Movies: Into the Wild and There Will Be Blood

We watched these in the last week and liked both of them!

Into the Wild: This was a beautiful movie. It was sad and you felt so lonely for the main character, but the scenery and music were so good and I found myself feeling inspired and having admiration for him. Emile Hirsch reminded me a bit of Tom Hanks in Cast Away. The vital difference being, of course, that the Tom Hanks character didn't mean to get stranded by himself on a desert island and the Emile Hirsch character did mean to go off on his own and live life independently. Plus, I guess in Into the Wild, there was a lot of time devoted to his journey to get to his independence and the few people he did meet and befriend. The intensity of his hatred for his parents and what they represent was disturbing to see played out. As a parent it's scary to see a possible outcome with your child that is so terrifying and can lead to such a sad ending. Anyway, despite it's sad ending (which most people know at the beginning, so sorry if I'm spoiling a bit) and the extreme disgust he has for his parents, it was kind of inspirational to see him pursue his dream with such intensity and determination. The music is awesome too!

There Will Be Blood: Daniel Day-Lewis COMPLETELY deserved Best Actor for this. Holy crap was he fantastic! I was expecting the movie to be very weird as I had read that despite all the praise DDL got that it was strange and off-beat. I didn't think that was the case at all. I did wonder out loud to Joe if perhaps DDL is so damn good that the other actors can't possibly match up in intensity -OR- if the character had that much charisma that the other characters, even with intense portrayals, could never match up in the story and maybe that was part of the point. It came in at 2 hrs 40 mins which is long, but we were good until the very end when we were ready for it to be over. Anyway, highly recommended.