There will be tedium.

It's a dark, gloomy, rainy afternoon in Georgia, and my thoughts turn to the gloomy state of movies I have seen recently. Perhaps the gloomiest is the highly overrated THERE WILL BE BLOOD, which moves at a leaden pace and tries to mix two combustible substances, oil and religion. Paul Anderson's take on American capitalism synchs easily with other movie critiques such as Oliver Stone's WALL STREET and his own much more interesting MAGNOLIA. Anderson seems to think that a movie with almost no dialogue for the first 20 minutes, a movie with no women to speak of, and a movie that holds the camera on an overlit wide-angle shot of star Daniel Day-Lewis makes great drama. The pay-off is minimal, especially since Day-Lewis's character is saddled with a silent (before and after his accident) son and a strangely uncharismatic preacher. Both these conflicts finally come to a boil in the last 20 minuntes of the film, but by that time, we, like the three combatants, are exhausted. Day-Lewis, an actor of towering talent, reminds me of Laurence Olivier, who could charm and bluster his way through roles or create memorable characters. In this case, Day-Lewis is the former.