The actor: Amy Adams The character: Peggy Dodd The film: The Master The line: “This is something you do for a billion years or not at all.” It’s interesting how much more potent “a billion years” is than “forever.” In practical terms, it’s basically the same thing. I’ll put it this way. If I had… Read More Top 100 American Movie Quotes of the 21st Century: #5
The actor: Philip Seymour Hoffman The character: Lancaster Dodd The film: The Master The quote: “Close your eyes. From now on you are not to blink. If you blink we go back to the start.” There are three categories of great lines from The Master. The first is a small category. It’s lines from skeptics… Read More Top 100 American Movie Quotes of the 21st Century: #86
For each movie in the top 100, I’ve written a question to answer. (It would get very, very boring for me to have to write some variation on “boy howdy, you’ll never believe how good this movie is” one hundred more times.) There’s no exact sentence or word count I’m holding myself to here, but… Read More Top 250 American Movies: 1-10
When Soggy Bottom is released sometime later this year, it will be Paul Thomas Anderson’s ninth film in twenty-five years. Anderson, like another smart set favorite in Quentin Tarantino, is feted for a small filmic oeuvre indeed. If you want to replace Tarantino with David Fincher, Christopher Nolan, Wes Anderson, or even older directors like… Read More Paul Thomas Anderson Meta-Analysis
One of the Grantland legacies I’m fond of, although I’m sure the idea didn’t start there, is the championship belt (RIP Grantland, long live Barnwell and Hyden). The purpose is to go year by year and create a list of who’s at the top of some field, which is a deceptively simple task, and one… Read More Anglophone Director Championship Belt, 1918-2018
In the latest edition of our conversations, Matt and I bring friend and former roommate of the podcast Josh aboard to talk about my recently completed “Better than the Oscars” project. We did chat about it, though we predictably spread the conversation a little wider than my ranking and write-ups. What follows is a lightly… Read More Baumann and Burch Conversations #7: Better than the Oscars Recap and Discussion
In the following talk, Tim and Matt think about the career of Paul Thomas Anderson, his movies, Phantom Thread in particular, and where he sits at what is probably the midpoint of his career. In lieu of an actual podcast, we give you this lightly edited conversation. You can find Matt’s work here. Tim: After… Read More Baumann and Burch Conversations, #2: Paul Thomas Anderson
Dir. Paul Thomas Anderson. Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams In that long lull in the beginning of Gettysburg’s fourth act, there’s a throwaway scene with Hancock and Chamberlain which serves to show that Hancock is thinking about Armistead almost as much as Armistead thinks about him. Hancock asks the learned Chamberlain, a professor… Read More The Master (2012)
Seeing Things Secondhand 