The Master

GREAT MOVIES: Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master (US, 2012) - 2012VENic Best Director and Best Actors Winner. Paul Thomas Anderson's longtime fascination with souls in extremis achieves a teasing, richly unsettling apotheosis in "The Master." The 1950-set story of a troubled WWII veteran drawn to and repelled by a mysterious community that strikingly resembles the Church of Scientology, the writer-director's typically eccentric sixth feature is a sustained immersion in a series of hypnotic moods and longueurs, an imposing picture that thrillingly and sometimes maddeningly refuses to conform to expectations. Still, with its bravura technique and superbly synched turns from Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman, the Weinstein Co. release should generate robust returns and furious discussion long after its hugely anticipated Sept. 14 bow. 2012SANSic, 2012TOR, 2012VENic. RATING: 9