Can't wait for some PTA with 'There Will Be Blood'

I became a Paul Thomas Anderson fan after two different moments: one,
while watching the extras on Magnolia where he's seen joking around
about how little it will probably make in the box office; and two,
when I read a quote explaining why he dropped out of a screenwriting
class after lifting a few pages of David Mamet's Hoffa and getting a
C- on the assignment. Very clearly, he's one of those pure filmmakers
who doesn't care at all about the marketing and the typical Hollywood
B.S. He's not in the business to do remakes or any other spectacle
films only made to make money. In other words, he's an actual
filmmaker and not a corporate puppet who happens to know the technical
basics of making a movie – I'm sure you could name a few dozens of
those. Michael Bay is lucky he madeThe Rock because outside of that
surprisingly decent action flick, well, he's battling Roland Emmerich
for worst director who still gets a large budget.
And I know many people – mainly Adam Sandler fans – didn't like
Anderson's last film, Punch Drunk love. While not as large in scope
as his other three movies, I thought it was very well done and showed
that Paul Thomas Anderson is a filmmaker with lots of range and was
very impressed overall with the movie. Now he's set to team up with
Daniel Day Lewis, an actor I have unbelievable respect for in the 2007
film There will be blood. It makes perfect sense for the two of them
to team up together. Lewis is an actor of extreme range in character
who basis his film choices upon interesting characters, not submitting
to every script that lands in his hands – like Samuel L. Jackson seems
to be doing and Paul Walker should be doing. I'm also very interested
in the topic, which is greed and power struggle in early 20th century
business.
The film could turn out to be a disaster, but I'm impressed with the
way that Anderson seems to be picking his films. He seems to throw
out everything he's done before, look for a topic that is interesting
to him and that he could make a good film based upon, and work from
there. So many directors today seem to define themselves early in the
career and stay within a small circle of what they are used to doing.
Again, Michael Bay, Roland Emmerich, Wolfgang Peterson and many others
come to mind. He seems to instead be following in the footsteps of
greats like Altman and Scorsese, who proved again and again it doesn't
matter what genre it is they can make a good movie. Altman made
Nashville, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, The Player, Shortcuts, Mash and
always managed to make a "Robert Altman film," without using any of
the same material from before. Scorsese has done the same. He's done
abstract biblical epics (The Last Temptation of Christ), period pieces
(Kundun, The age of innocence), quirky comedies (After Hours), dark,
intense films, (Taxi Driver and Raging Bull) small independent feeling
films (Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore), bio-epics (The Aviator)
documentaries (The Last Waltz), intense dramas (Bringing out the Dead)
and a variety of gangster films (Take your pick.)
Anderson seems to be doing the same thing by not working within one
genre but exploring characters in any genre. Not every film is going
to be perfect, but I would rather see an Anderson dud more than a lot
of director's finest films just because you know that Anderson is
going to reach for something different. Like writer Charlie Kaufman
or writer/director Jim Jarmusch, you know even in defeat they will go
down swinging, which I think is the attitude that has been lost in
much of this generation's filmmakers – not that Kaufman has gone down
swinging yet, but you get the point. Now, if only I could get more
people to believe that Boogie Nights isn't just a movie about porn.