Most of Paul Thomas Anderson’s movies are pretty funny, especially Boogie Nights and The Master – and even mopey Magnolia had that Tom Cruise sequence – but being that PTA’s special lady is Maya Rudolph, people are always asking him if he’ll do more comedy like her. Yeesh, can’t a man have a career of his own in Obama’s ‘Murka? In any case, in a recent interview with Moviehole, PTA was enthusiastic about the idea of someday doing a “full-blown comedy.” Which, as we all know, is a disease caused by an unchecked chuckle virus.

You’re married to Bridesmaids star Maya Rudolph. Any chance we’ll see a PTA comedy in the near future?

You mean like full-blown comedy? Soon hopefully.  I have to write it.  It sounds daunting. [laughter]

I’d like to make a film like Airplane. That never gets old. Or Ted.  It was a big hit. Why? Because it’s great. Movies that are that big a hit are never f*cking bad. I mean, there’s no such… You know, people aren’t that stupid, that movie’s a hit because it’s hilarious. I hope [Seth MacFarlane] makes another film.

Of course, it’s all very hypothetical at this stage, since he’s scheduled to adapt Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice next. He describes his take on Inherent Vice as “like a Cheech and Chong movie” by the way, so I wouldn’t be surprised if his idea of “full-blown comedy” edges more toward Pynchon than Seth MacFarlane (not that there’s anything wrong with that, I laughed harder during The Master than I did during The Dictator). Anyway, I never saw Ted, so I can’t tell you whether it sucked or not, but Paul Thomas Anderson talking about loving Ted seems just a little bit like Gwyneth Paltrow making a big show of eating at McDonald’s. Yeah, yeah, we get it, you’re just a regular Charlie Cheesehead like the rest of us hump-necked fart breathers. Gabba gabba, we accept you…

The Master is the latest film from Paul Thomas Anderson, critically-beloved auteur of Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch Drunk Love, and There Will Be Blood, a roman á clef about Scientology starring Joaquin Phoenix as a drifter named Freddy Quell that’s sure to be debated for years to come. For instance, is Quell more of a gas-huffing pussy lover or a pussy-loving gas huffer? It’s a rift that will tear apart families, pit brother against brother.

The Master is polarizing, because like Drive, it’s largely an atmospheric movie. There’s no real political or religious message that you’re supposed to take away from it, and it’s not a thrilling tale of plot-driven intrigue – you mean Xenu was really dead the whole time? Whoooaaaaoooaaa. There’s no scene where Phoenix’s character accidentally kills a townie and Philip Seymour Hoffman plugs him in the back of the head on a riverbank while telling him stories about all the tits and pussies on the planet Kolob – red ones and blue ones and green ones! – as an angry mob approaches. A writing teacher once told me that the heart of every story is people and place, and that’s what The Master is. It’s nothing so much as a meditative, rotating series of historical portraits – who are these people and what do they do? – mostly straightforward and matter of fact, without the fart-sniffing pop-psychology you get with most indie films. It’s more concerned with enjoying who Joaquin’s character is than trying to figure out what’s his problem. It’s beautiful to look at, and Joaquin’s snarl-lipped, sex-obsessed simpleton is endlessly entertaining. When I’m enjoying what I’m watching this much,  BUT WHAT’S THE ARTIST TRYING TO SAY!??! never much enters the equation.

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U mad?

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, it’s unfair and reductive to call Armond White “a troll.” If he was just a troll, he wouldn’t be that interesting. He’s often right and says things that need to be said, but he tends to fire his truth bullets while wearing an elaborate ghillie suit of utter insanity. His insight is well-camoflaged in total crazy – that’s what makes him so interesting. This week, the veneriforous curmudgeonarian of the Bull Moose Moving Picture Society of the 1934 World’s Fair took on the two Paul Andersons, that imbecilic feebleton Paul Thomas, responsible for cretinous sewage scrapings like Boogie Nights and There Will Be Blood; and his exalted ecumenical high holiness Paul WS, ennoblifical architect of such patina’d effervesticals as Death Race, Aliens vs. Predator, and Resident Evils 1, 4, and 5. As it turns out, Paul WS Anderson is such an obviously superior filmmaker to Paul Thomas that it’s almost not even worth Armond’s time. 1100 words? Armond White could write 1100 words on the dump he just took, if a gentleman so well-read as Armond White ever deigned to take a dump.

Compare the unoriginal use of 3D in Hugo–standard diorama compositions with objects poking out toward the viewer–to Paul W.S. Anderson’s astonishingly lively 3D compositions in Resident Evil: Retribution where heroine Alice (Milla Jovovich) fights the Umbrella Corporation’s viral experiments that produced a plague turning mankind into zombies. Anderson’s images vivify the entire expanse of the wide screen to keep your eyes busy surveying the breadth of action while also pulling your vision inward for an appreciation of depth–and emotion.

That was the first paragraph. He opened the article by bashing Scorsese while praising the guy from Death Race. This is the critical equivalent of “First off, f*ck ya bitch and the clique you claim...” The article isn’t even about Scorsese. He just needed an example of someone he thinks sucks, and his first thought was Martin Scorsese. This is a natural thought process for Armond White. Friends, if you’re out begging f*cks, steer clear of the White hacienda for there they will not be given.

And in case you philistinic loafwits – Hobermanites, probably – missed the subtext of that first graf, A-Dubz will break it down for you.

My point isn’t to measure Paul W. S. Anderson against Martin Scorsese; that’s too easy–an almost unfair contrast of innovative imagination to uninspired convention.

Why, it’d be like comparing velvety, ambrosiacal Mountain Dew to that stagnant, hog-swaddled fecal tea, Dom Perignon. WE GET IT, ARMOND! YOU DON’T NEED FIVE ANALOGIES TO EXPLAIN THAT THE SKY IS BLUE! WE’RE WITH YOU, STOP PANDERING!

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As if my anticipation boner for Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master couldn’t get any more turgid and veiny, MovieClips just added this new clip to promote tonight’s 70 mm showing in Austin. The clip features Joaquin Phoenix as his character, Freddie, taking the old Rorschach test. And Freddie? Well, you might say old Freddie has a bit of a “one-track mind.” Here’s how he describes the ink blots:

“That’s a pussy.”

“That’s the part between the assh*le and the pussy.”

“That’s two ladies facing each other. With tits hanging down. And it looks like… there’s come dripping off of them.”

“That’s two women again. They’re holding their hands together. It looks like they’re covered in come.”

“This is a pussy. And an assh*le, the assh*le’s open.”

“Two women, touching each other’s pussies. You can actually see the pussies touching, right here.”

Well, you can’t spell Rorchach without “chach.” The Master was famously inspired by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, but according to Paul Thomas Anderson, Tom Cruise has reportedly seen the film and given it his blessing. Maybe this clip is a clue as to why. “Haha, you got me, Paul!” I imagine Tom Cruise saying, “That’s classic me! Always thinkin’ about the ol’ ‘poontang’, ha ha ha!” he probably said, laughing nervously and making quotes in the air with his fingers.

Aww!