Yeah, for those who recognize the title of this post, we saw There Will Be Blood last night.
Now I’ve been looking forward to seeing this movie for months. The coming attractions made it look great. Other people I know told me they loved it. And one of my favorite films ever is Magnolia, another by the same director.
And Jo and I are not adverse to artsy, thought-provoking movies. I might love silly, fun, pure entertainment sometimes, but I also love a movie that leaves you slightly disturbed/scratching your head/wondering etc.
What we are not fans of is films that try way too hard to be artsy and cool. And this was one of them. We could barely get through it. It was tedious to say the least. I wanted to like it so much, but the more it went on the worse it got. There was no reward for sticking with it. There was no one in it even remotely likable or interesting. We almost turned it off a bunch of times because we just didn’t give a crap about what happened.
By the end we were just cracking up. Especially with that whole milkshake bit that apparently someone even dedicated a website to. Okay, I get it that the movie is about taking things from others. We get it already. Enough. Stop torturing us with this tedium!
I went on IMDB afterward and read the (very) few lonely forums posts by people who didn’t like the film. And in all cases someone else responded something like:
TWBB can be tough to watch because you not only have to pay attention to the characters and what they say, but their expressions as well. You have to decode their motivation, because they don’t come right out and say it.
You should check out “I Am Legend” with Will Smith. It’s also in the video stores by now. The story is much easier to follow…
Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. That’s the kind of pretentiousness that really drives me freakin’ nuts. Nuts.
Thank goodness there were a couple reviews on Rotten Tomatos that summed up what we thought about the film. We were starting to think we were the only people who hated it.
An excruciatingly long one-note film, filled with sickening and senseless violence, about a misanthropic oil man and an ego-filled minister.
[...]
I hate the way the film forces us into its epic structure and purposefully fractured narrative as if the audience is a puppy having its little nose shoved in a puddle of its own making.
Anyway, it was 2.5 hours of my life I wish I could get back. The only redeeming thing about it was that now Jo and I love to randomly say “I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE” and laugh and laugh.
hi, wendy!
found your blog through marlena’s. yay!
i enjoyed TWBB– i just saw it myself a few weeks ago. it had us a little puzzled, though, at the end. it was certainly a hard movie to … place. we were all a bit confused and confounded, which was frustrating, but nonetheless, we liked it. mostly i liked the sparseness of it, the way i couldn’t decide if i loved or hated daniel day lewis’ character, and i loved how little talking there was throughout the film. the men working in the oil fields seemed so scary and robotic. anyway…! hope you’re well! my 15-year is next year— not sure if i’m going or not!
love,
nicole