Blood Not Oil

In case any of you thought my positive review of the book Oil! by Upton Sinclair would translate to a positive review of the movie There Will Be Blood... uh, no. Not even close. To say the movie is based on the book is just false advertising. Let's see. There is a father and son, and the father is an independent oil man. There is a family that he buys land from, and one of the sons of that family becomes an evangelist. If I had told you that in a conversation and then you made up everything else without reading the book, you too could have come up with the story line for the movie. Too bad they eliminated all of the people and relationships that were interesting and all of the substance of the book. I believe I will have to go with Dara's summary: boring, stupid movie about boring, stupid people. We have yet to see Atonement, but if you're looking for Oscar Best Movie material, we've seen the others (Juno, Michael Clayton, and No Country for Old Men), and I recommend any of them.