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Srogyy said:
And I finally watched There Will Be Blood today. What an excellent piece of filmmaking. Check it out, if you appreciate masterful craftsmanship in cinema.
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Goes somewhere back in time, 30 March 2008:
Forostar said:
I was very amazed by There Will Be Blood. Very good acting, and the films's cinematography is superb. But the script
of the film left me with an uncomfortable feeling and pretty critical thoughts. The oil baron doesn't let anyone get in his way, he even kills for it. He mocks the church. He drinks. He treats his sons worser and worser.

Fine. Point taken.

But why portray these facts thoughout the whole damn picture (more than two and a half hours!!) without any change in the storyline? Most films have some clue, or a change. This just kept going on the same and the same and the same. The only "change" in the story was the part about the fake brother.

To be honest, I still had a pretty good feeling about the film up til the very end, when he suddenly beats the brains out of the young priest.

End of film.

Why an end like this? Purely to shock? To make people wonder? To state that "oil barons are bad people?"
Well, to me it looks like a lack of imagination, and ignorance of storytelling. Perhaps I tend to think too much it, but I find the film highly overrated.
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Hm, I don't know, Forostar. The film is not very self-explanatory and this sense of mistery is one of its strengths. It's more like a character study, it gives you whatever your observation is. And as a cinematic masterpiece, it does really well at drawing the picture for you to contemplate. But still, I don't think the story is as static as you claim it is. At the beginning Daniel seems to be a decent, hard-working businessman. I liked how the opening scene showed him struggling alone. This scene alone made me understand he's a visionary in this story and legitimised his later position. The following sequences tell about his expansion nicely. Later on we find out how ruthless and willing to forget about his dignity Daniel turned out to be. The thing with his son was also unexpected, because at the beginning he seemed to be very close with H.W. (best child's name ever, lol).
 
I used to mix this film with No Country For Old Men. That's another brilliant one. It's also grim and very well made. It's quite a coincidence that they competed at Oscars.
 
Watched The Water Diviner (2014).

Russel Crowe's directorial debut, starring Russel Crowe. A man goes looking for his three sons, who's missing in action after the battle of Gallipoli in WWI. Not a Hollywood-production, and it's quite evident in the production values, but it has a strong story that manages to strike all the right chords with me so I can easily forgive that. Overall more of an echo of a bygone era than a modern film.
 
Watched episodes 2 and 3 of Ash vs Evil Dead. It's really decent although the other main actors besides Bruce could be better. There was a really cool demon in episode 3.
 
People say 'The Woman in the Dunes' is Teshigahara's mangum opus; but those people haven't seen 'The Face of Another'

 
Have seen The Machinist (2004) with my wife tonight. It's good - I believe most people were interested in it because of the emaciated Christian Bale (and yes, he is creepy), but it's a pleasantly weird movie with a decent twist and it leaves you thinking a bit.

Yesterday we went to a cinema to see By the Sea, the screenwriting/directorial debut of Angelina Jolie. And it was really bad. It was the kind of movie that would like to be a conversational drama driven by strong character and interesting dialogues... and failing at all counts. It was morbidly bland, with completely empty characters, zero plot and the only salvaging thing were the shots of the nature and the Mélanie Laurent cutie. What's also weird is that although Pitt and Jolie are happily married for quite a long time, they had absolutely zero chemistry on screen. I don't know how that's even possible.

As for There Will Be Blood - I think the plot is more in its relationship to the viewer: how it unfolds the character of the protagonist before you. At first, he seems like a decent hard-working guy, yet he keeps getting worse and in the end you see what a monster he really is, but you realise it was all there in the beginning. So it's a kind of an unfair play with the viewer, but this time more from the director's side than the regular unreliable narrator. I have yet to discover whether and how it works with a second wieving - the first one made me nearly physically ill, so I probably won't return to it anytime soon.
When a friend asked me what was it all about, the first thing that springed to my mind was - It's a movie about a man who truly lives without a God. And I don't mean that merely in the religious sense: this is a story of a man without a personal knowledge of God. Yeah, might sound silly, but it's honestly the best description I can make up to this day. Of course, it's wonderfully shot. The "apocalyptic" burning tower scene - with that soundtrack - it haunted me in my dreams. Call me easily impressed, but PTA has confirmed to me he definitely has a s***load of talent, it's just that I usually don't personally like the way he uses it.
 
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Paul Thomas Anderson is definitely an interesting director. I don't always like his films, but they always make an impression.
 
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