Maria Bustillos: I'm trying to parse all these Metacritic reviews of The Master. Mainly they seem to be saying, "I hate it, but I think I'm supposed to. A masterpiece."

David Roth: David Thomson, in the New Republic, had a great first line. Which was "Well, at least it's pretentious."

MB: Yay? I'll say this, whoever reconstructed M. Phoenix's shoulders deserves a special Oscar. His bod is all Cubist, suddenly.

DR: It seems to me like this: a fine director made a mostly perfect-looking film, with an interesting musical score and fine performances. Except that it is also totally inert, with no real characters one can or could [...]

The revelation by director Casey Affleck that his documentary I'm Still Here, which purportedly chronicles the mental breakdown of actor Joaquin Phoenix, is in fact a piece of "performance art," has been met with both outrage and ill-humored dismissal. The poorly-reviewed film, detractors note, was viewed with skepticism and incredulity from the very beginning. That Affleck is only making this admission now, when the full scale of the disaster that the movie has wreaked on Phoenix's career has become apparent, is a cause for deep cynicism and mockery. But should it be?