Damn Fine TV/Film
Have you ever examined a spool of thread? You follow the thread around its bobbin, line after line, turn after turn, gazing at its perfect uniformity. The slightest disturbance, perhaps a speck of dust, disrupts the flow of the thread. Each line of the condensed cotton, systematically following the other with machine-like precision, each strand …
Continue reading "The Haunting Brilliance of Phantom Thread"
Inherent Vice reminds me a lot of David Lynch's Inland Empire. Both films are sprawling, often incoherent character studies set in Los Angeles, stripped of the typical glow the city promises. Neither film lends itself well to a plot synopsis or an easily understood summary, and are better approached as experiences rather than casual film …
Continue reading "The Magnetism of Opposites in Inherent Vice"
"If you figure a way to live without serving a master, any master, then let the rest of us know, will you? For you'd be the first person in the history of the world." Lancaster Dodd, played exquisitely by Philip Seymour Hoffman, utters the above line in Paul Thomas Anderson's 2012 film, The Master. Ironically, however, …
Continue reading "Experiencing Life While Serving The Master"
Nature vs. Nurture is one of my favorite philosophical debates. On one side of the ring, René Descartes, suggesting that human beings are born with innate ideas that inform our decision-making and relationship with the world for the rest of our lives. Across from Descartes stands John Locke, who suggested that human beings begin life …
The eternal struggle of the human circumstance is discovering the purpose of one's life. We spend countless hours in school, working jobs, or deep in thought attempting to ascertain the reason for our existence. For some, they believe that discovering what they are most passionate about, or that for which they have a particular talent …
Continue reading "Battling Ego and Searching for Love in Boogie Nights"
Paul Thomas Anderson is a living, working, current filmmaker which puts him at an extreme disadvantage to being on my radar. I have a proclivity for the work of directors long passed or those with a surrealist bent, neither category would be home to Paul Thomas Anderson. Each year, however, I embark on the quest …