Because the month of January sucks at running, I'm boycotting the sport for the coming weeks, and placing my allegiances squarely with Hollywood, for whom January is a font of delicious goodness, like one of those chocolate fountains you'll see at wedding receptions and the occasional Sweet Sixteen. Below I document my journey through the Best Movies of 2007 in preparation for the Oscars... Tabbed the top film of the year by the LA Critics association, some are calling There Will Be Blood Paul Thomas Anderson's "near-masterpiece"...
THERE WILL BE BLOOD, dir. Paul Thomas Anderson
OK, just so I'm clear on this: Capitalism is relentless. Capitalism is ruthless. Capitalism will bring family together after keeping it apart, only to turn around and kill it for no good reason, when that family has outlived its usefulness. Capitalism will orphan children, then adopt them, but send them away when they become weak from damage suffered at capitalism's hands. Capitalism will give religion lip-service to serve its own needs knowing that eventually religion will come crawling back to be humiliated and bludgeoned to death by capitalism in capitalism's private bowling alley. Is that right?
Yawn. Spare me the convoluted, paper-thin metaphors. Next.
(DISCLAIMER: I am aware that the above probably reads Upton Sinclair's source material, "Oil!" a little too heavily into PTA's film. OK, so pull Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis in yet another stunning performance) out of the extended-metaphor and allow his greed to function in place of "capitalism." If a movie taking itself so seriously can be distilled thematically into eight words or fewer, it's a snoozer - There Will Be Blood: 'Greed destroys everything it comes in contact with.' While the rest of the critical community was busy sucking this movie off and giving each other reach arounds, Roger Ebert actually tells it like it is. Next.)
TONIGHT: Across the Universe, dir. Julie Taymor
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