There Will Be Blood

“I’m going to bury you underground.” “I’m gonna come inside your house, wherever you’re sleeping and I’m gonna cut your throat.” “I told you I was going to eat you!” From these words, we can clearly see that Daniel Plainview means business. That business is oil, the oil industry of the early 1900s, in fact. But to boil “There Will Be Blood” to just another epic film depicting some bygone era would be a gross misunderstanding.
The film is as emotional and reflective as director P.T. Anderson’s other great films, “Magnolia” and “Punch-Drunk Love.” But combined with that is an indictment of capitalism that’s as relevant today as it’s ever been. And at the center of it all is the oilman Plainview, played by Daniel Day-Lewis, who is at once a family man, a community leader, a criminal, and a monster.
He starts out scratching in the dirt for silver and gold but eventually builds up an oil empire across the Southwest. His son, H.W. Plainview is always at his side, at first. Besides him, however, Plainview keeps all people at a distance. As he confides to one person, “I look at people and I see nothing worth liking.”
To watch Day-Lewis make the transformation from grizzled prospector to refined entrepreneur to the end result in the film’s final harrowing moments, which I will say little about, is one of the greatest cinematic experiences of the last few years. He delivers no wrong choices, no missteps; indeed it is as flawless a performance as I’ve ever seen.
This character is shown to us through the skillful lens of Anderson’s epic vision. Few directors know how to move the camera as well as he does, and the cinematography is always engaging and engrossing. Anderson knows how to use both short and long cuts to great effect, and so brisk montage is coupled with lengthy meditation to craft not just an interesting story, but an experience all its own.
There are so many other elements of the film that I could go on and on about. There’s Anderson’s script, based on Upton Sinclair’s Oil!, that is filled with dialogue that will be remembered for years to come. Or I could discuss Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood’s unique score which truly deserves the oft-used label of “haunting.” And there are the other performances, which are notable perhaps not for their own virtuosity, but for the ability of each actor to hold his own against the force of nature that is Day-Lewis.
It may seem like I’m on some sort of high with the way I’ve been gushing, but it’s all true. It is rare to see a film where all of the people involved are at the top of their game. It is hard to imagine any of them topping themselves. But they never outdo each other. It works as a great fluid union, sweeping us along with it. That’s how you make the best film of 2007. That’s how a classic film is made.
All of this is enough to make a great film, but then you have the ending, which truly cements it in your memory. Without divulging any plot details, I found it strange how the audience reacted differently both times I saw it. I don’t know if there’s a right way to react, but I know that it is the only way to end that movie. The madness to which it descends is delivered with such gusto by Day-Lewis, that no matter how we react to it, there is a part of us that becomes truly afraid, not necessarily of what is in front of us, but that it might be inside of us, too.

R.I.P.

Heath Ledger

1979-2008

Cowboy, Clown, Star of Electricity

The Orphanage (El Orfanato)

It’s a credit to the filmmakers of “The Orphanage (El Orfanato)” that it takes so long to figure out just what is going on. We’re not sure if the reason for Laura’s son Simon’s disappearance is supernatural or the work of a creepy old woman. We’re not sure if Laura is crazy or if there really are ghosts in her childhood orphanage that she has now bought. And, as viewers, we’re not always sure when we should be apprehensive, which is more than a little disconcerting.
It helps to have such a command of atmosphere in the face of a rather cliché story. Laura, played by Belén Rueda, moves into her childhood orphanage to open a home for kids with special needs. Her son, displaying that rare sense of the supernatural that all children in horror films apparently have, starts to play with a new imaginary friend named Tomás. He soon disappears, and Laura and her husband Carlos begin a frantic search lasting for months.
Possible culprits include an old woman who used to work at the orphanage, or a supernatural sinister force embodied by the spirits of children. At the risk of giving too much away, I’ll go no further, but suffice to say that it’s not exactly a story you’ve never seen before.
Other ubiquitous scenes include the visit of a medium, played by the linguistically versatile Geraldine Chaplin. Monitors and microphones are hooked up, and the others watch as she makes her way through the spiritual realm of the house, encountering the ghostly forces within. But of course, there are skeptics, and soon Laura is left alone.
The last thirty minutes of the film are its strongest part, and Laura’s struggle becomes much more personal and intimate. We get some answers to the puzzle, but not all of them. Even so, the film features one of the only times I’ve felt truly satisfied at the end of a horror film.
Despite the tired story, the film is very well made and well acted. The cinematography creates just the right mood, without overly relying on darkness or fog to make us frightened.
Also, I suppose we should be thankful every time we get a decent horror movie that doesn’t rely on torture, films that are more like Hitchcock and less like “Hostel.”
One of the producers of the film is Guillermo del Toro, the man who brought us last year’s “Pan’s Labyrinth.” This has sparked many comparisons between the two, but I don’t know if I would go that far. This film is less like that dark fantasy, and more like a cross between “The Ring” and the all-but-forgotten “Legend of Hell House.”
Overall, it’s admirable and more than decent, especially if you, like me, feel it’s been a long time since a horror film was made that didn’t disgust people. It may not go so far as to be an homage to classic thrillers, but at least it reminds us, in some vague way, about the subtlety and class of the best films of the genre.

The Dark Knight

The trailer you've all been waiting for...

http://atasteforthetheatrical.com/deathtrap/default.htm

I'm Not There

Robert Zimmerman once said, “Chaos is a friend of mine.” He also said, “I accept chaos. I’m not sure whether it accepts me.” Zimmerman once said “I consider myself a poet first and a musician second. I live like a poet and I'll die like a poet.” He also said, “I think a poet is anybody who wouldn't call himself a poet.” Stranger still, Zimmerman once said, “There is nothing so stable as change.”
Of course, you know Zimmerman better by his popular moniker of Bob Dylan. And that name has been the most consistent aspect of the man that we have seen. For as the film “I’m Not There” portrays, Dylan has gone through numerous transformations, moving from one to the next just as the public was getting familiar with the old one.
And as you might have already heard, the way that writer/director Todd Haynes handles these transformations is the revolutionary part of the film. Six different actors play versions of the artist, each with different names, but none named Bob Dylan. They are revealing in their differences, and each occupies a distinct world of his own.
Consider the peculiarly precocious eleven-year-old Marcus Carl Franklin, who embodies Dylan as a guitar-playing boxcar tramp traveling under the name of Woody Guthrie, the folk hero of Dylan’s youth. Or the young philosopher Arthur Rimbaud, played by Ben Whishaw, who is only seen in interview-style clips, spouting mantras like and including some of those mentioned above.
There’s also Christian Bale as Jack Rollins, an embodiment of Dylan’s protesting folk hero of New York City. Heath Ledger appears as Robbie, an actor who starts out portraying Rollins in a film and encounters some marital troubles. Plus there’s Richard Gere as Billy the Kid, lifted from Dylan’s appearance in Sam Peckinpah’s western “Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.”
The most talked-about performance in the film is sure to be Cate Blanchett as Jude Quinn, Dylan’s post-folk personality. Her segment begins with the Newport Music Festival where Dylan outraged fans by going electric. The scene is both true to history and fanciful: Pete Seeger runs around with an axe threatening to chop the power cords while Jude and his band blast the audience away with machine guns.
That marriage of the metaphorical and the historical permeates the whole film. This may be news for those who may not know much about Dylan to begin with. However, if you are familiar with him, you are sure to get more out of the film. A good resource for catching up would be Scorsese’s documentary “No Direction Home: Bob Dylan.”
The film flits back and forth between all the different characters, albeit at times confusingly. But the point here is not plot, it’s persona. The genius of Haynes’ method is that he’s found a cinematic language to handle both Dylan’s life and his poetry, not an easy feat, to be sure.
It’s been a few days since I saw the film, and I find I am still processing it, trying to work out this puzzle in my head to make a whole. But that is an erroneous approach. The parts exist simultaneously, but never in the same place.
And that’s how it should be. I find that all I can do is watch it again. And again. It’s one of those rare occasions when an unsolvable puzzle is a blessing, especially when it sounds so good.

No Country for Old Men

Not since “Bride of Frankenstein” have we seen hair this creepy. It may be strange to start out a review that way, especially a review of a film like “No Country for Old Men,” a modern western set in Texas, circa 1980. Yet in a way, a mentioning of hairstyle may be the best starting place for trying to process one of the most frighteningly evil characters in recent film history: Anton Chigurh.
Portrayed by Javier Bardem, Anton is an amoral yet principled villain, that is, if he says he’s going to kill you, then he has to keep his word. There is not a shred of mercy in him; the most he can offer you is a coin toss to decide your fate. On the bright side, if you win he lets you keep the lucky quarter. His weapons of choice are a large shotgun with a silencer, producing a strange whining sound whenever shot, and also a compressed air tank that can literally blow someone’s brains out.
It is a testament to Bardem’s acting, his convincing malevolence, that every one of his appearances on screen elicited some kind of noise from the audience I was watching it with. He manages to be so stoic in the act of killing, yet he is still very human, albeit in a predatory sort of way.
His prey is Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), an unemployed Vietnam veteran who stumbles upon body-strewn scene of a drug bust gone awry in the middle of the desert. Amidst the carnage, he finds a satchel with two million dollars. As he realizes that someone is hunting him, he goes to great lengths, traversing the plains of Texas, to keep the money and keep himself and his wife Carla Jean (Kelly McDonald) safe.
Hunting Anton are the Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, played beautifully by Tommy Lee Jones, and gun-for-hire Carson Wells (an unconvincing Woody Harrelson). Sheriff Bell is a man who has been jaded by violence but refuses to let on. However, even he is shocked by the things he finds in Anton’s wake. He finds an environment that he may not be equipped to handle.
Written and directed by the Coen Brothers, “No Country” travels through the bleak, barren landscapes of the desert to dark alleys and seedy motels, and does so with an unsettling silence. There is no musical soundtrack for the film, just silence, gunfire, sparse dialogue (based on Cormac McCarthy’s novel), and more silence.
It is a methodical western that doesn’t overstate its poetry. There is plenty of savagery, and the only real nobility comes from Sheriff Bell. It recalls the various anti-heroes of the Coen’s first film, “Blood Simple;” a group of people stuck in a spiral of violence that could be easily prevented if someone had a good head on their shoulders.
I am still processing the ending to the film. It is hard to swallow at first, but it is fitting. In fact, it’s one of the bravest endings of recent memory, brave in its refusal to deliver answers and brave in its defiance of convention. Some may be disappointed by it, but if you think about it, in such capable filmmaking hands as these, can you really be unsatisfied?

Lars and the Real Girl

It’s rare these days to see the kind of town envisioned in “Lars and the Real Girl.” Not only does everyone know everyone else, but they generally like them all. They are a true community. They spend time with one another, and when someone is hurting, the rest are there to support them. It’s idyllic in its own way without being overly fanciful.
And it’s a good thing that Lars Lindstrom, played by Ryan Gosling, lives in such a town. If the film was set in a big city, Lars would probably be the victim of scorn and possibly violence. It’s odd that in such a diverse setting Lars would probably face derision for being different, while here in this primarily white middle-class setting he is accepted. For, you see, Lars’s new girlfriend has come to town. Her name is Bianca, and he met her on the internet. She also happens to be a life-size doll.
Such is the central joke of the film. Lars is delusional, and thinks Bianca is a real person. The only human contact he can muster the courage for is directed for someone inanimate. His brother Gus and sister-in-law Karin cannot understand this phase, but at the insistence of Dr. Dagmar (Patricia Clarkson), they go along with it so that Lars can work out this problem on his own. He gave life to Bianca; he is the only one who can take it away.
They soon convince the other townspeople to support Lars in this emotional crisis, and everyone soon warms to Bianca and treats her as one of their own. The second act of the film is filled with numerous examples of Bianca’s newfound popularity, with Lars increasingly grasping for time with her. As Bianca gets to know everyone, so does Lars, and so he is able to come out of his shell, albeit painfully.
Nancy Oliver’s script is a great achievement in the way it handles such an outlandish premise. Most other writers would probably automatically latch on to the obvious crude humor that could be implied, but here the issue of physical relations between Lars and Bianca is only mentioned once or twice, and never dwelled upon.
For Lars’s problem is not sexual but emotional, and Ryan Gosling’s performance makes this perfectly clear. It’s a testament to both the script and the acting that the film is able to achieve such a unique sense of reality. Instead of dwelling on the inherent silliness and miring itself in running gags, they make you feel that emotional foundation.
Consider a scene in which Lars kisses Bianca. A man kissing a life-size doll is ridiculous, let’s face it. But when that scene happened, the audience I saw it with was almost completely silent, maybe even reverent. People were moved.
But all that’s not to say that the film isn’t funny. It is quite funny. But it balances that humor with the charm and tenderness of a great romance. Some may call it an offbeat film, but in its way it’s more romantic than most any other romantic comedy made these days.