A Sign of Bad Times

About a year or so ago, back when I actually lived in Long Beach, I went through a phase where I would watch There Will Be Blood about once a week. It was a good phase and a fairly productive one. It helped me a lot with the story I was writing (which I just recently finished and submitted) and, even if I wasn't writing, I enjoy this film immensely. Maybe it's just all of the film education that's been crammed up my butt over the past three years or maybe it's because I'm so emotionally invested in this movie, but the more I watch it, the more I love it. It's a perfect movie. I love No Country For Old Men, but if There Will Be Blood had bested it for Best Picture, I would have been perfectly okay with that. It would have deserved it.

I originally saw There Will Be Blood with a stranger who is now a very good friend of mine. His name was Will and we met on a forum. We were both film nerds and we both wanted to see There Will Be Blood something fierce, so we decided to hang out and go see the flick down at the Arclight. The movie was great and while at Baja Fresh, we ran into Trevor from The Whitest Kids You Know. It was a formative day and one of the better ones I have of Los Angeles proper.

On a side note, Will also loves this movie, but he hasn't watched it since it came out in theaters for fear of it not measuring up to the first experience. more Blood for me, I guess.

Anyways, There Will Be Blood is built into a lot of memories of mine and, what's more, is that it's a really goddamn good flick. Without going on too long about why that it, suffice it to say that I find it amazing because there is no feasible, logical reason why the movie works. It simply shouldn't. If anyone else attempted this movie, it wouldn't work. There's probably a thousand examples in cinema of a movie like this going wrong and for some reason, this time, some strange alchemy allowed it to not only exist, but be one of what I think will be the greatest films of all time.

At least it will be one of my greatest films of all time. That must be worth something.

Anyways, another friend of mine Steven, who I've known since kindegarten, have been getting together, drinking, yaking, and watching great movies. Blade Runner is one of them. Miller's Crossing is another. Chinatown was one and so was Narc. This past Sunday we decided to re-watch There Will Be Blood. It was a good choice.

I've watched this movie maybe a dozen times and I've realized that the more I watch it, the more I empathize with Daniel Plainview. There's no way that can be a good thing. While I don't exactly understand his psychosis or his maliciousness, there's a part of me that perfectly understands the kind of driven, withdrawn enmity that he feels about the people around him. While I thankfully have more friends that he does, I get how a person can get so wrapped up in this bitter little ember inside of themselves.

And maybe that's why I like this movie so much. It doesn't waste it's time with story or morality, it just shows the life of an irredeemably angry man slowly picking away at himself for no apparent rhyme or reason. And there's no reason something like that should be this watchable.

This sounds incredibly stupid as I write it, but the movie is as uncompromising as Plainview himself. Each form is perfect in its own little way.