Hi, I'm fairly new to Ciao, and hope that I can be of help. I aim to be as honest as i can be, and ...
Hi, I'm fairly new to Ciao, and hope that I can be of help. I aim to be as honest as i can be, and to write something that might be somewhat informative beyond simple "I Like / I Hate". I post on dooyoo.co.uk also.
Member since:20.08.2008
Reviews:27
Members who trust:1
Brilliant as he is, the "auteur" tag flung about in relation to Paul Thomas Anderson from at least Boogie Nights has always seemed a touch premature. Yes, those films were astounding, but could were they REALLY the work of a wholly unique voice?
The truth is, Boogie Nights was the best film Martin Scorsese never made and Magnolia could've easily fallen from Robert Altman's fingers (albeit with a touch of post-MTV sheen). Only Punch Drunk Love, his fourth feature, felt in any way distinctive (and even it had a fair wallop of the Kubrick's about it).
With There Will Be Blood, though, Anderson has crafted a film that truly feels like it could have been made by nobody else. It is a bold, idiosyncratic epic shot through with a lo-fi, indie-flick intimacy. It is at once cacophonous and quiet. A contradictory, Old Testament fable bristling with moral ambiguity and pitch-black humour.
Deserving of every superlative thrown his direction, Daniel Day Lewis' plays Daniel Plainview, a relentless, black-hearted, whiskey-slugging oil prospector who arrives in the town of Little Boston, California with his young son H.W with the intention of exploiting both the townspeople's ignorance and untapped oil fields.
Matters are complicated when the ambitions of the town's minister, Eli Sunday (Paul Dano) come into conflict with Plainview's, the resulting web of antagonism, back-stabbing and revenge serving to buckle both men irrevocably.
Though two and a half hours long, There Will Be Blood leaves one pleading for more. From its opening, dialogue-free twenty minutes of pit-delving and leg-breaking to its devastating, ambiguous conclusion, it is an absolute joy. A heavy, oft-times uncomfortable joy, perhaps, but a joy nonetheless.
Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead fame composes a striking, skewed musical score which slathers even the most seemingly routine of sequences with an almost unbearable sense of impending doom. At times it sounds like what one would expect to hear accompanying the THX logo at the start of this or the other blockbuster. At others, it is propulsive, clattering and rhythmic.
There Will Be Blood is a dust-scratched, Bible-beaten epic set in a turn-of-the-20th-century America nigh-on indistinguishable, politically and spiritually, from the one in which the film was produced. It has as much to say about our hopes and fears for the 21st century as its does about its protagonists' hopes and fears for the 20th.
A masterpiece.
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Production Year: 1945 - Drama - Director: David Lean - Original Language: English - Classification: Parental Guidance - Starring: Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway, Joyce Carey, Cyril Raymond
Production Year: 1999 - Drama - Director: Dick Maas - Original Language: English - Classification: 18 years and over - Starring: William Hurt, Jennifer Tilly, Denis Leary, Michael Chiklis, Francesca Brown
Production Year: 2004 - Drama - Director: Nick Cassavetes - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over, 12 years and over - Starring: Rachel McAdams, Ryan Gosling, Gena Rowlands
A brutal bloody and gripping saga of obsession corruption and poisonous greed; Paul ... more
Thomas Anderson's Award Winning There Will Be Blood is a masterly unwavering inspection of a consummately evil man whose trailblazing spirit is equalled only by hi...
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If there's a screen performance in 2008 that comes anywhere near to matching Daniel ... more
Day-Lewis' Oscar-winning turn inThere Will Be Blood, then we've come nowhere near to seeing it. A tour-de-force of acting and a career high for Day-Lewis, it's the high...
Postage & Packaging: free Super Saver Delivery Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Daniel Plainview and son are independent oil men, looking for prospects in California at ... more
the turn of the 20th century. They are challenged by a young preacher, Eli Sunday (Paul Dano), whose own ambition is matched by Plainview's. Their battle forms the...
If there's a screen performance in 2008 that comes anywhere near to matching Daniel ... more
Day-Lewis' Oscar-winning turn inThere Will Be Blood, then we've come nowhere near to seeing it. A tour-de-force of acting and a career high for Day-Lewis, it's the high...
Postage & Packaging: free Super Saver Delivery Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
![There Will Be Blood (2 disc Special Edition) [DVD] [2007]](http://picnicb.ciao.com/uk/79293663.jpg "There Will Be Blood (2 disc Special Edition) [DVD] [2007]")
Sep 13th, 2008
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![There Will Be Blood [Blu-ray] [2007]](http://picnica.ciao.com/uk/79293672.jpg)
