Homework: Blood vs Boogie

[Muthsarah 124]

I watched "There Will Be Blood" for the first time last night and I have to completely discredit myself and my opinions:

 

The movie left me completely cold. I get that the directing is perfect, the acting amazing, the cinematography beautiful, the writing full of important themes and very artistic - but I don't care about anything in the movie. Sadly, there were moments where I even found DDL's performance to be almost a parody of his acting (maybe because I have seen the parodies of his performance first?).

 

The story and the characters - to me - are just not very engaging. I need a minimum of sympathy for the characters to be interested in a movie, and there's just nothing there for me. I don't even find them particularly fascinating. Those people are so completely separate from my world and I have no way to relate to any of them (aside from H.W.).

 

And I felt very obviously and annoyingly manipulated by the music. It was near perfect in conveying a permanent feel of dread - but I knew very well WHY I felt uncomfortable and I didn't feel the movie earned this, particularly in the first act.

 

OK, now people can make fun of me...

 

Don't feel bad. You can try to be as objective as possible when interpreting/judging a work of art, but, ultimately, you're entitled to an emotional, subjective reaction as well. There are plenty of movies I respect and admire more than I like (and which I will probably never see again), and plenty of movies I adore, even while knowing they're pretty dumb and/or clunkily-made. If you're not enjoying a movie, that's not a sign that A) it's a bad movie, or B ) you're a bad viewer. It could just be it's not your kind of movie. If you're a professional reviewer, it's important to either look beyond such things and consider other potential viewers, or to at least admit your biases, but having personal tastes, and having that help define what you enjoy watching, and thus the worth of the work to you, is perfectly fine.

[Shrek & Donkey Kong 4336]

TWBB took multiple viewings for me to consider it one of my favorite PTA films, let alone the masterpiece I consider it now.

 

Boogie Nights has been in my top 5 of all time since the first time I viewed it.

[NathanGordon 1096]

I just watched Milkshake! The Musical for the first time also, and while it's clearly a capital "g" great film in every respect, Boogie Nights is a helluva lot more fun.

 

That said, I do think there's parts in Boogie that veer a little too hard into comedy for its own good, mostly the stuff with John C Reilly and Mark Wahlberg together like "You Got The Touch" and the buddy cop movie. Rollergirl's character is barely there, but otherwise it does a pretty fair job with such a strong ensemble cast.

 

Daniel Day Lewis deserves every accolade forever; Plainview is one of the great all time performances, without a doubt. I rewound that final bowling alley scene four or five times, it really is that good. There's some things you could nitpick, like the identical twins were confusing to me, and there's this weird "tense" music cue that sounds almost exactly like the THX audio test ("The audience is listening" thing they used to play before a film), but otherwise it's near as perfect as you can get.

 

I have zero interest in watching it again, however. I'd see Boogie Nights again for sure, and have already probably half a dozen times.

[RobertBoberts 62]

I have definitely watched Boogie Nights many more times than There Will Be Blood. They're both great movies but that is kind of an easy indicator of how hard it will be to vote against Boogie Nights. I remember seeing it in the theater.

[JimmyMecks 49]

The fact that one of these movies won't get in is cruel

 

Right now I'm siding with There Will Be Blood but if I had to recommend one to a newbie, it'd be Boogie Nights. They both have so much to talk about that I'm a little disappointed neither will be getting a full episode.

[Marsellus_H 118]

I've rewatched There Will Be Blood. Unless somebody comes along with the most amazing argumentation, I'll be voting ever so slightly in favor of Boogie Nights.

 

To me, it comes down to the cast and the protagonists. I'd say in Boogie Night you've got actual characters, people I could imagine to exist in the real world. It also helps that pretty much everybody is really brilliant in their role. In Blood, probably very knowingly, PTA confronts us with archetypes, more like parodies of themselves. Like in a ancient play, we already kinda know who is who. This lends itself very well to exaggerated performances, because you don't have to fill up any personality anymore, you just have to sell the concept. And boy, does Day-Lewis ever sell the message, which is great. The weak link I found in Paul Dano, because I couldn't buy into his preast at all. To me, he simply didn't commit enough to what the script asked for. It's like Dano knows he has an interesting voice, and knows sometimes actors speak very softly and other times they speak very loudly, but he doesn't know how to mudulate in between the two extremes. I know, that's a bit nit-picky, but hey.... You kind of asked for nit-picking when you pair up two great films against each other.

[groovy-guy 24]

And I felt very obviously and annoyingly manipulated by the music. It was near perfect in conveying a permanent feel of dread - but I knew very well WHY I felt uncomfortable and I didn't feel the movie earned this, particularly in the first act.

 

OK, now people can make fun of me...

 

 

 

TWBB's opening act is genius, and I think that dread you feel would be present whether the soundtrack were or not. The setting of a stage, introducing us to Daniel Plainview as the primordial man, almost an ape man, the narrative tensions in this act are so immediate, so simplistic, the very opposite of the abstractions of business that follow, Daniel and his crew might be the hunter gatherers of our ancestors ... the dread comes not only from seeing humanity at its most basic, flesh and bone - the emphasis on the physical in the opening is unignorable - but also the displacement the viewer feels at being dropped into a movie so immediately, at having such visceral conflict at the start of what seemed to be a rise and fall of the industry film, at seeing this bizarre sun blasted desert, something almost extra-terrestrial about it ... it parallels 2001's Dawn of Man, and its a parallel that is bookened by Daniel's bowling pin beatdown at the end of the film resembling the ape's discovery of the bone as a weapon .. not sure i made a coherent point there...

[NathanGordon 1096]

it parallels 2001's Dawn of Man, and its a parallel that is bookened by Daniel's bowling pin beatdown at the end of the film resembling the ape's discovery of the bone as a weapon .. not sure i made a coherent point there...

Phew -- you just blew my mind a bit there. Interesting!

[HoldenMartinson 221]

 

 

 

TWBB's opening act is genius, and I think that dread you feel would be present whether the soundtrack were or not. The setting of a stage, introducing us to Daniel Plainview as the primordial man, almost an ape man, the narrative tensions in this act are so immediate, so simplistic, the very opposite of the abstractions of business that follow, Daniel and his crew might be the hunter gatherers of our ancestors ... the dread comes not only from seeing humanity at its most basic, flesh and bone - the emphasis on the physical in the opening is unignorable - but also the displacement the viewer feels at being dropped into a movie so immediately, at having such visceral conflict at the start of what seemed to be a rise and fall of the industry film, at seeing this bizarre sun blasted desert, something almost extra-terrestrial about it ... it parallels 2001's Dawn of Man, and its a parallel that is bookened by Daniel's bowling pin beatdown at the end of the film resembling the ape's discovery of the bone as a weapon .. not sure i made a coherent point there...

Plainview says he's finished, but it looks like your analysis is just getting started.

[Head Spin 112]

TWBB's opening act is genius, and I think that dread you feel would be present whether the soundtrack were or not. The setting of a stage, introducing us to Daniel Plainview as the primordial man, almost an ape man, the narrative tensions in this act are so immediate, so simplistic, the very opposite of the abstractions of business that follow, Daniel and his crew might be the hunter gatherers of our ancestors ... the dread comes not only from seeing humanity at its most basic, flesh and bone - the emphasis on the physical in the opening is unignorable - but also the displacement the viewer feels at being dropped into a movie so immediately, at having such visceral conflict at the start of what seemed to be a rise and fall of the industry film, at seeing this bizarre sun blasted desert, something almost extra-terrestrial about it ... it parallels 2001's Dawn of Man, and its a parallel that is bookened by Daniel's bowling pin beatdown at the end of the film resembling the ape's discovery of the bone as a weapon .. not sure i made a coherent point there...

 

 

I hope this comes in a full version next week.

[ManishMathur 33]

TWBB is really, oppressively male, which is the point, but Boogie Nights is a story that could have easily been solely about masculinity and instead gives Rollergirl and Julianne Moore real interiority. We need stories which deconstruct masculinity (and, again, TWBB is one of the best) but it doesn't have to be every fucking film.

 

didn't you know that stories about men are inherently Important, while stories about women are shrill, niche and redundant?

[JosephDaley 26]

This isn't even fair.

[j_scanlon 59]

i wonder how often the word "bro" will appear in this episode

[Head Spin 112]

I rewatched both this weekend and had the opposite the reaction of my prediction. It was There Will Be Blood that held up and Boogie Nights that lost shine in my eyes.

 

I think I may just be done with connecting to the "Behind the Music" style of story where young guns have wild success and then flame out from their excess. Maybe that's why I've never been big on Goodfellas either. Still a pretty fun movie, but it sort of bounced off me this time. Which is what I expected TWWB to do.

[Shrek & Donkey Kong 4336]

i wonder how often the word "bro" will appear in this episode

 

Not nearly as much as whenever they decide to do Fight Club.

[DavidAdams 2]

Boogie Nights is a wonderful film. There Will Be Blood is an angrier film, but no less fantastic. This vote unfortunately completely discounts his two other great films, Magnolia (which is a weird passion project that is just a beautiful sight to behold) and Punch-Drunk Love (which remains one of 2 films starring Adam Sandler that I don't believe he has yet to tarnish in memory, the other being Reign Over Me).

[AlexWhelan 0]

Magnolia, while impressive, is arguably a remake of Short Cuts. I'm all about that Master life. Also that Punch Drunk.

[j_scanlon 59]

Not nearly as much as whenever they decide to do Fight Club.

 

I predict 500 counts of "bro" and somehow tying it into Bernie Sanders