The Master


Set in America in the years following World War II, a charismatic intellectual (Philip Seymour Hoffman) launches a faith-based organization and taps a young drifter (Joaquin Phoenix) as his right-hand man.  But as the faith begins to gain a fervent following, the onetime vagabond finds himself questioning the belief system he has embraced, and his mentor.

What a weird, weird movie.  Paul Thomas Anderson is another one of those directors that critics love no matter what he does but I end up watching his movies with that confused dog, tilted head face the whole time.   Again as with most of the movies that came out in 2012 - the acting was great.  I mean, outside of Daniel Day-Lewis, I don't know if there is a better actor in terms of fully engrossing himself in the character than Joaquin Phoenix.   There were many times where I started to really get in to this movie and the cult following type of stuff but then it kind of swerved off track and the annoyingly over the top score ended up just turning me off from the movie that much more.

I don't know that anyone should go off of my recommendation on this one.  This is one of those movies for me where you heard so much good about it that you end up watching it questioning why people would say it was so good.  I wasn't a very big fan of it though.