There Will Be Oscar Bait

And this years Oscar Bait Award goes to... Paul Thomas Anderson's "There Will Be Blood".

If you remember from last year, Oscar Bait are those movies, on everyone's lips this time of year, that are universally respected, duly honored with the hardware and then never heard from again except during marathon sessions of Trivial Pursuit or Scene It. "Last King of Scotland" anyone? When was the last time you checked out "Children of a Lesser God"? Or "Gandhi"? Yeah, Kingsley was perfect in that just don't make me watch it again.

Loosely based on Upton Sinclair's, "Oil", in that it's about a man who looks for oil, "There Will Be Blood" actually has a lot more in common with Moby Dick (down to the limp!) or "Citizen Kane" in it's examination of the cost of one man's obsession. Daniel Day Lewis is marvelous in the lead but when is he not? The man is amazing, perhaps the most precisely physical actor ever, but he pretty much specializes in Oscar Bait. Seen "Sins of the Father" or "My Left Foot"on cable lately? The cinematography is great, there are plenty of questions to talk about afterwards (did he really love his boy?) and yes, it has, hands down, the best ending line of any movie in recent history (I'm not going to spoil it by quoting it here) but, for me I had the same feeling I did after some of Anderson's other movies. He's absolutely got the goods, he needs to be making movies and if I wrote the checks at the studio he'd get a big one but I just don't like his movies very much. The worst part of this one, besides the 3 hour running time which had me considering "There Will Be a Doughnut Pillow for My Ass" as a possible title for this entry, was Paul Dano's performance as Eli Sunday, the child preacher. He just couldn't keep up. I know he and Anderson were probably thinking Brad Dourif in "Wise Blood" or Will Oldham in "Matwan" but was it just me or was there instead a whiff of R. G. Armstrong in "Children of the Corn"? You know the scene at the end, when he's on the cross and talking in that 'I'm making like Mercedes McCambridge in "The Exorcist" voice'? Yeah, the Dano scenes were kinda like that. But, since they're in this year's Oscar bait fortunately, no one will be watching after the ceremony's over.