| Posted by: Natty at June 3, 2008, 1:58 am | | Topic: There Will Be Blood Forum: JoBlo | | Quote: Originally Posted by cuddleworthy I could instantly pick up Plainview's crookedness when he introduced his work as a family business. Also, keep in mind that Eli's church gets on his nerves due to the fact that he was drilling on their land. The oil company representatives were shrewd businessmen, just like him. What fueled his anger was that "he didn't want to see anyone succeed but him". Charles Foster Kane had at least a heart at the start, until he got sucked into egotistical opportunities and eventually politics. This is another reason why its such a fantastic film, people interpret it in various different ways. For example I explained a view I had on the film on this youtube discussion and someone disagreed with me the day later | | Static Link |
| Posted by: cuddleworthy at June 2, 2008, 10:52 pm | | Topic: There Will Be Blood Forum: JoBlo | | Quote: Originally Posted by Monotreme I'd like to linger on this point for a moment, and express my disagreement. The film begins with Plainview as nothing more than an extremely devoted silver miner. His determination and willing to stop at nothing until he finds what he is looking for down in that shaft completely alone is nothing short of impressive. I also believe that his adopting H.W. was never meant to be in order to take advantage of him but because he genuinely felt bad that the baby was left alone after his father died in teh shaft; and when he presents his work as a family business and H.W. as his partner, I at least really got the feeling that it was genuine, as seen in the scene when the two discuss Plainview's plans to build the pipeline to the sea and H.W. is really intentive and asks questions and understands what Daniel is talking about. If his fatherhood is a sham, then why would he be so open with H.W. even when they are in private? I definitely think Plainview starts at the top and just g... | | Read Entire Entry |
| Posted by: Monotreme at May 31, 2008, 4:05 pm | | Topic: There Will Be Blood Forum: JoBlo | | Quote: Originally Posted by cuddleworthy I get how a lot of people make Citizen Kane comparisons, but Kane had a heart from the start. The downward spiral began until he became a bastard. Plainview's character didn't cut it for me. He was rotten from the start (although that time period had a different set of values and moral system), so the downward spiral was nothing surprising. I'd like to linger on this point for a moment, and express my disagreement. The film begins with Plainview as nothing more than an extremely devoted silver miner. His determination and willing to stop at nothing until he finds what he is looking for down in that shaft completely alone is nothing short of impressive. I also believe that his adopting H.W. was never meant to be in order to take advantage of him but because he genuinely felt bad that the baby was left alone after his father died in teh shaft; and when he presents his work as a family business and H.W. as his partner, I at least really got the feeling that it was genuin... | | Read Entire Entry |
| Posted by: john_rambo at May 30, 2008, 3:28 pm | | Topic: There Will Be Blood Forum: JoBlo | | I finally saw it last night... it was a good flick... but now after seeing both... I think No Country deserved the Oscar. But DDL definitely earned his oscar for this flick. I will watch it again and see if the rating goes up sometime. 7.5/10 | | Static Link |
| Posted by: cuddleworthy at May 29, 2008, 11:47 am | | Topic: There Will Be Blood Forum: JoBlo | | I'm a big PTA fan, but Magnolia bends this thing over and spanks the crap out of it. The cinematography was amazing, locations were extravagant and the acting but superb -- but the story didn't work. I get how a lot of people make Citizen Kane comparisons, but Kane had a heart from the start. The downward spiral began until he became a bastard. Plainview's character didn't cut it for me. He was rotten from the start (although that time period had a different set of values and moral system), so the downward spiral was nothing surprising. In the end, the climax was surprising, but very predictable. If Plainview had never killed anyone previously in the movie, the ending would take a more surprising twist. Most people laughed at the ending. I personally think that if Plainview would've killed H.W, the story would seem to go full circle. I never cared much for Eli Sunday, since he obviously was corrupt. But to kill H.W, a symbol of innocence, would've made Plainview's sinister character more prominent. Just my t... | | Read Entire Entry |
| Posted by: Potzer! 37 at May 21, 2008, 11:41 pm | | Topic: There Will Be Blood Forum: JoBlo | | I like Crispin Glover's review of it (yes, I'm taking about George McFly) As I was talking to him, I mentioned that I had seen his tralier for his appearance before There Will be Blood...he asked what I thought and then told an awesome story... He's part of the Academy and recieved a screener copy. And he was tired and had spent some time talking with other people, but decided to put it in...and thought what an abrupt start. He liked it and thought it was pretty good, but he really liked the abrupt start of the film...then he realized he had put in disc 2 of the film...he completely missed the first half or so of the movie and never got around to watching it (at least he hadn't watched it when he told me the story). He couldn't think what else needed to be in there. Crispin Glover is awesome I dug the film...either an 4 or 5 out of 5...still liked No Country, Sweeney and Grindhouse better...thought that No Country was the best last year though. | | Static Link |
| Posted by: franky4fingerz at May 21, 2008, 5:59 pm | | Topic: There Will Be Blood Forum: JoBlo | | Monotreme sucked the words right out of my mouth. I agree on all accounts. That could be the best review I've ever read. oh, and the movie is a 10/10. My second fave movie of all time. | | Static Link |
| Posted by: BubbaStrangelove at May 9, 2008, 1:55 am | | Topic: There Will Be Blood Forum: JoBlo | | Another ace review, Monotreme. About the ending, and there will be spoilers... I too thought it fit perfectly, because all through the movie, you see PLainview becoming more and more directly responsible for lives being destroyed around him. It's as if through the whole movie he's determined to take more and more that it culminates into him actually physically and without justification taking someone's life. At the start, you see the men working for him dying, more and more (the scene where he has a trunk full of all the memories/"lives" that were lost under his rule), then he kills his brother, but at least he seemed to have a good reason, and then at the end he finally just dives in and flatout kills, jumping past any lines of decency and goodness into full fledged sin, and it's only then that he feels fulfilled and declares that finally he's "finished." It's one of the greatest, most twisted, character developments in film. | | Static Link |
| Posted by: hasselbrad at May 7, 2008, 12:18 pm | | Topic: There Will Be Blood Forum: JoBlo | | I was utterly blown away. Like Juno, I came into this film with high expectations. Unlike Juno however, There Will Be Blood actually exceeded my expectations. It is a masterpiece. Having seen No Country For Old Men recently, I have to admit I think this film was slighted by the Academy. If I had a vote, There Will Be Blood would have gotten. The writing and direction were superb. The fact that, what seemed like twenty minutes into the film, I knew everything about Daniel Plainview that I needed to know without a word of dialogue speaks volumes about the skill in storytelling and direction of Paul Thomas Anderson. No voiceover could have as effectively conveyed the sense of Plainview's will and determination as that series of scenes was able to do. Plainview was a driven man, living (or surviving) in a harsh and desolate environment, and that harsh, desolate environment mirrored his personality. Daniel Day-Lewis was, as I've come to expect, incredible. As with the entire film, his performance has to be consid... | | Read Entire Entry |
| Posted by: DaMovieMan at March 9, 2008, 2:09 pm | | Topic: There Will Be Blood Forum: JoBlo | | Quote: Originally Posted by paul calf i really liked this movie but the overwhelming feeling i had when it ended was that daniel day lewis's performance somehow overshadowed the film and took the focus away from the story,i dont even know if that makes sense but its how i felt. Because his performance is so good and he's in nearly every scene, this is understandable. If you watch the movie again you'll be able to see that he doesn't overshadow anything, he goes hand in hand with the brilliant story and the supporting cast is as good as it could be while supporting the main lead. | | Static Link |
| Posted by: paul calf at March 9, 2008, 9:07 am | | Topic: There Will Be Blood Forum: JoBlo | | i really liked this movie but the overwhelming feeling i had when it ended was that daniel day lewis's performance somehow overshadowed the film and took the focus away from the story,i dont even know if that makes sense but its how i felt. | | Static Link |
| Posted by: ilovemovies at February 21, 2008, 5:11 am | | Topic: There Will Be Blood Forum: JoBlo | | There Will Be Blood is an uneven movie that ends very weakly. But it's also visually stunning, strongly acted, utterly compelling and fascinating to watch and has moments of great, awesome power. Up until the final moments of the movie, Daniel Day Lewis gives a towering performance and all of the supporting actors are great as well. I especially liked all of the scenes with his son and how that relationship develops as well as the relationship between Daniel and a man claiming to be his brother and I liked where that went even though I sort of saw it coming. The movie has some truly astonishing visuals. The cinematography is utterly breathtaking. Beautifully photographed, some shots just take your breath away. Paul Thomas Anderson directs masterfully. But he makes one big miscalculation and unfortunately, it's a pretty big one and one that stops the movie from being a masterpiece. The last twenty minutes of the movie are over the top and extremely cartoonish and feels like it belongs in a completely differen... | | Read Entire Entry |
| Posted by: ilovemovies at February 18, 2008, 5:16 am | | Topic: There Will Be Blood Forum: JoBlo | | The ending didn't sit well with me. It felt like it belonged in a different movie. It was very catoonish and over the top. I had a few other problems with the movie that stops it from being a masterpiece but up until the ending, There Will Be Blood is nonetheless always compelling and compulsively watchable with a very strong, intense performance from Daniel Day Lewis and some truly stunning images. Technically speaking, the movie is brilliant. The cinematography, the score, so many frames of the movie are just STUNNING. Anderson's direction is almost flawless, he just makes one big miscalculation and that's the ending. The result is a flawed but overall powerful movie that with a less over the top/cartoonish ending could have been a masterpiece. It's not Anderson's best movie, that remains Magnolia, but it's still a pretty powerful and great, if flawed, movie. 8/10 | | Static Link |
| Posted by: Monotreme at February 18, 2008, 4:41 am | | Topic: There Will Be Blood Forum: JoBlo | | Quote: Originally Posted by someguy it will make israel and palestine get along I'll send a copy to Ehud Olmert right away...! And thanks a bunch for the compliments, guys... it's good to know that my writing serves a purpose besides my own self-satisfaction I doubt there'll be one as long as this one in the near while though... I can just pick this movie APART, it's uncanny! 2008 better have in store something that'll blow me out of the water as much as this... | | Static Link |
| Posted by: jord2006 at February 18, 2008, 12:11 am | | Topic: There Will Be Blood Forum: JoBlo | | i think the film avoided making any cracks at corporate greed, Anderson said this himself in an interview. if Anderson is making a political point i think he is attacking America as a christian state, more particuarly as an often pretence christian state. how christianity is used ( obviously in no way the majority am i claiming ) to take advantage and control of people. | | Static Link |
| Posted by: thedudeman69 at February 17, 2008, 10:58 pm | | Topic: There Will Be Blood Forum: JoBlo | | 10/10 Saw it today. That ending has to be one of the most perfect I've seen in a movie. | | Static Link |
| Posted by: chasingbanky at February 17, 2008, 8:53 pm | | Topic: There Will Be Blood Forum: JoBlo | | Yeah I'm going to have to jump on the Monotreme bandwagon... Some of the best reviews I've ever read of any kind. | | Static Link |
| Posted by: bigred760 at February 17, 2008, 7:41 pm | | Topic: There Will Be Blood Forum: JoBlo | | What I wrote about it after I saw it: This is Daniel Day Lewis's movie; sure Paul Thomas Anderson wrote (adapted from a book) and directed There Will Be Blood, but Lewis deserves most of the credit for his portrayal of Daniel Plainview, an oil baron at the turn of the 20th century. The man is probably just the biggest asshole to ever appear onscreen. He lies, deceives, blasphemes, murders, and basically alienates everybody to get what he wants, and feels deserves. And while he does all this, you can't help but be fascinated by the character, and therefore the actor portraying him. Anderson obviously does deserve some credit for doing practically everything else: writing a great character for Lewis, and leading the actor through the movie. There are some visually beautiful and impressive shot and scenes throughout the movie, including a fire that breaks out at an oil derrick, scenes involving the main character in silhouette, and long shots of him doing what he does best - working to improve his oil prospects... | | Read Entire Entry |
| Posted by: corran horn at February 17, 2008, 7:31 pm | | Topic: There Will Be Blood Forum: JoBlo | | Monotreme: As always, your reviews are some of the best I've ever read. Furthermore, they are, almost without exception, the perfect embodiments of what I myself think (with a little difference on the grading scale). Keep up the good work. | | Static Link |
| 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... | | Read Entire Entry |
| Posted by: someguy at February 17, 2008, 7:00 pm | | Topic: There Will Be Blood Forum: JoBlo | | Quote: Originally Posted by Monotreme 5 pages in Word mofos, my longest review yet Since you seem to have (inexplicably) read it... what did you think (of the review)? it will make israel and palestine get along | | Static Link |
| Posted by: Bourne101 at February 17, 2008, 6:54 pm | | Topic: There Will Be Blood Forum: JoBlo | | Quote: Originally Posted by Monotreme 5 pages in Word mofos, my longest review yet Since you seem to have (inexplicably) read it... what did you think (of the review)? Excellent review Monotreme! | | Static Link |
| Posted by: Monotreme at February 17, 2008, 6:17 pm | | Topic: There Will Be Blood Forum: JoBlo | | Thanks. I'm surprised, impressed and flattered that you actually read the whole thing | | Static Link |
| Posted by: Monotreme at February 17, 2008, 5:57 pm | | Topic: There Will Be Blood Forum: JoBlo | | 5 pages in Word mofos, my longest review yet Since you seem to have (inexplicably) read it... what did you think (of the review)? | | Static Link |
| Posted by: Rawlin67 at February 17, 2008, 5:34 pm | | Topic: There Will Be Blood Forum: JoBlo | it almost took me as long as the movies running time to read the whole damn thing.
but i did, because nothing was on tv. | | Static Link |
| Posted by: Rawlin67 at February 17, 2008, 5:17 pm | | Topic: There Will Be Blood Forum: JoBlo | | awesome review. and keeping this short, i agree. favorite movie of the year, and i think it will be remembered long after everyones done talking about No Country for Old Men. 10/10 | | Static Link |
| Posted by: Monotreme at February 17, 2008, 5:12 pm | | Topic: There Will Be Blood Forum: JoBlo | | (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007) Many filmmakers over the years have made astounding and sudden leaps in their filmmaking styles; whether it is a change of crew, a change of scope or a change of technique, the history of film is bountiful with examples of such departure from what is normally expected from a certain director. After introverted, personal, subtle, in-the-streets films such as Mean Streets and Taxi Driver, Martin Scorsese’s follow-up project was a big, grand, glossy throwback to the big-budgeted musicals of the Golden Age in New York, New York. Later, after a “return to form” from the director in dark, star-studded projects like Goodfellas, Cape Fear and Casino, Scorsese went to Tibet and shot Kundun with a cast of unknowns and telling a story I don’t think anybody thought Scorsese would want to tell. After securing his rank as Hollywood’s prominent director of big-budget sci-fi and fantasy crowd-pleasers from Jaws and Indiana Jones to Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. The Extra-Terrestria... | | Read Entire Entry |
| Posted by: Monotreme at February 17, 2008, 5:09 pm | | Topic: There Will Be Blood Forum: JoBlo | | (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007) Many filmmakers over the years have made astounding and sudden leaps in their filmmaking styles; whether it is a change of crew, a change of scope or a change of technique, the history of film is bountiful with examples of such departure from what is normally expected from a certain director. After introverted, personal, subtle, in-the-streets films such as Mean Streets and Taxi Driver, Martin Scorsese’s follow-up project was a big, grand, glossy throwback to the big-budgeted musicals of the Golden Age in New York, New York. Later, after a “return to form” from the director in dark, star-studded projects like Goodfellas, Cape Fear and Casino, Scorsese went to Tibet and shot Kundun with a cast of unknowns and telling a story I don’t think anybody thought Scorsese would want to tell. After securing his rank as Hollywood’s prominent director of big-budget sci-fi and fantasy crowd-pleasers from Jaws and Indiana Jones to Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. The Extra-Terrestria... | | Read Entire Entry |
| Posted by: DaMovieMan at February 12, 2008, 2:06 pm | | Topic: There Will Be Blood Forum: JoBlo | | Yeah lots of people thought it was waay too long, hated the scenes with Jason Robards, thought the ending was ridiculous and didn't care for the characters much at all. As for me, it's still my favorite P.T. Anderson film and is in my top ten of all time soooo... | | Static Link |
| Posted by: ilovemovies at February 12, 2008, 10:06 am | | Topic: There Will Be Blood Forum: JoBlo | | I love Magnolia too but it appears to be a love it or hate it movie as there are some people who do hate it. | | Static Link |
| Posted by: mcfly24 at February 12, 2008, 10:01 am | | Topic: There Will Be Blood Forum: JoBlo | | I love Magnolia. Thats my entry into PTA world of epic, detailed films. He is our modern day Stanley Kubrick in the way he films with passion; with perfect casting, great art production, crazy music and awesome tracking shots. There will be blood deserves to be in the same sentence as Citizen Kane. | | Static Link |
| Posted by: Squid Vicious at February 12, 2008, 9:30 am | | Topic: There Will Be Blood Forum: JoBlo | | Quote: Originally Posted by Obergeist What exactly does he have to be forgiven for? Here's what I wrote back in September after reading the excellent early reviews of There Will Be Blood: Quote: Jesus. In one paragraph, the Variety reviewer mentioned this movie in the same breath as Citizen Kane, Giant and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. If it's as good as they say it is, I'll forgive Paul Thomas Anderson for Magnolia... | | Static Link |
| Posted by: chasingbanky at February 11, 2008, 1:37 pm | | Topic: There Will Be Blood Forum: JoBlo | | Quote: Originally Posted by Obergeist What exactly does he have to be forgiven for? I wondered that myself a few days ago when I read that... I figured he wasn't into PDL, or something... Anyway, I think the music in this film is fantastic and should be listened to aside from a viewing of the film. It really recreates the whole movie for you just by listening. | | Static Link |
| Posted by: Obergeist at February 11, 2008, 11:37 am | | Topic: There Will Be Blood Forum: JoBlo | | Quote: Originally Posted by Squid Vicious Dear Paul Thomas Anderson, You are forgiven. Sincerely yours, Squid Vicious What exactly does he have to be forgiven for? | | Static Link |
| Posted by: bigred760 at February 10, 2008, 5:31 pm | | Topic: There Will Be Blood Forum: JoBlo | | Quote: Originally Posted by someguy I think that no one got a supporting nod because DDL simply overpowered everybody in that movie acting wise. They were all good but when they're put next to him they're overshadowed. I agree. And I think if anyone in the movie was going to get a Supporting nod, it would've been Paul Dano (who ironically was in Little Miss Sunshine ). | | Static Link |
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