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Posts Tagged ‘There Will Be Blood’
In Search of Best Picture
17, Feb 2011
by Nigel Druitt
As the Oscar telecast creeps up on us again, it begs the question: How many times has the Academy really gotten this “Best Picture” thing right, anyway?
Think about it. How many controversial decisions are there in the Academy’s history? How many times is a movie other than Best Picture long remembered as the best of the year?
- In: User Showcase
- Tags: (500) Days of Summer, 127 Hours, 1941, 1977, 1994, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 28 Days Later, 3:10 to Yuma, A Beautiful Mind, A History of Violence, A Serious Man, academy awards, adaptation, Alfonso Cuarón, American Beauty, An Education, Ang Lee, annie hall, Atonement, Avatar, Babel, Batman Begins, Best Picture, Big Fish, Black Swan, Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Casablanca, Catch Me If You Can, Chicago, Children of Men, Chocolat, Christopher Nolan, Citizen Kane, City of God, Clint Eastwood, Crash, Crouching Tiger, District 9, Donnie Darko, Eastern Promises, Erin Brockovich, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Exit Through The Gift Shop, Fight Club, film, films, Finding Nemo, Flickchart, Forrest Gump, Frost/Nixon, George Lucas, gladiator, Gone Baby Gone, Good Night and Good Luck, Gosford Park, Guillermo Del Toro, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, heath ledger, Hidden Dragon, hot fuzz, How Green Was My Valley, How to Train Your Dragon, Howl's Moving Castle, In Bruges, In the Bedroom, Inception, Inglourious Basterds, Iron Man, Juno, Kick-Ass, Kill Bill, Let The Right One In, Letters from Iwo Jima, Little Miss Sunshine, Lost in Translation, Luc Besson, Martin Scorsese, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, Memento, Michael Clayton, Mickey Rourke, Milk, Million Dollar Baby, Moon, moulin rouge, movies, Munich, Mystic River, No Country For Old Men, Oldboy, Orson Welles, Oscar, Pan's Labyrinth, Peter Jackson, Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, Pulp Fiction, Reese Witherspoon, Ridley Scott, Ron Howard, Russell Crowe, Sandra Bullock, Saving Private Ryan, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Seabiscuit, Sean Penn, Serenity, Shakespeare in Love, Shutter Island, Sin City, Slumdog Millionaire, Spider-Man, Star Trek, Star Wars, Steven Soderbergh, The 40 Year-Old Virgin, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, The Aviator, The Blind Side, The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Ultimatum, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Dark Knight, The Departed, The Fighter, The Hours, The Hurt Locker, The Kids are All Right, The King's Speech, The Lives of Others, The Lord of the Rings, The Matrix, The Pianist, The Professional, The Queen, The Reader, The Shawshank Redemption, The Social Network, The Town, The Wrestler, There Will Be Blood, Tim Burton, Toy Story 3, Traffic, True Grit, Up, Up in the Air, Walk the Line, WALL-E, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, William Hurt, Winter's Bone, Woody Allen, Zodiac
Scenes I Love… In Movies I Don’t
1, Dec 2010by Nigel Druitt
There are some films on my Flickchart that rank higher than they might have, simply because they contain just one scene that held me captivated. Overall, I may not have cared for the movie, but one particular scene or sequence just caught my attention, and I had to admit: I wish the whole movie could have been like that.
Here are a few films that find themselves pulled from the dregs at the bottom of my Flickchart, buoyed in the middling middle on the strength of one or two effective scenes. One is the first R-rated film to win the Best Picture Oscar. One is considered a modern-day masterpiece. One is a mediocre action flick from a director best known for mediocre action flicks. They all have one thing in common: I didn’t love them…but I loved something about them. (Caution to those who might not have seen the films discussed; there may be a few minor spoilers.)
- In: User Showcase
- Tags: 12 Rounds, 1971, 1975, 1977, 1979, 1993, 2004, 2008, Al Pacino, Best Picture, Brian De Palma, Carlito's Way, Cliffhanger, Cutthroat Island, Daniel Day-Lewis, Deep Blue Sea, Fernando Rey, film, films, Flickchart, Gene Hackman, GoodFellas, Inglourious Basterds, Jaws, John Lithgow, Kill Bill Vol. 1, Kill Bill Vol. 2, movies, Paul Thomas Anderson, Peter Jackson, Quentin Tarantino, Renny Harlin, Samuel L. Jackson, Star Wars, Sylvester Stallone, The Departed, The French Connection, The Godfather, The Long Kiss Goodnight, The Lord of the Rings, There Will Be Blood, Uma Thurman
Your Flickchart Top 20: Gift or Curse?
29, Mar 2010by Nigel Druitt
If you’re an avid Flickcharter, you’ve no doubt got a list of hundreds — if not thousands — of films ranked. From your all-time favorites to the dregs of cinema that you only wish you could un-see, to those middle-of-the-chart, ho-hum, so-so films whose ranks, while fun to try and get into their proper order, become somewhat interchangeable as they all share a common air of mediocrity.
Indeed, when it comes to your Flickchart, do you truly care whether Movie #667 is better than Movie #668? Does it even matter if Movie #236 is better than Movie #247?
What about global rankings? Does it matter to you if Flickchart’s users have V for Vendetta ranked higher than There Will Be Blood? Or that District 9 ranks higher than Best Picture Oscar-winner The Hurt Locker? Be honest: Does it really, really concern you that The Dark Knight outranks Star Wars as the #1 movie of all-time? As a movie fan, you know this fact to be either true or false; global rankings can be very useful in helping you find good movies that you haven’t seen yet, but when it comes to the films you do and don’t like, they aren’t necessarily going to sway your opinion.
In fact, I’d be willing to bet that, for most Flickcharters, the only list that really matters is that one that stares you in the face every time you come to the site: your personal Top 20. It’s the list that’s on-screen every time you rank; either causing you to constantly question it, or reaffirm that yes, yes these are, in fact, my favorite movies of all-time. The cream of the crop. The films that will smack down any others they come against in your Flickchart rankings.
- In: User Showcase
- Tags: 1985, 1986, 1989, 1991, 1993, 1994, 1995, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2008, Alfonso Cuarón, Aliens, apollo 13, Back To The Future, Best Picture, Children of Men, Collateral, david fincher, Dean Parisot, District 9, Fight Club, Finding Nemo, Flickchart, Galaxy Quest, Heat, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, jurassic park, Memento, Minority Report, movies, Peter Jackson, se7en, Star Wars, Steven Spielberg, Terminator 2, terminator 2: judgment day, The Dark Knight, The Green Mile, The Hurt Locker, The Lion King, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, The Matrix, The Prestige, There Will Be Blood, top 100, top 20, Up, V for Vendetta, WALL-E
In This Corner…
Since the early twentieth century, greed has been a subject to fascinate filmmakers and movie audiences alike. It is a vice that can turn normal men into monsters. Like a plague, it spreads ever so easily to destroy the Host and the Innocent. The most notable starting point of greed on film is in Erich von Stroheim’s silent work Greed (1924). Famous for its original ten-hour length, which was obliterated much to the director’s chagrin by over seven hours worth of cuts, Greed explored in much detail how destructive the abstract can be. In this week’s Reel Rumbles, the wages of greed are examined further by two modern classics, adaptations of the literary works of Upton Sinclair (Oil!) and Cormac McCarthy. Lie to friends, horde your wealth, and steal from family members – it’s time for No Country for Old Men vs. There Will Be Blood.
- In: Reel Rumbles
- Tags: 2008, adaptation, Barry Corbin, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director, Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor, Beth Grant, Blood Simple, Coen Brothers, Cormac McCarthy, Daniel Day-Lewis, ending, Erich von Stroheim, Fargo, Faustian, Greed, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Kelly Macdonald, Margaret Bowman, Miller's Crossing, No Country For Old Men, novel, Oil!, Once Upon a Time in the West, originality, Oscar winner, Paul Dano, Paul Thomas Anderson, Reel Rumbles, Sergio Leone, Tess Harper, There Will Be Blood, thriller, Tommy Lee Jones, Upton Sinclair, violence, Woody Harrelson