There Will Be Blood

Whenever I go to see a movie I write a report of it. Not sure why, let's just put it down to my determination to improve the value of this site. Then again...

Tonight it was "There Will Be Blood". Normally I avoid movies with the word "blood" in the title, but it has been well reviewed and number one son fancied seeing it.

Three hours later, as we emerged from the cinema, I reflected that I hadn't really learnt a great deal more about the human condition from the movie.  Some people are nice (though not many in this film), some people are nasty, and sometimes there are films about nasty people.

Daniel Day Lewis won an Oscar for his portrayal of Daniel Plainview, an aspiring oil baron with a very dark side. For an actor who wanted to get an Oscar the part must have been a dream come true. You can count the number of scenes which don't contain our flawed hero on the fingers of one leg. In this respect the film reminded me a lot of the The Aviator, in which which Leonardo DiCaprio played Howard Hughes, another big businessman who might not have been as nasty as Daniel, but ended up just as bonkers. Leonardo didn't get the Oscar though, which must have been a bit annoying for him.

Anyhoo, I can't really say that the film did a great deal for me. I'm not sorry that I saw it, it was well made and acted, but I learnt as much about ways of folk from The Emperor's New Groove, and it was a much more uplifting experience.