mainstream20016 wrote: > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> I saw this yesterday and it is now at the top of my list for film of the >> year. This adaptation of Upton Sinclair's "Oil!" is well worth seeing. >> Daniel Day-Lewis is outstanding as the lead character. He must have >> studied John Huston for the role as he sounds like him throughout. This >> film is a great indictment of capitalism and greedy buttheads that >> exploit it. >> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0469494/ >> >> > > > > There Will Be Blood is receiving positive press. It is released in art house > venues, and thus > unless it proves to have incredible audience response, will have minimal > impact. I saw it > last week, and was disappointed. The cinematography and audio was > illustrative of the > stamina and determination necessary to succeed in the mining process; most of > the first > quarter of the movie was devoid of dialogue. The cinematography and audio > captures the incredible struggles and grueling demands of mining....great > suspense build-up in the > mining scenes throughout the movie. > > However, with the early visual and sound excellence as a precursor, I was > very > disappointed with so many of the scenes that had dialogue. Listen closely, > and you will > hear monotonous, flat volume expressions that remind you of locally produced > television > commercials.......... the expressions of the characters are strained........ > I thought I was > watching a small-town stage production that was filmed and put to screen. > Awful. > > Trying to reconcile the high recommendations for this film of quality > cinematography and > the dreadful dialogue performances, I am somewhat at a loss why the film is > highly > recommended. In one lay review, the movie 'Raging Bull' was mentioned. In > no way will > this movie approximate the contribution of 'Raging Bull'. In that movie, the > arc of > character development was complete. In TWBB, all we see is a character - > monotonously > the same throughout, except for his changing into better and better coats of > teflon that > deflect any karmic letters he is due. Quite discouraging. > Whatever floats your boat. Daniel Day-Lewis already won a Golden Globe for his performance. I thought the film was a masterpiece and the best Paul Thomas Anderson film to date. Maybe you saw it in a bad theater. I saw it in one of Cinemark's Cinearts theaters in this case a "dome" theater so the presentation was excellent and could have only been better if my local DLP theater was showing it.
Day-Lewis did an excellent job of suspending belief and engaging the audience in the character. Anderson was wise to not use any of the usual A-list actors who would have broken that suspension of belief (Scorcese's "Aviator" comes to mind where you kept thinking "there's so and so playing .."). Of course the film is important for our times because it dramatizes how ruthless some entrepreneurs can be (which was Upton Sinclair's point). They still are that way and are responsible for the coming collapse of the US economy (as well as our politicians who were buy protecting government and big business and not the people). That, I predict, will cause a HARD pendulum swing to socialism where even small business may be banned (which would be bad -- just reign in the big guys). Living in California I think some of the quirky laws here for small business were overkill going back to the "Sinclairites" who won office. I did make it to "Cloverfield" yesterday going early enough to have my choice of seats in the theater. It is of course a B-movie done by the folks who do "Lost". I enjoyed the film as a good modern "monster destroys a city" film shot with the conceit of a 20 something with his consumer camcorder (and not a cellphone as some reviewers have mentioned). Of course no consumer camcorder is that good and though the Panavision Genesis is credited on IMDB some say the handheld was done with the Red small camera (a professional single CCD camera). That's believable as a Genesis is a little large to use in tight quarters. I would say that about 1/3 of the audience stomped out disappointed in the film. I think they expect a more "cliche" movie but that's just the ignorance of the masses and good film makers are moving away from such cliches.
