A real Oscar contender, just by word of mouth alone, this movie has been on my must-see list for months. I finally got to see it this morning, surprisingly in a pretty full theatre (11:10am showing).

This is a brutally dark film. Daniel Day-Lewis is remarkable as the hate mongering Daniel Plainview, a heartless, phony oil tycoon who plans on monopolizing the business himself--along with his innocent son, whom he exploits as a "sweet face" to help himself out. Plainview, much like the movie itself, is a symbol of everything that big business is about. His "nemesis", a religious self-proclaimed prophet Eli, in a small town that Plainview wants to drill on, also represents the falsity of organized religion in a way that's over the top, 700 Club-esque. He too seems to care quite a bit about money and his own furthering of his religious power, as he seems to have a monopoly himself on the town in that regard. But this is still more about Daniel, and his poor son who in an exploding oil fire, loses his hearing for life. The boy grows up, marries, and in a climactic scene about their "relationship", sees what his father is what he really means to him.

The movie is hard to warm up to, but you have to stick with it because it's 158 minutes long. Though that seems daunting, the movie's pace is very well executed--it is PT Anderson's smoothest film since "Boogie Nights". Yes, Paul Thomas Anderson made this film...I stress that because it feels and looks NOTHING like he's ever done--with the small exception of the soundtrack which is minimalistic and resemblant of "Punch Drunk Love" as far as its power and emotional tie-ins go.

Overall, this is an extremely well done film, loaded with symbolism and another brilliant performance by Day-Lewis. You may be reminded a bit of Bill the Butcher--but at least he had the decency to admit other people's achievements.

out of

I've been waiting to see this for a while...glad to see the showings finally got expanded to Cantera in Winfield. Hopefully all the hype surrounding the movie isn't simply because it's another P.T. Anderson film.

Sucks. Sucks, sucks, sucks. 1 hour of film crammed into 2 and a half hours. Daniel Day Lewis is quite good, but there's little else to commend the film.

W-Z, I dig your movie reviews. Keep 'em coming, and delve into recently released DVDs too.

I need to know about MUST BUY Blu-Ray DVDs - it's my latest passion.

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The name's Rockmore. Beef Rockmore

I have wanted a Blu-Ray for a while now. However it seems like the format war is still undecided. It seems most HD tv users have gone HD cable/satellite first while waiting to see who wins the format war (HDDVD vs. Blu-Ray).

Either way I hope something breaks. My 73" tv is waiting

Thug you need to dust your TV.

158 minutes? That's a DVD night

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SideshowBob311: "Sadly enough, I think we're the "intelligent" portion of the sports radio fanbase".
"I make fun of whoever sucks, including me"- Harry 11/30/07

wow i strongly disagree with that...especially since the way you dismissed it.

come on irish boy you can do better than "sucks, sucks, sucks, sucks." What do you think this is, the IMDB message boards?

Did you not enjoy or appreciate the allegorical elements? I thought it was one of the most compelling films focusing on a villain I've ever seen.

I've been dreading the next Blockbuster visit...I think I just need to sign up with Netflix...cos I'm way behind when it comes to renting.

Sorry, I was really angry when I left the movie theater. Like I said, I think that Lewis turned in a great performance (although, to nitpick, his thick Irish brouge shows through in a few scenes, especially near the end.) That's really all I can say to commend the movie. The pacing was the slowest of any movie I've seen since Eyes Wide Shut. The soundtrack was terrible and needlessly unnerving. The plot was OK, I suppose, although the writing was weak, largely as a result of choosing second-rate material. Upton Sinclair's greatest strength is atmosphere, which needn't translate onto the screen because the atmosphere will be different anyway, while his greatest weakness is character. The movie reflects that. The characters are less fully rounded than steamrolled cardboard, which should probably be blamed in Sinclair. But still, they chose the book. There is exactly one compelling scene in the movie; unfortunately, you wait about 150 minutes to get to it.

I was expecting an Oscar-level film before entering the theater. Take out Lewis and the cinematography and you're left with a stellar entry into a high school film competition.

The music was purposely done that way, kind of the opposite of what PT Anderson used it for in "Punch Drunk Love" which seemed to enhance or illustrate the "emotion" that Sandler's character was feeling, something like that.

In this it's almost used as a hoax; like you think it's building, building, and then...nothing.

I think going into this movie, I knew enough about the background that I prepared myself for it not being a real narrative story. It's more of a desecration of character than a character "study". Day-Lewis's character represents big business--his hollowness and phoniness...Sinclair was not a novelist--he was a muckraker. That was his best asset as a writer. Like you said, it was about atmosphere. When I read "The Jungle", I could *feel* being in the stockyards. However I felt little for the characters.

PT Anderson used "Oil!" as a jumping off point and decided to make pretty much the anti-"Citizen Kane". There is nothing remotely redeeming about the character of Daniel Plainview. You have to look at him though--Anderson forces you to take this journey almost as if he's saying "Because that's how big business is--you may hate it, but what other choice do you have?" Yes it's a movie. You have the right to walk out, hate it, love it, whatever...this is just my opinion (which I sometimes erroneously state as fact) but the power of the film to me isn't the characters or plot, but the use of them as a device to make a statement about corporate mongering and the lack of a soul in business.

I don't think this will sway your point of view, or anything--I just wanted to flesh out a little more what I liked about it. On a funny side note, I liked "Eyes Wide Shut".

PTA is a great quirky filmmaker, and Daniel Day-Lewis is an amazing actor (see Gangs of New York). I'm doubting the theater I work at will get this, but I'd love to see it if they do.

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Where do you work? The Admiral? The Pickwick?

Bijou

The nail is just about driven into the HD-DVD coffin. Warner Bros announced that they'll be releasing Blu-Ray only DVDs soon.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=wa ... rs+blu+ray

I got the Sony $399 player and 10 free DVDs (any five from the store under $34.99 - and then another 5 (from different categories) via mail). That's about $250-$350 worth of value right there for the DVDs alone, as they're all priced $24.99 to $34.99.

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Disclaimer: Most of my posts are not suitable for work or home viewing.

The name's Rockmore. Beef Rockmore

Conceptually, at least, There Will Be Blood is a fascinating movie. It is an attempt to revive the literary critique of industrial capitalism formulated by the great naturalist authors of the late 19th and early 20th century--here I'm speaking of Norris, Dreiser, London and Sinclair--while revising the plot of a Sinclair novel enough so that it also functions as a contemporary allegory of American imperialism. The movie, in other words, uses the century-old stylistic and conceptual arsenal of American naturalism--the decentering of human agency, the understanding of humanity in bestial terms, the evasion of narrative closure, and the understanding of capitalism as the "environment" that determines human fate, ultimately instrumentalizing everyone within its reach--to understand our current political disaster in the Mideast. While the movie's central character monomaniacally immerses himself in the project of developing the oil fields in the California hinterlands and ultimately forges a bond with religious zealots that allows him to build a pipeline to the Pacific Ocean, the subtext here is America's relationship with the Mujihideen and Taliban, and the necessity of their cooperation to build an oil pipeline across the most treacherous areas of Afghanistan.

While the fusion of a forgotten, difficult literary style with a contemporary political context is itself an ambitious and interesting project, I think the movie falls short in revealing much about capitalism, American individualism, or our current political situation. As Zach says, Daniel Day Lewis is absolutely amazing in his role, and the cinematic style of the film is certainly captivating, I found the film to provide much more stylistic fodder than substantive engagement. No Country for Old Men remains the year's best film, and a much more dense and sophisticated attempt at reviving seemingly exhausted literary modes to meditate on the causes and consequences of imperial decline.

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you're just a bastard in a basket, TM...

Good points. I can see what you're saying but I enjoyed the film thoroughly and thought it still got its message across. "No Country For Old Men" is as advertised, Best Picture material. Not sure at this point what would beat it out but there are still some movies out there I've not seen yet ("Atonement") that are considerations as well.

This got nominated for best picture today. But I don't think it stands a chance to Atonement or No Country for Old Men.

I haven't seen Atonement, but No Country for Old Men is most definitely a significantly better film.

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It would be nice if Omar and BinLaden each would flop out from hiding and drop dead if we were to toss a few million bowling pins into the Afghan mountains.

No Country for Old Men sucks . The first 3/4 is great. The ending is usless. It had a great setup. Great character development. Great camerawork and points of view and storytelling. Awesome quality-kills. Its technically well made. Its script is nice and artsy and faithful to the novel, from what everyone says. Cohen Bros-esque superb. Damn that stupid ending.

I need my fix of a good Hollywood action formula embedded in a movie and that ambiguous reality-ending ticked me off /let me down pretty bad. Needed a couple re-runs of the Bourne Ultimatum DVD afterwards to bring me back from bad-movie spasms.

[Bump]

Sorry - I don't get to see movies real often.

This movie is just plain bad........over-hyped and way too long. It's 2 hours and 40 minutes of slow moving slop all about.....? Not sure - pretty much nothing as far as I can tell. If it were an hour and a half long - it may be called dark, brooding, mildly interesting - this thing blew.

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this would be a great transvestite porn movie title.

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@audioidkid

i'm thinking the porn industry has already made "there will be butt".

pretty obvious how they'd handle the milkshake scene...

i still haven't seen it.

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@audioidkid

Don't - you may never forgive yourself.

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bump for favrefan.