Pop Quiz, Asshole
Exhibit A most fully illustrates which of the following:
(a) Why April actually really doesn't need to force herself to emerge from her hermit-hole more often.
(b) Why nobody should ever give April pen & paper when she's four deep in whiskey & ginger ales (despite the atrocious penmanship & extra period in the ellipsis I'm pleased to note my confidence in my spelling wavered not).
(c) Why April should never go see Paul Thomas Anderson movies that make her want to drink large amounts in short periods of time.
(d) All of the above.
Re: There Will Be Crap Blood - I had a dream on Saturday which I think exemplifies the way I felt about it. I dreamt that I was in one of those super-cheesy rent-to-own furniture places, with all those tacky wares, & I was secretly smoking cigarettes inside. And the character of Eli was the manager of the chintz & the cheese.
If that doesn't make sense, how 'bout this:
"Sometimes I look at people & I see nothing worth liking."
I felt the exact same way. When I was fifteen. And that is one reason why I didn't like it. I don't need happy-happy-joy-joy, y'know, but for heaven's sake, if I want to gorge on the relentlessly downbeat & the thoroughly misanthropic, if I want to nurse disdain & hatred for all mankind,
well,
I'll watch the news. There are enough puppy abusers & wife beaters & school shootings to give me a veritable feast of vitriol.
Not to give anything away, but I totally misjudged it from the preview. I thought it was going to be...more. An exploration of something besides ugliness. I expected, well, I expected the dynamic between Daniel & Eli to be...less material.
There is one single element of that film by which I have been interested these last few days, however, & that is the character of Paul. You know, the guy who was onscreen for five whole minutes. Who I think may have been the character that I expected Eli to be. The fact that they were played by the same actor muddles things. Oh, & I will grant you the film was pretty to look at.
But now I implore you - did you see this movie? Did you like it? WHY? I'm so serious, you have no idea. I need to know. One of the people with whom I went to the theater had seen it four times before, & so I asked him why he liked it so much, but...I didn't get a real answer & I know that people are creaming themselves over this & I want to understand. Need input, Steph-a-nie, input.
2 comments:
1) This is the best post title ever. Or at least this week.
2) Not to belabor our earlier conversation, but I wanted to say something about what you wrote:
'Sometimes I look at people & I see nothing worth liking.' I felt the exact same way. When I was fifteen.
Totally. But I think that's what makes Plainview interesting -- he's a middle-aged man who feels this way, not some punk teenager filled with angst (not that you were, but *that* kind of movie isn't very interesting anymore).
Something I also found interesting was Plainview's ruthlessness: I particularly enjoyed (enjoy might not be exactly the right word) this historically fictitious view of the expansion/exploitation of the West. I tend to take that kind of thing for granted, so I guess you could say I enjoyed being reminded by this small window into our nation's history -- that whole accountability thing (good lord, the price for oil was a big one even back then, on an incredibly smaller scale, and yet here is big oil in 2008, no better than Mr. Plainview).
But yes, this was mostly an exploration of the ugly side of human nature and while I don't like that all the time, every time, I do find it rather compelling and mostly was amazed by the tour de force that was Daniel Day Lewis. Maybe I'm just a sucker.
3) Holy cow I didn't even recognize your handwriting.
Nah, I was totally a punk teenager. I had angst AND ennui, baby. Still do! (Ahem, Ghost World was GREAT!) But see, I disagree with age in tandem with outlook making Plainview interesting - my response is more like "Fucking GROW UP & DEAL already." I mean, it's the easiest thing in the world to say that everything sucks, right? Negativity is nearly natural. Life doesn't help by being an awful lotta miserable in a short lil' time-span, I grant that. Terrible things happen & the deepest cuts, the most damning scars, are on the inside. And that's if you're lucky. However, I happen to be an extra-cheesy bowl full of Belief underneath this shield of curmudgeonly self-protection. Frankly, I don't wanna wallow in shit, I wanna claw my way out into the sunshine. You can show me sad & you can show me ugly, but if that's all I see in it, I sure as hell ain't calling you in the morning.
The thing about PTA is that as I said before, he's a ponce. He has no frame of reference outside of movies that I've yet seen. Which is also how I once was (can ya sense a method to my maddening annoyances yet?). However, he usually includes two elements that were missing in TWBB: (1) sprawling cast, some of whom have (2) ovaries. This helps his films overcome what I can only presume are the maker's limitations. (Again have not seen Punch-Drunk Love primarily on the grounds that Emily Watson is forever Bess & I can accept her as naught else.) TWBB was so insular, so singularly set on Plainview & so full of dicks, that it got bogged down in the empty gray nastiness of PTA-land.
BUT - I digress. I didn't ask the question so that I might bitchily refute. Really! I appreciate your appreciation of the historical elements & modern-day parallels. I do wish I could have risen above my particular limitations as a viewer & gotten more out of that aspect. Speaking of singular focus, as you can tell, I have mine insofar as this movie is concerned.
RE: handwriting. Hee hee! You should see the first note. Ahem. It has a section labeled "STIT TO DO" & a series of increasingly malformed stars subtitled "liquorstars". And the moral of the story is: next time, more bar-dancing to New Order's "Age of Consent" & less writing.
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