# I watched "There Will Be Blood" \[Spoilers\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 15, 2011, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-there-will-be-blood-spoilers/592796 "2011-08-15T17:16:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![NAF1138](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naf1138/32/3245_2.png) [@NAF1138](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NAF1138)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-there-will-be-blood-spoilers/592796/21 "2011-08-15T18:43:20Z")
> [@Alka\_Seltzer](#): > > I saw it on DVD, and thought it was very compelling. It’s a slow, bleak tragedy, so it’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. It’s good to see someone who saw it at home and liked it. That puts a crack into my theory. And it isn’t going to be everyone’s cup of tea, that’s true, and I wouldn’t expect it to be. It’s a poem in a genre dominated by novels, so it can be a bit jarring even if you do like that kind of thing. **Barry Lyndon** falls in that category for me too. Not for everyone, but I have always suspected that it is an easier transition to make if you are in a theater rather than at home. (I know I was never able to sit through **Barry Lyndon** until I was talked into seeing it at a theater). There is something about being locked into a movie when you go to a theater to see it that, I find, doesn’t translate to home movie watching. Movies that require the viewer to lock into the films rhythms and become immersed in the experience seem to have a harder time working in home theater in my experience. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-there-will-be-blood-spoilers/592796/22 "2011-08-15T18:45:51Z")
It is the amazingly rare character study film in which some shit actually does blow up real good. West Texas produced two masterpieces that year. I loved it when I saw it, and am still trying to figure out why I don’t own it yet. P. T. Anderson is probably my favorite living director. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-there-will-be-blood-spoilers/592796/23 "2011-08-15T18:47:29Z")
I liked it but it needed more velociraptors for sure. ---
**Author:** ![PSXer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/48db29/32.png) [@PSXer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PSXer)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-there-will-be-blood-spoilers/592796/24 "2011-08-15T18:47:47Z")
I liked Barry Lyndon and I’ve only seen it on DVD ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-there-will-be-blood-spoilers/592796/25 "2011-08-15T18:54:42Z")
It is worth noting, I meant to add in my earlier post, that _There Will Be Blood_ is based on Upton Sinclair’s 1927 novel _Oil_, but [only adapts the first 150 pages of the book, says Anderson](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil!#Adaptations). ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-there-will-be-blood-spoilers/592796/26 "2011-08-15T18:58:26Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > I liked it but it needed more velociraptors for sure. You say that about everything. ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-there-will-be-blood-spoilers/592796/27 "2011-08-15T19:03:46Z")
> [@xenophon41](#): > > The movie’s about drainage, **PSXer** ; _drainage_. I’m so sorry. > > Here, if I have a milkshake, and you have a milkshake, and I have a straw… you see? Are you watching? And my straw reaches acroooooooos the room and starts to drink your milkshake. > > I… drink… your… milkshake! Heee! That gets me every time. TWBB is one of my top 5 favorite movies of all time. Maybe even number one. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-there-will-be-blood-spoilers/592796/28 "2011-08-15T19:06:17Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > I liked it but it needed more velociraptors for sure. > [@MeanOldLady](#): > > You say that about everything. Because it’s true. name me a movie that _can’t_ be improved by adding a pack of human-devouring highly intelligent velociraptors. The only one I can think of is _Jurassic Park_, and only because it already has one. ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-there-will-be-blood-spoilers/592796/29 "2011-08-15T19:15:05Z")
I saw the film on a flight from Atlanta to Mumbai, so maybe it helped not to care so much how long the story takes to tell. Honestly though, it didn’t feel that long to me and it didn’t seem like a large effort to get into the rythm of the movie. It’s certainly not the most fun movie I’ve ever seen, but it’s one of the best of its type. It’s been a few years, so I’d like to see it again. (Interestingly, I saw _No Country For Old Men_ on an airplane at about the same time period; it may have been the return flight.) ---
**Author:** ![Alka\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Alka\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alka_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-there-will-be-blood-spoilers/592796/30 "2011-08-15T19:22:27Z")
> [@NAF1138](#): > > There is something about being locked into a movie when you go to a theater to see it that, I find, doesn’t translate to home movie watching. Movies that require the viewer to lock into the films rhythms and become immersed in the experience seem to have a harder time working in home theater in my experience. To become immersed in a film I need to be in the right mood for it, and to have no distractions. I don’t find a cinema sized screen to be essential personally. Interesting that people are talking about Barry Lyndon, I haven’t seen that yet. > [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > Because it’s true. name me a movie that _can’t_ be improved by adding a pack of human-devouring highly intelligent velociraptors. No, any movie _you dislike_ can be improved by adding velociraptors. I’d be very upset if they made an apperance in The Madness of King George, Amadeus or Fargo. I think I’d stop posting the occasional rant about the Battleships movie or Independence Day, and start murdering Hollywood executives. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-there-will-be-blood-spoilers/592796/31 "2011-08-15T19:25:06Z")
> [@Alka\_Seltzer](#): > > No, any movie _you dislike_ can be improved by adding velociraptors. I’d be very upset if they made an apperance in The Madness of King George, Amadeus or Fargo. Better stay away from the Director’s Cuts, then. ---
**Author:** ![NAF1138](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naf1138/32/3245_2.png) [@NAF1138](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NAF1138)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-there-will-be-blood-spoilers/592796/32 "2011-08-15T19:38:44Z")
> [@Alka\_Seltzer](#): > > To become immersed in a film I need to be in the right mood for it, and to have no distractions. I don’t find a cinema sized screen to be essential personally. It’s the no distractions part that I was thinking of. The dark theater and the lack of any of the home type distractions not the screen size ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-there-will-be-blood-spoilers/592796/33 "2011-08-15T19:49:19Z")
> [@Alka\_Seltzer](#): > > No, any movie _you dislike_ can be improved by adding velociraptors. I’d be very upset if they made an apperance in The Madness of King George, Amadeus or Fargo. I think I’d stop posting the occasional rant about the Battleships movie or Independence Day, and start murdering Hollywood executives. Where do you stand on velociraptors in the Piano, the English Patient, and Lorenzo’s Oil? ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-there-will-be-blood-spoilers/592796/34 "2011-08-15T19:50:48Z")
Watched it on DVD a few months ago. I didn’t dislike the movie, but I didn’t like it very much either. The “I drink your milkshake” scene is by far the best part of it. One thing that confused the hell out of me was having Paul and Eli played by the same actor. For most of the movie, I couldn’t figure out if it was one guy pretending to be two people, one person with split personality, or identical twins. It was only toward the end that I figured it out. The original plan was to have the characters played by two different actors. That would have saved me a lot distraction that hampered my enjoyment of the story. ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-there-will-be-blood-spoilers/592796/35 "2011-08-15T20:48:31Z")
> [@bibliophage](#): > > Watched it on DVD a few months ago. I didn’t dislike the movie, but I didn’t like it very much either. The “I drink your milkshake” scene is by far the best part of it. One thing that confused the hell out of me was having Paul and Eli played by the same actor. For most of the movie, I couldn’t figure out if it was one guy pretending to be two people, one person with split personality, or identical twins. It was only toward the end that I figured it out. The original plan was to have the characters played by two different actors. That would have saved me a lot distraction that hampered my enjoyment of the story. I blame stunt-twists for this whole phenomena of awaiting a big reveal. Movies are often insistent upon having a big twist at the end. It regained big popularity with the Sixth Sense (where it was done masterfully, of course) but it has always been a thing and it has gotten to the point where it seemed like every movie I tried to enjoy, I found myself silently dreading the ‘reveal’ that I was anticipating. Watching Johnny Depp in Secret Window, I’m thinking, “It’s him all along isn’t it” Or The Fight Club, “It’s him all along, isn’t it” Hide and Seek “It’s him all along isn’t” The Number 23 "It’s him all along, isn’t it? I don’t knock those twists when they are well done, (again, see Sixth Sense) but when they aren’t _well_ done, but _overdone_, they create a movie culture where a movie must have a twist to satisfy some. Some movies just take their sweet time being awesome without attempting to razzle dazzle you with tricks and twists. Just good old fashioned acting. To watch Plainview’s character unfold before me is worth the price of admission straight away. To realize that he really did use that boy as a sweet face to gain favor makes you recoil, but you are haunted to realize that he really does love the boy. It’s not said, but it is slowly revealed…in beautiful shots of him cradling the boy after the deafening accident, taking the boys beating when he picks him up after abandoning him, or that intense scene where he is forced to scream that he has abandoned his boy at the top of his lungs. You can feel the moment when he realizes that Eli chose this particular mantra to coerce him with because he recognized the boy as Plainview’s _only weakness_. And once you realize that the boy is his weakness, you can’t watch the ‘bastard in a basket’ scene without feeling a tiny droplet of sympathy for the monster yelling the offending phrase. I could go on and on, obviously, but I will wrap it up by saying that the movie is slow. That’s all the better to savor the music, the nuances, the absolute delicious huge scope of it all. Let the characters really develop and blossom while the camera never wavers. Terrific stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Vita\_Beata](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/a9a28c/32.png) [@Vita\_Beata](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vita_Beata)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-there-will-be-blood-spoilers/592796/36 "2011-08-15T20:53:38Z")
> [@xenophon41](#): > > The movie’s about drainage, **PSXer** ; _drainage_. I’m so sorry. > > Here, if I have a milkshake, and you have a milkshake, and I have a straw… you see? Are you watching? And my straw reaches acroooooooos the room and starts to drink your milkshake. > > I… drink… your… milkshake! I’m remembering the SNL skits on exactly this. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-there-will-be-blood-spoilers/592796/37 "2011-08-15T20:59:15Z")
In the outtakes from _Year One_ is a bit of Bill Hader (who played the tribe’s shaman) performing the “I hate most people” speech. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-there-will-be-blood-spoilers/592796/38 "2011-08-15T20:59:40Z")
> [@NAF1138](#): > > It’s good to see someone who saw it at home and liked it. That puts a crack into my theory. And it isn’t going to be everyone’s cup of tea, that’s true, and I wouldn’t expect it to be. It’s a poem in a genre dominated by novels, so it can be a bit jarring even if you do like that kind of thing. **Barry Lyndon** falls in that category for me too. Not for everyone, but I have always suspected that it is an easier transition to make if you are in a theater rather than at home. (I know I was never able to sit through **Barry Lyndon** until I was talked into seeing it at a theater). I think the comparison to \*\*Barry Lyndon \*\*is very apt - TWBB is the most Kubrickian film ever made that was not actually directed by Stanley Kubrick. In many ways, it was even more similar to **2001** , which, as you may recall, was an even slower film. I loved it, BTW. Best use of Brahms’s Violin Concerto, ever. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-there-will-be-blood-spoilers/592796/39 "2011-08-15T21:31:44Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > PSXer, my dad rented it, and I asked him if it was any good. He told me to come watch a scene towards the beginning (someone was trying to blow something up?), and said “this is the most exciting scene in the whole movie. So no, it’s not.” Oddly, I haven’t been compelled to watch it myself. Was it the scene where he tells his son he was a “bastard in a basket”? 😉 > [@Nzinga\_Seated](#): > > Watching Johnny Depp in Secret Window, I’m thinking, “It’s him all along isn’t it” > > Or The Fight Club, “It’s him all along, isn’t it” > > Hide and Seek “It’s him all along isn’t” > > The Number 23 "It’s him all along, isn’t it? > > I don’t knock those twists when they are well done, (again, see Sixth Sense) but when they aren’t _well_ done, but _overdone_, they create a movie culture where a movie must have a twist to satisfy some. It’s become such a common trope that they aren’t twists anymore. I mean does anyone not realize that when you are out investigating the haunted insane asylum on the creepy island full of weirdos and reality starts to get all fucked up, YOU are most likely going to turn out to be the crazy one! ---
**Author:** ![Alka\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Alka\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alka_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-there-will-be-blood-spoilers/592796/40 "2011-08-15T22:27:41Z")
> [@Nzinga\_Seated](#): > > To realize that he really did use that boy as a sweet face to gain favor makes you recoil, but you are haunted to realize that he really does love the boy. It’s not said, but it is slowly revealed…in beautiful shots of him cradling the boy after the deafening accident, taking the boys beating when he picks him up after abandoning him, or that intense scene where he is forced to scream that he has abandoned his boy at the top of his lungs. You can feel the moment when he realizes that Eli chose this particular mantra to coerce him with because he recognized the boy as Plainview’s _only weakness_. And once you realize that the boy is his weakness, you can’t watch the ‘bastard in a basket’ scene without feeling a tiny droplet of sympathy for the monster yelling the offending phrase. Yes, that’s what makes it a tragedy. Plainview is pretty monstrous, but not completely so. Ultimately, he turns away from humanity. > [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > Where do you stand on velociraptors in the Piano, the English Patient, and Lorenzo’s Oil? Haven’t seen them, so they can remain velociraptor free for the time being. I’d dearly love to introduce Forrest Gump to a carnivorous dinosaur, possibly after drenching him in gravy and tying his shoe-laces together. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-there-will-be-blood-spoilers/592796.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-there-will-be-blood-spoilers/592796.md?page=3)