Warning - spoilers below!
Our Friday night treat is to throw a pizza in the oven and a movie in the DVD machine. Last night we watched
There Will Be Blood the story of a bitter turn-of-the-century oil man and his rise to wealth in California. I work in the "oil patch" (albeit as a desk-jockey) so the old cable tool rigs were neat and I was a little biased in picking it out. My wife looked at the movie I brought home and said "you rented a movie about oil rigs! I get to pick next time."
I have mixed feelings about the movie. Daniel Day-Lewis played a good role as Daniel Plainview, the main character and won the best actor Oscar for his efforts. The movie has an epic quality and I kept waiting for it to develop into a much better movie. In the end, though, it never seemed to develop and went pretty slowly.
Plainview's descent into bitterness and hatred, despite his millions, was interesting to watch as was the development of one of the other main characters, Eli Sunday a very strange Pentecostal (?) preacher and faith healer who later in the movie seems to admit to being a false prophet. Watching the movie, it was hard to see who was crazier, Eli or Plainview, and I suppose that was the point - yet another subtle or not so subtle jab at Christianity from our friends in Hollywood.
Was Eli Pentecostal, something else, or just a confused concoction from Hollywood? He seemed charismatic in an exaggerated fashion, practised faith healing, baptised by sprinkling, and at one point preached that "the doctrine of universal salvation is a lie."
All in all, worth the $5.80 for the rental but not much more. We'll see if my wife picks anything better next Friday.
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