Kate Writes....

Warning....plot spoilers ahead...

I went to see "There Will be Blood" last night, and oh. my. gosh. I went with two guys, my husband and his brother, and I was fully prepared that this was a "guy movie". But, I love, love, love Daniel Day-Lewis so I figured it would at the very least, be....well...good. Not to mention all the Oscar nods and the raving critic reviews. We bundled up and braved the cold, hitting up Trinity Hall first for some Nutty Irishmens (which, by the way....if you live in Dallas...I recommend quite highly), then paid $10 dollars a ticket to sit for the next three hours wondering what the heck was happening on screen.

I loved about the first 30 minutes of this flick...dirty men in oil derricks, dusty ranches, breathtaking and stark scenery, intriguing characters...I thought, this is a pretty cool, if not overly exciting movie. After that, it totally lost me. I could not follow the plot at all...and wanted to scream at most of the main characters, "What are you thinking??" No ONE had it together in this movie...well, except for the deaf son...who later turns out to NOT be Daniel Day-Lewis' son...wow. DDL did play a genius role as a psychopathic oil tycoon. That is pretty much my only positive comment on this wasted three hours of my life.

What was interesting, however, is the intimate look into the world of oil. My father-in-law, who passed away over Christmas, was a petroleum engineer. The entire movie, my husband kept saying, "Dad would LOVE this". So, when we got in the car, I had so many questions pertaining to drilling oil that Trey was like, "Ummm...I'll take you to a derrick and explain it to you." To which I kindly replied..."Ew. No thank you."

I think my problem with this movie is that I like happy movies. I like intellectual movies, I like thinking at the cinema...I don't like not being able to follow an entire plot line. There doesn't have to be a happy ending ("Once" being a prime example of this), but I like for things to be wrapped up neatly and for all characters to have their crap together at the end. This movie ended the opposite...a dead guy on a bowling alley floor and a bastard son thrown out as a "competitor" in the oil field.

On a lighter note, I also saw "27 Dresses" this week...and loved it simply for the fluff that is was. So much for intellectual movies.