Hot on the heels of this beautiful new teaser poster for The Master, movie poster as chilled wine, we get the full trailer! P.T. Anderson's long awaited big screen return teaser post recalls the also evocative and text-focused teaser poster for There Will Be Blood which will be a very tough act to follow.
Even the Academy, which had resisted his sometimes challenging, defiantly eccentric and untraditional melding of epic treatment to non-traditionally-epic subject matter got into There Will Be Blood. But if anyone can live up to that film, wouldn't it be P.T.? He's never made anything less than a good movie and quite often he manages instant classics: Hard Eight, Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch Drunk Love, and There Will Be Blood. (Good luck finding anyone else with a filmography that consistently fine!)
Trailer and Yes No Maybe So breakdown follow...
YES
- The images are so crisp, evocative, and well chosen. Can't wait to see the imagery on the big screen.
- Joaquin Phoenix is often a stunning actor. I absolutely love the creeping doubt on his face, listening to the son diss his own father, Phoenix's idol. "He's making all this up as he goes along. Can't you see that?"
- ...and speaking of which, the casting of Jesse Plemons as the son of Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams strikes me as inspired even though he was never my favorite actor from Friday Night Lights.
- The subject matter has greatness in it; we need more smart movies about the dangers of idealogues.
- Most trailers use previously composed scores. If this is an old one I want to know which. If it's new, it's yet another great score for a P.T. movie.
- The questionnaire recitation feels unnerving for its universality. "Are you thoughtless in your remarks? Do your past failures bother you? Is your life a struggle? Is your behavior erratic?" Anyone could answer yes and drop their defences, and therein lies the cultish danger.
NO
- This has nothing to do with the movie but I'm already dreading the Oscar Campaign Category Fraud that's on its way because The Master is obviously a mano a mano movie, a two male lead battle. Who goes supporting fradulently? What worthy supporting player character actor will have to sacrifice a once-in-a-lifetime nomination so that Phoenix and Hoffman can have their third and fourth, respectively?
- Real "No"s are not applicable. I haven't got any.
MAYBE SO
- "I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist, a theoretical philosopher. But above all I am a man. Just like you." -- I actually love Philip Seymour Hoffman's line reading of this. And just his voice in general in this trailer. Surprise! Or maybe Joaquin Phoenix's delayed disbelief amusement ('this man. just like me?') makes me love it? I don't know. Point being: I love P.T. Anderson so much that I can even live with his PSH Addiction; this is their fourth collaboration. I don't care for his work in other Anderson films (but for Magnolia in which he's super) but I hope for the best.
TWO RANDOM SCREENCAP THOUGHTS THAT DON'T FIT THESE CATEGORIES
Amy Adams... can she give Hathaway a run for the Supporting Actress prize? I also hate it when gorgeous actresses have to frump it up onscreen but what can you do? She's playing a fundamentalist.
This is the exact look I have on my face when I watch Joaquin Phoenix act! He's a dangerous screen presence. You feel like anything might happen.
After this short glimpse of P.T. Anderson's The Master how YES NO MAYBE SO are you?