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OMG, There Will Be Blood

posted by: Josh Modell
November 30, 2007 - 12:21am

Keith and I caught an early screening of Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood tonight, and several hours later I’m thinking that not only did I see the best film of the year—in a walk—but maybe one of the best movies I’ve ever seen. This isn’t the official A.V. Club take (there’ll be a full review closer to the release date, in late December), but I’d be surprised if any of our crack film reviewers will find it anything less than a masterpiece.

So Anderson fans needn’t worry, though you may be surprised by how tonally and stylistically different it is from his other films. Then again, he’s a director who’s consistently offered surprises. (One thing’s similar, for sure, though: The music—composed by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood—plays a huge role.) Then there’s Daniel Day-Lewis, who appears in virtually every scene of the 158-minute movie: He’s uniformly incredible, from silent half-gestures to emotional explosions.

Without revealing much of the plot (it’s probably better to go in cold), it’s a complex man’s simple story rendered hugely, horribly, and wonderfully in equal measure, and it’s revelatory as hell.

Now that I’ve built your expectations way too high, here’s the trailer.

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