Can we have a serious discussion about "There Will be Blood"?

[CTyankee]

Because I just saw it and I don't understand why anyone thinks it is a great film. Daniel Day Lewis is fine and delivers a bravuro performance. But I found the film bewildering. I kept trying to find the message amidst the film's inconsistencies and downright quirkiness. Alas, I cannot for the life of me come up with one. Help me out here, folks...

[Ediacara]

1. Long story short: greed is bad, religion is hucksterism

Well there's more to it than that....

[allalone]

15. how about religion is hucklebee-ism

[HeraldSquare212]

2. I agree, but the quirkiness made it very funny.

I think for Lewis' character, it was about how his quest for oil and riches just became all-consuming and perverting.

[CTyankee]

4. Didn't Orson Wells make that movie long ago? It was called "Citizen Kane."

That's what came to mind as I was watching this movie. Then on the credits I saw that it was adapted from a novel by Upton Sinclair, that old muckraker, so I thought it must have been about exposing the horrors of greed, but without a sermon about reform. It just didn't seem all that interesting to me...

[demosincebirth]

3. You are not alone

[notundecided]

5. Boring and just way too long

I was really disappointed. The most de-populated epic I've ever seen. No
character development. Why was Plainview such a mean son of a bitch. Gratuitous effects.

[CTyankee]

9. Great Brahms, tho! I guess any film that uses that violin concerto

can't be that bad.

[americanstranger]

10. And Jonny Greenwood from Radiohead wrote the remainder.

Being a Radiohead fan, I find it very cool that Greenwood can step outside the band and do something like that.

One of his pieces was featured at the 'Wordless Music' Festival in NYC last week, too.

- as

[fenriswolf]

6. last of the mohicans is still his best movie IMHO

[I work for workers]

7. That was a great movie,

but my favorite performance of his was Bill the Butcher in Gangs of New Yorks. It wasn't even a great movie, but he was incredible.

[fenriswolf]

8. I think LOTM soundtrack seals the deal for me.

[I work for workers]

12. Agreed on that. That film has the best soundtrack ever, hands down.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

13. And it had way too little kissyface in it, too.....

Only flaw I could find.....:evilgrin:

[Snarkturian Clone]

11. It's really good if you are in the right mood.

Either way, best name of a movie ever!

[CTyankee]

19. Except I'd change it to "There Will be Boredom." n/t

[Touchdown]

14. I haven't seen it, but I can tell you it's point is trite, because of it's director.

P.T. Anderson.:puke:

Punch Drunk Love. Dumb
Boogie Nights. Self Congratulatory excess.
and especially...

MAGNOLIA

The most intelligence insulting, pretentious, smarmy, over the top, and trite "message" film ever made in history.

There are many films that I think are stupid. Many are truly bad, even laughably. Some are just plain exploitive, manipulative and disgusting. MAGNOLIA is the only film I truly HATE!

[mnhtnbb]

16. I was fascinated with the oil drilling technology. My grandfather

was a wildcatter, and worked in the oil fields in KS, OK and Maricopa, CA. My mother used to tell stories
of living in a tent city near the oil fields when she was very young.

http://www.kcmuseum.org/stories/storyReader$847

My problem with the movie was the lack of explanation--back story--for why Plainview disliked people.
I loved the story, though, that the phony Christian minister was as much motivated by ego and greed
as the oil man.

[CTyankee]

20. But that movie has also been made before. It was called "Elmer Gantry" and

starred Burt Lancaster, as I recall. I thought it was the most intelligent treatment of the religious huckster ever made...

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

17. Just a veer here. I felt the same way about No Country For Old Men. The ending or

should I say the rambling, non-ending ruined the rest of the film for me.

[Yavin4]

18. I Took It As An Allegory To The Iraq War

Greedy oil men taking advantage of people to enrich themselves while manipulating their religious beliefs. IOW, Iraq aint nothing new. It's been happening in the world since the dawn of the industrial age.