There Will Be Blood, Yesterday
March 28th, 2008
I finally got around to seeing ‘There Will Be Blood’ last night. Before I get to the film, I should explain how annoyed I was by the time I sat down to watch it. Firstly, one of the credit-card ticket collection machines (in Cineworld, Parnell St) swallowed my cinema-going ladyfriend’s credit card, apparently, because it was not retangular enough. This delayed us, though a very helpful cine-man managed to regurgitate the card quite promptly. Then there was a huge queue at the bottom of the escalator because the ticket-checker man was too happy about something unapparent to work efficiently.
Nextly, at the pick and mix sweet buffet thing, I got carried away with pink and white chocolate in various shapes, and my cinema-going ladyfriend was annoyed by the lack of aniseed balls. Whatever they are. We joined the shortest queue, and stood there becoming more irritated as the bearded server (another happy, inefficient Irishman), took his time and flirted with the haw-haw deep-voiced ladies in front of us. Both stealing, and abandoning the merchandise were considered, but eventually we paid for the 300g of sweeties and made our way to screen 15.
Thirdly, screen 15 is a shitty little place, and was almost full. There were two decent seats free in the middle, a few in the front row, and various single seats available. The two good seats had bags and coats on them. I asked the bitch-women at either side of the seats if they were free, and they said no. We sat at the very end of the front row. Several people came in after us, and asked the same bitches the same question, same answer. The two seats remained occupied by luggage until at least 20 minutes into the film, at which point I forgot about them, but in the meantime various latecomers either sat alone, or decided to leave.
So, I twisted my head back and watched Daniel Day-Lewis loom over me for two and a half hours. The film was, in the main, very impressive. It’s been out too long to make it worth my while reviewing it properly. Suffice to say that I liked almost all of it, and the only thing that grated was the almost constant foreboding music, which I felt was completely overwrought, and largely unnecessary. There was enough drama on view without having to be spoon fed shammy suspense-audio. It seemed like a period-drama being crow-barred into some sort of thriller. Day-Lewis is good, the script is excellent in parts, and he makes good use of it.
But those fucking bitches. Cineworld, please ban luggage and abandon free-seating shows.
One thumb up out of two.
