25 Favorite Films: The Master (2012)

True story (w/SPOILER ALERT): Me and my sister went to see this in theaters. How I convinced her to watch a movie essentially about the history of Scientology is anyone’s guess. But we were watching the movie and enjoying ourselves, me probably more so to be honest, and then one of the final scenes happen in the film. In it we have Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character start to sing ‘(I’d Like to Get You on a) Slow Boat to China’. It’s an unnerving moment because while the film has these otherworldly elements it never got too surreal. But having this dude serenade to Joaquin Phoenix was just too much for this one dude behind us because in the middle of this he just screams: “This is Insane!” Both of us totally lost it and to this day it has become one of our favorite moments in a theater.

Books on Film

My last job had a lot of downtime which meant a lot of reading. Luckily there is an endless trove of books to read on the subject of film. Here are a few samples of some of the best I read. Also, I noticed that most of these choices are from the birth to the golden age of Hollywood. Seems like a happy accident but it is also a good way to learn what came before in today’s age of filmmaking.