TWC - The Master [BLU-RAY]

Great film and a stellar looking disc

I hated this movie on first watch years ago, then figured out the secret: it isn't that Hoffman's playing a thinly-disguised L. Ron Hubbard- it's that River Phoenix is a thinly-disguised Popeye. Navy guy who fought in WWII, mumbling %26 monosyllabic, tendency to get in fistfights. Look at that old-timer on the farm Freddie says looks like his dad: the spitting image of Pappy. Then consider that PT Anderson's often cited Robert Altman's Popeye musical as one of his fave films (and even put one of the songs in PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE- another thinly-disguised Popeye fanfic, but that's another review). You may think an award-winning director's too highbrow to make an alleged serious drama on 70mm with "Gritty Reboot Popeye meets L. Ron Hubbard" as the pitch, but this is the same director who once put a "You Got the Touch" cover in a major Hollywood film. And River Phoenix is the actor who'd just finished punking the world with a fake attempt at a hip-hop career for 2 years. Watch it again knowing Phoenix is Popeye. It's one of the best comedies of the 21st Century.