There Will Be Blood thread

[Josh]

I didn't want to post this in the "Movie --> Videogame Continued" thread because it's a lil spoiler-y, but...





Brain Age: There Will Be Blood Edition


Learn along with Daniel and HW! Educational minigames include:

• pipeline to the coast maze
• 'brother from another mother' connect-the-dots
• Eli Sunday slapfighting
• lipreading
• milkshake drinking contests
• quail hunting
• bastard in a basket
• spot Paul F. Tompkins

[Laurie]

I'm just happy to see this picture pop in various message board threads:



This picture should be posted in any thread experiencing massive drainage.

[Wes]

The first ad in the new campaign should start airing soon, so it's probably OK for me to post this excerpt from the script I got a hold of from someone close to Day-Lewis.

Plainview: Are you an angry man, O’Grimacey?
Uncle O’Grimacey: About what?
Plainview: Are you envious? Do you get envious?
Uncle O’Grimacey: I don't think so. No.
Plainview: I have a competition in me. I want no one else to succeed. I hate most people.
Uncle O’Grimacey: That part of me is gone...working and not succeeding - all my failures have left me... I just don't... care.
Plainview: Well, if it's in me, it's in you. There are times when I look at people and I see nothing worth liking. I want to collect enough peel-off Monopoly tokens that I can get away from everyone in McDonaldland.
Uncle O’Grimacey: What will you do about my nephew?
Plainview: I don't know. Maybe it will change. Do your extra arms grow back? I don't know. Maybe no one knows that. The Professor might not know that.
Uncle O’Grimacey: Where is his mother?
Plainview: I don't want to talk about those things. I see the worst in people. I don't need to look past seeing them to get all I need. I want to rule and never, ever explain myself. I've built my hatreds up over the years, little by little, O’Grimacey... to have you here gives me a second breath. I can't keep doing this on my own with these... Fry Guys.

It's a little arty for a first ad, but they're saving the big line for the final ad in the campaign, obviously, set to air in mid-March.

[Oogie]

TWBB + TBSOWFMU =




[attachment deleted by admin]

[ben]

Can anyone add anything to what Matt had posted previously about the last scene being a figment of Daniel's imagination?  It did seem odd that a passed out and completely wasted old man (he must have been in his 60's at least by that point?) would be able to run around and wreak havoc like that.  Then again I guess Van Morrison did something similar for real, but still.

I saw the film opening night at one of robert redfords sundance theatres, which despite its claims to be indie and artsy inexplicably also was playing the Bucket List.  For someone reason I was shocked when There Will Be Blood wasn't completely sold out, it was at best half full, on the firday night premiere!

[Josh]

Here's a discussion about it.

[yesno]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCCdZmHk5Fk&eurl=http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2008/01/milkshake_watch_i_drink_your_m.html[/youtube]

Drink it up.

[Dorvid Barnas]

Can anyone add anything to what Matt had posted previously about the last scene being a figment of Daniel's imagination?  It did seem odd that a passed out and completely wasted old man (he must have been in his 60's at least by that point?) would be able to run around and wreak havoc like that.

SPOILERS

While Plainview was chomping on that steak, I was reminded of Barfly - Plainview was getting his fuel.  That's why he was stalling for most of that scene, not just to wallow in Eli's humiliation, but to give time for his fuel to kick in.  Then he was ready to bowl.

I was wondering why no attempt was made to age Paul Dano in that last scene.  How many years had passed? He looked exactly the same. In a film with such attention to detail, the decison to leave Eli fresh-faced had to have been deliberate.  Was it becuase he never got paid?  And yes, the butler doesn't visibly react to the corpse, so I could see how the "hallucination theorists" might be on to something.

That said, I don't think it matters.  The repercussions of Eli's death were never shown.  Whether Plainview killed Eli or just had a lucid fantasy about killing Eli, that's just splitting hairs.  All that matters, within the world of the film, is that Plainview is finished. 

After seeing this movie for a third time, I can say for certain that it's in my all-time top 5, maybe even in my top 1. (look out, Amadeus!) 
Not that I care too too much about Oscar nominations, but Johnny Greenwood got rogered something fierce.

[casualobserver]

That last scene didn't even feel like it belonged to the same movie. The tone was completely different and the jokey violence was like something out of a Tarantino movie.

It was far more Kubrick than Tarantino.

[Pat K]

It was far more Kubrick than Tarantino.

That makes a lot of sense. The next time I see it I'll try to keep Kubrick in mind, I feel like there's probably more than a few parallels there.

In a film with such attention to detail, the decison to leave Eli fresh-faced had to have been deliberate.

I noticed that too, that he's not aged at all. I just figured it was another oversight, though, along with the whole Paul/Eli confusion. I agree that the dream/reality question doesn't seem to really matter in the end.

Has anyone suggested "I Drink Your Milkshake" as a 2008 slogan yet?

[dania]

I did feel a slight homage to "The Shining", especially that first shot of the bowling alley.  It reminded me of the twin girls.  Oh the absolute madness of it all!

[Emily]

I didn't want to post this in the "Movie --> Videogame Continued" thread because it's a lil spoiler-y, but...





Brain Age: There Will Be Blood Edition


Learn along with Daniel and HW! Educational minigames include:

• pipeline to the coast maze
• 'brother from another mother' connect-the-dots
• Eli Sunday slapfighting
• lipreading
• milkshake drinking contests
• quail hunting
• bastard in a basket
• spot Paul F. Tompkins

this is hilarious. i love it.

the movie, not as much - sorry to be a voice of dissent, but i found it a little long and i didn't really find the characters all that interesting. i was actually kind of bored by Daniel's character and how he used people to his advantage, though i did find Eli's general frustration a little more interesting - and amusing.

i really enjoyed the soundtrack/score, and the acting, and the oil, but i was surprised there wasn't more blood.

the end of the film stuck out for me too, but i kind of enjoyed it because the different format sort of made me perk up.

i went into the theater looking forward to a western, but now that i think about it - i wonder why this movie was made now. i mean, i get the whole greed, oil, capitalism, etc., and that it's an epic American tale, but i wonder (and i haven't read any articles/reviews on the film) if people have been interpreting it as a sort of anti-war film. like, did you ever hear that Deliverance was an anti-Vietnam film? I saw Deliverance in a lit. class in college & that's what I remember my teacher saying. I thought that was kind of a stretch, but I wasn't around for that war, so i can't really say.

i know today there are films about the Iraq war, & that it doesn't seem to be taboo to make a film about an ongoing war, but is anyone here reading There Will Be Blood as allegory for the Iraq war? or is that a stretch?

like if you think it all boils down to oil and deceit and i guess, greed.  in that case, too bad Eli gets the ax (or pin). but i guess he's no better than Daniel, ultimately. too bad Daniel didn't die. it would have been cool if the butler killed him. or if he slipped in Eli's blood and conked his head on the lane divider.

anyway.. if the intention was for it to be interpreted as allegory, or if it just fits because there are similar themes, it would be an interesting way to sort of bring the war home, or to have people reflect on issues of greed and capitalism as they have effected America(ns) - to better grasp the concept. maybe you'd need more of a link to the present (in the film somehow) to really make a compelling argument.

i don't know, i haven't totally thought it through. it's just an idea.
anyway, i hope some of this makes sense.
good thread otherwise!

[Pat K]

I doubt that an Iraq link was *explicitly* intended, just judging from my own take on the movie itself and the fact that the germ of the story was that Upton Sinclair book.

However, I think it's a valid enough take on it. I wouldn't look at it too specifically, but like emily said, just in the broad strokes about greed, deceit, etc, it's certainly food for thought regarding current events. Pretty much any movie involving hubris, greed, capitalism, etc, you could draw some interesting parallels to politics now, and no movie did Greed, Capitalism, and Hubris better in the last year than TWWB.

Now, if you want a misplaced and wrongheaded reading of politics into a movie, try and find Jonathan Rosenbaum's review of NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN in the Chicago Reader. I can't get the link to work now, but basically, after completely trashing the movie for all the wrong reasons, he talks about one of the only redeeming things in it is how brave the Coens were to throw in an Anti-Bush/Abu Graib reference, giving the scene where Tommy Lee Jones makes a reference to someone getting murdered while wearing a dog collar as being evidence of that. Uhhhh....no?

[Emily]

thanks Pat K :-)

it was sort of a random thought.

i forgot about Oil!

[zonny the nun]

Forget about Tony Montana, or even the Queen.

Daniel Plainview is the new hip-hop icon.