There Will Be Blood

There Will Be Blood. This is a movie so damn good I just had to drop what few reviews I was actually in the process of doing in order to praise this intriguing piece of film.



The movie was one that I had only heard about. There had been talks about a Metal Gear Solid movie being directed by 'the director of There Will Be Blood', and several movie critic sites I enjoy had given the movie high praises. With the critics raving about this 'under the radar' movie, I figured I would buy a copy and see what the craze was about.

Set in the early 1900's, There Will Be Blood is about an oil-pioneer by the name of Daniel Plainview. The movie begins with 15 minutes of watching Plainview begin his oil empire, beginning with his meager beginnings as a prospector and into the oil business. The full 15 minutes is silent -save for a few grunts and groans from when Plainview falls into his mining shaft and breaks his leg- and the story is set up by the acting alone. You watch as Plainview builds his first crude oil derek, and how he adopts the orphaned son of one of the workers killed in an accident.

<more to come>

After being blown away by the acting and the story in There Will Be Blood, I sat through a few minutes of the credits to see who a few of the actors were when I saw the dreaded ‘Directed and Adapted to Screen by Paul Thomas Anderson’.

Paul Anderson? You mean the director of Aliens vs Predator, Mortal Kombat and the Resident Evil movies? (Actually, for mindless entertainment, I still enjoy Mortal Kombat, even if it is an Enter the Dragon knockoff…) Paul Anderson, the guy who is one step above Uwe Boll on the video game movie shit-o-meter, directed There Will Be Blood?

I immediately rushed off to my computer and onto IMDB to see with my own eyes whether or not Paul Anderson had redeemed himself as a director.

It turns out that there are TWO Paul Andersons: Paul Thomas Anderson, the director of There Will Be Blood, and Paul W.S. Anderson, the director that sits comfortably above Uwe Boll (Bloodrayne, Alone in the Dark, House of the Dead) and under Christophe Gans (Silent Hill, Brotherhood of the Wolf).

I was relieved to learn that Paul W.S. Anderson wasn’t some kind of ‘hidden genius’ and I immediately snuffed out my initial idea of buying more of his movies. It would have sucked donkey dick if I had actually gone out and bought Resident Evil: Extinction in hopes of finding some hidden brilliance in it…

Help Support Cheshire Cat Studios.com

This was a pretty bad ass movie but kinda dry when oil wells werent on fire.

I never heard of this film. I'll wait until I see what else Laughing Man has to say about it before I put it on my Blockbuster rental list.

The latest LaughingMan Review is live:
http://www.cheshirecatstudios.com/reviews/there-will-be-blood/

Enjoy

Woo!

And to answer Zimes's IM question:

I RARELY write my whole review in the forums. That snippet at the top was just a WIP I was rolling with. There is a FULL MOVIE REVIEW LIVE on the site, not just my Paul Anderson rant I posted above.

Just FYI that my forum reviews are really more like 'teasers' than reviews.

That's really weird because I was told to see There Will Be Blood a week ago. And if LaughingMan actaully likes it then it might be worth a shot. I'll rent it Friday.