MEN ARE FROM CALIFORNIA, WOMEN ARE FROM CANADA - "There Will Be Blood" & "Juno"

As the OSCARS rapidly approach, we took time to take in a couple of contenders:

A lonely silence pervades the first ten minutes or so of Paul Thomas Anderson's remarkably bleak new film "There Will Be Blood". He paints us a loving portrait of an American landscape now hard to find: dry, cold, and remote. And its these very same attributes that characterize his chief protagonist, Daniel Plainview. Played by Daniel Day-Lewis, he is a fascinatingly repugnant study of American entrepreneurship. Showing all the characteristics of American "Can Do" spirit, we watch Plainview, early in the film, break his leg while mining, then dragging himself through the desert to the assayer's office to register his claim while lying on the floor with the grin of a cat who just ate the canary. Silver becomes oil and soon Plainview and his son, HW, are traveling California, buying up land and lease rights. Visited one night by a young man named Paul Sunday (Paul Dano), Daniel is made aware of a potential vast oil field on Paul's family farm. Using the pretense of being on a quail hunting trip with his son, Daniel scopes out the Sunday farm for the veracity of Paul's claim. Soon he is not only raising up an enormous oil derrick but the ire and wrath of Paul's brother, Eli, a charismatic preacher with hopes of building a church and a god-fearing community. The centerpiece of the film is a beautifully shot scene involving the well exploding then catching fire. The explosion throws HW from the derrick, where he had been watching the pump, and causes the boy to go deaf.

The film moves forward deftly, as Plainview strives forward towards more and more money, doing whatever it takes to "succeed". By the end of the film, he is like Kane in his Xanadu, a lonely alcoholic sitting out the depression in mansion which includes a two-lane bowling alley. By the end of the film, when he sputters out to his butler "I think I'm finished!" we know he most certainly is. Day-Lewis' performance at this point is Shakespearean, an oil-mad Lear who's well has finally tapped out.

We loved this film. Poetically shot, it is a brilliant portrait of American capitalism, biblical in scope, smart but not smug, brutal but never grotesque. It is destined to become an American film classic.

Poor "Juno". That lonely comedy in the Best Picture category; the one that never wins. Like it's title character, the film is cynical but plucky. We didn't hold out much hope of enjoy it during the first two scenes. The opening scene with the convenience clerk is a bit too snarky and Juno's call to her best friend, Leah, just drips with quasi-Valley Girl -speak. But Ellen Page's performance certainly is noteworthy. She allows us to see the vulnerability beneath the sarcasm of this sixteen year old. And as Juno is supported in her decisions by her family, Ms. Page is supported by a great cast that includes J.K. Simmons and Alison Janney as Juno's father and step-mother, and Michael Cera as Paulie Bleeker, the father of her child. There are also fine performances by Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman, as prospective adoptive parents. Ms. Garner in particular gives a finely tuned performance as the want-to-be mother. It is interesting to watch the bond between these two "outsider" women forms. By the end we were totally bowled over by this charming, quirky comedy.