Our podcast is a well-oiled machine this week, as we drill down on Paul Thomas Anderson's epic story of greed, faith, and family, There Will Be Blood (2007).
For once, Michael is even less enthusiastic than Nakea, for Daniel Day Lewis sets his teeth on edge, and There Will Be Blood is a movie he has stubbornly avoided seeing for more than a decade. Can this critical consensus choice for the Best Film of the 2000s possibly live up to its hype?
To answer this question, we're making our own nominations for "Best Film of the Aughts," before settling in for a long discussion of method acting, manifest destiny, and the dramatic drinking of metaphoric milkshakes.
Program
0:00: Prologue: Daniel Day Lewis's rebuttal to Laurence Olivier's Critique of "Method Acting"
1:55: Preliminary Conversation: The Best Movies of the Aughts
17:39: Original Trailer for There Will Be Blood
19:33: Cultural Osmosis: Pre-Viewing Discussion of There Will Be Blood
36:10: Interlude: Scene from There Will Be Blood
37:27: The Verdict: Post-Viewing Discussion of There Will Be Blood
1:32:27: Outro and Next Week's Movie
1:33:29: Outtake
Notes and Links
—Movie Reviewed: There Will Be Blood (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson, Miramax, 2007)
—Prologue: from Daniel Day Lewis's interview with Prof. Richard Brown for Movies 101.
—Reviews and Articles Mentioned: Roger Ebert's review of There Will Be Blood, rogerebert.com; Peter Travers' review, Rolling Stone; Manolha Dargis's review, The New York Times; "10 Best Movies of the Decade," Peter Travers, Rolling Stone; "The Best Films of the Decade," Richard Denby, The New Yorker; "'There Will Be Blood' Wins the Decade," Richard Rushfield, Gawker; "The 21 Best Films of the 21st Century So Far," Manohla Dargis and A.O. Scott, The New York Times; "There Will Be Blood: My Most Overrated Movie," Richard Walker, The Guardian; "Why Kel O'Neill Really Left 'There Will Be Blood'," Nate Jones, Vulture.
—Read The Unenthusiastic Critic in prose form at unaffiliatedcritic.com.
—Email us, or follow us on Twitter and Facebook. (Suggestions of movies to watch for future episodes are welcome!)
—"Warm Duck Shuffle" by Arne Huseby is licensed under CC BY 3.0.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:34:39 — 65.3MB)
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