Possibly the greatest movie of our time.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood
    This movie struck me from the moment it started. I’ve heard those discordant violins used many times since this film, but I’ve never been effected by them like I was when they were played over that Anderson’s opening desert scene.
    It’s hard for me to really pin down why this movie is so worth seeing. The stunning visuals (especially of a ruptured oil spout set ablaze) are obvious from the get-go. In fact, Anderson seems to almost be flaunting some of the breathtaking visuals just to juxtapose them to the next-level acting.   
Anderson is so aware of the talent he is directing that the blandly colored, dialogue free shots in the movie makes the flaming mountain of oil seem almost dull when compared to the faces of the actors. Anderson does more with Daniel Day-Lewis’ facial expressions in this film than even the great Scorsese could do with Lewis’ voice in Gangs of New York.
    This movie explores the dark side of man without resorting to cheap shock value. When violence finally occurs, you are so stunned that it did not happen earlier that it’s amplified many times over. Throughout the entire movie, the viewer feels that Plainview (the main character) is so ready to kill everyone in his vicinity that, by the end, the viewer is surprised by how few people Plainview does murder. His selfishness and cold sense of industry shows us that man’s evil is more often (and most frightening) when it does not adhere to the Hollywood idea of a monster.