The Master - A Movie Review by Andrew Lawrence

"I do many, many things. I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist, a theoretical philosopher, but, above all, I am a man. A hopelessly inquisitive man, just like you."

The Master, the newest film created by the movie mastermind Paul Thomas Anderson, is the deepest movie I've seen since i started blogging. It's one of those movies that you can't fully grasp within one viewing, one you respect for it's many layers, messages and themes. I saw Anderson's There Will Be Blood a while back, and ever since, I've had no doubt in my mind that his movies mean something special to me. I've come to the conclusion that they don't fall into one general genre, but that they're in a class for themselves. The Master is just as unique, beautiful and ruthlessly deep and fascinating as There Will Be Blood, and they actually are quite similar, but then again, they're vastly different as well. The same goes for the two main characters in this movie, but more on that later. 

The film takes place in post-WWII-America, where the war veteran Freddie Quell finds himself lost, sick and lonely when he gets send home from his ship in the Pacific. He wanders from place to place, never being able to keep his many different kinds of work for long periods of time in a row, because of his social inabilities. After 5 years of travelling America, he ends up on a ship, and aboard this ship he meets Philip Seymour Hoffmann's character Dodd Lancaster, who styles himself as The Master of a religious or spiritual cult/assemble called "The Cause". Freddie gets sucked into the life on the boat and into what The Cause has to offer him, and he becomes close friends with Dodd. The two become strongly connected to each other in many ways, and their odd and powerful relationship becomes the main theme and focus of the rest of the movie. 

The Master is like a ogre or an onion. It has layers. Manny many many layers, and I'm convinced that i won't ever stop finding new themes or messages hidden within them, no matter how many times i watch the movie. Writing about this it in it's entirety would take up as much space as all my previous reviews combined, so i'll stick to explaining what i found most fascinating and compelling from watching it just once. One thing that absolutely needs to be discussed, is the inhumane performances by the lead actors. Readers of my Gladiator review will know that I'm a huge fan of Joaquin Phoenix, and watching him deliver the performance of a lifetime in The Master has only served to make me treasure him even more. He's unrecognisably, indescribably, absolutely and completely fantastic in this movie. The way he delivers his lines, expresses his thoughts through facial expressions, carries himself and delves into the character of the psychotic Freddie Quell, becomes Freddie Quell, is unheard of, it's breathtaking, it's art, and Hoffmann is almost just at good. I know that many consider Daniel Day Lewis' performance in Lincoln, the guy who by the way won the Oscar for best actor in There Will Be Blood, as the best performance of the year, but to me, Joaquin is just out of this world perfect in The Master, and he puts on my personal favourite performance of 2012. 

When it comes to the themes of this deeply layered movie, the one i believe to be the most important one is loneliness, and longing for a loving family. Freddie is lonesome and lost, wet from the rain and tired from travelling, and when he sees Dodd dancing with his wife on their ship, all the members of The Cause watching them, clapping and smiling along, he spontaneously boards the ship, and seeks to become a part of that happy family. Throughout the movie you see several of his unsuccessful attempts at becoming a part of the family, how desperate he is to be loved, and how traumatized he is. The only person who seems to like him is Dodd Lancaster, and Freddie therefore becomes addicted to his friendship. As mentioned above, the two of them are virtually complete opposites; One is outspoken, gallant, clever, popular, rich, confident and powerful, whilst the other one is weak, mentally unstable, socially incapable, drunk, traumatized, insecure and hateful. At the same time though, and this where it gets really really good, the two have many striking similarities. They're both alchemists, for an example. Freddie is capable of brewing moonshine from virtually anything; paint thinner, torpedo fuel, bread, fruit or medicine, and he's so good at it that Dodd becomes almost addicted to his brewery. Dodd on the other hand creates his intoxicating substance though speeches, by preaching and through psychoanalytical sessions, all of which Freddie becomes addicted to, so much so that he beats up people who dares to question Dodds methods. Both of them create something that the other one needs, and they end up actually needing each other. 

The Cause, the movement witch Dodd Lancaster has created, is considered by almost anyone who has seen The Master, to be an early version of Scientology. It's never actually called Scientology in the film, but it's pretty obvious that this is what Paul Thomas Anderson intended, with all the talk of  the human body being a vessel for the soul, previous lives and man being more than an animal; a perfect creature. Anderson doesn't display Scientology as a completely good thing however. It's visible how Dodd's views and ways of thinking sometimes change to make things easier to explain or understand, and when confronted with criticism, the weak points of The Cause's way of thinking become clearer. Freddie begins to question whether what he's doing is right, but because of his addiction to The Cause and to Dodd, he stays deeply immersed in its reality. The Cause ends up owning him, it becomes something he cannot control himself, and this inner struggle of Freddie's is sort of the main "battle" of The Master, along with Dodd's struggle to run his "cult". It's very hard to explain much of this because it's so very complicated to fully grasp, and I'm worried that what I'm writing wont do the movie justice. These are just my main thoughts about The Master, and i strongly recommend anyone who hasn't seen it yet to go ahead and do so. 

The fact that you can make up your own ideas of what this great movie is about, is one of the many fantastic things about Anderson's latest film; there's no final or conclusive answer to the many questions you're left with after watching it. The more i think about this movie, the more i fall in with it, and i honestly didn't think it was that good at first. I never doubted that the acting was some of the finest I've seen in years, but the story and the many layers took some time for me appreciate. I've come to the conclusion that i don't have to fully grasp The Master's complete content, all it's themes and messages, and that letting go and just allowing Paul Thomas Anderson, Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffmann to take my mind on a thrilling adventure is the way to go about The Master.

Grading this movie is the toughest thing I've had to do for as long as i can remember. Anderson deserves the rating of movie magic for his magnificent vision and gorgeous cinematography (i didn't get to talk about he latter in this review, but it's fan-freaking-tastic), and Phoenix's flat out spellbinding lead performance also deserves my greatest praises. However, the movie as a whole did not entertain me as much as it amazed and surprised me. Its first impression wasn't top notch, and when compared to my favourite movies in terms of raw entertainment and storytelling, it simply just isn't worth a 6/6. The Master's acting, character development, artistic features, thought provoking nature and beautiful cinematography is something i would gladly pay to experience many times again though, and it is therefore absolutely, completely and undoubtedly worth buying on BluRay. (5/6)

The Master IMDb page here

The Master trailer here

Update #2 - The Walking Dead and House of Cards Series Introductions

So after a period of holidays, immense amounts of school work and a batch of flu, I'm back to writing on my blog, and as the title suggest, I'm going to expand a little in this entry. I'm not a huge series-o'holic, and my resume more and less consists of six seasons of Dexter, seven seasons of How i met Your Mother, everything Game of Thrones and most of the Friends series. My currently-watching list looks as follows: Breaking Bad (three seasons in), and up until recently that was pretty much it. However, since I've had to stay home sick for a couple of days, I've had the chance to dig into some other ones as well, and I've decided to keep on watching a few of them. This blog will serve as an introduction to those two series, not as reviews, seeing as I'm not done watching either of them.

The Walking Dead

The first series i checked out was one I've head a lot about recently; The Walking Dead. As i stated in one of my previous movie reviews, I'm not a horror buff, not at all, but i can honestly say, just from watching the first season, that I'm completely in love with this zombie-apocalyptic-survival-horror series. A zombie apocalypse is something that I believe most guys have put a great deal of thought into, including me, and it's just incredibly cool to watch some of the ideas and thoughts I've had on the matter unravel on the screen.

One of the things I hate the most about the horror genre, is that it's by far the one that produces the highest amount of soulless, cash grabbing, eye-gouge inducing stink piles at the moment. As I said in my review of the movie Se7en: if a horror movie/series truly has to win me over, it has to be clever and self aware. Luckily, The Walking Dead is just that. It knows that in order come across as being legitimate, it has to be dead serious (no pun intended), make the audience believe that it takes place in a post apocalyptic world, and most of all it has to depict how the people in that world react to the things going on around them.

Character progression is one of the biggest focuses of this series, and it does it almost flawlessly. People despair, loose hope, they panic, and the choices and sacrifices they have to make in order to stay alive takes it's heavy tole on all of them. It's incredibly entertaining, suspenseful and nerve wracking to watch, but at the same time, it's easy to keep up with what's going on. The plot is straight forward and easy to understand, without being predictable and boring. The Walking Dead is easy to watch, yet still enthralling and engaging entertainment, and honestly, who doesn't love watching zombies getting slaughtered once in a while?

House of Cards

Now, I'we only just finished watching the very first episode of this series a few hours ago, and man, did it knock me on my ass. House of Cards have some really big names attached to it, names such as David Fincher, one of my favorite directors, and oh yea, Kevin Freaking Spacey. The fact that this man, one of my all time favorite actors, plays the lead character, is the main reason I gave House of Cards a shot, and from watching the pilot, I can already tell that I'm in for a treat. Spacey plays Majority Whip (explanation here) in the party of the newly reelected president, and because he for some reason was cheated out of receiving his promised promotion after the election, he decides to go on a personal vendetta, using every dirty trick in his political toolbox to become president himself.

The thing about House of Cards I instantly fell in love with, is the way the series sometimes breaks the fourth wall. Having Francis Underwood (Spacey) look into the camera and talk directly to the audience and explain a situation or his motives behind an action gives a unique insight into the plot that I'we seldom seen before. They could have just made Francis narrate these parts of the the series, but doing this talk-to-the-camera thing gives it a cool twist that often times is incredibly funny as well as effective for what it's trying to do. An example of this way of filming can be seen in the very first part of the trailer that I'we linked below. As always, Spacey acts his role incredibly well, and I'm looking forward to seeing him tear the white house apart from the inside out. 

Just as a final note, I'd like to say that i will be writing more movie reviews in the near future, I just have to get into the habit of going to school and not being a human volcano once again. 

/Andrew

The Walking Dead IMDb page here

The Walking Dead trailer here

House of Cards IMDb page here

House of Cards trailer here

Gladiator - A Movie Review by Andrew Lawrence

"My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions and loyal servant to the TRUE emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next."

So I've been trying to come up with a cool way to start off this review for a while now, and it's proving to be quite a challenge, which is pissing me off. Then again, it could be worse. As long as my family doesn't get molested and crucified and I don't get sold as a slave to get killed by lions in an arena, I guess I've got nothing to complain about. 

Gladiator is a movie about a roman general played by the academy award winning actor Russell Crowe, who gets betrayed, and thus becomes a slave. He has to fight as a gladiator in order to secure his freedom and avenge his family, and after his first few fights, his slaver realises how great a gladiator he is, beeing a former army general and such. Because of his talents in the arena, Maximus is taken to Rome to fight in the Colosseum, and thus begins a legendary tale of love, revenge, betrayal, death, honor and bravery. A story of a general who became a slave. A slave who became a gladiator. The gladiator who defied an emperor. 

The way I see it, there are two main themes in this movie, the first one being revenge. Maximus was cast aside by Commodus, the new emperor, because he refused his offer to become high general of the Roman army, in favour of going back to live with his family. As punishment, Commodus kills Maximus' wife and young son, leaving Maximus with an incredible thirst for revenge. There are certain points in this movie where you can just see his lust for retaliation seething from his eyes, and it makes you root the shit out of Russell Crowe's character, because he's so incredible at expressing just what a man in Maximus' situation must be feeling. Some of his lines are incredibly memorable, and Crowe delivers them with an authority and a confidence that I've seldom seen before. 

The second, and quite possibly the most important theme also, is love. Maximus loved his family deeply, which is why he wants revenge for them being killed so badly. He's come to the point where he actually wants to die, because he believes he's going to see his them in the afterlife, he just has to get to his revenge first. Commodus, the emperor played incredibly well by Joaquin Phoenix, is also a family man, but in an entirely different way than Maximus. He's a self absorbed, greedy and unstable, sometimes even psychotic young man, who takes his fathers seat by murdering him and staging it to look like a natural death. His father and Maximus had a very close relationship, something that had been torturing Commodus for many years. Therefore, when Maximus finds out about this murder, it only adds to their already hateful relationship. Commodus also loves his sister very much, witch is quite ironic, because she's in love with Maximus. Feeling as though everyone in his family likes Maximus better than himself, Commodus becomes a very angry, frustrated and sad man, and his character is one of my favourite villains of all time, because you hate him just as much as you feel bad for him. 

Hans Zimmer composed the official Gladiator theme song called Now We Are Free, and by God, it's one of the most beautiful and sad songs ever created. The movie is very sad in itself, seeing as it's centered around death and betrayal, and this song reminds me of just how emotional I get when watching this film. Listening to it for just a few seconds literally gets me all emotional and it almost puts tears in my eyes, it's that striking. A good example of how much I adore this soundtrack is the fact that I've taken an entire part of this review and dedicated it just to praising the living hell out of a score. Here's a link to the soundtrack, please take a few minutes out of your day to sit down and listen to it through a pair of good headphones, and trust me, you wont regret it.

One of the the many thing i adore about this movie, is how strongly attached i get to Crowe's character. He's been through so many things in his life, sacrificed most of it to fight for the roman army and serving the Cesar, and seeing him get screwed over as royally as he does is just gut wrenching. You just want this guy to become happy so badly. I almost felt as though my world got connected to the universe of the Roman Empire when I watched Gladiator for the first time, and I was completely sucked into the world of gladiators, emperors and slaves, which is largely due to the incredible cinematography and directing that went into this movie, done by the legendary Ridley Scott. Some of the shots are beautiful beyond explanation, and especially one scene sends chills down my back every time I watch it. It's the scene where Maximus is walking through a field, his hand brushing lightly on top of the swaying corn, with Now We Are Free playing in the background. I can't explain much about the situation or the symbolism of this scene without spoiling too much of the plot, but ladies and gentleman, I promise you, it's B-E-A-utiful.

Now, I know that there are many people who think that gladiator is tad bit too long and too drawn out, but too me, it's too short. I've bought the BluRay version, and with it comes an extended cut version witch is a whopping 3,5 hours long, and i still think that's too short as well. The more i watch this movie, the more I fall in love with it, and I'm always sad when it's over. I want it to go on forever, never come to an end, just keeping on going. When all is said and done however, there is a few things about Gladiator that I think could have been done better, and one of them is the colour of the buildings in Rome. They seem a little grey and cold to me, and I've always thought of Rome as a big shining city. Some sand colour or yellow/redish would have fit better in my opinion, but it's not too big a problem when everything going on inside those walls are as epic as they are. The other thing I didn't like about this movie. is the trailer. It's one of the more shitty trailers I've seen, and you should not decide whether you want to see Gladiator based on the contents of it. Just trust me on my word and go see it, whether you liked the trailer or not.

This movie is grand, spectacular and epic. It revolutionised the world of cinema sword fighting, took emotional investment to a level never seen before, and has cemented itself as one of the best historical movies of all time. It's acted perfectly, the script is filled to the rim with memorable quotes, everything from the costumes to the scenery is done perfectly, it has an incredible soundtrack, and leaves you feeling as though you've just witnessed something incredible and special. Gladiator is very close to being my favourite movie of all time, and I would be doing the art of movie making a great dishonour by giving it anything but my best rating. Gladiator is, without a shadow of a doubt, movie magic. (6/6)

Gladiator IMDb page here

Gladiator trailer link here