Sadly, they're celebrating Lawrence of Arabia's anniversary with a brand new 4K DCP version.

I buy the buddy movie reading. "Master" in the title is certainly about more than what people call Dodd.

I also agree with you about MMMM vs TM. I do think that the former is a more subtle look into cultish control, though.

You know, Allen, that you're going to see this film just to come here and tell us what kind of shit it is, so you might as well get it over with.

???

I'm not going to see this movie.

ok.

Freddie's a sociopath and Dodd a narcissist. Neither of them know how to relate to those around them as more than cardboard cutouts, but in different ways. Their shared emotional emptiness (if slightly variant iterations thereof) is likely a big part of what draws them to one another.

If only the relationship had been served by a slightly more engrossing script.

K

Letterman went off tonight about Phoenix not appearing on his show to promote The Master, when Letterman had [unwittingly] played a pivotal role in his "two year skit" (as Letterman put it). Played as humorous, but it still felt like there was something to it.

Yeah, the problem is that everyone else is just a cardboard cutout: the wife is a cuckolding shrew, the financier is just a gullible dupe, the son is a cowardly layabout, the son-in-law a sycophant, etc.. All are one-note prompts for the two leads.

The guy I saw it with argued this was clearly by-design & entirely acceptible because that is how the two leads see the world around them. I don't know if I quite buy that, but then, the film does open and close with an image of Freddie being intimate with a T&A sand sculpture.

K

If it's by design, it's a faulty design ... and the 2nd flick in a row for Anderson to use it. Basically, that reading would have us and Anderson agreeing with Freddie's view of the world, which is kind of a dumb effect, I should think.

I pretty much agree with this.