Chicago: Enter to Win Tickets for Screenings of "Inherent Vice" and "The Master" on 70mm

If you live in Chicago and like seeing movies on film, you probably already know about The Music Box Theatre's annual 70mm festival, which started after Paul Thomas Anderson brought The Master to town in August of 2012 for its second-ever public screening.

As it turns out, The Master is returning to The Music Box on 70mm for this year's festival, which kicks off this weekend. What's more, the rare 70mm blow-up print of Inherent Vice will also be shown.

And wouldn't you know it, we have a couple admit-two passes to give away.  So if you live in the Chicago area and are interested in seeing these movies on glorious 70mm, here are the instructions to enter:

Email us at cigscontest@gmail.com

Write "70mm Contest" in the subject line.

In the body of the email, include your name and the title of the movie you would like to win tickets to. If you would like to submit your name for both movies, include both titles in the body, but you can only win tickets to one of the movies.

THE MASTER showtimes:
Saturday, February 20, 7:00pm
Thursday, February 25, 9:30pm

INHERENT VICE showtimes:
Saturday, February 20, 10:30pm
Wednesday, February 24, 7:30pm

Winners will be emailed this Friday morning and will need to confirm their preferred showtime by 6:00 PM Friday evening. If a winner has not confirmed by that time, we will draw another name. Feel free to visit musicboxtheatre.com for more info on the theatre and festival.

-

C&RV

Twitter and Facebook

Happy 45th, PTA!

Here's wishing Mr. Paul Thomas Anderson a happy forty-fifth birthday from the team at C&RV. We owe you everything and then some, sir, and we sincerely hope this next year brings you wellness, joy, and (selfishly) productivity.

And here's an oldie-but-a-goodie:

Cheers!
CJ & Bryan, Cigarettes & Red Vines

WATCH: PS Hoffman (A Tribute)

Good afternoon.

We were passed along this beautifully constructed, and extremely moving tribute to the colorful career of Philip Seymour Hoffman, which was tragically cut short last month. The piece contains highlights from all five of the films PSH made with PTA, alongside countless other memorable PSH screen moments. It is sure to put a lump in your throat.

Thank you to the creator of this piece, Caleb Slain, for reaching out to us personally with this.

Stay tuned to Twitter and Facebook for the latest news and updates.

Joaquin Phoenix Talks 'The Master' on Fresh Air

Joaquin Phoenix visited Fresh Air with Terry Gross to discuss Her -- his new, Oscar-ladened venture with Spike Jonze. But a funny thing happened on the way to the forum. Five minutes in, the conversation derailed and The Master took over. Among other things, Joaquin discussed having special orthodonture placed in his mouth to give Freddie Quell his famous sneer and deleted battle sequences which more explicitly showed what was behind the character's trauma. The conversation is embedded in its entirety for your listening pleasure.

Stay tuned to Twitter and Facebook for the latest news and updates.

Brolin Has More To Say About "Vice"; McConaughey Loves The Master

So far, the only two actors to come out and speak publicly about the experience of making Inherent Vice with Paul Thomas Anderson have been a stealthy Eric Roberts, and Josh Brolin, who (by our count) has just made his third set of public remarks on the matter. Our very attentive readers pointed us toward a sound bite from Mr. Brolin last week where he referred to the making of the movie as "the craziest, most brilliant experience of [his] life."

Now, as he begins press for Spike Lee's "Oldboy" remake, Brolin seems to already be waxing nostalgic on the process of working with PTA . Via The Playlist:

�My dad said recently, and I really appreciated it, 'There's a lot of directors out there but there's very few storytellers.' And working with these extreme geeks like myself who are very much these film fanatics is so nice. You're in this kind of iconic awe, and then you get to the set and you go, 'Okay, I actually have to work, we actually want to make this as good as I can be.' Like with Paul: he was taking stuff out of 'Inherent Vice', whittling away at what was in the book, and I was saying wouldn't it be great if we could bring some of what was in the book back," Brolin said. "Who the fuck am I to say that, you know what I mean?�

He added, �But then we start collaborating and putting stuff in there, and realizing, 'Okay�let's take it out, let's colorize it even more with something else, and then how are we going do this on set?' You realize all the work you've done around a table was meaningless, but it fed something. You don't know what it was, but you're always looking for that elusive thing.� 

With "Oldboy" and Jason Reitman's "Labor Day" both set for release this year, it seems fair to assume Brolin will be doing quite a few more of these interviews in the coming weeks, so rest assured we'll have our eyes and ears out for more anecdotes. Perhaps the real question is, which cast member will come out of the woodwork next?

Also in the news recently, Matthew McConaughey listed "The Master" as one of his five favorite films for Rotten Tomatoes, stating:

A fictional screenplay with fictional characters made so well it felt like a biographical nonfiction drama, like a considerately staged documentary. Identity of place and people. I could smell and taste it.

Finally, last week we spoke with Laura Colella, the writer/director/star of PTA-favorite "Breakfast With Curtis." We covered everything from the nature and difficulties of making a micro-budget independent feature to how she and Paul got connected in the first place. We're aiming for that interview to go live by the end of the week, so be sure to check back for that in the next few days.

Stay tuned to Twitter and Facebook for the latest news and updates.
"The Master" is now available on Blu-ray and DVD.

'The Master' Was Released 1 Year Ago Today

Paul Thomas Anderson's six feature-length motion picture The Master was formally released into the world one year ago today, on September 14th, 2012. Time flies, right? To commemorate this occasion, here's every available trailer for the film. Have a good weekend, everyone!

Stay tuned to Twitter and Facebook for the latest news and updates.
"The Master" is now available on Blu-ray and DVD. 

IV Roundup: Sam Jaeger Quietly Signs On; Surf Band Lands Cameo; More

couple things to get caught up on, so here we go:

1) Star of television series Parenthood, Sam Jaeger, has joined the cast of Inherent Vice as Special Agent Jason Flatweed, confirmed through his own personal twitter account. Funnily enough, this will mark Jaeger's second project with Joaquin Phoenix in as many years, as he also has a part in Spike Jonze's upcoming "Her."

2) Surf band The Blank Tapes just announced through their record label that they will have a cameo performance in the film, and based on the video below and the design of the band's website, we'd guess they'll be right at home.



3) A few have inquired, and we can now confirm through a source on the ground: Inherent Vice WILL, like The Master, have an aspect ratio of 1.85:1. Many of you already know what this means, but for those not interested in technical gobbledygook, the size of the frame that the shots are being composed for will be less wide than the first five PTA films, which all preserve 2.35:1. Here's a diagram to help illustrate.

4) Max Oph�ls' 1953 film The Earrings of Madame De... is now out on bluray through Criterion. PTA lent a wonderful introduction to the film a couple years back for it. A small sample:



5) If you live in Maryland, The Master will be hitting AFI Silver in 70mm on August 24 and 25. You can find more out about that here.

Whew, I think that's everything. As far as we know, Inherent Vice has not yet wrapped principal photography, but it should be getting close. In the meantime, consult our page on the film to find just about everything we know of it in one place.

Stay tuned to Twitter and Facebook for the latest news and updates.
"The Master" is now available on Blu-ray and DVD. 

Interview: PTA talks The Master in Port Magazine

Good evening -

We were passed along an interview this morning that PTA did with PORT Magazine (you probably know it best from this photo) over the course of his press circuit for The Master last year, and it just went online for the first time earlier today. It's got some good little nuggets, including reflections on Boogie Nights-era porno research, and growing up with Catholicism, as well as some really choice photographs. The issue was guest-edited by none other than Mr. Daniel Day-Lewis.

When she was about to give birth to Paul Thomas Anderson, his mother was driven to the hospital in a white Avanti sports car, a rare model that Studebaker made in 1964. Anderson�s father, Ernie, an actor who specialised in voiceovers for commercials and television shows, had purchased the car from Greer Garson, the stunning Academy Award-winning actress known for playing strong-willed women. �When you are nine months pregnant, it�s not the kind of car you want to be driven to the hospital in,� Anderson told me 42 years later, as we drove through the streets of Beverly Hills. �The Avanti does not have a smooth ride.�

This early confluence � a beautiful limited-edition fast-moving vehicle, an intriguing pedigree, a bumpy journey � would seem to have set the tone for Paul Thomas Anderson�s creative life, which has consistently been, by design, thrilling and complicated. �I still own the Avanti,� Anderson said, as he made an illegal and perfectly executed U-turn across Pico Boulevard. The satellite radio was tuned to �Hits of the 40s� and a crooner underscored Anderson�s driving. �That car and I have shared some important memories.�  

Anderson, who is tall and boyish, was wearing faded jeans and a matching work shirt. He perpetually has the sleepy look of the recently awakened, but his bedhead-ness is a disarming ruse: Anderson is, actually, a brilliant and sharp judge of human nature. He has an enduring fascination with lost souls � especially men � who attempt to find their way with the help of a determined mentor. The complex nature of those tangled relationships, which Anderson sets against defining periods of American history, provide the world of his six movies. They include Sydney in 1984, the story of a gambler and his hapless prot�g�; the now classic Boogie Nights in 1997, which was set in the world of 70s porn; and There Will Be Blood in 2007, in which Daniel Day-Lewis brilliantly portrayed a ruthless man searching for an oil fortune in turn-of-the-century California.  

In 2012, Anderson wrote and directed The Master, a film inspired by L Ron Hubbard and the evolution of Scientology. The Master, which was the most fascinating and controversial movie of 2012, has divided audiences, mostly due to Anderson�s stubborn unwillingness to create �likeable� characters and a happy ending. The film stars Joaquin Phoenix as Freddie Quell, an emotionally damaged WWII war veteran, and Philip Seymour Hoffman as Lancaster Dodd, the leader of a self-devised cult. It is both enticing and challenging: shot in 70mm, a dying form of lush cinematic glory, the movie asks an audience to identify with a rage-filled, deeply unhappy, alcohol addicted protagonist. Phoenix, who is mesmerising in the film, is twitchy and emaciated � his face locked in a kind of lopsided rictus that was, reportedly, inspired by a documentary he watched on the lives of apes. Hoffman, meanwhile, is charismatic and subtly diabolical � his cult leader may be making up his religion as he goes along, but he is seductive and captivating.  

If the extreme and mixed response to The Master bothered Anderson, he wasn�t letting on. In January, we met for lunch at an old-school restaurant called Factor�s on the outskirts of Beverly Hills, an hour from Anderson�s home in Tarzana where he lives with his longtime partner, the comedic actress Maya Rudolph, and their three young children. It was six days after the Academy Award nominations were announced and, although all his actors were nominated for Oscars, Anderson was overlooked. I was incensed about this � if you like the actors, you can�t ignore the person who invented the characters and directed them in the movie � but Anderson just shrugged off my cries of outrage. �The Master is not supposed to be a riddle,� he said, when I asked him if he intentionally made the film hard to embrace. �It�s not meant to be medicine. It�s not meant to be something that you have to work hard at deciphering. It�s a same old � same old story presented in a new way. It�s about Freddie and Dodd�s love for each other, what it means to be a master and a subject and vice versa. I don�t find it particularly difficult, but maybe it�s operator error.� Anderson paused and then smiled. �Meaning maybe it is my fault, but fuck it.� 

Thirteen years ago, when I first met Anderson, his response would have been much more extreme. At the time, in 1999, he was editingMagnolia, an equally daring film about intersecting lives, family and redemption at the end of the century. There were problems: Magnolia was over three hours long and Anderson was in a furor over the marketing campaign. Back then, I was in a deeply blue mood � my beloved dog was gravely ill � and for a week, I watched Anderson and his then-editor, Dylan Tichenor, cut a 10-minute scene of Jason Robards� character dying. Anderson would snap his fingers to establish the rhythm of how he wanted Robards� 22-page monologue to be crafted. It was fascinating to watch because Anderson had no emotional distance from the film �he had fused with his creation.  

Anderson seems to move on faster now, although he may not be dwelling on the complex reaction to The Master because he is in the midst of pre-production on his next movie. It�s an adaptation of Thomas Pynchon�s 2009 novel Inherent Vice that is set to begin filming in late spring. This is the first screenplay of a Pynchon novel that the author, who is known for his literary pyrotechnics and his mysterious, reclusive nature, has authorised. The book, which is set in the late 60s and early 70s, centres on a counterculture detective that, reportedly, will be played by Joaquin Phoenix, but Anderson would not discuss any aspect of his new project. �I have always loved his work,� Anderson said, not even willing to voice Pynchon�s name. When I peppered him with questions, he shook his head no, with a stubborn half-smile.  

PORT: Let�s discuss inspiration. Did you watch a lot of 70s porn before making Boogie Nights?  

Paul Thomas Anderson: I was kind of familiar with it, but I did watch a lot of 70s porn before Boogie Nights. Amanda by Night is a great movie. Veronica Hart, my personal favourite [porn actress], is in Amanda by Night and a little bit of Julianne Moore�s character was modelled on her. There�s a great young porno actress named Faye Reagan. She looks like Julianne�s character in Boogie Nights. 

P: The porno movies are now copying you! From the beginning of your career, you�ve always thoroughly researched your movies. Before you made Punch Drunk Love, which stars Adam Sandler, you went to work at Saturday Night Live to acquaint yourself with his world of comedy.  

PTA: Well, I wasn�t working at SNL because I didn�t get paid. I was curious about the show. I�d grown up around comedy writers and it sounded really appealing to be around a live comedy show. I wrote a sketch: [the comedic actress] Molly Shannon played Anna Nicole Smith and Ben Affleck, who was the guest host that week, was involved with her. I was there for two weeks and then I left. 

P: You were inspired by the novel Oil by Upton Sinclair when you wrote There Will Be Blood. The movie is literally about the financial ascent and spiritual decline of Daniel Plainview, a character loosely based on prospector turned tycoon Edward Doheny, but it is really about the corrupting power of success. Did you write the movie for Daniel Day-Lewis?  

PTA: Yes. If he had said no, I don�t think I would have made the movie.  

P: And you wrote Lancaster Dodd for Philip Seymour Hoffman?  

PTA: Yes. Phil and I started talking about the character at the end of work on There Will Be Blood in 2008. I started doing a lot of research into Scientology. I read a lot of Hubbard�s writing. He had a great imagination: there�s a book by him called Fear that�s good and one called Typewriter in the Sky. I like that title. I�ve never been to the Church of Scientology and I never heard from them. I think people may be disappointed that the film wasn�t an expos� of Scientology. I have an interest in cults � everything is a cult, in a way. What�s the difference between a cult and dropping my daughter off at school this morning? It�s a group of people gathered in one place pursuing a likeminded set of ideas and goals. If it becomes something like Charlie Manson, which is one man telling people to knock people off, then that�s something else. But is Scientology a cult? I don�t know. 

P: Do you have to like your characters?  

PTA: Yes. I think so. I love Freddie Quell. I love Master.  

P: You don�t call him by his name, Lancaster Dodd?  

PTA: No, I call him Master. That is his name.  

Anderson nearly always wins his battles for secrecy, autonomy and control. He has never suffered from self-doubt as a filmmaker � in fact, he has been certain of his career path since early childhood. When Anderson was only seven, growing up in Studio City, a suburb in the San Fernando Valley section of Los Angeles, he wrote in a notebook: �My name is Paul Anderson. I want to be a writer, producer director, special effects man. I know how to do everything and I know everything. Please hire me.�  

�I made my first movie when I was eight,� Anderson said now, after ordering eggs Florentine, a side of sliced tomatoes and coffee. �I was the second to last of nine kids and I was closest to the two sisters younger than me. I was closest to them because I could talk them into doing crazy shit. I would tell my sister to jump off a building so I could film it. I�d say, �Go ride your bike into that pile of knives � it�ll be great in my movie.��  

�My first film involved a Charlie McCarthy doll that was primed for something scary. I shot my brother watching TV late on a Friday night and my parents were not home. In my movie, the doll comes and eats his face while he�s watching TV. What I didn�t realise is that on the TV was a porn film. When I showed my movie to my parents, you can hear this massive fucking going on in the background. Lesson learned.�  

I asked Anderson what was the first film he remembered seeing? �Rocky,� he replied. �With Sylvester Stallone. That was a really big deal to me. I told my mom, �I want to be a boxer.� She said, �No, no, no � you want to be a writer � Rocky also wrote the movie!� I went out running a couple of mornings to be like Rocky and I thought, �Fuck this � I�ll take my mom�s advice and write.��  

In high school, Anderson made a short film called Dirk Diggler, about a porn star with a 13-inch penis. That became the basis for his second film, Boogie Nights, which instantly established Anderson�s reputation as one of the best filmmakers of his generation alongside Quentin Tarantino and David O Russell. In the movie�s famous set piece of a drug deal going wrong, fire crackers explode, the song Jessie�s Girlblares and Anderson focuses the camera on the blank face of his porn star hero, played by Mark Wahlberg. For a seemingly endless 45 seconds, the camera stays still. It was a bold decision: Wahlberg�s expression � emptiness, loss, confusion, sadness � is the perfect metaphor for the movie: it may be upsetting but you can�t look away.  

One of the recurring themes of Anderson�s work is the power of forgiveness. His characters make enormous errors in judgment, cheat, fall apart, betray � even kill � and Anderson always accepts and understands. He seems to delight in the frailties of human nature, especially a particular strain of Americanism: the wish for riches and fame mixed with the quest for a sense of belonging. When I told Anderson I thought his movies were about America, he blanched. �Don�t say that!� he said, looking disgusted. �Don�t put those words in my mouth. It�s nauseating to even think about it that way.�  

But he didn�t complain when I suggested that his Catholic upbringing might have contributed to his deep sense of forgiveness. �Talk about a cult,� I said. �Catholicism holds on to you.� �It does,� Anderson replied. �I haven�t gone to church since I was 16 years old but it doesn�t matter. Even then, I would lie in confession. I would never say what I really did. I would be too embarrassed. And that�s a sin. I knew the priests behind that flimsy little curtain knew who I was and, deep down, I did not feel like I could trust them.� Anderson smiled. �What good is a Master if, at a certain point, they aren�t teaching you to not have a Master?� Anderson paused. �Then again, there are always going to be those Masters that lurk around the edges of your life. In my case, it�s my kids. They are pretty hard to resist.� 

Anderson has other Masters who loom large: the filmmakers that came before and constantly linger in his mind. The television set in his kitchen is always turned on, with the dial permanently set on TCM, which plays uncut, commercial-free classic movies 24 hours a day. �TCM soothes me at night and it�s the first or second thing I want to see when I wake up in the morning. There�s never a time that I�m unhappy when it�s on.�  

One of the key inspirations for The Master was a rarely seen John Huston documentary called Let There Be Light. Huston�s film, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, is Anderson�s favourite movie and, when he was writing There Will Be Blood, he would put Sierra Madre on before he went to bed so he could fall asleep to it. �All of life�s questions and answers are in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre,� Anderson once told me. �It�s about greed and ambition and paranoia and looking at the worst parts of yourself.� Similarly, Let There Be Light exposes people�s vulnerabilities and mental instability with the story of soldiers returning home after WWII. �Huston wanted to show that the soldiers weren�t crazy,� Anderson said. �But, really, they�d gone through a helluva lot and they were fucking crazy! It�s a 58-minute film. For 54 minutes Huston shows you what war has done to these guys. In the last four minutes, he tries to end on an upbeat note and shows them singing a song. The US War Department said, �We are not showing this film to anybody.� If potential employers see this movie, no one is going to hire any soldiers: they seem insane.�  

This story seems to delight Anderson. It offers a strange kind of validation to The Master: the Huston film provided a model for the character of Freddie Quell, who is a distraught war veteran. However, it would also seem to be a cautionary tale of what can occur when a film is too honest � much like The Master, Huston�s documentary was deemed too difficult for an audience to applaud. That reality does not bother Anderson. �The film has to tell truth,� he said flatly. �That�s my job.�  

Stay tuned to Twitter and Facebook for the latest news and updates.
"The Master" is now available on Blu-ray and DVD. 

The Power Of 70MM...In A Language You Probably Don't Know

"The Power Of 70mm" is a short film following from prep to projection fully documenting a mid February screening of The Master to an audience in Aalborg, Denmark. Naturally, the film is in another language and, while a decent amount of my bloodline is Danish, it turns out approximately 0% of my brain is.

Despite this, you will definitely be able to fully grasp what is going on and not feel like you burned 16 minutes of your day. If nothing else, it is a well-produced & refreshing spin on a topic that had been reported into the ground ages ago and from every angle.

UPDATE: 05/22/13

A transcription has been generously provided by site reader Jonas Thorbjoern!

Owner of the cinema:? Am I on now? Welcome to the cinema in Aalborg and in the moment we�re showing T. P. Anderson�s [sic] film "The Master". Not only do we show it, we also showing it in the original 70mm version. And we�re extremely proud and happy about that. We can now only hope that the audience will come and see it in the real 70mm format.??

Girl with yellow shirt:? I�m going to see "The Master" because it seems like a really interesting story. I don�t know what it�s about from viewing the trailers. And also because it�ll be show in 70mm and it will only do that here and at another place in Copenhagen and the screen should be perfect, because it�s a curved screen. And the director had a vision with this format, that it had a significance, so I�m really excited to see what effect it will have on the story and the whole experience.??

Woman in cinema:? It�s truly a great visual story. I think...it�s a flat image but the image is sculptural. the opening scene itself, with the helmet. it looks like silver but it�s completely sculptural, as if you dragged into the image. I think that�s amazing. also the sand sculpture. it should be hard to see it, you know it�s a woman but even the nipples are completely in detail. I think it�s the image quality that makes it so amazing.??

Man in cinema: ?It�s an amazing film, an amazing story. there is some footage of water and I�m completely certain that it�s only on 70mm you can capture the waves like that, made by the ship. then there�s some CUs of the faces and it�s really amazing. also because of the great performances. They are all great. It�s not a movie where you think "Ah, there was that actor who was embarrassing". They are all great. So, it�s all pretty perfect.

Stay tuned to Twitter and Facebook for the latest news and updates.
"The Master" is now available on Blu-ray and DVD.