There's Still Much Blood

I can't remember the last time that a movie made it hard for me to go to sleep, but there you have it. There Will Be Blood was swimming in my head all night.

I read a substantial numbers of reviews and message boards this morning, but found the following to be the most well-written and on-the-nose commentary on TWBB. AICN's Moriarty usually writes excellent reviews but this one crystalized the particular misanthropy of Daniel Plainview and the monstrous impact of the movie better than most. This passage in particular articulates well why I left my brains on the floor at the AMC:

When you’re first falling in love with film, when you’re starting to realize you are a film geek, there are SO MANY amazing, classic, essential films and filmmakers that you need to catch up with. And thanks to video, I remember when I would fall in love with a filmmaker like Stanley Kubrick and I would be able to watch 2001, A Clockwork Orange, Lolita, Paths of Glory, The Killing, The Shining and Barry Lyndon all in the space of a week, all for the first time. Do you know what kind of a hole that left in the back of my skull? Once you’ve really caught up to a certain point, though, you don’t get to discover true classics as often, because there aren’t that many left. You don’t get to gobble up whole filmographies at once because you already have. That experience of having my brain chemistry altered by a film is more and more rare these days, and I suspect the same is true for many of you who are also rabid film freaks. You still hope you’re going to feel it whenever you put on some new film, but you’re starting to suspect that you’ve caught up... that you’re not going to get your head caved in as often... and it’s a little bit depressing.

Well, There Will Be Blood was that sort of experience for me. It hit me that hard, that immediately. There Will Be Blood restores my faith in American film in general. It is still possible to make a classic, a new film that tells a story in a unique way and that makes no apologies. This is not homage. It’s not post-modern. It’s not pastiche. It’s not a sequel. It’s not a remake. It’s not a reimagining. It’s not ironic. It’s not some ham-handed political screed. It’s not an excuse for style over substance. This is, simply put, a great story about a great character told confidently by a great filmmaker.

You can read his entire review here.