There Will Be Blood

There Will Be Blood (Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano) – The word, Oscar, and Daniel Day-Lewis are synonymous.  This London-born actor does few films, but has four nominations in almost as many mainstream films, including a win for My Left Foot.  This film, only now being widely distributed even though it was in limited release late next year, is an epic story of an obsessed, competitive oil driller in southern California seeking fortune and wealth at the turn of the 20^th century.  He is daring, brilliant, ruthless, and impenetrable.  Based loosely on the Upton Sinclair novel, Oil, the movie takes us through the journey of Daniel Plainview from prospector to tycoon.  This is a story of his rise and the price of that voyage.  When he is tipped off to the mother load, he pursues it relentlessly, strikes it rich, suffers the pain of his son’s hearing loss, and meets his unlikely arch-enemy in the form of a young, revivalist preacher who also happens to be the son of the oil-rich landowner on whose land he is drilling.  The latter is played brilliantly by Paul Dano, the troubled teen fromLittle Miss Sunshine, but this part is more layered.  The genre of this film will remind you of the great Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane or Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator except that the story is fictional.  Cinematically, the first 15-20 minutes has no dialogue but is engrossing.  In fact, the entire two-and-a-half hours goes fast.  Director Paul Thomas Anderson (Magnolia, Boogie Nights, Punch-Drunk Love) deserves his Oscar nomination, too, and I would give it to him.  What a film.  Many of you won’t see this movie because of the title.  Yes, there is blood but not a lot; the blood does not refer to human blood.  For those of you wanting to see a great movie, please see There Will Be Blood.  It may be the best movie of the year and should compete with Old Men for the Oscar.  But for those of you who go to movies to be entertained, you won’t feel satisfied.  This is more likeNo Country for Old Men, great cinema but not fun.