In honour of Family Day, I went to see There Will Be Blood :). I think it's going to take me a few days to digest the film. I found it a very well made film, but quite disturbing. The film centers around the California oil boom at the beginning of the 20th Century and the life of Daniel Plainview, an oil prospector, played by Daniel Day-Lewis. The movie is based on the novel, Oil, by Upton Sinclair - a great novelist and social crusader; if you ever want to get a good and very disturbing idea of working class conditions at the beginning of the 20th Century, I recommend The Jungle.
The main reason I wanted to see the movie was for Daniel Day-Lewis. The man has such an on-screen presence and is one of my favourite actors. In this movie, he plays a despicable character whose greed destroys everything and in the end he's left with nothing - and this is the same way we're to feel about the character at the end of the movie.
The soundtrack was very interesting. It was all orchestral, but like on the churning of the oil wells, the music sounded mechanical. The cinematography was also stunning - the huge landscapes were beautiful.
In the end, I thought it was good film, but quite disturbing...probably not something the whole family can sit down and enjoy.
This past weekend I also went to see No Country For Old Men. Based on the Cormac McCarthy novel, I was a little worried before I went to see this movie. A few weeks ago, I tried reading McCarthy's novel, The Road. I couldn't get through it (I'm sorry, but I was 60 pages in and nothing was happening...the father and son just kept on walking...I was told it was a post-apocalyptic wasteland but there was narry a zombie mutant nor Thunderdome to be had.)
However, the movie was great. Like There Will Be Blood, the scenery and cinematography was fantastic. The Coen brothers also did a wonderful job setting the suspense in the movie. Lastly, Javier Bardem and Tommy Lee Jones played their parts masterfully. I highly recommend this film.
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