Beauty vs Beast: There Will Be Beasts
Monday, September 22, 2014 at 2:16PM JA from MNPP here welcoming you to another week's "Beauty vs Beast" showdown - this time around we're going good and bad and ugly and everything in between, heading out West to the oil fields of California at the turn of the previous century.
Over the weekend Paul Thomas Anderson's 2007 film There Will Be Blood screened at the immense and ornate United Palace Theater here in New York with Jonny Greenwood's masterful (and criminally Oscar-ignored) score performed live by an orchestra, including Mr. Greenwood himself. I was there and it was, to put it mildly, as if somebody liquified all of Heaven itself into drug-form and shot it full-blast into my veins. That is to say -- I enjoyed it. So to keep my happy buzz thrumming just a little longer, let's head back to The Church of the Third Revelation and see where our loyalties lie - with Daniel Day-Lewis' boy-abandoning oil-man or with Paul Dano's oily-man of god who keeps crawling under his skin.
We should try to keep ourselves character-minded as we cast our votes (keeping in mind that Eli might be a squirmy little fraud but Daniel Plainview does some, um, very bad stuff), but on the actor side of the equation I do want to say that while Oscar was very clearly definitive about where its hosannas fell (and I'm not about to knock DDL's for-the-ages work) I do think Dano's performance has been under-valued. The film wouldn't work nearly as well as it does if he wasn't purposefully driving us into Daniel Plainview's long, cold, scary arms. But really they're all a bunch of bastards (in baskets).
PREVIOUSLY Last week we revisited the raining rose petals of the insular suburban world in Sam Mendes' American Beauty on the ocassion of its 15th anniversary, and faced the angry patriarch and angrier matriarch of the Burnham clan off - coming out ahead by one fashionable gardening clog, Carolyn (Annette Bening) marched off with just over 60% of the vote. Said Mike In Canada:
"I feel like a major turning point in the road to true grownup-hood is realizing that Carolyn is the true hero of American Beauty and that Lester is a thoughtless prick and the movie's attitudes toward them are a major flaw."
Reader Comments (17)
It's true, he is just terrible at bowling.
Plainview, of course! Young Eli may minister at the Church of the Third Revelation, but Daniel Plainview IS the Third Revelation. Also, Daniel TOLD Eli that he'd eat him. Fair warning.
Off topic: I didn't know you were cute Jason.
Mike -- but i bet DDL is excellent at it since he can do everything (well, except sing & dance)
Jason - as much as i'd like this to be a contest it's clearly Plainview between two hateful characters. I always felt that if the movie were more evenly matched in acting power, it'd be even more incredible but Dano isn't Daniel.
Nat I knew before I posted this one today that it'd be a blow-out (DDL cannot be stopped!) but whatcha gonna do - this website is clearly filled with sick murderer-lovers!!! (kidding) But I like Dano's performance more every time I re-watch the movie and think in 20 years time Eli Sunday will be considered a classic movie character too
3rtful - be careful, my ego inflates very easily ;)
JA: I'm too mean to lie.
Daniel. Devil you know and all that.......plus I could never vote for a religious hypocrite.
Henry -good point
I love this movie and both of these characters, but I picked Team Plainview because he's less whiny and he likes milkshakes.
I love milkshakes but i value good bowling so the two kind of cancel each other out.
As shocking as the ending is, it still brings a sudden sense of overwhelming relief that we don't have to listen to Eli's whiney ass no more. Team Plainview!
Team Sunday, here. I give him the win because of his choice of public, rather than private, spectacle and his ability to still lead that town after proving what a horrible human being he is. Plainview is rewarded but never respected; Sunday gets respect and plenty of rewards.
God I wish I'd gone to one of those screenings -- the tickets are ridic expensive, but it seems like it was worth it.
They were WAY too expensive, Tim - I felt dirty paying what I did for them. My all-things-Radiohead compulsion did me in. They're doing The Godfather next which would be wonderful but when I looked up tickets and they were the same price I was all - oh hell no.
I am team Plainview if only because I absolutely cannot stand Paul Dano's pitchy voice whenever he gets into a screaming fit.
Alex, Gah, I hate that too. I liked him much better in Little Miss Sunshine as a mute.
I voted for Daniel Plainview. They are both horrible wretched people, so I might as well vote for milkshakes! W00t! #teammilkshake