Little Boston: why the lull?

Maybe everybody's too  busy trying to feign excitement about the 2008 Oscar season.... I've seen a few of the year-end prestige flicks and so far there isn't anything remotely as thrilling as TWBB.  Real quick:  Frost/Nixon > The Wrestler > Benjamin Button > Revolution Road > The Reader > Slumdog Millionaire. Man I miss the good old days of 2007.

This is one of the greatest movies of all time and needs to be watched at least once every 3 to 4 months as a reminder of just how much everything else Hollywood puts out sucks.

I would suggest that even Frost/Nixon isn't that serious. Just another shallow historical interpretation with no real insight or depth.

This award season not nearly a striking as last year's. 2007 was really honoring the experimental and groundbreaking films, this year it seems like the Academy is crawling back into its shell by honoring the old oscar-formula films. Doubt, Frost/Nixon, Revolutionary Road, they all seem so standard and safe compared to last year.

Friends, one year ago today was the first time There Will Be Blood met screens in a theatrical form. Rejoice!

I miss you guys!  I have not posted in like 6 months.  Ive been averaging about a view a month sinc its release, so I am still a huge TWBB fan.

I also miss our discussion group. It's hard to discuss with yourself. At the same time, there are so many well-developed threads on this forum that most of the questions to which I most frequently return have been dissected thoroughly already. Which doesn't make them any less interesting, though, because there are still so many unanswered questions. but I miss you guys as well.

One thing I've noticed is the difference between DP in the script and DP in the movie. I think DP in the movie much more of a flesh-and-blood person - I don't mean that just because he's played by a real person, but because he's much more nuanced and subtle than in the script. Frankly, if I just read the script, I would say, "This guy's a jerk." The way he speaks to people, especially underlings, is so brute and condescending, that it really bites and seems very one-dimensional, without the subtleness of expression (that DDL brings). However, there are many things, small lines, cut out of the film, that are in the script that I feel were consciously cut-out b/c they just made DP seem so... mean.... The film version of DP has much more reserve than the script one, you don't really feel his ire until you sort of deserve it, whereas the DP within the script has a tendency to snap much more quickly. Ex. when he's talking to Al Rose for the first time, DP within the script snaps at him for trying to tell him about the "hilly stuff" but the film DP is pretty cordial to him. Ex. when he's chewing the men out when Joe Gundha dies, DP within the script gives them a pretty strong verbal lashing for not adhering to protocol, while DP on film is more reserved and seems more regretful than angry.

Did anyone else notice differences between the DP on film and paper? I think it is beyond just having a real person bring a fictional character to life, I think there were conscious choices to not make DP appear so brutal, until the end. thoughts???

Miss you cats, too. I finally rewatched the movie on 12/31 after taking a several-months long break, and OMG I still can't quite believe how much I love it. So very, very good -- there hasn't been anything even remotely as interesting in a long time.

Is there any word what PTA is up to next?

Hi Localvixenwoman,

You are SO right about DP in the film versus the script.  The character seems much more complex and less...obvious on screen.  For example, discussing his impotence with Henry, it just seems so out of character.  I think part of the appeal of TWBB is that one can't really ever see inside the Plainview character, it's not revealed in any complete sense, we get glimpses of all sorts of conflict, but you never quite know what to expect next.  It may be that DP's intelligence separtates him in very real ways, so much so that close relationships arent' possible. (Obviously, it's not just intelligence that isolates him, it's some emotional impairment, but his wariness of others is partly due to a superior thought process, I think.)  Also, Plainview's brutality indicates a loss of control, and he is SO controlled, and when he isn't, as with post-accident HW, he's lost.  I don't think all this is apparent in the script alone.

(I've been reading Wuthering Heights, after seeing it on PBS on Sunday.  I've tried reading it before, without much success.  It really suprises me though, after seeing the Olivier version, what an absolutely brutal, woman-beating monster Heathcliff is.  And how much the story was changed to make the great cinematic love story it ended up being.)