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Blogs: There Will be Blood - Final Impression

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  1.  (1425.1)
    ...

    I can't do this.

    Yes you can.

    I can't. Honestly.

    C'mon. Don't be such a proud bastard.

    I can't. Not after that comment about Andrew Dominik drinking Paul Thomas Anderson's fucking milkshake...

    He still does. The Assassination of Jesse James is still better... but not by much, that's all.

    All right, all right...

    ...

    ...

    ...

    I WAS WRONG IN MY REVIEW OF THIS FILM.

    There. I said it.

    Shit, this is exactly the same thing that happened with Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket. At first, I didn't like the film due to the second half being inferior to the first. In the second time I watched it, I loved the film. The same thing has happened with Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will be Blood. Difference is, at the third time I watched it. Yes, I am stubborn.

    Thing is, since I watched the film for the first time, the amount of praise the film had opposed to my dislike of it has been tugging at me. When a movie is highly praised and I don't like it, I usually watch the film several times to see if the problem is my mood at the time or the film itself. I didn't like the film at the first time I saw it, I don't know why. It wasn't high hopes or my mood, I know that for sure.

    In the second time, I didn't make it past an hour and twenty of it. My main comment about the film has been that it's tiresome, boring.

    And then I thought to myself: fuck it. Third time and that's it. I either like or don't.

    I liked it. A lot.

    I still think No Country for Old Men, Sweeney Todd and The Assassination of Jesse James are better films. I still do. I still think Johnny Depp deserved the academy award, because his character in Sweeney Todd is, for me, more powerful than Daniel Plainview. I still think the Best Cinematography academy award should have gone to No Country or Assassination of Jesse James, both by Roger Deakins. Difference is, I still loved There Will be Blood.

    Maybe it's my dislike for the other PT Anderson movie I watched, Magnolia. Brilliant film up until the ending, when a complete nonsense ending destroys the whole film. "Oh, it has meanings, simbologies...", fuck it. The movie's realism doesn't match the ending, and it's a narratively lazy ending. A CGI show instead of a complex ending to all the interesting characters. The movie left me with the impression PT Anderson is a self-indulgent, overrated filmmaker, and maybe that affected my opinion on There Will be Blood.

    Well, so let me correct some points of my There Will be Blood review:

    - I called Daniel Plainview a monster. He isn't. He's just human. A human who doesn't like his own species very much, and who can blame him for that. But he's far from being a nice guy, too.

    - I said the dialogue was dull, by-the-numbers. Wrong. It's good dialogue, especially the milk-shake one.

    - I said the cinematography was bad. My biggest mistake, probably. It's excellent, although other movies had way better cinematography, like Assassination of Jesse James.

    - Anderson's direction has flaws, like the number of times that the camera moves slowly toward a character, but his compositions and visual logic are exceptional.

    - I said the movie lacks a balance between humor and drama. Yes, it could have more humor, but this time this didn't bother me.

    It's an excellent film. Not the best of the year, but certainly deserves to be mentioned as one of the best. I know it looks like I forced myself to like this film. Wrong. It happened naturally. Because since I watched it for the first time, something in the back of my mind kept telling me I had watched a great film. But something also insisted I didn't.

    There. I said it.
    •  
      CommentAuthorCyman
    • CommentTimeMar 16th 2008 edited
     (1425.2)
    Better than Jesse James easily.
  3.  (1425.3)
    Better than Jesse James easily.


    I still disagree on that. "There Will be Blood" is an excellent film, one of the year's best, but it has its (minor) flaws. "The Assassination of Jesse James" is impeccably written and filmed, and the whole movie is a beautiful crescendo towards the assassination itself.

    I like Juno, but it's a crime it was nominated for "Best Picture" instead of "The Assassination of Jesse James".
    • CommentAuthorDracko
    • CommentTimeMar 16th 2008
     (1425.4)
    I'm having a time out until I can learn some manners.
    SPOILERS: It was one of the best films of the year fyi
  5.  (1425.5)
    SPOILERS: It was one of the best films of the year fyi


    Uh, yeah. That's what I said in this post.
    • CommentAuthorSteerpike
    • CommentTimeMar 16th 2008
     (1425.6)
    For what it's worth, I felt the same way about Full Metal Jacket, in terms of the second half not living up to Basic.

    What do you look for in cinematography, generally speaking?
  7.  (1425.7)
    What do you look for in cinematography, generally speaking?


    The shadowing, the lighting, the composition of the frame. Basically, how pretty the movie is and how much the visuals help to tell the story. There Will be Blood, with cinematography by Robert Elswitt, has some nice shadows and a good use of blue lighting, especially in the end. No Country for Old Men, with cinematography by Roger Deakins, has beautiful, beautiful landscapes, and the night scenes have an intelligent use of shadows (like in Chigurh vs. Moss). The Assassination of Jesse James, also by Roger Deakins, uses a cold color pallette with heavy shadows to set the mood for its sad story.
    •  
      CommentAuthortedcroland
    • CommentTimeMar 17th 2008
     (1425.8)
    Andre, I hate to say it, but this film totally drank your milkshake.
  9.  (1425.9)
    Andre, I hate to say it, but this film totally drank your milkshake.


    You're absolutely right. I'll have to write another review. Merely correcting the previous won't do.

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