Harmony Korine's Letterman legacy gave us the inspiration for this week's HOF: a look back on all the times the predictable rhythm of a talk show has been shaken up by its guests and taken to another level, for better or, oftentimes, for worse.
We learned a lot today. How to spell “inauguration” (though I’d like to keep “Anoguracetion” as a beautiful name for my future daughter). How to wear the “fringe [that’s] the talk of the town — and the world." How to express excitement with a wiggle. How to bring a pastoral backdrop with you wherever you go. How to give good side-eye. And, of course, how to accessorize. Lupe Fiasco learned that if you’re going to criticize the POTUS, you have to keep it radio-edit length. There will be a test later today covering these topics and more. This is the only flash card you’ll need.
It can be argued that Paul Thomas Anderson is America's greatest living director. That particular argument is not one we're about to undertake, because we're not looking to incite a cineaste melee in which various Criterion Collection Blu-rays are hurled to and fro like so many phosphorescent Tron death-Frisbees, but here is the short yet significant filmography of the man a certain excitable segment of the population likes to shorthand as "PTA": Hard Eight. Boogie Nights. Magnolia. Punch-Drunk Love. There Will Be Blood. And now, arriving with roughly the same level of anticipation in the film-obsessed community as behind-the-scenes footage of a drunk Orson Welles test-sledding six dozen Rosebud prototypes, The Master.
Anderson's latest divisive masterpiece was released on a handful of screens in New York and Los Angeles last week, shattering per-theater records in the process. Today, it expands to 788 locations, giving moviegoers in the rest of the country their first opportunity to partake in the Mastermania gripping artisanal-torpedo-juice-sipping coastal elites. But should you part with your hard-earned entertainment dollar on a movie that, at this moment, is a mere nine points higher on the Tomatometer than Dredd 3D? We once again are committed to answering the questions that will guide our readers to the best possible ticket-buying decision.
This week, Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master gets a limited release, effectively kicking off Oscar season. There are many reasons to be excited about this movie, but chief among them is the chance to watch powerhouse thespians Philip Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix act the living daylights out of one another. In anticipation of this battle for the ages, we've put together this pregame highlight reel and asked our staff: Are you Team Hoffman or Team Phoenix?
One of the many elements that makes Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master such an object of fascination is the fact that the movie will be Joaquin Phoenix's first project since he went woolly. The last time we saw the ever-talented Phoenix onscreen, it was in his fake-documentary I'm Still Here, in which he was bearded and incoherent and druggy and pretending to launch a rap career. Personally, I was always onboard with Phoenix and his buddy/director Casey Affleck trying to mess with us; getting Diddy to vouch that "Joaquin's for real" will forever be a hilarious thing to do. For the most part, though, the long months of performance art rubbed the populace the wrong way, and the end result of I'm Still Here wasn't nearly enough to convince the detractors it was all worth it. But those same anti–I'm Still Here–ians must now face an uncomfortable truth: According to the man himself, if Phoenix's comeback performance — and, by extension, The Master as a whole — is any good, it's because of that time he was pretending to be a rapper.
According to the mandates of the official Grantland policy to Obsessively Cover Anything That Has to Do With The Master, we really have no choice but to present you with this latest clip from Paul Thomas Anderson's upcoming magnum opus. As The Playlist explains, this footage was cut to promote a screening of the movie in Chicago this very Thursday night, with proceeds benefiting a film preservation society. So step one here should be watching the clip, and taking in once more just how epically tortured Joaquin Phoenix looks every second he's onscreen. Whatever you may have thought of Phoenix's "I'm a rapper now" movie I'm Still Here, it flexed a certain method-nutso vulnerability that, to me, was hard not to respect. Now, it looks like Phoenix has brought some of that back — doesn't it feel like his character here is, at any moment, a slight breeze away from breaking out in sobs? — and refined and elevated it through the handiwork of PTA. OK, and step two here should be getting to Chicago for tonight's preview screening of The Master — get on Kayak, saddle up your horse-and-buggy, rent a motorcycle with a sidecar if you have to, just go, go, go!
The Master, Paul Thomas Anderson's forthcoming take on an L. Ron Hubbard–esque religious leader and his wayward disciple, continues its campaign to slow-roll us into complete and utter submission. First there were the juicy rumors about the secretive project, which PTA and his cohorts seemed to almost cheekily deny was about Scientology. Then there was the first footage from the flick, featuring a diabolically tweaking Joaquin Phoenix, back in a real role for the first time since he was still here. And now here comes a new trailer finally revealing Philip Seymour Hoffman as the Hubbard surrogate in all of his creepy glory. We get a bit of chatter between Hoffman and Phoenix, right as the poor lad seems to be getting unwittingly roped into the mind games of the mustachioed man who describes himself as "a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist, a theoretical philosopher." It almost makes you want to reach out and grab good ol' slack-faced Joaquin, shake him around the shoulders a bit, and shout at him to run far, far away. But then there wouldn't be a movie (and also, that'd be impossible to do because he's a fictional character). Anyway, this drops October 12. Prepare yourself accordingly.
