The Master

 Year:  2012

Director:  Paul Thomas Anderson

Screenplay:  Paul Thomas Anderson

Starring:  Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams

Running Time:  137 minutes

Genre:  Drama

Freddie Quell (Phoenix), a troubled, heavy drinking World War Two veteran, finds it difficult to adjust to postwar American society.  His drinking, coupled with his violent, erratic behaviour, causes him to be fired from several jobs, as he drifts across the States.  In San Francisco, Freddie meets Lancaster Dodd (Hoffman) the founder and leader of a movement known as "The Cause", which claims to help people using a confrontational technique called "Processing".  Freddie becomes fascinated by The Cause and the charismatic Dodd, and soon becomes a devoted follower.

This complex and often bleak drama, inspired by the early years of Scientology, is a powerful and sometimes disturbing piece of work.  Joaquin Phoenix gives one of his best performances as the violent alcoholic Freddie Quell.  The lecherous, mercurial Quell is often a deeply unlikeable character, but Phoenix gives us a glimpse of the humanity at his core.  Philip Seymour Hoffman is perfectly cast the charming, garrulous Dodd.  With Hoffman you can see how someone might fall for Dodd's line.  Dodd and Quell form a kind of father-son relationship, with Dodd frequently talking to him as if he's a small child, despite the fact that Hoffman was only seven years older than Phoenix.  There are moments, however, when Dodd's genial facade slips in brief explosions of rage.  Amy Adams plays Dodd's wife, Peggy, a quiet woman, who is a true believer in Dodd and The Cause, who is a mixture of charm, calm rage and steely determination.  There are also appearances from Laura Dean, Jesse Plemons and Rami Malek.  The film is far more than just a drama about a cult, it deals with America in the late 1940s early 1950s, the need to belong and the deep human will to believe in something.   Most of all it's about the strange connection between two men who are polar opposites and yet have a strange attachment.  Even when Freddie's bad behaviour alienates almost everyone around him, Dodd still insists in bringing him back into the fold.  The film's principal weakness is that it is quite meandering, it's one of those films where the story seems to have reached a conclusion, but there is still more to come.  However, this is a small criticism, since this is a truly great film.

Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Rami Malek in The Master
  

The Big Lebowski

Year of Release:  1998
Director:  Joel Coen
Screenplay:  Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Starring:  Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Julianne Moore, Steve Buscemi, David Huddleston, John Turturro, Philip Seymour Hoffman
Running Time:  117 minutes
Genre:  Comedy

Los Angeles, 1991:  Jeff Lebowski (Bridges), who prefers to be known as "The Dude", is a good natured slacker, an ex-hippie who spends his time bowling and smoking weed.  One night two strangers break into his small apartment, mistaking him for a millionaire who is also named Jeff Lewbowki (Huddleston).  They leave after realising their mistake, but not before one of them ruins the Dude's rug.  Believing that the "Big Lebowski" owes him for his rug, the Dude finds himself unwitting drawn into a complex kidnapping plot involving an experimental artist, German nihilists, wealthy pornographers, a million dollars and a hungry marmot. 

This is a very funny shaggy-dog story from the Coen Brothers.  Influenced by the detective fiction of author Raymond Chandler, the story doesn't really make a lot of sense, but then, it's not supposed to.  the episodic narrative is packed with jokes and memorable characters:  Aggressive Vietnam veteran Walter (John Goodman), avant-garde artist Maude (Julianne Moore) who works naked flying on a swing, and flamboyant bowler Jesus (John Turturro).  The Coen Brothers have a real gift for idiosyncratic dialogue, and a strong ear for individual speech patterns.  It's sylishly directed, and visually striking, particularly the surreal dream sequences, and a great soundtrack of late sixties and seventies psychedelic rock.  Most importantly it is very funny, and full of quotable lines.  The film wasn't a big success on it's first release, but it has since become a major cult hit, to the point where some people pattern their lives on the film, there is even a semi-religion known as "Dudeism".  It's set against the backdrop of the first Gulf War, which is seen on TV sets and occasionally mentioned (in one scene the Dude hallucinates Saddam Hussein as a bowling alley employee) but doesn't really impact the characters lives at all, even the militaristic Walter is pretty much fixated on Vietnam, and these characters are living in the past, and are still stuck in the early seventies.  Their nostalgic worldview isn't criticised by the film, seeming to exist apart from the rest of the world, in a mythic Shangri-La for white middle-aged men, of bowling and weed.  The Dude's problems occur when he is forces himself out of his own world, but despite everything that happens, all he really wants is a rug.  Everything the Dude does in the film is because he has been pushed to do it, or talked into it by others, to the extent that he frequently parrots what people say to him to others, word for word, as if they are his own ideas, and he seems to think they are.  The Dude elevates laziness into an artform.  Everyone in the talented cast gives a good performance, and it seems like it was a lot of fun for all concerned.  While the Coes Brothers have definitively stated that there will not be a sequel, John Tuturro has written, directed and stars in a spin-off film called The Jesus Rolls which is due for release in 2020.

            Jeff Bridges, Steve Buscemi and John Goodman prepare to roll in The Big Lebowski

Punch-Drunk Love

Year of Release:  2002
Director:  Paul Thomas Anderson
Screenplay:  Paul Thomas Anderson
Starring:  Adam Sandler, Emily Watson, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Luis Guzman, Mary Lynn Rajskub
Running Time:  95 minutes
Genre: Romantic comedy 

Los Angeles:  Barry Egan (Sandler) is a lonely entrepreneur who owns a company which sells toilet plungers and other, similar novelty items.  He suffers from severe social awkwardness which is exacerbated by his seven sisters who ridicule and humiliate him constantly.  To make matters worse, he is given to bursts of violence when he is really upset or stressed.  Barry also collects large quantities of puddings for a frequent flier air miles promotion. 
After meeting and falling for shy Lena Leonard (Watson), Barry has a new purpose to life, but things become complicated when the operator of a phone sex line he called tries to extort money from him.    

This strange film is a very offbeat romantic comedy.  Although it adheres to the general boy meets girl formula, in terms of approach it is very different.  Adam Sandler contributes a striking performance, toning down his usual comic persona, and making it somehow darker, closer to the more realistic "cringe comedy" of someone like Ricky Gervais, but making his sudden bursts of violence even more disturbing.  Emily Watson's character is more if an enigma, which nevertheless hints at hidden depths.  The world of Punch-Drunk Love is a deeply strange one.  In each of Paul Thomas Anderson's carefully composed shots there is the hint of things happening in the background.  The whole thing has a dreamlike feel to it with love the thing that provides hope in a nightmare world.
Incidentally, any Murderinos may recognise the voice of Karen Kilgariff as one of Barry's sisters. 

Emily Watson and Adam Sandler in Punch-Drunk Love