filmland / By Charlie Myers

A Masterpiece

P.T. Anderson’s glorious Blood, plus yet more odious torture porn

(Jan. 31, 2008) Previews

Another month, another Hollywood Asian horror film rip-off … or “adaptation,” if you’re more kindly inclined.

Opening Friday, Feb. 1, is The Eye , based on the Pang Brothers’ Ji√†n Gu«ê, which was released in 2002. The latest version is co-produced by Tom Cruise and stars Jessica Alba as violinist Sydney, blind since childhood, who undergoes an experimental corneal transplant. This being a horror film, her new eyes see more than she bargained for. To avoid a complete disintegration of her life, Sydney must discover the cornea donor. Maybe the new eyes will improve Alba’s acting. Happily, the film co-stars Parker Posey as Sydney’s sister Helen. Rated PG-13 for violence/terror and disturbing content. 107 m. At the Broadway, Fortuna and Mill Creek.

In her film debut as a married woman — Over Her Dead Body— Eva Longoria Parker stars as Kate, who refuses to move on even though she’s been killed by an ice sculpture. When her former fianc√© Henry (Paul Rudd, Knocked Up) falls in love with psychic Ashley (Lake Bell, Boston Legal), Kate’s ghost attempts to derail the new romance. I haven’t seen the film yet, but I’ve already forgotten it. Rated PG-13 for sexual content and language. 105 m. At the Broadway.

Also on Feb. 1 at 7 p.m., the Westhaven Center for the Arts presents Genesis in its First Friday Community Enrichment film series. Released in 2004, the documentary Genesis, by filmmakers Claude Nuridsany and Marie Perennu, “takes a mystical, beautiful look at life cycles on Planet Earth,” according to information received from the WCA. Running time: 81 m.

Reviews

THERE WILL BE BLOOD: For approximately the first 20 minutes of There Will Be Blood, there is no dialog. The only sounds are tense, edgy music and the noises that accompany the process of digging for oil. As it turns out, this opening is indicative of the film as a whole. The dialog is kept to a necessary minimum; the narrative unfolds visually and on the soundtrack. Much like No Country for Old Men, the film has a mythic quality as it explores two aspects of this country: the nature of those men who sought their fortunes in oil and fundamentalist Christianity.

Director Paul Thomas Anderson’s (Magnolia; Punch Drunk Love) screenplay adapts these elements from muckraker Upton Sinclair’s 1927 novel Oil. But Anderson is less interested in exposing the exploitive nature of the nascent oil industry or evangelical Christianity than in creating a dark, virtually all-male universe that has always been evil and will forever be. Whether for oilmen or for Christians of a certain ilk, money is king and there is no other currency. Ethics and morality are simply commodities one uses to gain more money.

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