There Will Be Blood!
I watch a lot of movies. I’ve seen quite a few “critically aclaimed” movies as well - and you know generally they’re not all they’re cracked up to be. I’ve seen quite a few films expecting too much, and too often I’ve been utterly dissapointed.
Regardless I’ve read the hype surrounding There Will Be Blood, based on the novel Oil!, and despite nearly everyone around me panning the film, we took a chance last night and spent £14(!!!) seeing it at the cinema.
On an aside - HOW MUCH? Seriously, I was utterly despondent at the cost, the picture and the atmosphere. I haven’t been to the cinema for a while (since last year in fact) and certainly not since we got our new TV… I was amazed at the quality on display. Blacks were off grey, definition was fuzzy and i have a sneaking suspicion that the picture was out of focus. £14? I’d rather wait until new movies come out and buy them on blu-ray for that price. The quality will be better and i won’t have a mechanical dipshit sitting in front of me obsessed with looking at my eyebrows throughout the entire movie. In fact, I’m so in love with my new TV…..
Anyway - this film right? Aside from the afformentioned dissapointment I had a brilliant time. I can see at a stroke how Day-Lewis won best actor at this years Academy Awards, with such a phenomenal display. Genuinely unhinged at times, this was probably the most compulsive absorbing character I’ve seen in film - played with real belief. Whats slightly shocking is how the film didn’t win best picture. In my mind it was infinately better than the flawed “No Country For Old Men”.
This film completely reinvents the cinema wheel. There is no dialogue for the first 20 minutes. There are no generic follow running man, cut to face, extreme close up of sweat stained brow, cut behind, cut to first person, cut to wide angle tricks here. This is a completely organic experience, something which I have not seen on screen before - ever.
I don’t want to say much more because everything happens for a reason, stylisticly, and to discuss some of the mindblowing effects would be to spoil the film.
One final nod to the guy from Radiohead, no not the “i squint to look cool” dick, whose sparse soundtrack adds to the organic feel of the film - there are points where the sound alone drives you to the edge of your seat - the film packs so much tension and atmosphere, which is amplified by the soundtrack perfectly. Again, criminally overlooked at the awards this year. Soundtrack deserved an oscar - not maybe as a standalone - but it did what it needed. No songs, no melody - just old fashioned emotive noise, which complemented the film so well i actually got lost in the screen.
Once I forgot how poor the quality of the cinema was 
Filed by Kieran at February 26th, 2008 under Movies
1. At 8:20 pm on February 26, 2008, dmar wrote:
ok so you have not been to the movies in one year and blood was the first movie you saw in a long time so how can you feel there will be blood is better than no country for old men. if you have never seen no country for old men?