I just saw this tonight, in one of, apparently, the "best theaters in America" according to Entertainment Weekly. It was at the Oriental Theater in Milwaukee, an old, famous ornate movie palace. They had an organ player playing before the showing and everything.
But the movie...wow. I'll need to see it again, because it's the kind of film that took me about half the movie to really wrap my head around, in terms of the pacing and style they were going for. It's just a different, unique film in many ways, and some people plain won't like it. But if you can enjoy something like "2001: A Space Odyssey" you can handle this (and it's not nearly as ambiguous and demanding).
PT Anderson takes a huge evolutionary step with this one. I like his other films, but this is just very different and much more ambitiously artistic than anything else he's done.
There's not much I wouldn't praise about this movie...the cinematography, the music (can Radiohead as an entity get any more iconic?), and of course, the acting.
Paul Dano was excellent. I never would have thought he had this in him, judging by "Little Miss Sunshine." But he does some very compelling acting. Daniel Day-Lewis is incredible. He's quite low-key for much of the movie, but I don't think I've ever seen an actor so completely embody the character he's playing.
There are two scenes where Day-Lewis just astonishes. There's no other way to put it. I've never seen acting of such intensity and ferocity in my life...I don't want to pump it up too much, but really, he crosses into some other dimension of acting that you just don't see, ever. It's really a no-brainer as far as the Best Actor Oscar goes.
Check it out.
