Oil! Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Review: There Will Be Blood
Filed under: Drama », New Releases », Theatrical Reviews », Paramount Vantage »
Americans have always been, and always will be, fascinated with epics. I think it's a scale thing; it's in our very history, our very being, to do things in a big way. Thus many critics have been impressed by Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood, using big words to describe it: "bold," "magnificent," "saga," "titanic," "grandeur." Comparisons have been slung around not with anything recent, but with the likes of Citizen Kane, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and, appropriately, Giant. I have to admit, I was impressed too, but not excited. Though Anderson's pure filmmaking skill, his sense of movement, rhythm, timing, light and dark, places him among the greats of our time, I feel that There Will Be Blood is a step back into the all-too conventional, and the least of his five films.
Let's start with his source material, Upton Sinclair's novel Oil!, which was published in 1927. Sinclair was more of a political writer than a creative writer; he apparently sent copies of some of his books to members of Congress, and his views helped establish certain laws. Because of this condescending, soapbox quality, his work has inevitably fallen out of fashion, and out of print; the new movie tie-in is the only way one can buy the book today. Why dust off this creaky source material in 2007? Anderson undoubtedly found something resonant about it, which must invariably be political rather than personal. Perhaps he saw a connection between Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis), scooping up all the oil in the Midwest and swindling anyone who gets in his way, and a lot of the suspicious oil activity that still goes on today.
Blood For Dano
Filed under: Drama », Casting », Newsstand »
It's been almost impossible to get information about There Will Be Blood, Paul Thomas Anderson's epic next film, but it's finally been confirmed that someone other than Daniel Day-Lewis will actually be appearing in the movie. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Little Miss Sunshine's Paul Dano (who Erik recently interviewed) will star alongside Lewis as "a gifted, charismatic young preacher who captivates churchgoers." The film, which is "loosely based" on Upton Sinclair's Oil!, has been grandly described as "an ambitious ... and ... compelling, relevant story about family, greed, religion and oil." What, you want specifics? Oh. Well, Day-Lewis plays "a tycoon who strikes it rich after gaining oil rights to a family's ranch, turning the small town where Dano's character preaches into a boomtown." Which I'm sure leads to lots of conflicts, and epic suffering by Day-Lewis. Because, really -- who would cast that man and NOT ask him to suffer?Until the other day, I had no feelings about Dano one way or another -- but then I stumbled across the shockingly great The Girl Next Door on cable. As a result, I'm now officially a fan of his (and of everyone else in the movie), and am really excited to see someone of his ability joining what was already an unusual, exciting project.
The movie is currently filming in Texas and California.
Much love for PTA Blood script
Filed under: Drama », RumorMonger », Scripts »
About a month ago, we reported that There Will Be Blood, Paul Thomas Anderson's long-simmering, loose adaptation of Upton
Sinclair's Oil!
had finally secured both financing and a star (Daniel Day-Lewis).
Anderson's screenplay for the film apparently celebrated the news by making a run for it, only to be captured by El
Chavo, one of Latino Review's myriad of informers - and he's very happy indeed to have made the screenplay's
acquaintance.According to Mr. Chavo, this screenplay is the greatest thing since sliced bread, possibly even surpassing it. It's like nothing he's ever read before, a sure-fire best screenplay winner, and "so simple that to explain it is to be lost in its complexities." Yikes. That sort of overblown rhetoric actually really worries me, but the man is awfully excited, so maybe we should cut him a break. Disappointingly, there's not a lot of detail about the screenplay mixed in with the raving, but we do get about a paragraph of summary. Essentially, the story boils down to a confrontation between Daniel (Day-Lewis, conveniently), an oil prospector, and Eli Sunday, a young evangelical preacher. According to El Chavo, "The truths of this story...revolve around man's eventual need to address the widening gap between reality and superstition."
While that sounds thoughtful and potentially fascinating, it also doesn't sound like something that Hollywood likes (unless, that is, it's accompanied by Al Pacino over-acting and someone playing the devil). However, PTA supposedly already has $25 million to make the film, and production is slated to begin this spring, so maybe it doesn't matter how anti-megaplex his screenplay is.
[via JoBlo]
Paul Thomas Anderson does Upton Sinclair
Filed under: Drama », Casting », Deals », Paramount », Newsstand »
Director Paul Thomas Anderson has been working for several years on his
screenplay for There Will Be Blood, a
loose adaptation of Upton
Sinclair's 1927 novel Oil!
- and now the movie is going ahead. Funded to the tune of around $25 million by a joint agreement between Paramount and
Miramax, the project is reportedly going to be rather epic: it's described as "an ambitious film and a compelling,
relevant story about family, greed, religion and oil," set in Texas. (Sounds sort of like Giant
to me, except for without James Dean.) Casting for the film has only
just begun, but Daniel Day-Lewis is already on board in the role of
"a pioneering Texas oil prospector." Based solely on the names currently associated with it (including Sinclair's), this movie's got a ton of potential. While it's hard to imagine a period piece about oil will be a blockbuster, the budget indicates that the studios are aware that it will be more of a niche project, appealing to Anderson's usual crowd. (Me, I'm easy to please: if you say "period piece," I'm there.)
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