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Quickie Review - The Master

Paul Thomas Anderson is a filmmaking genius. I consider Hard Eight and Magnolia to be two of the finest movies ever made (they are in my top 20).  I also consider There Will Be Blood, Boogie Nights and Punch Drunk Love to be amazing, with incredible performances.  So going into this viewing, my hopes were incredibly high.  His magic, with a cast of Philip Seymour Hoffman, Joaquin Phoenix and Amy Adams had me very excited.  So I was horribly disappointed at the well over two hours of convoluted mess that I just witnessed.

I think Anderson truly tried too hard to give us another epic to rival There Will Be Blood and somewhere along the way forgot to edit the movie.  It never feels like there is any continuity and there is an awful lack of screen chemistry, which is shocking with this cast.  The one bright spot is Amy Adams as the master's wife.  She is shockingly awful, but I mean awful in her persona, not her acting.  There are only three or four scenes in which she has much of a part, but they are powerful, especially towards the end. I just feel that this movie could have easily been 30-40 minutes shorter, with some obvious scenes lessened and packed a great punch. I definitely won't be giving up on Anderson, but he's proven, as have Phoenix and Hoffman, that they are human.

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