There Will Be Blood

I really had no idea what to expect when I walked into There Will Be Blood. I mean really, I never saw a trailer for it, and look at that poster. How am I supposed to know what it is about? All I heard was that it was about an oil prospector and it had been nominated for best picture in pretty much every awards show for 2007. So obviously I had to see it right? Right.

The film starts out depicting the main character, Danial Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis; Gangs of New York) striking his first plot of oil, while simultaneously breaking his leg. We then see a few years later, Daniel acquiring a "son." The first 10 minutes of this movie are completely without dialogue, or even a spoken word for that matter. It is an extremely interesting way of presenting the background for the rest of the movie to build on, and I thought it was quite effective.

The next two and a half hours of There Will Be Blood are spent following the exploits of Daniel and his business partner/son, as they build an oil industry empire. The majority of the film takes place in a town that Plainview has practically completely purchased (save a few acres) for the purpose of extracting the oil from underneath. There are some interesting conflicts between Daniel and the town's resident preacher Eli Sunday (Paul Dano; Girl Next Door, Little Miss Sunshine), who's sermons make the "Hallelujah! Praise the Lord" congregations look like a gathering of Buddhist Monks.

There are a few scenes that I personally thought were filmed quite exceptionally. The first is when Daniel's main oil rig finally strikes oil. The sudden burst knocks his son from the rafters and renders him deaf. The director of photography must have gone hog-wild (yes, I said it, so what?) over these beautiful shots of the oil geiser, which eventually becomes engulfed in flames. The towering inferno rages on through the night, which provides a perfect background for these bewildering images to be portrayed on screen. There is also a fantastic scene where Mr. Plainview and his alleged brother begin marking the way for the oil pipeline that will be built. The cinematography in accord with the music make for a very interesting cinematic journey for these two men. However brief, it was one of my favorite parts of the movie.

Once There Will Be Blood begins to come to a conclusion Plainview no longer spends his days in the field. Instead he lives a life of solidarity and teeters on the edge of psychosis. It is in these last scenes that Day-Lewis gets to really bust out his acting chops. It is Loaded with emotional exchanges between his now grown-up son and his old friend Eli, which all leads to the final few minutes. This is one of my favorite endings of 2007. Throughout the movie you may wonder why the title is what it is. You will find out. There will be blood.

4/5 Stars

No Country for Old Men

I have been trying to see No Country for Old Men for quite a while now. When it came out I had planned to see it with a few friends but something came up and we had to cancel. From then on every time I brought it up I got a "County? Old men? Yea that sounds great. I have never even heard of that movie," type of response. (Yes you know exactly who you are). So despite its rave reviews I was never able to see it. Then, to my surprise the local theater decided to show it again for one more week (after being gone for two weeks). I wasn't missing it this time.

I'm sure you have heard every single critic out there praising this movie, well they all had good reason to. No Country is one of the most original films of 2007. It is an accomplishment that will surely land the Coen brothers into the future film school text books.

The opening scene pans over a vast empty desert (save a few CGI animals), with a Tommy Lee Jones voice over. This voice over sets the tone for the entire movie. Some of my fellow audience members dismissed this scene as senile rambling and paid no attention to it. If you do this, you will not understand and possibly be upset by the seemingly abrupt ending.

Tommy Lee Jones plays Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, he does amazing as you should expect and obviously nails every line in the movie perfectly. However, there are two stand out performances in No Country that I didn't see coming. Josh Brolin (American Gangster, Planet Terror) is our protagonist Llewelyn Moss. This performance proves to me that Brolin can give just as much depth to a character as his co-star Jones. Although Moss is technically stealing the money he finds (which was likely stolen from someone else in the first place), the audience ends up rooting for him the whole way. You really do want him to escape the clutches of the deranged lunatic Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem). Chigurh wields quite a unique arsenal of weapons. The first is a Co2 tank connected to a tube on the end of a hose, an air-compressed gun. When he opens the valve of this tank and pulls the trigger on his contraption, it shoots out a small steel cylinder with extreme force only to suck it back in instantly. This gun was originally developed to quickly and efficiently kill cattle. He uses this "weapon" mostly to knock out deadbolt locks and enter places he was not intended to be. The other weapon is a silenced shotgun that sounds slightly reminiscent of the T-100's grenade launcher in Terminator 2: Judgement Day with a little hiss before the ammo is actually propelled. Morbidly awesome. Bardem's performance is as engrossing and disturbing as the character he portrays. It represents the mindless, un-negotiable violence that exists in society today.

There is a beautiful lack of soundtrack in No Country. This was an aspect that also may upset the average movie-goer. I thought though, it was a refreshing style of storytelling that fit the motif of the film perfectly. The audience is on edge throughout the duration the movie's running time because the music wont cue their minds to begin or stop the suspense. The sound is borderline masterpiece. Without the distractions of music you are able to hear the delicate thought that was put into every footstep, gunshot, and crash.

This piece of cinema is a gritty, violent, and superbly delivered piece that examines morality itself, suggesting it could all be just as certain as a coin toss. There are some extremely subtle themes underlying throughout this film, so many it could take you quite a few hours of deep reflection to catch them all. If you have a short attention span, don't see No Country for Old Men because it is a slow moving, slowly developing character type of film and you will annoy those of us that are there to appreciate a truly great film by the modern day auteurs Coen. It is not a mindless race a fast car, kill a bad guy with an oozie, blow up a building movie. It requires you to actually pay attention and think, if it is in your mental capacity to comprehend. Sorry Bro.
I will not be surprised in the least if No Country walks away from the Academy Awards with best sound, direction, and adapted screenplay.

4/5 Stars

Atonement

An first glance, this is not my kind of movie. I don't usually go see romantic/love story movies. However, due to my girlfriends comments of how she goes to every "blow up the bad guy" movie with me and we never get to see girl movies, I decided to give in. That and the fact that it won Best Picture at the Golden Globes.
I was pleasantly surprised at how entertaining this movie actually was. Atonement takes place in pre-war England and begins with Briony Tallis (weirdest name I've ever heard, and one of the most conflicted little girls I've ever seen) writing a play. The movie follows a series of events that lead 13 year old Briony to believe that Robbie Turner (James McAvoy), her sister's (Keira Knightley) secret lover, is a sex crazed rapist. She testifies against him and Robbie is sent to prison. Eventually he is given the ultimatum to continue his life of imprisonment or join the British forces. He elects to enlist. The audience is able to see the pain that both Robbie and Cecelia (Knightley) are subjected to because of their separation. As their love for each other seems to grow the longer they are apart.
Atonement is anything but linear. Unlike most conventional love stories things don't happen exactly in chronological order. The time line is carefully plotted by director Joe Wright to accentuated emotion.
There is a scene about 3/4 of the way through the movie where Robbie and what I can only assume are the remains of his battalion stumble upon the Dunkirk evacuation. We are subjected to the living conditions of thousands of soldiers that have been completely tapped of all physical and mental energy as they wait for a their boat ride home. This is by far the most spectacular scene in the movie. Joe Wright opts for a single seamless take as Robbie walks through the crowds in search of something to drink. The way this scene is shot allows for the audience to not only feel Robbies pain, but the pain of every person he passes. It is pure sensual and aesthetic pleasure.
The ending is something that will take you by surprise, even if you are paying close attention. I didn't catch it, and I usually catch twists about a half hour into a movie (ahem, Sweeny Tood). I don't know if I would say that this was the best movie of 2007, but I would definitely allow in to enjoy a placement in my top 5.

3.5/5 stars

Hatchet

You may have seen this movie sitting on the shelf at your local best buy recently and wondered what it was doing there. It must not have been very good since the illustrious movie critic you had never heard of it. Well, you were kind of right.
Unless you are a big fan of slasher/thriller films you would likely have not gotten word that Adam Green (Spiral, King in the Box) was directing a good old fashioned American slasher movie. This however, was not the major selling point. The buzz over Hatchet was that is was co-starring the two biggest names to ever wield a blade; Kane Hodder (the man who has played Jason Voorhees more times than anyone else) and the demonic terror of Elm Street himself Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger). These were the names I expected to see on the roster back in 2003 when Freddy vs Jason hit theaters (director Ronny Yu opted to have the 6' 5" Canadian Ken Kirzinger dawn the hockey mask instead of Hodder, to the dismay of many die hard Friday the 13th fans). With these two titans of horror how could Hatchet be anything less than the most gruesome, disturbing, and violent piece of cinema since maybe ... ever?

It was violent.

Hatchet opens with Sampson (Robert Englund) and his son Ainsley fishing for crocodiles in a swamp, moments later Sampson is attacked and disemboweled. So that is it, right there Robert Englund is dead... That's cool right? This is a slasher movie, surely he will come back to life and wreak havoc, right? Nope. He is dead. Gone. In the movie for maybe 8 minutes.
The movie takes place during Mardi Gras, and as you can imagine there are countless women removing their tops (not unfamiliar to the slasher genre). The main character Ben, played be the comedic Joel Moore (Dodgeball, Grandma's Boy) is still writhing from a nasty breakup with his girlfriend and is unimpressed with the nudity and intoxication that occupies his friend's vacation. He takes his pal Marcus and they decide to go on a midnight "scare boat" ride. The boat breaks down in the middle of the swamp near a cabin owned by Victor Crowley (Kane Hodder), a boy who died there from an axe wound to the head years ago and comes back to tear up some people. You can likely guess how the rest of the movie goes from there.

It is maybe not exactly what us slasher fans were hoping for, but you do get to see Kane rip out some spines, tear open some jaws, and impale some girl on a shovel that he just used to decapitate somebody else with. Kane truly was the sparkling gem in this film, he gives Victor Crowley just as much love and devotion as he gives his beloved Jason Voorhees.

As far as the "Comedy" aspect of this movie goes, it was actually very refreshing. It was not a slapstick make-fun-of-other-horror-movies
since-making-fun-of-movies-is-such-a-fresh-and-new-idea Scary Movie type of funny. It was very subtle puns and reactions that led it to be considered "comedy." Oh yea, and the gallons and gallons of blood spraying out of recently detached limbs as if being shot out of a super soaker kind of brings a smile to your face to (if you are as twisted and demented a movie goer as myself).

Hatchet is something fresh, as it boasts on the movie poster "not a remake, not a sequel, and it's not based on a Japanese one." It is good old fashioned slasher flick with completely unrealistic circumstances, pointless side stories, forgettable characters, and several bloody, gruesome, gore-riffic deaths. I just want something like this but with an exceptional plot and character development.

3/5 stars.

I totally just blogged

So, this is it. I now have a blog. Why, you ask? Obviously it is because I have so many great ideas that I simply must post on the internet (the most prestigious of publication mediums)? No. Because I want to keep on online journal of events and feelings? No. I am starting this blog simply to get extra credit in my "Writing for the Mass Media" class. I have to make 20 decent entries in this blog by the end of the semester. The following weeks will include whatever I feel like writing about. I assume I will post annoyances with people I encounter (anyone who knows me knows I could write a library on that subject), maybe some satire, a movie review here and there... who knows. That is why I called it Trevo_lution, a term I came up with that has absolutely no meaning and will lead you to expect nothing of any value, hopefully. As of yet I am writing to an unknown audience. however, I may end up telling someone about it if I ever write anything I think is worth reading about. Until then, I have something for you to dwell on.

You know on advertisements when you see a variety of one item, like different color earphones, or a few old dvd movies. And on the top it says "YOUR CHOICE ONLY $9.99". You know what I'm talking about right? Well, to that I have this to say. IT'S ALWAYS MY CHOICE. I am giving you MY money and I'm sure not going to have what I take home be YOUR choice now am I? This is something I just really have never understood. Are there really people out there that think "Wow! I get to choose whichever one I want!" You see mr. or ms. avid mall shopper, you always get to choose whichever one you want. That is the beauty of the way the American market works. You take your money to the establishment of your choice and choose what you would like to exchange it for, do you really need Target to tell you that you really do get to choose?