Joaquin Phoenix
There Will Be Dud: Paul Thomas Anderson’s First Mediocre Movie
I know it’s not customary, but the customary is fading like spit in the sun. So I want to review two trailers for Paul Thomas Anderson’s next film, The Master, which will be released in October. The second trailer appeared online in June, the first a month earlier. They accompany the limited announcement that the film, set around 1950, is about one man who starts a new religion, and another who becomes his follower. It remains to be seen whether this description is accurate or sufficient. I want to approach the trailers as two films, each about ninety seconds long.
The Secret Life of Dennis
On a sunny Saturday in New Hampshire not long ago, Dennis Kucinich laid out for me the path that would lead him to the presidency. "I think what will happen," he explained, "is that the tremendous demand for integrity and authenticity is going to cause my candidacy to emerge powerfully in the closing weeks of the primary campaign to change it all." The two of us were sitting in the backseat of an SUV driven by an aide, shuttling between campaign events.
Village Idiocies
In 1999 it looked as though American filmmaking might be on the cusp of an exciting period not unlike the Coppola-Scorsese-Allen 1970s, with several original young directors coming into their own at once. That year, fortyish David O.
