"So, ladies and gentlemen, if I say I'm an oil man, you got to agree."

Some will argue that There Will Be Blood should have taken home more Oscars; how it was not only a better film than No Country for Old Men, but a more relevant one -- what with its themes of religion and greed. But it's probably best not to think about such things. We're lucky to have received two of this century's greatest films in one year, and each will be remembered for decades to come. With There Will Be Blood, the brilliant Paul Thomas Anderson has given us his American epic, set in California at the turn of the 20th century. Daniel Day-Lewis (who deserves every inch of that Best Actor Oscar) plays a hungry oil prospector who'll stop at nothing (and sacrifice almost everything) to build an empire of his own. He'll soon find out that, while he most certainly has enemies, the greatest evil is not buried deep below the ground -- it's, instead, deep within him.

Just caught There Will Be Blood on DVD last weekend, and though it's after the fact, I'm pretty convinced now that it should have won Best Picture. I haven't yet explored the DVD (which comes out on April 8), but I definitely encourage you to pick this flick up and watch it again, or watch it for the first time. In my opinion, one of the best films in the past 10 years. Without a doubt. But anyway, came across this very cool Paul Thomas Anderson tribute video today and thought we'd share it with you. It's six minutes long, and covers only five films (Hard Eight, Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch Drunk Love, There Will Be Blood), but it's cut brilliantly and worth a watch if you, like me, are a die hard PTA fanboy. Whoever cut this must have gotten their hands on a copy of the There Will Be Blood DVD (no, not me -- this would've taken me five years to cut together), so in case you want to go into that film fresh, you may want to skip this.

Additionally, this dude also made videos for Quentin Tarantino and The Coen Brothers, among others. Check them all out if you have some time to kill.

The 2008 Berlin International Film Festival awards have been announced, and while I've only seen one of the films that picked up prizes, I'm very excited about the results. The top honor, the Golden Bear, went to Tropa de Elite (The Elite Squad), which is the first fiction film directed by Brazilian filmmaker José Padilha, who last gave us the brilliant documentary Bus 174. It was also scripted by Oscar-nominated writer Bráulio Mantovani (City of God) and tells the story of a captain in Rio's Special Police Operations Battalion and the corruption within the city's military police force, particularly its brutality in the handling of Rio's favelas. The film was hugely popular in Brazil when it was released there last fall, though mostly it was viewed illegally via the internet. Originally due out in the U.S. last month from The Weinstein Co., Moviefone now shows the film as being a Summer 2008 release, hopefully with a lot of support now thanks to the big win in Berlin.

Another Latin American cinema winner was Mexico's Lake Tahoe, the latest from Fernando Eimbcke (Duck Season), which picked up the Alfred Bauer Prize for innovative filmmaking and a FIPRESCI critics prize. Other winners include Errol Morris' eagerly anticipated documentary on Abu Graib, Standard Operating Procedure, which won the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize (aka second prize) and Paul Thomas Anderson, who won the Silver Bear award for best director, for There Will Be Blood. Anderson's film also received a Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution (Music) for Jonny Greenwood and its score. The Silver Bear award for best screenplay went to Xiaoshaui Wang for In Love We Trust, while the Silver Bears for acting went to Sally Hawkins, for her peformance in Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky, and Reza Najie for his performance in Majid Majidi's The Song of Sparrows. Kumasaka Izuru won a best first film award for Asyl -- Park and Love Hotel. For the rest of the Berlin winners head over to the festival's website.

When I saw Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood, I was mesmerized by the musical score. In the opening, dialogue-free scenes, the dissonant, rhythmic, disturbing music and the raw imagery draws you into a very different world. Even people who didn't like the movie as a whole were impressed by Jonny Greenwood's remarkably effective original musical score.

Everybody, that is, except the music branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which evidently feels that Greenwood's score is not sufficiently original and ruled it ineligible last week. In his Red Carpet District blog for Variety, Kristopher Tapley reports: "The disqualification has been attributed to a designation within Rule 16 of the Academy's Special Rules for Music Awards (5d under 'Eligibility'), which excludes 'scores diluted by the use of tracked themes or other pre-existing music.'" Tapley says that Greenwood's score includes "35 minutes of original recordings and roughly 46 minutes of pre-existing work," as well as "peripheral augmentation" from a piece Greenwood composed for the BBC in 2006.

Tapley indicates that the Academy was aware of all these "inclusions" since early December -- it had already ruled out Into the Wild and Enchanted for having too many songs -- but did not make a final determination on Blood until it notified Greenwood last Thursday, January 17. (Academy nominating ballots were due on Saturday, January 12.) Sources at distributor Paramount Vantage are "baffled," though respectful of the Academy's decision, telling Tapley they only wished they had known sooner so they could appeal the ruling.

There Will Be Blood ended up with eight Academy Award nominations (including one for Best Sound Editing), which is one short in my opinion. The films that did get nominated? Atonement, The Kite Runner, Michael Clayton, Ratatouille, 3:10 to Yuma. I haven't seen most of those: anything memorable from their original scores stick in your mind?

One of the best moments in There Will Be Blood comes when oilman-misanthrope Daniel Plainview first meets preacher Eli Sunday, after having already met and done a business deal with Eli's identical twin brother Paul earlier in the film. The camera lingers on Plainview's face as he examines Eli, trying to ascertain whether this is some kind of scam and if the person he's talking to is really Paul, passing himself off as the new brother for some nefarious reason. Some have speculated that this scene and the whole identical twin device P.T. Anderson uses has a lot of resonance because it shows what a disadvantage Plainview typically finds himself in when trying to know the mind of another person. (It's a problem that he deals with again in the film when a man arrives claiming to be his long-lost brother.) But it seems that we may be reading too much into it -- in a new half-hour Fresh Air interview, Paul Dano, who plays both Eli and Paul, says his casting in the roles of both brothers had a much more mundane genesis -- another actor was originally cast as Eli and then let go.

"Somebody else was cast in that role and replaced with you?" the NPR interviewer asks Dano, to which he replies "Yeah. For what reason I'm not sure. I don't care to know, or I didn't want to know." Dano says that the unknown actor had already been filming for a short while when Anderson approached him about taking over the role and he had less than a week to prepare for the part. "We looked at some scenes and talked about the part a little bit and he said 'I'd like you to do this part' and they'd been filming for a little bit already, so I said 'Okay, that's great. It's a little bit of a shock.' And he said 'And why don't you still play the Paul part and we'll just make them twins?'"

Dano also talks at length about how he views Eli, saying that "he's somebody who I think made himself up. He invented himself. I think he's quite a bit of an actor. He created this persona at a very young age once he saw what religion and his curiosity with religion could do for him." If you want to hear the rest of the interview, and I recommend it, get yourself to NPR and click on the recent Fresh Air programs.

The Director's Guild has announced their five nominees for best director of 2007, and they are: Ethan and Joel Coen for No Country for Old Men; Tony Gilroy for Michael Clayton; Paul Thomas Anderson for There Will Be Blood; Julian Schnabel for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly; and Sean Penn for Into the Wild. For those of you paying attention to the major kudos, that's two different directors than the Hollywood Foreign Press nominated for the Golden Globes. Rather than recognizing Atonement director Joe Wright or American Gangster director Ridley Scott, the Guild has gone with Anderson and Penn.

So, which grouping will be closest to the Oscars? Who cares? I hate that with every announcement about non-Academy-related awards we get a statement like "since ____, only _____ winners have failed to claim the Oscar ... " Well, the fact that there is some divergence means there is no predicting who will get the Oscar nominations, let along the award. So, let's just appreciate the Director's Guild Awards for what they are. That said, I haven't seen all the films (I'm actually about to head out the door to finally catch There Will Be Blood), so I can't fairly pick my favorite. In fact, two of the nominated films that I have seen are so different in style that it's quite difficult for me to decide which I think is more deserving of this honor. Ultimately, despite the fact that I greatly admired Schabel's ability to make a first-person POV-shot engaging throughout the majority of his film, I'd have to go with the Coen Brothers. Except for that one controversial shot, I think they gave us the best visual storytelling of the year and I also think that they managed to get some of the most amazing performances of the year from their actors. However, my mind could easily change in about an hour when I sit down in front of the work of Paul Thomas Anderson. The winner will be announced on January 26.

Yahoo reports that the National Society of Film Critics (made up of 61 film critics across the country) has chosen Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood as the Best Picture of the Year, beating The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and No Country for Old Men. Anderson also won Best Director, over Julian Schnabel and the Coen Brothers. Daniel Day-Lewis was named Best Actor for Blood, and Robert Elswit received an award for its cinematography. The critics are clearly crazy for Blood, but I don't think it'll take the Best Picture Oscar. It's too cold a film for Oscar voters to fully embrace, and though I know I'm practically alone in this assessment, it's too flawed.

Julie Christie was named Best Actress for her understated performance in Away from Her. Casey Affleck was named Best Supporting Actor for his excellent work in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. And Cate Blanchett was selected as Best Supporting Actress for a performance that, for me, didn't amount to much more than a pretty good Bob Dylan impression. No End in Sight, a straightforward account of the bad decisions made by the Bush administration after the invasion of Iraq, won Best Documentary. Tamara Jenkins' script for The Savages was named Best Screenplay. I really loved the first half of The Savages but felt the second got distracted with side stories that thinned out the story's impact. Only 41 of the Society's 61 members cast ballots this year (?), and their choices frequently differ from Oscar voters. We'll find out just how much they differ when the Academy Award nominations are announced on January 22nd.

A number of people who've seen There Will Be Blood have commented on the fact that women don't seem to figure into lead character Daniel Plainview's life at all. As one commenter on David Poland's blog recently put it, "There's never a single woman in sight of him. Not when he becomes successful. Not even when he's older. Not even whores. There's no explicit point of this made, so much as it's just de facto." This is part of the commenter's argument that Plainview is a repressed homosexual. Another commenter pegs Plainview as simply a-sexual, noting that "his only love and appetite was for more money as a means to an end." But is that really what's going on? I recently sat down and read the script for There Will Be Blood and noticed something that I don't remember being included at all in the film. Since it's only one line I could have just missed it, but I don't think I did, and if I'm right it might go a long way towards explaining things.

On page 80 of the script, Daniel and Henry (a drifter who may be his brother) are sitting in a mess hall drinking and talking and Daniel tells Henry that H.W., who he's been passing off as his son, is "not even my son." "What do you mean?" Henry asks. At this point, the script says that 'Daniel begins to break down, holds his crotch' and then says to Henry "He's not my son. My c**k doesn't even work. How am I gonna make a kid? Does yours work Henry?" So that kind of sheds a new light on things, doesn't it? His half-hearted attempts at finding male companions -- his adopted son and Henry, in addition to his manservant -- are his only option, really.

Looks like I was at the wrong roundtable. Over at Cinema Blend, they are reporting some interesting footnotes from a recent Walk Hard junket, in which John C. Reilly says that Paul Thomas Anderson offered him a role in There Will Be Blood, but it wasn't right. "Paul and I talked a lot about it,"he says. "He wrote me a part for the movie and I said 'Don't put me in there just because you think you have to, because we're friends. Put me in there if I'm the right guy to be in there.' And he thought about it and he was like 'You know what? You're right. You just talked yourself out of a part.'" Reilly says he was happy about the decision and how the movie ultimately turned out. "I was really glad. That movie just seems so seamless. It just seems like he discovered this real place."

Reilly also went on to talk more about the film, saying "I really hope those guys [Anderson and Daniel Day-Lewis] get some attention, because I think that movie is a real achievement for Paul. It's such a departure from his other work. I was just staggered by it. I've seen it a couple of times, and I have really high hopes for that one." So do I -- if a Best Director Oscar isn't forthcoming, for P.T., then it better go to Joe Wright. Who else is deserving this year?

Christmas time isn't only for Santa and kidlets. In the world of cinema, some filmmakers and actors get notable awards to scatter amongst their presents, while others only get to scatter empty space and the dismal tarnish of broken dreams. As films push to get themselves into the running before the ball drops, critics have started to share their picks. So, while we were all enjoying our weekends, the Los Angeles, Boston, New York, and D.C. critics were picking their best films of the year. B-town was all over a certain country for old folks, while the others were crazy for a little blood. Many of the critics picked the same films, so peruse this list and weigh in on who/what they're all forgetting about.

Here are the lucky winners, all courtesy of Variety:

Los Angeles

Paul Thomas Anderson was victorious in LaLa land, with his most recent film, There Will Be Blood -- the story of a Texan prospector during the early days of the oil business. The film nabbed the best picture slot, best director, best actor for Daniel Day Lewis, best production design for Jack Fisk, and then runner-up slots for screenplay, music, and cinematography.

Julian Schnabel also made a solid showing with The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, the story about French Elle EIC Jean-Dominique Bauby and the stroke that changed his life. The film won only the award for best cinematography for Janusz Kaminski, but it received some runner-up nods as well -- best picture, director, and foreign language film.

Other winners include: La Vie en rose, 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days, and a tie between Ratatouille and Persepolis for best animated feature.

Putting together last week's list of my favorite screenplays of the 2000's was relatively easy. I came up with about ten worthy candidates and narrowed from there. When I started putting together this week's list -- my favorite screenplays of the 1990's -- things got a lot more complicated. I had a much larger list of worthy candidates to choose from. It made me realize that a) the 90's, particularly the late 90's, was a genuinely incredible time for film, and b) I was going to have to split my list into two halves: 1995 -- 1999 and 1990 -- 1994.

So, in support of all the great screenwriters currently on strike, what follows is my favorite screenplays produced between 1995 and 1999. Read that last sentence carefully! If you've got movies you'd add to or subtract from my list, I would love to hear them, but make sure your choice fits the criteria. On my 2000's list, I was getting comments like "How DARE you not include Citizen Kane, you freaking idiot?"

Now then, with all apologies to the scripts it killed me to leave off (Office Space, A Simple Plan, As Good As it Gets, Chasing Amy, Lone Star, Three Kings, Swingers, Jackie Brown, Kingpin, I could go on and on), here is my alphabetical list:

Oh sure, we've got Paul Thomas Anderson all figured out by now. After four very fine films -- Hard Eight, Boogie Nights, Magnolia and Punch-Drunk Love -- we've surely got the filmmaker's number by now: He makes strangely sweet and slyly witty ensemble pieces, right? So then what's he doing making an adaptation of Upton Sinclair's massive tome Oil!? A straight-faced period piece in which the most recognizable names are Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Dano? This is not what we've come to expect from good ol' Paul T. Anderson!

And I suppose that's what makes the director's There Will Be Blood such a stunning surprise. It's more than a "departure" for the director; it's a monumental display of "evolution" that'll wow the established fans and impress a helluva lot more new ones. This is a dark, compelling and effortlessly engrossing film, one bolstered by a lead performance that ranks among the very best of Mr. Day-Lewis' impressive career.

The film will most often be compared to Orson Welles' Citizen Kane, so I guess I can get the ball rolling on that particular crutch -- but it's also an apt comparison. Which is not to say that There Will Be Blood will necessarily be dissected and revered 75 years from now, but the stories are certainly similar enough. Anderson's film opens with a long passage of dialog-free footage: A lone man hacks his way through a mine using a pick-ax and some dynamite. The year is 1898, and Daniel Plainview is about to become an oil man. We witness the man's unwavering resolve as he pulls himself from a vertical shaft after breaking his leg in a fall -- and if you think that accomplishment displayed some tenacity ... just wait.

Sometimes you just have a good feeling about a movie, and for me, There Will be Blood is one of those movies. Slashfilm is now hosting the first teaser poster for the period drama. But, that's not all, the P.T. Anderson fan site Red Vines and Cigarettes also has a new theatrical trailer and *news of a preview screening showcasing the first 20 minutes of the film -- and there are plenty of spoilers, so don't say I didn't warn you. Based on Oil!, Upton Sinclair's novel about a father and son in the oil business, There Will be Blood stars Daniel Day Lewis as a heartless oil prospector in turn-of-the-century Texas. Paul Dano (Little Miss Sunshine) stars as a fervent preacher who wins over the townspeople just as Lewis is alienating everyone around him.

If you don't count P.T. Anderson's 'ghost directing' Robert Altman's Prairie Home Companion, Blood will be Anderson's first film since 2002's Punch Drunk Love with Adam Sandler. Back in June, I reported that the first teaser for the film had been released online, and luckily, after watching it, I feel justified in my good feelings about this flick. Sure, it has a Terrence Malick vibe, but I have every faith in Anderson as a director. Especially since the relatively small amount of films he has made rank as some of my favorites of all time. Blood was originally slated to be released in November, but has since been moved back to December 26th. So while fans (myself included) are going to have to wait just a little while longer, it makes perfect sense if you think about it. What better time to release a film about greed and faith than during the Christmas holidays?

*Correction: Spout Blog originally broke the news of the preview screening.

[via Solace in Cinema]

Last month, while at Cannes, Venice Film Festival artistic director Marco Müller said this year's event will feature a lot of English-language films and a focus on up-and-coming filmmakers. Both statements fit with the announcement now that Atonement will be opening the festival, which kicks off August 29. The UK-produced pic is the sophomore effort of Joe Wright. It also marks the director's continued collaboration with Keira Knightley, who he directed to an Oscar nomination in his debut, Pride & Prejudice. Atonement is a war-time epic romance adapted from Ian McEwan's (Enduring Love) novel by Christopher Hampton (The Quiet American). Months after its premiere at Venice, it opens in the U.S. just in time for Academy notice on December 7.

A few months ago we shared the film's trailer, and just last week we got some photos, but neither is enough for us to tell if Knightley will deserve another nomination for her work with Wright. After recently watching the actress in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, I can't imagine her ever winning an Oscar, but perhaps Wright has some sort of magic touch with her. I will have to wait about five months to judge for myself, but Knightley's fans in the UK will be getting to see the performance about two weeks after it shows in Venice, on September 14. Then it rolls out to other parts of the world in the fall and winter.

So far Atonement seems to be the only film officially announced to screen at this year's Venice Film Festival, though last month Variety reported the fest will include a number of American films, likely including Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood, Robert Zemeckis' Beowulf, Todd Haynes' I'm Not There and Ang Lee's Lust, Caution. We'll know for sure on July 26. The only other things we know for sure about the fest are that Zhang Yimou is heading the jury, that Tim Burton is getting a career achievement award and that there will be a Spaghetti Western retrospective. If you love both Knightley and Sergio Leone, you may want to start making your reservations today.

To be honest, the summer crop of movies hasn't had me lining up at the box office like I thought it would. Instead, my attention has been firmly fixed on fall and winter. So you can imagine my glee when a promotional clip from the Paul Thomas Anderson film There Will Be Blood, courtesy of Al Rose Promotions fell into my lap. The movie is Anderson's return to directing since Punch Drunk Love way back in 2002 -- that is if you don't count his presence on the set of Robert Altman's A Prairie Home Companion. Based on the Upton Sinclair book Oil!, Blood stars Daniel Day-Lewis as a misanthropic oil-man who makes his fortune alongside a charismatic preacher (Paul Dano) who's making a name for himself by winning over the townsfolk. The film has been described as "a story about family, greed, religion, and oil, centered around a turn-of-the-century Texas prospector in the early days of the business" and none of Anderson's usual suspects like Philip Baker Hall, Luis Guzmán, or Philip Seymour Hoffman are known to be making an appearance. Instead, it looks like the cast has been chosen for a very specific period look.

The film was shot in New Mexico and Marfa, Texas back in 2006, and it's expected to make its world debut at the Venice Film Festival this August. Until now, there have only been a couple of photos released, and some positive news on the script, but this teaser gives us the first real glimpse at what to expect. I'm a big fan of Anderson so I could be a little biased, but from what I just saw, I'll be marking November 21st on my calendar, when There Will Be Blood hits theaters.