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Movie Review - "There Will Be Blood"
"..retro-style crap"
Okay, let’s be heretics. Every movie critic and film buff has been gushing about how “There Will Be Blood” is a cinematic masterpiece. It’s been nominated for (and will probably win) a buttload of Oscars (in a moment of hopeful insanity, I bet BFF Donna eleven bucks that Daniel Day Lewis wouldn’t win Best Actor). Well children, here’s a truth I hold to be self-evident – this movie sucked out loud.
Based on Upton Sinclair’s 1927 novel, “Oil!”, TWBB features a long-in-the-tooth Daniel Day Lewis (man, he’s aged a LOT since “The Last of the Mohicans”) as a pissed-off, piss-drunk, constipated gold miner who stumbles upon a rich oil field, and becomes a self-proclaimed “Oil Man.” This movie is just the sort of retro-style crap the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences uses to make itself feel better every few years.
Three things jump out about “There Will Be Blood”: first, it’s consistent. Not once does this movie deviate from its basic downer premise: in the sun-baked California desert, a sepia-toned, murderous douchebag swindles God-fearing idiots, abandons his son, rapes the land, pollutes the air, has a lifelong feud with the emo kid from “Little Miss Sunshine,” and challenges his own liver to a death match.
Secondly, it’s long. My mail piled up while I was in the theater. Don’t believe the rumors of cut scenes; director (Paul Thomas Anderson) used every bit of footage he shot and (apparently) let his actors do whatever the hell they wanted. It was long, and boring. Not since (the three-minute longer) “The English Patient” have I ever had the palpable feeling that somebody was actually bringing new reels of film in to the projection booth while I was watching the movie.
It was also loud. The “music” was no more than irritating noise - a bizarre soundtrack reminiscent of nails on a chalkboard while biting into aluminum foil. What WAS that crap?
Luis, who every so often comes up with quotable gems, said it best: “There Will Be Blood. Too bad there won’t be a refund.”
To hell with the refund. I want that 158 minutes of my life back.
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