NY Dreamer

It was really cold out last night. Bundled with my fitted black down coat and gloves, I bravely ventured out to the cold, to make it on time for the special screening of “There Will Be Blood.” I heard from my friend, a member of PGA, that there will be Paul Thomas Anderson, the director/writer of the movie, and Martin Scorsese. Martin Scorsese!!! That must be a really good movie, then. It’s gonna be worth a few frostbites on my feet even, I thought. Or it could be a once-in-a-lifetime chance to witness two great directors talking about a movie in one place.

I took the F train from LES and went up to 57th street, which was running like a snail train out of ordinary. The movie was supposed to be screened at the DGA Theater at 7. When I hurriedly got there, there were many people from SAG already lining up for the check-in, but I was able to cut in the line because my friend was already there and signed me up. Lucky.

Cut to the bottom line: The movie was great!! Daniel Day-Lewis’ performance was superb. One of the best movies I have seen recently. Matin Scorsese exclaimed “Fantastic!” “Fantastic!” several times during the conversation with Paul Thomas Anderson after the movie, describing how beautiful the light was at a restaurant scene and how great filmotography is, et cetera. I agree.

The story is about an oil prospector (Daniel Day-Lewis) at the turn of the century petroleum boom. Raising a boy by himself, Daniel’s main focus seems to be searching for oil, drilling, and becoming a powerful oil businessman. The story intensifies when he got tipped-off by a small town minister about his town where an ocean of oil is just seeping out of the ground.

Chris, another PGA member, sitting next to me, said out loud before the movie “What a perfect timing! The price just hit $100 a barrel yesterday. Timing is everything, Timing is everything, man.” Yes. For every business or life event, timing could be everything. But in a welcomely disappointing way, the movie was not about political views on oil business or current political boiling spots. It was about a man’s search for power, greed, family, trust, Rivalry, vengeance, human emotions, which delivers deeper and broader applications, at least in my opinion. The music score, in combination with slow and long-take shots, very effectively cut down under our emotions. I would say it was an emotional movie, without trying hard to be emotional… I really applaud that refined mastery.

The most exciting part of the screening was to hear about what the director said about the movie and little episodes, like Paul Anderson saying it took 60 days to shoot the whole movie; or one badly written part was crossed out by Daniel Day-Lewis right at the movie set with some well-mannered jokes; or they had to run the train back to find on the side tracks a missing nut from the train; or Martin Scorsese’ comment on some images reminding him of a certain artist’s (sorry, but I don’t remember the artist’s name), followed by Anderson’s surprised response that he was actually surrounded by that artist’s book without knowing. The conversation was very amusing .

I don’t want to babble about this movie’s review here, though. I’m afraid that there will be tons of other people who can come up with nicer reviews. But I just wanted to share what I saw and what I heard.

Wait! How can he make such a good movie just in 60 days? That question applies to my entrepreneurship journey…

Quote from the movie “Are you an angry man? Are you envious? Do you get envious? I have a competition in me; I want no one else to succeed. I hate most people. There are times when I I look at people and I see nothing worth liking. I’ve built up my hatreds over the years little by little. I see the worst in people. I don’t need to look past seeing them to get all I need. I want to earn enough money I can get away from everyone. I can’t keep doing this on my own, with these… people.”

Btw, was the main character’s name RIAA, not Daniel?