★★★★ There Will Be Blood

[Twinkletoes: 4.5, Gino: 4.0, Twoshoes: 4.0]

Twinkletoes says: 'The more I see from this guy the more I am convinced that Paul Thomas Anderson is among the very finest directors working today. Its been a while since I've seen this so let me leave you with a couple of thoughts on this film: 1. As has been advertised, Daniel Day Lewis is spellbinding but I think far too little attention has been given to Paul Dano's performance. 2. What a great score. How did this not win the Oscar? 3. All of the pieces of this film work together to give it an indescribable urgency. 4. The film is far more intimate and far less epic than what I was expecting. 5. Unlike some, I thought the ending was perfect.'

Gino says: "I pretty much agree with everything that Twinkletoes said, so I will only reiterate: The dynamic between Day Lewis's character (who seems to care about nothing other than being a self-made man, and perhaps grudgingly about his son) and Paul Dano's preacher and faith-healer is great, and should have been made the entirely of the film. What is nice is that the main character is really not an archetype -- it's not that the oil baron is a money-obsessed capitalist, he seems to get little joy from his riches. He just really, really doesn't like people, and we are not really shown why, in the film anyway, I haven't read the source novel. So that makes him a more interesting, if inscrutable character. Meanwhile, Dano's preacher is pitch-perfect acting and casting; he survives off of the respect of his flock and resents the very presence of the oil man, setting up this tension between the two.

The score -- magnificent. The writing, score, and I suppose the cinematography here combined to turn what is on paper a pretty boring story and make it downright suspenseful. But the score stands out. Normally, I don't like self-conscious or distracting music in movies, but this was just great. "