| Posted by: corran horn at February 17, 2008, 7:25 pm | | Topic: There Will Be Blood Forum: JoBlo | | When I first heard that Daniel Day-Lewis, possibly the greatest actor of his generation, was going to appear in a film by Paul Thomas Anderson, the most consistently good director to emerge from the 90s indie explosion, I knew I was in for a treat, and what a treat it was! First off, Day-Lewis absolutely commands your attention with his performance as Daniel Plainview. Part of this is due to the fact that if you were to look away, he might reach out of the movie screen and do one of three things to you: 1) strangle you, 2) whack you with a...youknowwhat, or 3) drink your milkshake (sorry, I had to say it). The other reason is the sheer grandness of it. Here is a man who, by his own admission, hates everyone else in the world (oftentimes I feel the same way) and yet can charm almost anyone into doing anything. His lines have even entered my own vocabulary: "I look at people and see nothing worth liking", "Are you an angry man?", and "I broke you and then I beat you". His back-and-forths with Paul Dano's Eli Sunday are nothing short of hilarious, ESPECIALLY the end but I'll get to that later. Secondly, PT Anderson has somehow managed to perfectly capture not only the inhospitable Plainview but also the inhospitable plains of Texas. Much like with NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, you can almost taste the dust and dirt. When it comes time for the oil to flow, one almost feels a need to shower just from watching it ooze all over the landscape. Work like this is the trademark of a master, and PT Anderson is reaching that goal with ever-increasing speed. Props also to DP Robert Ellswit and Production Designer Jack Fisk. Thirdly, there's Johnny Greenwood's score. This is, by far, the best score of the year and ranks just behind SWEENEY TODD in terms of best soundtrack. The Academy really messed up when they ruled this ineligible for Best Original Score. The music adds an exclamation point to the harshness, industriousness, and craziness seen on screen. Lastly, the ending. Some viewers have complained about how odd and out-of-place it is. While it is certainly odd, I find it to be the perfect culmination of Plainview's insanity and Sunday's hypocrisy. Plainview forces Sunday to proclaim that "he is a false prophet and God is a superstition", and Sunday does it out of greed for untapped oil. Then, the fun starts. Plainview starts gloating about the concept of "draaaaiiinaaage" and then delivers one of the wierdest and funniest lines I've ever heard: "I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE!" Not surprisingly, this line has started a mini-online sensation, complete with T-shirts. I won't spoil what happens at the very end, but I doubt I'll ever look at bowling pins the same way again. Final verdict: PT Anderson's best film to date, a certain Oscar for Day-Lewis, and a solid #2 slot in my top ten films of 2007. 10/10 |
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