There Will Be Blood

What an amazing film! I've just been to see it - I'd read all the reviews, and of course Daniel Day Lewis was awarded Best Actor Oscar and BAFTA for his performance, so I knew I should expect something special, but this film exceeded all my expectations.
Several of the reviews threw down a gauntlet - 'reinventing the language of cinema', said Mark Kermode on Radio 5Live; it has 'overshot the runway of movie modernity with something thrillingly, dangerously new', said Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian; 'in its imaginative scope and its delirious, almost demented ambition, as bold a film as has been made in recent years', said Sukhev Sandhu in the Telegraph.
Whew! I couldn't wait (although I had to for a couple of weeks), but finally got there this evening. Although it's a long film - 2 & three-quarter hours, and I was tired, I was riveted throughout. Daniel Day-Lewis is astonishing and fully deserves his Oscar. It's funny, watching him just after seeing Olivier in Richard III I realised that he has what Olivier had - the ability to make you watch him. It's extreme acting, acting taken to its furthest limits - you can't believe he can go as far as he does , and then he goes even further.
The film makes demands on its audience, another bonus. My favourite films are the ones that make you work. And it means that I'll need to see it again. I went with one son, and another son wants to see it. They don't drive and cars are necessary to get to the multiplex. Anyway, it means I have a nice excuse to go to the movies.
So I'll do another post after I've seen it a second time - Kermode recommended seeing it 3 times and why not? I haven't seen a film 3 times for a while - the last was Volver in 2006 so it's about time......