Skyfall: Good, Not Perfect

First things first, let’s get this out of the way: go see Skyfall. It’s good, I recommend watching it. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, we can look at it a little bit more critically. There were things that I liked and things that I didn’t like about it. Spoiler alert: there may be spoilers in this. It depends what you define as a spoiler, so I’m just going to tell you that I’m going to talk about the movie and some of what happens in it. If you haven’t seen it, come back to this after you have.

In Defense of Writing: An Attack on Writing

“Don’t let schooling interfere with your education.” –Mark Twain

I admit, I’ve used this as a mantra throughout my school days (which are soon coming to an end) as an excuse to blow off classes as impractical and useless. I’ve asked my share of teachers “When will I ever need this?” in response to their lessons. In short, I was a typical student: mistrustful of the skills I was being taught in the classroom and confident that all I needed to know would be learned outside the oppressive walls of the school.

"The Master": Lots of Things Are Good, But Not All

After watching Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master, I didn’t know what to say. The subject matter was very interesting, analyzing the different personalities involved in a cult of personality. The acting performances by Joaquin Phoenix (playing Freddie Quell) and Phillip Seymour Hoffman (as Lancaster Dodd) will undoubtedly, and deservedly, garner plenty of attention when award season comes. The cinematography is stunning. Strong recurring visuals, such as the churning blue water behind a boat or Freddie lying beside his sand maiden, are sprinkled throughout.

And yet, I don’t know what to say. I’m not sure what the movie is about, and I don’t think I would be able to if I watched it again. While clearly based on/inspired by L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology, it’s not a dramatic documentation of the leader or his movement. It reads more as a case study of the types of people in a movement of this nature: the master and the servant. Again, there is an abundance of substance in that approach and Andersen touches on some of it. But we never get a clear idea of where within that relationship he really wants explore. Because of that, the characters cycle through doubt, falling outs, and reconciliation without progressing much further.