Spoilers, as always. My sister and I went to see There Will Be Blood yesterday. Upton Sinclair’s novel Oil!, on which the film is based, is little in evidence, thank­fully. I do not enjoy Sinclair, because his narra­tives expect the reader to sympa­thize with his Socialist views. I am a miserable failure at sympa­thizing with Socialists. I was worried that There Will Be Blood would be all anti-​​​​industrial in theme, and it mostly wasn’t. The first three acts are really quite good. Plainview is competent and knows it. He puts on a hard sell, but he doesn’t swindle people. He expects only what is coming [ . . . ]

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