself and Freddie (that's Phoenix) spends a lot of time pondering.... stuff... I would assume.  There are some truly brilliant scenes, one in particular between Hoffman and Phoenix early on, and a particularly wonderful scene chewing moment from Hoffman again when the Master is confronted by a skeptic.

These scenes are from the movie I wanted to see, I am perpetually fascinated by cult psychology and the like, having had some personal involvement early on in my childhood with one.  But these scene are too few and far between for me to get a firm grasp on them when they do come along if at all.

The cinematography is brilliant, and Anderson uses plenty of long takes and developing shots that are too often forgotten in the world of directors these days. Interestingly enough, a lot of the movie is shot in ludicrously shallow focus, but it is never uncomfortable which is nice for a change and this odd way of shooting is helped along by a wonderful, if unnerving, score by Johnny Greenwood.

I still don't think I'll ever really get this film, but not in a good way as I do with Fellini's 8 and a half it shall probably remain an enigma to me and I'm not really fussed: the way for another cult-based movie is still clear for, hopefully me, to one day probe.

6/10 - Unnerving, well performed, yet not quite there...

Learning From the Pros

Well I am forced to delay the movie review one more day owing to some production-based dilemmas that needed to be solved and my television being occupied, to my utter disgust, with sex and the city.

But I thought I might give away a trade secret... where I'm learning a lot of the filmmaking stuff I use. I learn it from the people I admire. While part of that is ALWAYS inclusive of watching their films, I am actually referring to a distinct advantage in our digital world of websites like youtube where the artists and craftspeople you admire are only a click away.

I can't tell you how many interviews I've since ripped from youtube and kept on hard drives, well over a few hundred gigabytes. From Spielberg to Tarantino, there's plenty of material with some really interesting and useful knowledge imparted to those who go searching.

This is especially evident with every Oscar season when all the "great" directors (except Terrence Malick) will come out to talk a bit about their work and craft.  I stumbled upon this goldmine of information the net has to offer during the 2009/2010 Oscar campaign when nominees included AVATAR, INGLORIOUS BASTERDS and THE HURT LOCKER, and I was merely searching for Tarantino-related videos to satisfy my hunger for every word that man speaks and I came across the Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF) Directors on directing panel... Basically they put all the talked about directors of the season at a table with each other and have them talk and discuss films for over an hour.
This particular panel had Quentin Tarantino, Kathryn Bigelow, James Cameron, Lee Daniels, Pete Doctor and Todd Philips... it's awe inspiring to say the least.




My only caveat for this video treasure trove is to avoid interviews (aside from some brilliant Hitchcock clips floating about by the AFI) that are shorter than 5 Minutes, usually most of that is a moronic interviewer asking stupid questions ("if you could have any superpower...", when it's a superhero film for a painful example) that add nothing to the conversation, and in my personal experience, the best ones are the interviews and panels that last long enough for the filmmakers to say something truly valuable. So my suggestion is to first search videos longer than 20 min as youtube allows in their advanced search to weed out the less insightful clips.

Hopefully I will be back tomorrow with a short review and the beginning of my "Movie-a-day" feature. I can say, however, that the first on the pile is an Australian film called BLURRED.