Where's the Beef? Talk to the hand! Say hello to my leetle friend!
My personal favorite from last year was Don't taze me, bro!
But I am not groovin' on I drink your milkshake!!
In fact, I will go so far as to say (based only on reading reviews and seeing the trailer), that There will be Blood, just like Michael Clayton is getting the great reviews simply by being an anti-capitalism screed. We watched Michael Clayton last night. It's a two sentence movie. (1) Capitalism = Murder, (2) Lawyers are evil.
8 comments:
I didn't see the anti-capitalism sentiment at all. I understand a lot of the pinko film buffs got that out of the movie, but bear with me:
Plainview admits during the movie that not only does he want to win, *he doesn't want anyone else to win.*
Plainview is not a competitive businessman. He's a zer0-sum anti-social con-man who poses as a businessman to rip people off. Unlike a real capitalist, he turns down deals that would benefit him, *simply because the benefit someone else, too.*
So I just see Plainvew as a crazy guy who keeps getting crazier. That leads to some entertaining situations, interspersed with conflict here and there, throw in some decent music, and excellent camera work and you just have a good movie.
Thanks for the comments. It's still playing here in Sooner-land, so maybe I should check it out.
Did you see the return of SNL last night? They had a sketch based entirely on I drink your milkshake. Turns out it makes a pretty good Food Network program.
To dismiss There Will Be Blood because of that is to miss the second best film of the year.
The movie is about a man consumed with destroying his competition and, like anon said above, about a man who becomes progressively crazier.
If the film were a direct copy of Upton Sinclair's Oil! then perhaps it could have been anti-capitalist movie, but it isn't so. Anyone who watches the movie and comes away with that interpretation has simplified the movie beyond recognition.
I thought Michael Clayton was overrated but I think that's not quite accurate either.
The movie is much more than an anti-capitalist rallying point for college communists. To dismiss its success as ideological would be to deny the greatness of the acting, cinematography, writing, and directing.
I thought the message of the movie was pro-capitalism, with caveats. Plainview clearly succeeds, especially when compared to Eli in the final scene (where "I drink your milkshake" comes from), but he also devolves into lunacy. His success comes at a price. Of course, that could just be my pro-capitalist views affecting my interpretation... I could see how one would not imagine Plainview's life at the end of the movie as a "success."
The last scene in Blood is the craziest thing to hit the screen since Kung Fu Hustle. I was in a good mood for about 2 hours after it. Thought for sure that "drink your milkshake" was the most awkward, self-indulgent ad lib since "eggplant" in True Romance... but it turns out it was scripted. Brother Sooner, only a false prophet wouldn't drag their heinie up to Quail Springs and get them some of that.
LOL, ok my peeps, Me and Mrs. Angus will check it out this week if we can.
With Michael Clayton, just remember that the Gov't was probably heavily subsidizing the carcinogenic compound that the company was making.
So under a Straussian-esque viewing the movie was actually strongly anti-G'man.
With that in mind I enjoyed it.
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