Friday

It's been forever since I did a movie review here. I'm not doing one now, either. But I made time to watch a movie last night after Sunshine went to bed. I finished in the gym early so I'd be left the leeway. It's not usually this much fuss, but I wanted to watch There Will Be Blood,* which is long enough to require some planning ahead. So shortly after two, I made a half-sandwich and a bowl of cereal, plugged my earphones in so I wouldn't disturb my neighbors, and spun a DVD we'd borrowed from one of Sunshine's coworkers. The first thing I noticed: this movie was shockingly well filmed. I am not a fan of Paul Anderson's usually cruddy emo formalism--ugly is the new beauty!--but here the tone was naturalistic, even nostalgic, all golden sun and epic sweep. Attention to incidental details was obsessive, but throwaway. Far from being driven by a host of Anderson types--mores sleep in an environment where everybody sucks--the movie tracks the rise of an obsessive but direct gentleman who actually works to achieve his brutal success in the early oil trade, doing battle with hucksters and taking responsibility for his actions. ...oh hell, I don't know what all he does. After being unpredictably Merchant-Ivory--I didn't know Mr. Anderson had it in him--the probably pirated disc puttered-out, leaving me hanging only five hours into the movie. I imagine the denouement of There Will Be Blood, what with there having been very little blood up till then, throws the proceeding into a rather different light. Who knows? Will I sit through the whole thing again someday? Will I go to my grave never guessing what happens after the ham-fisted transition that heralds the movie's final act? [Cavin]