C&L Film of the Month: <I>There Will Be Blood</i>
By Mark Groubert Tuesday Dec 25, 2007 5:00pm
There will be blood if this film does not win Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director, Best Editing and Best Original Music Score. Directed by the now grown-up wunderkind P.T. Anderson and starring the weatherworn Irish actor Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood is hypnotic, riveting, violent, fascinating and at times painful to watch. It is boldly, unapologetically and immediately an American masterpiece in the company of Citizen Kane, Giant and Raging Bull. I can safely say that because there is little wiggle room here not to say it.
The cinematography is breathtaking. Shot on location in Marfa, Texas and central California by Robert Elswit, we can feel the scope and the grandeur of the wide-open spaces that the West was and in many cases still is. Editing by Dylan Tichenor is tight, slight and seamlessly out of sight.
Jonny Greenwood’s (Radiohead) score is haunting, scary and yes, at times annoying. It surrounds you with electronica and when necessary chokes you with anxiety until you can’t breathe. I mean that in a good way, of course.
While I have respected him as a filmmaker, I have never been a big fan of Paul Thomas Anderson. His films, although heralded as pop culture triumphs, have always left me feeling like he was usurping the styles of greater directors. Boogie Nights, the film that put him on the map in 1997, while entertaining, felt snobbish and filled with intentionally dumbed down characters. You got the sense that he was mimicking Scorsese while ridiculing these Goodfellas of the porno world. Magnolia seemed Robert Altman-lite. Punch-Drunk Love, well that starred Adam Sandler. No reason to pile on.
You could tell from all three of these films (four if you count Hard Eight) that Anderson knew what he was doing. He just seemed to lack the guts to do it.
That is until now.
There Will Be Blood, built loosely around the story of Edward L. Doheny and major league ballplayer turned evangelist preacher Billy Sunday, has suddenly catapulted Anderson into the rarified air of Orson Welles and the pantheon of great American filmmakers. So complete is the disconnect from previous works and themes, that it is hard to believe this is even the same writer-director.
What Citizen Kane (Charles Foster Kane) was to William Randolph Hearst, There Will Be Blood (Daniel Plainview) is to Edward L. Doheny.
A finely filtered adaptation of Upton Sinclair’s 1927 novel, Oil!, TWBB takes us from 1898 to the 1930s on the broad shoulders of Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) who portrays the Doheny character as a get down and dirty oil man. One who hits his own pay dirt and carves an empire out of it. Along the way he adopts an infant, hustles simple folk out of their oil-rich land and encounters Eli Sunday (Paul Dano), a not-so-veiled version of the legendary preacher Billy Sunday.
Despite its crisscrossing story lines of oil and religion, various critics have gone out of their way to suggest that this is not a political film.
Nonsense.
Upton Sinclair, the prolific author and muckraker who wrote The Jungle, which dealt with the conditions in the U.S. meat packing industry, and Oil! upon which this film is based, was one of America’s leading socialists, running at various times for Congress and later for governor of California.
Everything he did was political.
The fact that Anderson and Day-Lewis are not talking politics on promotional tours is more likely indicative of the marketing and promotion departments than the story department.
Sinclair once famously said, “The American people will take Socialism, but they won’t take the label.”
It’s the same thing with cinema. Americans will take a political film, but they won’t take the label. All The President’s Men, The American President, The Manchurian Candidate (2 versions), JFK, The China Syndrome, Nixon, Thirteen Days, Wag The Dog, Citizen Kane, Primary Colors, Gandhi, Good Night and Good Luck, Charlie Wilson’s War are just a few they’ve embraced. These weren’t marketed as political films.
And neither will There Will Be Blood.
TWBB dramatizes the addictive mad dog qualities of capitalism demonstrated through the rise and fall of the Doheny character.
In real life, Edward L. Doheny, like the Plainview character, hailed from Fond du Lac, Wisconsin and was of Irish heritage. (Day-Lewis as made up, is a dead ringer for him with a Fuller brush moustache and black brimmed dress hat.) In 1903 he struck oil in Los Angeles, making millions and later forming the Pan-American Petroleum and Transport Company. At one point Edward L. Doheny was one of the wealthiest men in the world and was often referred to in the media as “the capitalist.”
His name still tags many roads and residences in the Los Angeles area where he drilled thousands of successful oil wells.
The Teapot Dome scandal during the Harding Administration almost broke him. He was indicted for the bribery of the Interior Secretary of which he was clearly guilty, but eventually was acquitted after spending a fortune in legal fees.
{Harding’s administration has been considered the most corrupt in American history, despite the fact that the president himself, Warren Harding was oblivious to all around him. Contemporary historians have already drawn the analogy to the current Bush presidency. An analogy I’m sure Anderson was well aware of when making this so-called, non-political film.}
From grimy hands-on gold digging to grand land grabs to large oil rigged productions, Plainview’s steady rise to economic domination comes to an abrupt halt when he encounters the roadblock of religion in the guise of Eli Sunday.
Two major forces in the creation of industrial America are pitted against one another here. Capitalism and religion. Both men are trying to sell the people something they don’t have. Prosperity on the part of Plainview. Salvation on the part of Sunday.
Anderson depicts these encounters with feral-like ferocity. One visceral scene has Day-Lewis smacking down Dano’s character to the muddy earth, almost burying him, while beating him into submission. (Dano might be the only weak link in the film, as he can’t seem to hold the screen with Day-Lewis. But then who possibly could? A previous, as of yet, unnamed actor apparently fled the production claiming he was intimidated by Day-Lewis’s performance. Dano came on as a last minute replacement.)
Sunday gets partial revenge in a later scene when Plainview needs the church’s permission for oil leasing and Sunday insists on baptizing the “sinner.”
Plainview’s fraudulent acceptance of this sadistic baptismal ceremony speaks volumes about the Bush crowds’ phony embrace of evangelical Christian beliefs and merely paying them lip service as Plainview does in the film.
An apparent means to an end in both cases.
For over 200 years, capitalism and religion have worked together and apart in the building of America. In real life, Upton Sinclair attacked Billy Sunday, a lifelong Republican, for being a tool of big business, but on many occasions Sunday condemned capitalists, “whose private lives are good, but whose public lives are very bad.”
There is far too much political symbolism to ignore in this epic film.
Plainview’s fevered addiction to oil, greed and money is eventually replaced by his physical addiction to spirits once his financial dominance has been achieved.
Greed, one of the seven deadly sins, is an addiction of sorts as well. “I have a competition in me. I want no one else to succeed,” states the bitter Plainview.
No amount of money is enough. Money is collected, hoarded, and saved for the sake of money. The early robber barons that built this country and some even today (Murdoch), seemingly create wealth for no other purpose than itself.
Today, we call them workaholics, but even in our self-help culture, this is not yet frowned upon. Rather, it is referred to in the therapeutic community as “the respected addiction.”
It is an addiction nonetheless.
Not to be confused with hard work, the workaholic abandons all pretense of an outside life. 12-step W.A. meetings are now growing throughout the country to deal with this seemingly American phenomenon. (Europeans look at us like we’re crazy regarding our obsession with work.)
Plainview’s drinking is not simply “screen business.” It is profound to his character. He can no longer physically work, so he has switched addictions. The angry progression of alcoholism in Plainview is glaring and ugly.
“I hate most people,” he states.
Plainview grows into a bitterly angry man. He is a misanthrope. A loner. He has all the characteristics of an alcoholic, which by the end of this nearly three-hour epic, he has become.
“I want to earn enough money to get away from everyone,” exclaims Plainview.
He states bluntly, “There are times when I look at people and see nothing worth liking.”
In reality, it is he himself that is not worth liking.
Early on, Plainview showcases respected American characteristics like self-motivation, work ethic and perseverance. In a way, he represents what is in essence, the American spirit. But there is a dark side and it grows throughout the film. He also showcases American capitalism with all its warts.
By film’s end, Daniel Plainview represents greed, corruption, and addiction.
It is this addiction that Anderson focuses on.
America was built on addiction.
Addiction to money. Addiction to tobacco. Addiction to slave labor. Addiction to sugar. Addiction to grain alcohol.
Indeed, the first laws ever written in America, in Virginia in 1619, were against public drunkenness. By the early decades of the 19th century, Americans drank roughly three times as much alcohol as they do today. Purchase any item in a 19th century general store and you were permitted a free ladle of grain alcohol and your child was allowed a free spoonful of sugar.
It kept customers coming back.
In fact, government regulation of addictive substances throughout history can be seen as an attempt to level the playing field of the marketplace. Businesses not selling addictive substances could then compete “fairly” with those that did.
Government regulation of vice is not about Big Brother or any real morality. Historically, it has been driven by the complaints of other capitalists for a level playing field. It was Northern industrialists who pressured Washington to end slavery in the South. And it wasn’t for moral reasons.
Is it any wonder that America has had such a long judicial history in the battle against prostitution, gambling and drug dealing? Is it any wonder that America loves the Sopranos and hates the Senate?
Remember the heads of the tobacco companies saying under oath that cigarette smoking was not addictive? They risked perjury to maintain their financial edge.
That’s why removal of cocaine from Coca-cola was so symbolic. America’s #1 refreshment was finally stripped of its addictive substance in 1929. They didn’t go easy. Coke was forcibly removed from Coca-cola only through litigation. Beer makers (their competition) had begun pointing it out to authorities in 1903, the year the company claimed they removed it voluntarily.
No country has battled its unregulated and regulated demons like America has. Dry states, wet states, moonshiners, bootleggers, Prohibition, Constitutional amendments, reversing Constitutional amendments. C’mon. This country clearly has a problem. And that’s just alcohol.
What of the other vices?
Prostitution has been “regulated” through legalized pornography. Gambling has been legalized through licensed casinos, racetracks and lotteries. And drug dealing? Well, the pharmaceutical industry is America’s new dealer. The capitalist playing field has been “leveled.” Marijuana just may be latest and last battlefield. Unless public corporations can directly profit from it, marijuana will continue to be illegal.
Billy Sunday was instrumental in helping launch Prohibition. He fought long and hard against the consumption of alcohol even after the repeal of Prohibition. The drunken progression of Plainview through the final act of the film is subtle, yet powerful. He is literally drunk with power, as many of our leaders are today. The film’s ending is violent, explosive and in many ways a showdown between capitalism and religion.
In the end, American capitalism is shown to be stronger than organized religion and although it has used religion to get where it wants to go, capitalism will toss religion aside when it no longer finds its services necessary.
Anderson depicts religion as “capitalism with white gloves on.”
Just another type of business. The preacher as the shady businessman selling a product. Ted Haggard, Jimmy Swaggert, Jim Bakker, et al.
This is a style of business that Plainview can never accept and why he despises Sunday.
The final scenes have a now-famous Sunday coming to Plainview, hat in hand, with business propositions. (These final sequences were shot in the actual bowling alley of the Beverly Hills estate owned by Doheny.)
Plainview is in the late stages of alcoholism. Only his rage survives.
And that rage explodes across the screen.
In Plainview’s world, you must get dirty. You must pull yourselves up by your bootstraps. You must dig a life for yourself out of the cold, dark earth.
If not, there will be blood.
If you look carefully, you will see all of America in this film.
The good, the bad and the ugly.
It’s the latter two that will stick with you.
A screenwriter/producer/journalist based in Hollywood, California, Mark Groubert is the Senior Film and Book Reviewer for CrooksandLiars.com. As a filmmaker he has produced numerous documentaries for HBO. Groubert is also the former editor of National Lampoon Magazine, MTV Magazine and The Weekly World News. In addition, he writes for the L.A. Weekly, L.A. City Beat, Penthouse, High Times and other publications. He is currently at work on his memoirs…or so he says.
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There will be frist!
PT Anderson is perhaps the finest American director of his generation. An amazing filmmaker during a time when pop culture is strangling to death on it's own putrid fecal matter.
Pop culture really did peak during the late 60's/early 70's.
Now it's shitty sounding mp3's, cgi and short attention spans.
Art in America is suffering big time.
Life is an addiction.
Lumpy Gravy @ 1:
Every once in a while a gem comes out that has energy, passion, sincerity, honesty, originality, and vision.
Job number one these days is sifting through the 98% of so called artists these days who think they are artists but really aren't artists.
They are product producers. Assembly line producers.
"Despite its crisscrossing story lines of oil and religion, various critics have gone out of their way to suggest that this is not a political film."
Hmmm. I wonder if this is a reference to what I wrote here:
http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2007/12/07/2007-film-notes/
This is based on an Upton Sinclair novel about evil oilmen in California at the turn of the century. It opens in theaters during Christmas week. The director is a 37 year old named Paul Thomas Anderson whose best known credits are “Magnolia” and “Boogie Nights,” a movie based on a porn star. He seems totally uninterested in politics and based his screenplay on the first 150 pages of Sinclair’s novel. In the novel, the father is estranged from his son who has become a radical and sides with striking oilworkers. In the movie, the son hates his father because an accident at an oil rig has left him deaf. Well, that’s what we are led to believe in the absence of any other plot elements. The movie is mostly about the oilman Daniel Plainview, who is played by Daniel Day-Lewis. He has captured Anderson’s attention in the way that William Randolph Hearst captured Orson Welles’s attention in “Citizen Kane”. However, Anderson is no Welles, to put it mildly. Daniel Day-Lewis looks like and sounds like the evil water works magnate that John Huston played in “Chinatown”, another movie about rotten millionaires in California. If Anderson is no Orson Welles, neither is he a Roman Polanski. He should stick to subjects that he is more familiar with, like the comedy “Punch Drunk Love” that he did with Adam Sandler. Apparently, Anderson is a huge fan of Adam Sandler. Poor Upton Sinclair. He deserved better.
Just a correction -- It was filmed in MARFA, TX. The film location of Giant and No Country for Old Men!
What, No best cinematography? This is the guy who should have won two years ago for "Good Night and Good Luck".
Give Punch Drunk Love a second chance. I'm glad I did.
I'll be going nuts waiting to see this when it opens wide.
One other correction. In the book, the evangelist is a male counterpart to Aimee Simple McPherson -- complete with the mysterious disappearance with a paramour. I'm not sure if that made it to the screen. But I definitely plan to see th emovie.
I can recommend Sinclair's Oil! as a great political novel that sides with the socialists and is from what I can tell quite different than the movie. It is much more the story of the son's coming of age.
I can't wait to see this film, it's one of the three movies I've been jonesing for all year. Although I agree with you about Boogie Nights, I thought Magnolia was very good on its own, even though it was definitely Altmanish, but Hard 8 was really good and Punch Drunk Love was magnificent, still one of my favorite films.
I think very much that you mean "Marfa," Texas. :-)
Well we'll see how it stands up to Lawrence of Arabia.
LOL
L.A. Confidential @ 11:
The original release ran for 222 minutes (plus overture, intermission, and exit music).
Don't see that much anymore.
As long as it doesn't take best supporting actor, that goes to Javier for No Country... I haven't seen it yet, but it will be tough to match TL Jones in No Country for Best Actor, but I will give it a go and see.
No reason to pile on Punch-Drunk Love? Who is piling on, it was a critical darling when it was released. I can't stand Adam Sandler, yet I'll be the first to tell you that Punch-Drunk Love is one of my favorite films ever made. It is NOT an Adam Sandler comedy, you don't see him doing his usual slapstick jokes and one-liners. In fact, I would argue that he's not even the funny one in the movie. I don't really understand what you mean by piling on, since the only people that piled on that movie were angry Adam Sandler fans.
PT Anderson has had his ups and downs, and I agree that Boogie Nights is generally overrated, but I'm afraid you really missed the boat with Magnolia, Mark.
The interlocking plot lines, the emotional depth and humanity of it's tone, and the incredible performances of virtually the entire cast, (but particularly John C Reilly, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Jason Robards, Julianne Moore, Tom Cruise and Melinda Dillon) make Magnolia easily one of the most ambitious, accomplished and moving films of the past 20 years.
If it owes some of it's flavor to Robert Altman, that's fine (and to it's credit), but labeling Magnolia "Altman-lite" is pretty ridiculous, especially considering that it's tone is much more open-hearted and unambiguous than what Altman would probably be comfortable with, it's surreal touches are very un-Altmanesque, and frankly it's a far stronger piece of work than any film Altman made since (at least) The Player.
Oh, and speaking of influences, I remember reading a PT Anderson interview at the time Magnolia was releasedt, and he claimed his biggest inspiration for the film was The Beatles song "A Day in the Life". Maybe watch it again some time with that in mind...
Anyway, I'm excited to see the latest work from Anderson because if all he'd ever done was Magnolia I'd consider him a very great artist.
Hagan @ 13:
Never consider that stuff when I see a film. I'm trying to "get the message" the film is trying to get across.
If there is one.
LOL
wow! if you had only named "the conqueror" with john wayne as gengis khan then you would have named my four most hated movies eveh! well make that five, i forgot godfather 3 for a minute.
giant? well it's just horrible and 4HOURSLONG! citizen kane has been said so much better in so many different movies.
i don't know about your recommendations.
seems everybody who desires to be taken seriously as a movie critic is required to just be mad for a certain few movies from the moldy movie past.
go ahead and jump to defend correct thinking about what serious really schmart people should claim to belive about the 'classics'.
this attitude about movies reminds me of a similar view in literature. if you love short stories you must love o. henry. if you are serious about novels you must profess to adore "moby dick". have any of you ever tried to read this slop? dated is one thing--i see that in science fiction--but to slog thru hundreds of pages of the flowery language that used to pass for prose is to me a kind of torture. these movies -- the same.
Just finished reading Stephanie Zacharek at Salon and if you are serious about film (not movies, sniff, sniff) read her on Blood; she is highly intelligent, quite gracefully so, and am sorry to say a much better writer than Mark. She is not reduced to clunky sentence fragments, equally clunky if not costive one sentence paragraphs and her descriptive analyses of the film's imagery is vastly superior to Mark's in this instance. There is certainly an intense bandwagon for this film and many are afraid of being left behind in spewing praise. Mark's approach also tends toward the pedantic and tendentious, not to mention the sedulous supporting his house of the hortative. Easy to be suckered by a flick slick (and portentous) as this and Lewis doing his take off on Houston is funny to ridiculous.
I do very much appreciate Mark's connection of religion and capitalism here in the land where P T Barnum noted there is a sucker born every minute.
At same time many of us need this film to help define and crystallize once again the pathological greed (to use a redundancy) that defines so much of the American soul, so at the very least this work is in the genre of striving to reflect our soulless depravity of our culture as have its cousins Citizen Kane and Chinatown, not to mention The Godfather where it's just business.
Stephanie Zacharek at Salon disagrees- It's quite possible that Anderson and Day-Lewis are not talking politics out of a simple, shallow "cake, and eat it too" tact. There are any number of filmmakers and actors who have in fact stated their intentions, for better or worse after, or during, or even prior, to a new film. One would think Anderson, and certainly Day-Lewis, are well-enough established to say what they mean and mean what they say. At least certainly, if they are in any way confident of their abilities and professions and place within the industry. There's no reason to think they aren't. If anything, the fact they aren't saying this is tied to a particular set of concerns, the fact that the characters are relatively caricatured, and the fact that the movie itself only covers the first 150 pages of the novel, seems to imply a somewhat limited scope or intent.
"Raging Bull" an American classic? Hmmmm. I guess that means I should oughta go see it someday then.
Pauline Kael @ 18:
Nothings changed there!
Pauline Kael @ 18:
And thats a excellent point you made there also. I don't need to be reminded about the depths of depravity driving this system but some are still young enough to where it hasn't quite sunk in yet.
The Yin-Yang nature of things i suppose.
Are you on crack? This film, while beautifully shot, is awful. The script, if there was one, was ridiculous. (so was the score for that matter.) There was absolutely no one to root for or care about. And the ending...pathetic. We feel the same about No Country For Old Men. An all-round terrible year for movies from Hollywood.
on the other hand, i just saw enchanted, and it was, well, enchanting.
AcademyMember @ 23:
Hollywood has gotten to fixated on the "blockbuster" rather then permitting it's people to produce thought provoking epics.
Oh, sorry, I thought this reviewer was being SERIOUS. Fooled me, although my comments still stand.
I'm looking forward to seeing this film too! :)
Hey, want to write a caption for a Rudy photo at the request of Izzy Forman on behalf of Comedy Central? ;)
Here
Happy Holidays! :)
AcademyMember @ 26:
Anything goes and nothing matters.
I saw it about a month ago and was absolutely blown away by Day Lewis. He's been nothing short of outstanding in just about every role he's ever taken on. And I can without reservation say that this is hands down his best performance by a long shot. This really is a performance for the ages.
As ar as the movie goes. The reviews are pretty spot on. This is a great film. I've been a big fan of PT Anderson for some time and even worked with him on Punch Drunk Love. I'm very familiar with his body of work and this is very different from anything he's done in the past. I'm looking forward to seeing it again.
The best friends you can have are those who are willing to criticize your shortcomings and or errors. It's when you're screwing up and nobody's saying anything to you anymore that your in trouble, that means they are giving up on you.
LOL
Could someone please explain to me what is meant by"usurping the styles of greater directors"? What ever happened to imitation and flattery? I'm genuinely looking forward to 'Let there be Blood' but I couldn't finish this article. Although trying to sound authorative and insightful, Mark has shown a shallow grasp of cinematic criticism and writing off 'Punch Drunk Love' because it starred Adam Sandler is juvenile and petty at best. I'm delighted to see so much love on this forum for what is a great movie and Sandler's performanance was worthy of an Oscar.
I have a hard time getting into films that leave out female characters... not that I'm a chick-flick freak, it just always seems lopsided and tiresome when a movie is all testosteroned out. Too much like real life I guess.
AcademyMember @ 26:
Dear Academy Member. Maybe this will help. It's from David Denby at The New Yorker
"The experience chronicled between these two moments is as astounding in its emotional force and as haunting and musterious as anything seen in American movies in recent years. I'm not quite sure how it happened, but after making 'Magnolia' and 'Punch-Drunk Love' - skillful but whimsical movies, withmany whims that went nowhere - the young writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson has now done work that bears comparison to the greatest achievements of Griffith and Ford."
By the way I was smoking crack during the film, as were my Nat/Lamp guests John Hughes, Sean Kelly, Tony Hendra, P.J. O'Rourke and I thought I saw Doug Kenney there as well, but it might have been the crack, bro. I've always said Hollywood wouldn't know a masterpiece if it fell over one. "didn't have anyone to root for?"
BoooHooo. Go see some Hollywood tripe, my friend. Stick to the screeners.
This is NOT a great movie, period. DDL is a great actor who's wasted in this mess (along with a lot of other talented professionals) at the hands of the writer and director. It's film making and storytelling at it's worst. Save your time and money.
juan traverse @ 31:
Juan, I am not alone regarding "Punch-Drunk Love."
AcademyMember @ 34:
You're joking, right? This is some kind of joke? C'mon let us in on it.
Wow! To say it's DD Lewis's "best performance by a long shot" is about as high as praise can get. He's an incredible actor, so incredible in fact that his mind-blazing performance as "Bill the Butcher" almost made Gangs of New York worth seeing. (Almost).
Marc @ 29:
I always wait till a movie comes out on tape or on DVDs ( yes I have upgraded) to see it. And only after I read all about the plot and the reviews. I never watch commercial TV. I think most people in the world spend too much time trying to be entertained!
Mark Groubert @ 36:
No I don't think he's joking. To each his own I suppose.
Terry @ 5:
AcademyMember @ 26:
Dear Academy Member. Maybe this will help. It's from David Denby at The New Yorker
"The experience chronicled between these two moments is as astounding in its emotional force and as haunting and musterious as anything seen in American movies in recent years. I'm not quite sure how it happened, but after making 'Magnolia' and 'Punch-Drunk Love' - skillful but whimsical movies, withmany whims that went nowhere - the young writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson has now done work that bears comparison to the greatest achievements of Griffith and Ford."
By the way I was smoking crack during the film, as were my Nat/Lamp guests John Hughes, Sean Kelly, Tony Hendra, P.J. O'Rourke and I thought I saw Doug Kenney there as well, but it might have been the crack, bro. I've always said Hollywood wouldn't know a masterpiece if it fell over one. "didn't have anyone to root for?"
BoooHooo. Go see some Hollywood tripe, my friend. Stick to the screeners.
Mark Groubert @ 36:
I though you were the joke writer? Pulling our collective leg here. How can you possibly think this is good movie making?
Pauline Kael @ 18:
Hey Pauline: I think they actually pay money over there! LOL I am a lot more graceful when getting paid. That being said I find it odd that she would pan "Blood," with its Left leaning sentiments while embracing "Charlie Wilson's War," a film the Right is flocking to in droves. Hmmm.
kablooie @ 32:
You obviously haven't seen either Magnolia or Punch Drunk Love.
Mark Groubert @ 35:
Honestly, it doesn't matter if EVERYBODY felt the way you do. The point is that Punch-Drunk Love is an AMAZING movie despite the fact that it has Adam Sandler in it. I agree with Juan, simply writing the movie off because it has Sandler in it is stupid. And at the end of the day it's your loss. That's like saying you decided to write off Pulp Fiction because you hated John Travolta in those Look Who's Talking movies. The movie isn't long (only about 90 minutes), so just get over your fear of Sandler and check it out. I think you'll be SHOCKED at how different the movie is from what you are expecting.
I never even heard of Punch Drunk. Live and learn I suppose.
Cyril @ Defunct Games @ 44:
Hard to take Sandler seriously and comparing him to Travolta is not fair. Travolta ruled the earth at one time. LOL.
Okay I found it. Punch Drunk Love didn't break even.
The film had a $25,000,000 budget and grossed about $17,000,000 at the domestic box office. Ouch.
Not Oscar material. If that gross had been about 200 Million Sandler would have probably been in the running for an Oscar.
LOL
Mark Groubert @ 46:
Well, you can tell by the way I use my walk,
I'm a woman's man, no time to talk.
HA HA!
Battlefield Earth.
AcademyMember @ 49:
Tony Manero!
HA HA!
Main mistake Anderson made was not naming the film . . . ."There Will Be Bush"
I'm looking forward to this one. Charlie Rose recently had Anderson and Day-Lewis on for a good interview. Anderson's previously had flashes of brilliance but has been uneven. I'm rooting for this one.
There Will Be Blood ... has suddenly catapulted Anderson into the rarified air of Orson Welles and the pantheon of great American filmmakers
Uh ... not quite. What an absurd statement to make.
PT Anderson is not even remotely in the league of great American directors like Orson Welles, and he almost certainly never will be.
More from Salon's review:
-Stephanie Zacharek
Batocchio @ 52:
...save your time and $.
Punch Drunk Love is one of my favourite films. When I tell people this, they think I'm an idiot. Yet all you have to do is watch it with an open mind and see that it's perfect.
AcademyMember @ 55:
You're killing me, Academy Member! Who wrote that? Stephanie Zimbalist.com? Here's the end of Manohla Dargis's review from today's NYTimes:
"The film is above all a consummate work of art, one that transcends the historically fraught context of its making, and its pleasures are unapologetically aesthetic. It reveals, excites, disturbs, provokes, but the window it opens is to human consciousness itself."
juan traverse @ 31:
Hey there. Here's a snippet from today's NYTimes review of TWBB. To answer your "usurping" question Ms. Dargis writes: "Mr. Anderson has always worn his influences openly, cribbing from Martin Scorsese and Robert Altman."
I have really liked his films, haven't seen Hard Eight though, so it just goes to show how tastes run different. I have heard excellent comments about his new film and look forward to seeing it.
It's simply bad movie making, period. Made all they more despicable by the fact that the director did not suffer from the lack of any talent (other than his own as the writer/director) or finances or studio support.
Scott @ 59:
It's not a matter of taste, its a matter of craft. Save yourself the grief...
I'll give TWBB a look on DVD. If you get a chance, give "Once" a look. It's best viewed with subtitles on, as the accents and sound reproduction makes it difficult to follow. I believe "Once" cost $160,000 to make, a bit less than TWBB.
I watched the trailer for this film, and saw no female characters in it... that was what I meant. Maybe lots of people like movies w/only male characters in them, but it would seem an epic would require a female role or two, at least. I'm no movie critic tho!
Stephanie ZaraHACK can blow it out her ass!
This is great filmmaking -- and I say that as someone who hasn't been terribly impressed by Anderson before.
If you want to comprehend th dark heart of capitalism look no further than this film. DDLewis is great of course but the real surprise is Paul Dano.
And the Jonny Greenwood score SHOULD get every award not nailed dwon -- but probably won't.
This is not, repeat not "great filmmaking". It's an attempt to seem like great film making without putting in the requisite time crafting a decent script.
If you're looking to comprehend the "dark heart of capitalism", go see "SiCKO."
Barbara in BjC @ 56:
It's a good film. Very odd and enigmatic and sweet and underrated. Here again, I don't understand Mark's distain for the movie, dismissing it out of hand by mentioning that it stars Adam Sandler. That's like saying The King of Comedy is worthless because of Jerry Lewis. Yes, Adam Sandler is pretty ridiculous, and casting him was an odd choice by Anderson, but he's actually quite good in Punch Drunk Love.
JC @ 53:
It's interesting because Welles really only made two or three truly great films, it just so happens that one of them happens to be arguably the most impressive example of filmmaking of all time.
His career peaked and then stumbled fairly early on, and he spent most of his time scrambling to cobble together half-finished ideas that have flashes of brilliance but ultimately don't really satisfy.
In any case, PT Anderson may not be Orson Welles, but he's nevertheless very talented and he wrote and directed one of the truly great films of recent times in Magnolia.
Again, the fact the P.T.A. has shown talent and past moments of brilliance, is all the more reason that this mess of a film is such a disappointment. If he's not careful, he's going to start making Ron Howard (and his dufus producing partner) look like a genius.
Can't wait to see There Will be Blood, and you're so right about Punch-Drunk Love and Adam Sandler. I mean, I was going to see Sideways until I realized that the stupid guy from Wings was in it. And I was going to see Rushmore until I realized that the drummer for that silly Phantom Planet band was the star. Adaptation? With the guy who has the terrible southern accent from Con-Air? Come on. And as someone else here pointed out, Pulp Fiction. That (most certainly) horrible film has the guy from Look Who's Talking, the guy from "Amos and Andrew" AND the guy from Look Who's Talking Too, someone from Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot and that chick who was in Batman and Robin (not to mention The Avengers). Ugh! How could I possibly watch something with actors like that? The couldn't possibly rise above their past (or current or future) work to do something good in the right director's hand, could they? No! Never!
Again, can't wait for There Will be Blood.
Again... wait! (you'll thank us later)
please dont count out no country for old men or charlie wilson's war
its too bad that the awards wont be televised this year, because this was a pretty good year for quality product
When I first saw the trailer for this movie, I told everyone I knew that Daniel Day-Lewis is the greatest actor ever and they must see this film.
Charles @ 72:
He is, but you should have seen the film first before recommending it. His talent is wasted in this mess.
As much as I want to believe that There Will Be Blood is great, critics are notorious for piling on both ways. Many times they get it so incredibly wrong, but then, this year has had its share of incredibly overrated films with Knocked Up being the best example. Critics have also lauded PT's other work, so I'm skeptical.
I did see Knocked Up simply to see if it was the "greatest comedy ever made", as some critics were putting it. It wasn't even close.
Now, PT has ambition, unlike many of his Gen X counterparts. He's shown that. Hard Eight was probably his most consistent film. Boogie Nights had great (and I mean GREAT) moments, but a lot of the dialogue was garbage, and some shots were blatant ripoffs (from Scorsese and an obscure film called I Am Cuba). Magnolia was way too long (and I dig long films), but that also had some great scenes in it. Punch Drunk was OK. Sandler didn't look too out of place in that film, and it was certainly a cut above Sandler's usual garbage.
So we'll see. I honestly am hoping it's as good as everyone says it is. I love seeing great films. They make me feel alive. But critics run in packs, and this may be another case of massively overrated film. They are also saying this stuff about No Country for Old Men as well.
You'd be well served to wait for the DVD's or broadcast cable for both films, each huge disappointments, given the talent involved.
Maybe short-sighted, but most of all I could see was some strange preacher kid film. Not into the mumbo.
AcademyMember @ 75:
I think the opposite is true here. For one this film has remarkable cinematography and the viewer would be best served seeing it at 24fps through the gate of a projector on the big screen. Also this is the type of film which is much more engaging in the Cinema.
Personally, I think you haven't even seen this film and you're nothing but a troll who's either simply having fun or have some kind of bitter vendetta against the makers of this film. Is this film really so bad that it warrants over a dozen posts in this thread panning it? Posts with little reason to backup why its so bad. I don't think you've even seen this film. I have and I think its great, but I do realize that it isn't for everybody. But its certainly not bad.
L.A. Confidential @ 47:
Because of this post your opinion officially does not matter to me - whether or not a film turns a profit has nothing to do with it's quality, it has everything to do with the target audience. Fight Club was a flop at the box office but it's one of the most brilliant films of the last 20 years. Punch Drunk Love got bashed by people expecting an Adam Sandler movie at the height of Adam Sandler mania. Those negative reviews based solely on faulty expectations caused the producers to not promote this film and that is what caused the low turnout at theaters.
Marc @ 77:
"Personally" we have seen the film (albeit on the small screen) and again, the criticism is not with the cinematography or any of the "production values" which are all superb! That's what make this film all the more disappointing. Everything is there except the writing. It's all surface texture and style. It's mile wide and and inch deep.
Mark Cartwright @ 62:
The subtitles aren't necessary, but you're right - the movie is absolutely worth checking out, and is easily on my favorites list this year. I can't stand romances and I can't stand musicals, and yet...
You're full of shit. All of Anderson's films have been superb.
methinks a lady protests too much...
James M. Martin @ 81:
You're right! Wes Anderson's films have all been superb. But we're referring to P. T. here.
I will definitely see this, though I am not sure I can deal with yet another growling Daniel Day Lewis (ala Gangs of New York) - it worked once.....will it work again? Eh, I am not so sure. I am excited to see Paul Dano in this, though.
As for all those Oscars? Obviously, I haven't seen this yet - but I am not sure anything can top No Country For Old Men, which is one of the best films I have seen in years.
James M. Martin @ 81:
Boogie Nights was meh at best. Entertaining but nothing more profound than that.
AcademyMember @ 83:
Haha I'm a huge Wes Anderson fan. I absolutely loved Rushmore and Tenenbaums and Bottle Rocket holds a special place in my heart. But Life Aquatic and Darjeeling both suffer from many of the story issues you complain about in this film. All style and no substance. They're amusing...but far from great.
Mark's reviews are tremendous
If you read the New York Times review of this movie, you'd think that it was better than the Bible. If you read the Salon review, you'd probably place it somewhere around Biodome.
You know, there are many movies that are neither the greatest nor the worst movies ever made. This film does not need to be enshrined with the works of Michelangelo to have value. Daniel Day-Lewis' performance is absolutely staggering. If you can't see that, you are really blinded. The film would be easily worth seeing just for that, and don't forget that if it were not for Paul Thomas Anderson's script and directing, Daniel Plainfield would never have existed.
I disagree with the notion that this is a particularly political film. Both Plainfield and the Sunday character are so idiosyncratic that it is hard to generalize from them and take away a message about a broader group of people, as a political movie must inspire us to do. If there is a flaw in this film, it is that the characters are so unique that it is hard to see exactly what message we are expected to take away from the experience. Nevertheless, this is an extremely powerful film. I fail to see how anyone could come away unimpressed by the tremendous force of this experience.
By the way, Academy Member, I wonder what Academy you are a member of? Judging from the quality of your comments, I'd guess maybe the academy of plumbing.
I have seen this film and it sucks. There is zero pace other than dead pan grins from Mr. Lewis. The slow and plodding story line goes no where very
slowly and arrives no where. The murders are nonsense and the greed is expected from scum such as Mr. Lewis' lead. Boring and stupid.
My family watched "Once" on Christmas Eve; it was not what I was expecting, but it was amazing in its own right. Truly a phenomenal piece of film.
Dr. Tettrazini, meet Carl. Carl, meet Mr.T, perhaps you'll learn something.
Thank goodness AcademyMember is still here warning people away from this film, or else I might have gone to see it tonight. I was just wondering, "What should I do with my money and my time? Should I see a movie I'm interested in?"
I guess not, because some person on the internet says it's no good. And since saving my money and my time are so important to random internet person (because all this whining about a movie couldn't possibly be some personal vendetta), and knowing that random internet person does not state opinions, only facts, I will avoid "There Will Be Blood" like the plague.
Thank you AcademyMember! (You were right! Here I am thanking you later! Now could you please tell me what else to avoid?)
High Fructose Corn Syrup.
Hooray! Thanks again, AcademyMember! You're the bestest person (or people, depending on the post) ever! You are right and I am wrong. Or I was wrong, but now I'm right, thanks to you!
Now I'm off to tell other people to avoid "There Will Be Blood"! Take that, Hollywood! Me and my always-right/never-wrong new pal are going to defeat you and your lousy film product through the power of arrogance and condescension on internet blogs! Yay!
The best film released to theaters this year will not have a chance at Best Picture because it was made thirty years ago and, for some godforsaken reason, not given a proper release previously. Hollywood will not give a film that's been registered with the government's film archives (as a national treasure) a chance, since it would compete with other movies they want badly to make money on.
The best film of the year is "Killer of Sheep."
End of discussion.
http://www.killerofsheep.com/ You are probably right.
And hey, what about that oil derrick? Wasn't it cool when the kid pulled the lever and it all started working?
By the way, Academy Member, as your last post evaded any response to what I said, in favor of a snide remark, may I assume that you are in fact a member of the Academy of Plumbing?
Carl - Humor, like plumbing, is best left to professionals.
I look forward to seeing this film.
I still think that Furcal needs to show much more resilience if he is to make a significant comeback. But anymore discussion about Juan Pierre and I'll....I'm sorry, is this Dodgerthoughts.com?
DT
It might as well be.
Perhaps AcademyMember is a Republican who is simply outraged at the vision of America it sounds like The Will Be Blood presents. Get over it.
Additionally, if you truly are an Academy member (and how pretentious of you to trumpet it), you're a fantastic illustration of what's wrong with the Academy. Mark gives a cogent analysis of the film's representation of the evolving relationship between capitalism and religion throughout America's history and all you can say is there was "Nobody to root for or care about." Maybe you just didn't get it? Sounds like you're definitely not qualified to determine which films garner what attention. And if that's the best you can come up with for criticism, you've just underlined the irrelevance of the Academy.
Cheers.
It sounds like you, Robert, have not even seen the film, so you might want to wait until you do before commenting about it and the opinions of those who
have.
"Cogent Analysis" is being kind. Where's Marshall Mcluhan when you need him?
"What I wouldn't give for a large sock with horse manure in it."
Again you offer no analysis of the film whatsoever. And have not responded to anyone asking whether you're an actual member of the Academy or not. I'm thinking those who've suggested you're a troll on some sort of strange vendetta have nailed it.
I just saw this film yesterday and it left me cold. I was impressed with the cinematography, art direction and curiously, the props. The direction and some of the acting was quite good in many places... But overall it never quite comes together. In fact, it became boring in places. Daniel Day-Lewis' character is a greedy shyster from the beginning and never really changes. He just gets more powerful. Actually, few of the characters really evolve or gain any depth as the film goes on. Lewis' growling, sort of musical way of speaking got tiresome after awhile and I became aware of his technique. It DID sound like he was trying to imitate John Huston. And nobody has mentioned his strange accent--although he was supposed to have grown up in Fon-du-lac, Wisconsin. No one else in the film sounded anything like that and it was disconcerting. (Was it left over from "Gangs of New York"?) In fact, several of the people didn't come off as authentic for the place and time or within the world of the film.
The music was sometimes effective in creating a mood and sometimes just called attention to itself. Never a good thing in a score for a film. You should never be so aware of the music that you find yourself thinking "hmmm...that was a curious choice for this moment.."
It takes you right out of the story and makes you aware of the artifice of the elements that go into making a movie.
And I did think the movie was lacking any substantial female characters. The biggest female role is a little girl who has little to do . I am not saying that all movies need to have x number of male and x number of female roles--Reservoir Dogs is just perfect as it is--but somehow the lack of speaking roles for women seems odd in this movie. I wanted to hear from some of the women in the church for instance, instead of watching them used as scenery.
And why did Lewis' character grow older over the years, his son grew up, fashions changed, and yet Paul Dano's character, the preacher, never aged a day. He had the same pimple-covered teenage face in the end that he had in the beginning, even though decades had passed. His voice sounded the same, his posture was the same. It shows a lack of attention to detail that is essential to great film making, in my book.
There is no denying that Anderson is a talented director and Daniel Day-Lewis is a terrific actor. But this is not the best example of their work and just doesn't quite gel into a great film. The comment in one of the reviews was right on the money about how an epic should get broader as it progresses and this film gets smaller. So true!
"No Country For Old Men" is far superior as a complete film experiance and so is "Lars and the Real Girl". I wouldn't change a thing about those two films. I was never bored and every element worked in sync for a supremely satisfying night at the movies.
Ryan Gosling and Javier Bardem are much better than Daniel Day-Lewis this year.
You can never see either one of them acting, they disappear so seamlessly into their characters.
I say "The Emperor has no clothes." Yes, in these dark times, it is nice to have a film about greed and religion and the corrupting power of both. But that does not make this a great movie.
Well said! And "Lars and the Real Girl" is a much better film experience.
insidetheBiz said:
"Daniel Day-Lewis’ character is a greedy shyster from the beginning and never really changes. He just gets more powerful. Actually, few of the characters really evolve or gain any depth as the film goes on."
You know what? That character sounds like Cheney. This film seems to capture real life and I've got to see it!
Save your time and money.
Hello all,
I'm here to clear a few things up. I'm a pimple-sized homunculus attached to AcademyMember's left earlobe for the past 17 years. Naturally, I've followed him everywhere for the past, well, almost two decades now, and I can tell you two things with certainty: A) He is not a member of the Academy and B) he has a long-standing grudge against PT Anderson, ever since the release of Magnolia. As a committed Scientologist (literally "committed," he resides in a mental health facility in Northern California), he was dismayed at by what he perceived to be a dearth of "anyone to root for or care about" in the film, but also by the negative portrayal of his friend and fellow-believer Tom Cruise as a dynamic, but misogynistic motivational speaker. He wrote PT Anderson suggesting a director's cut of the film with an added coda to the film: after the rain of frogs, which closed the film, the movie's characters would collectively come to Cruise for help and guidance with their spiritual lives. Cruise would then guide them into the wisdom and principles of the Scientologist movement. Now, in his unfortunately deluded state, AcademyMember honestly - and rather touchingly - believed that Anderson would not only consider his suggestion, but would also incorporate his suggestions into the DVD release of the film. As the weeks passed, however, and he heard nothing from Anderson, Academy grew more and more troubled and when the DVD was released his exasperation grew to a boiling point. When police examined the carton of eviscerated frogs delivered to the doorway of Anderson's Beverly Hills home, they quickly discovered it was covered with the fingerprints (and other DNA evidence) of one AcademyAward. As you might imagine, this unfortunate incident precipitated Academy's admission to the aforementioned facility. Life at this facility has become somewhat abbreviated for AcademyMember, but he does have access to the Internet there, where he is allowed to read his daily blogs and where the therapists tolerate his compulsive Googling of PT Anderson's name and his incoherent ranting against Anderson's film work, hoping that it may serve as a form of therapy. Additionally, much to their collective amusement, AcademyMember and Mr. Cruise do have the pleasure of sharing their lunch in the facility's dining common as often as 2 or 3 times per week. Since I will finally be excised from Academy's lobe within the coming week (in order to enable my egress from the facility), I can only wish him good luck and better health.
Kind Regards,
AcademyMember's Homunculus
Looks like someone's off their meds.
Not to worry, AcademyMember - you know we'll have your afternoon meds for you again in an hour or so.
Thank you Mr. Homunculus (may I call you that?) for taking the time to explain AcademyMember's condition on my behalf. I trust you'll all bear with us as we continue his therapy.
Best,
Dr. Malcolm Peadbody
Sunshine Wellbeing Facility, Morgantown, CA
Perhaps "empathy" would have been a better choice of words? There is no one in TWBB to empathize with, other than the po' townsfolk who are getting ripped off by the DDL character (not unlike anyone who pays to see this vacuous film). And, since when does transforming from a mean spirited, greedy young man into a mean spirited, greedy old man constitute character arc?
Thank you for linking to "character arc" so we plebes could learn what it means.
See you at early supper tonight AcademyMember? Meatloaf!
Robert @ 114:
It's too bad P.T.A. doesn't know what it means...
AcademyMember asked:
"And, since when does transforming from a mean spirited, greedy young man into a mean spirited, greedy old man constitute character arc?"
Look at Bush and Cheney. Art imitating life...
Barbara in BC @ 117:
You might enjoy seeing "No End In Sight"...
"You might enjoy seeing 'No End In Sight'…"
AcademyMember - I'll call a ceasefire to say I *totally* agree with you on that one. Every American should be strapped into a chair - and waterboarded if necessary - and made to see "No End in Sight." Especially any remaining head-in-the-sand knee-jerk Bush supporters.
(Kidding about the waterboarding.)
"No End in Sight"? But that's the plan. When it comes to Iraq's oil reserves THERE WILL BE BLOOD.
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