There Will Be Bleh

It's Sunday, and I'm sick. Blah! Fevery, coughy, chilly, generally achy. May or may not have something to do with consistent exposure to school-aged children throughout the week. Either way, Beck is currently hiking with the Wrigster and I am curled on the couch with Sparkle, skipping hiking and Ultimate for the day and watching a terrible basketball game (Detroit just slaughtered the Suns) (Shaq = Fail). This = lame.

In other news, after a full day of Tutoring yesterday, Beck and I watched the tail-end of 8 Mile. It's not the best movie in the history of ever, but (and excuse the language / obscene gestures and general depravity), the rap battles at the end are quite sweet. Rocky's got nothing on that.

We then rushed over to the movie theatre to catch some ACTING in There Will Be Blood. I figured with all of the hype around this movie, I'd be remiss as a pop culture participant if I didn't at least check the fuss. And I did check it, and I was pretty let down. I won't review it in full, but we're talking in the 60 ballpark: good, but nothing close to what the director / actors wanted it to be. The bombastic Daniel Day Lewis, whom Beck has dubbed "a tool*," distracts throughout. Though the score was pretty cool, especially in its discordant moments which out-Losted Lost, the opening of the film, with its oh-so-clever lack of dialog, reeked of 2001. And the ending reeked of Citizen Kane. I found the narrative compelling and engaging up until about halfway though the movie, when an old relative shows up (so as not to ruin any surprises), at which point things became hideously disjointed. And while I recognize that the disorientation created by non-standard directorial choices was entirely intentional, it left the film with a sort of "who cares?" feel AND it accented the fact that much of this charade was oriented around putting DDL in SCENES so that he could ACT. I'm thinking here largely of the baptism scene and the now infamous milkshake / bowling alley scene. Those scenes were thrilling, yes, but the fall-apart narrative - and, as Beck noted, the fact that the film fast-forwarded 20 years as if it, too, was tired of the slow pace - render them non-sequiturs. This film certainly aimed at EVENT status but came up well short. I appreciate the strong aesthetics, the score, the scenery / camera work and such, but as a story, it was a transparent lead actor's vehicle. And don't even get me started on the stupidity of the Eli character. Insert generic and farcical preacher here. I also did not buy the depth of connection b/w Lewis and his "son" which other reviewers have commented on as a highlight; I thought he was every bit the puppet for the film that the character was to Plainview's. Sigh... and hence, there will be bleh. Not that I put a whole lot of weight on Oscar voting, but I'll be pretty disappointed if this overblown (though again, still good) film wins tonight.

* - note that "a tool" is pejorative, whereas "Meghan-esque sleeping habits" are merely descriptive.

(And if you've made it this far, I'll reward you with a little comedy at the expense of TWBB. If you think this scene is odd out of context, trust me that the context does not add a whole lot).