There Will Be Blood

Hey! Lookee! A coolio early review for this flick coming out later soonish I don't know when! But here's a review! Just like a real movie critic type guy and stuff! Boom!

There Will Be Blood isn't a vampire flick (I mean it is in very ironical stretchy way) but its not a blood sucking film (although it kind of is). Anyway, it's directed by Paul Smith Anderson, the guy who directed Boogie Nights and Magnolia and Punch Drunk Love. Three for three as far as I'm concerned. And I think Boogie Nights has crossed over into that unturnoffable territory where if you're flipping around and its on-- you gotta sit and watch it. (Actually the other day I flipped by the scene where Dirk and Chest Rockwell were yelling at the music studio guy explaining how they needed the music tapes to get the record deal from the record company so they could come back and pay the money for the tapes. And Chest yelled, 'We look like assholes, man!' And the music studio guy just slowly nodded his head at him). Man, that movie is friggin good.

Happily, I knew zero about this movie going in other than it was set back in like the 1800's and Daniel Day Dickhead wears a moustache and a hat again. Going in, I was revved up on high for some real deal high falootin rootin tootin film schooltin! But this flick doesn't exactly jump out of the gate. For the first 15 minutes there's almost no dialogue. Maybe a mumble and a grunt. The good news is it didn't need more than that. Right from the getgo my eyes were locked on this thing and it didn't let go for 45-minutes. It has sort of a weirdly hypnotic aura. Helped by the bizarre music with like sirens and loopy out of place other worldishness (I found out afterwards that the guitarist from Radiohead was behind all that and I was all proud of myself for flagging it as "cool" on its own merits). The flick all looked and sounded so friggin good. It moved comfortably slow making me sleepy while keeping me wide awake. A feeling like being lowered down into sweet poisonous ooze.

To make a long story short bout this flick, Daniel Day Dickhead plays this prospector dude who is looking all over to strike oil. Mainly, he finds himself in small towns that don't know what to do with the oil they're sitting on and he does his smooth-talker deal maker shtick to get the rights. And there's churchy stuff on the side with a preacher guy (who has a crazy no-cut scene where he casts out a ghost and his voice goes from a whisper to Gene Wilder Wonka scream all the way up to crossover demon possession). But soon I noticed this movie wasn't really moving far. It was just brewing. And simmering. Mixed in were jawsmashingly awesome blasts of oil shooting up at the sky. And a glowing fire scene that seemed LOTResque. For the first hour straight, I stared away convinced that I was looking at an Oscar sweep flick. But when all was said and done. There Will Be... Issues.

This movie starts skidding around on thin dramatic ice. It wanders and explores tangents. Some pay off. Some kind of don't. The characters never fill up with their character quite as high as I'd hoped. The tension and depth are both slightly disappointing. And toward the end it felt like it got hack edited pretty harshly. I actually think this movie would be better off at 4 hours long. Maybe 5. But in the end, I really didn't mind the flaws. Most were easily dismissed. And it was pretty easy to do. Because Daniel Day Dickhead is so friggin amazing in this thing he redirected my nitpicks with simple swats of good ol' fashion'd acting.

Three Good Things About this Movie

- Daniel Day Dickhead reminded me that acting is actually an art.
- The whole thing was so pleasantly corrupted across the board.
- Some of the shots burned into my brain.

Three Bad Things About this Movie

- The preacher/oil man conflict never really grabs hold naturally.
- It lacked a script that flowed as deep and as dark as oil.
- Sometimes the actions seemed way out of character for some characters.

All in all, this is a flick worth seeing. It's definitely flawed up but there's something about it being so dang filmy fine that it's easy to forgive it for taking itself too seriously. There's plenty in there to latch on to when it feels like it's letting you down. The weird power scenes. The shooting oil. The historical weirdness. The disappointment of humanity and big business. But most excellently, the distraction of staring at Daniel Day Dickhead's massive ability to blast life into a character who is so super dead...

CHYATT???<<<