Middle of the Row

 





I saw The Master on Saturday at 10 a.m., which meant I was in the theater with roughly fifty other people, most of them retirement age. 

 

I'm always a little nervous about seeing serious movies with an audience.  Young or old, they can all get on my nerves.  Oh sure, I can blot out the inappropriate laughter of punky teens whenever there's full-frontal nudity or the loud, bewildered comments of octogenarians who simply cannot follow a plot.  But I don't like having to do it. 

 

This audience was perfect.

 

I'll probably see the movie again in the next week or so and reserve most of my comments until then, but The Master was certainly satisfying in all the ways I expected, and it's clearly one of the year's best. 

 

One quick thought: Joaquin Phoenix has a peculiar way of standing throughout the film.  Each time I saw him standing there with his hands on his hips, I thought of Ed Grimley.  Or maybe Crispin Glover in Back to the Future. 

 

A little odd, but no big deal.