Welcome back, dear reader, to another edition of Your Favorite Movie, where we politely ask a friend to name their favorite movie, and then shake them by the lapels until their reasoning falls out, all while capturing the whole thing on tape.
This week, our good friend Drew A******* came to our house, drank some beers, and then yelled (quite literally) about his favorite movie for over an hour. If you know Drew, then the yelling shouldn't surprise you; the passion is part of his twisted charm, and it's one of the reasons we consider him such a great pal to hang around with (and, true, I may have provoked him a little). Credit where credit is due—he knows his movies. Back when we used to gather at Maeve's apartment every Thursday to watch a different film, Drew would typically be there, spouting random movie trivia, a habit that earned him the nickname "IMDrewB.com." So, like, of course we're gonna talk to him for Your Favorite Movie (indeed, he remains the only person so far to reach out to me to request an interview as soon as possible).
Pam and I discussed with Dranders the 2007 flick There Will Be Blood, an Oscar-nominated drama about oil drilling at the turn of the 20th century. We mulled over its merits on the backyard deck, and you can find the results of the mayhem transcribed below, edited lightly for clarity and brevity. So save yourself the trouble—there's no need for Drew to come to your house and yell about There Will Be Blood and wake your baby, now that you can just read about it below. Enjoy.
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Joe and Pam: Cheers!
Joe: With some whisky! We're gonna make a Daniel Plainview out of Drew A******* tonight!
Drew: [drinking the whisky] Ugh!
Joe: I do want you to turn into Daniel Plainview, because I picture this interview as something that you've always wanted. Something that you've worked toward. Obtaining vast stores of knowledge of your movie trivia—this is the peak, and this will eventually—figuratively—turn into you shooting your gun in the house.
Drew: This is not going to live up to that, but I'll do my best.
Joe: H.W. has already been put to bed tonight.
Drew: You never find out what "H.W." stands for.
Joe: What do we think it stands for?
Drew: Herbert Walker. George Herbert Walker Plainview.
Joe: I... I have no reason to deny that. And we were just talking about spoilers in movies, so: Spoiler Alert! All you people who haven't seen There Will Be Blood in the past twelve years. Okay, Drew, give us a 90-second spiel of what this movie's about.
Drew: Okay, so Daniel Plainview is an oil tycoon in the early 20th century. He started out mining for silver in the late 1800s and happened to strike oil, and just got into the business that early in the game. Flash forward about twenty years. Basically what he does is go to these little bumpkin towns that might have oil, and tries to buy up all the land. So he basically has to convince these country hicks to sell their land so he can drill for oil. He gets a tip about some land in California that is cheap to buy and has oil, and the only one who is standing in his way is an evangelical preacher named Eli Sunday. Basically, the film goes through him trying to buy land to drill for oil, but this preacher that doesn't trust him is constantly standing in his way. So they start to butt heads. It's both a character study and has a legitimate plot about him trying to buy up all this land, and having someone standing in his way. So that's it in a nutshell.
Joe: What's the genre of this movie, would you say?
Drew: ...A drama? [laughter]
Joe: Honestly, at certain points I thought it was a horror movie.
Drew: Right! I remember when it first came out, a lot of the reviews would describe it as... they used "horror," almost "darkly comic." I heard "dark comedy" a lot, and rewatching it the other day, there are a lot of moments that are kind of goofy. Daniel Plainview has really weird delivery of lines, like when he's getting baptized, like, "Do you take the blood of Christ?" [Daniel Plainview impression] "Yes I dooooo." And when he's throwing the bowling pins toward the end, it's like, it's goofy looking, the way they shoot it! And I think it's on purpose. I think it's supposed to be a little bit funny.
Joe: Are they lightening the mood I guess?
Drew: Maybe, yeah, and I had heard it described as "horrifying," and the music is definitely very ominous.
Joe: I definitely want to talk about Jonny Greenwood's score.
Drew: But yeah, I'd say on surface levels, it's a drama, there are a lot of elements of horror, but I'd even say dark comedy, if anything.
Joe: That's probably a good way of looking at it. It might make it a more enjoyable of a movie.
Drew: You didn't find it enjoyable? [laughter]
Joe: Nah, I found it enjoyable, but just allowing yourself to laugh at those little moments, in between those horrific moments.
Drew: Yeah.
Joe: Okay, so let's cut it off here at the beginning, because I know you came here armed to the teeth with some trivia about The Dark Knight—
Drew: The Dark Knight?!
Pam: There Will Be Blood.
Joe: [laughter] I'm continuing my—
Drew: They weren't even the same year!
Joe: I did like There Will Be Blood better than The Dark Knight.
Drew: Good! I wanted to know, was this the first time you had ever seen it?
Joe: I saw it maybe a year after—whenever it was free on On Demand. I maybe was young enough that I didn't really appreciate it like I did when we watched it with a critical eye this past week.
Pam: It was my first time watching it.
Joe: Okay, so let's do a Letterman-style Top Ten, Drew's There Will Be Blood Trivia.
Drew: Top ten?! I have to give ten pieces of trivia about the film?
Joe: Just give us your best. I know you were planning on interspersing these little nuggets of information throughout our interview. I know you have some for us! You definitely have some prepared. Just give it to us.
Drew: I mean, you want trivia... oh! So one thing that was interesting is, that year, 2007, the other big Oscar contender was No Country for Old Men. Both of these movies were shooting in the same town at the same time. They were shooting in Marfa, Texas in the exact same two months. The scene where the oil derrick catches on fire. They actually set it on fire, and it caused so much smoke blowing toward the set of No Country for Old Men that they had to delay shooting for like three days.
Joe: You can't see the smoke in the [No Country for Old Men] scenes, can you?
Drew: I guess not. But these movies literally were filmed in the same place—
Joe: Just by coincidence?
Drew: Yeah, and they ended up being the two main Oscar contenders that year. But yeah, to the point where they literally affected each other. Both in Marfa, Texas, despite taking place mostly in California. I thought that was interesting.
Joe: And No Country for Old Men eventually came out on top.
Drew: Yes, it did. I love No Country, but I think There Will Be Blood is...
Joe: I mean... clearly you like There Will Be Blood better.
Drew: I like No Country for Old Men. I've watched that several times since it came out. I think that it's a little more accessible. And I think why I love this movie so much is that it was a very challenging movie. When I first saw it, I was in high school, and it was in theaters. Like, I didn't fully understand it, but I wasn't turned off by that. For some reason, I wanted to watch it ten more times, like, "I need to learn what the fuck this movie's really about." I think that's why this movie stands out to me so much. It's because it took a lot of effort to understand what the fuck is really happening.
Joe: Your first "big boy" movie?
Drew: Seriously! I mean, you know—I love movies. I've always loved movies. For my entire life I've loved movies. When I was like thirteen, I loved everything. I wouldn't've known a good movie if it bit me in the ass. I could watch a movie like Braveheart—a Best Picture winner—and be like, "That was great!" And then the next day, watch Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, and be like, "That was great!"
Joe: I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
Drew: I was treating movies like entertainment, like, "Oh, if it entertains me, it's good, whatever." And I think that, seriously, I saw There Will Be Blood, and it was the first time I walked out of there, as a 17-year-old, like, "This is hard. This isn't entertainment; this is a piece of art." And I think that's why this movie stands out as my "favorite."
Pam: Like, starting your journey.
Drew: I just started watching movies in a different way.
Joe: "The birth of IMDrewB"
Drew: And I started watching the Oscars because of that. Like, "Oh, this movies has Oscar nominations, oh wow!" I had never really thought about cinematography, and editing, and symbolism, and all this stuff. I watched There Will Be Blood, and I could tell there was so much going on, and it went over my head, but I was like, "I'm gonna get this, damn it!" From then on, every movie I was looking for things. This sort of piloted that attitude of watching movies.
Joe: It definitely is an artful movie. There is a lot of shit. Seventeen-year-old Drew was correct.
Pam: Yeah, even just the conversations, the shots of the set, the scenery and stuff, it's all just shot in such in artful way.
Drew: In addition to winning Best Leading Actor—obviously, Daniel Day Lewis swept all that shit—it also won Best Cinematography. It got a bunch of noms, but it also took that home. So I think that's something I really like in this film. Because it's not trying too hard. You watch a lot of movies that have these sweeping camera shots, and they sort of overdo it. This is just a very well-framed movie, you have characters positioned in a good way that illuminates their faces, and you can hear what they're saying very well.
Joe: There's a couple scenes where I was impressed—where I, as a neophyte, was impressed—the directing of—
Drew: Such as?!
Joe: Well, like you were saying, the oil rig scene. The music added to it. Just watching him run across, and all the people running toward the scene of the action.
Pam: And when he got baptized too, it was so—it was kind of weird.
Drew: So you see that cross in the background, and that light shining through it. They literally had no electricity in there, they just cut out a big cross, and the sunlight is pouring through. So you have this big illuminated cross [made] out of just a window, really. That falls under cinematography, lighting, basically, the creation of an image. That was a very striking image to me. But Paul Thomas Anderson... his movies after that were similar to this. He did The Master five years later. And then—
Joe: We saw Phantom Thread.
Drew: I'd say Phantom Thread and The Master are directed in a very similar style to this.
Joe: [to Pam] Would you say that for Phantom Thread?
Pam: I think so, yeah. I've never seen The Master, but—
Drew: And his earlier films were very different. His first two films—well not his first two—but two of his big, early films, Boogie Nights, about the porn industry—
Joe: Oh shit, okay.
Pam: We watched it about two years ago.
Drew: —and Magnolia. So Boogie Nights and Magnolia both have this big ensemble cast, and their definitely dark comedies. They're very funny. Huge A-list cast. And those two are very similar. And after that he did Punch Drunk Love, which kind of stands on its own.
Pam: Adam Sandler?
Drew: And then he did this, and his next two films are similar to that. I don't... he just kind of outdid himself. This was the first time people were like, "Oh my god, Paul Thomas Anderson, this guy knows what the fuck he's doing."
Pam: So he didn't win Best Director for this.
Drew: He was nominated, he did not win. You know he's married to Maya Rudolph? I don't know how they met, but they are married. Happily.
Joe: I feel like there was a connection, like she did something...
Drew: Well, she was in Inherent Vice, which he directed.
Joe: Is she in the new... Thom Yorke, lead of Radiohead, connects to this... but that's Jonny Greenwood, the guitarist... the lead vocalist Thom Yorke just released a new album. All of his solo shit sucks ass. But, there was a 20-minute video connected to that album, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. [Editor's note: translation, now that I'm not drunk on whisky—I was trying to remember if Maya Rudolph had anything to do with ANIMA. She does not. Let's move on.]
Drew: He's done a ton of music videos. If you look at his IMDB page, it includes music videos and short films. He did a HAIM [pronounced "hame"] music video recently.
Joe: [correcting] "HAIM" [pronounced "hime"]
Drew: HAIM. Sorry, I'm pronouncing it wrong? [laughter]
Joe: He directed the one where they're all dancing in the warehouse! That's like my favorite music video ever.
Drew: It's so simple, but it's very effective.
Joe: It's so great.
Drew: He did a lot of Amy Mann music videos back in the day. Throughout the '90s he was doing features. A lot of people start with music videos and move to features, but he would kind of flip-flop. I think he just likes doing music videos, honestly. They're short, you can shoot them in a day.
Joe: And he's never won an Oscar for Best Director.
Drew: I don't think he's won an Oscar for anything. He's been nominated, he's never won. The thing about him is, if you listen to interviews, he doesn't really disclose a lot about his style. He's kind of a savant. People think that he might just... that he can't communicate. Not that he's dumb, but... he described the relationship between Daniel Plainview and Eli Sunday as "Tom and Jerry." Like, [obnoxious voice] "Yeah, it's kinda like Tom and Jerry, a cat and mouse thing!" I think he's just a savant, like he got hit in the head and knows how to direct movies.
[laughter]
Drew: Seriously, he's never articulated anything particularly profound about these really artful films. He's like, [obnoxious voice] "Naaahhh, it's your classic whodunit."
Joe: Speaking of Eli, do we feel like he was the "villain" in this movie?
Drew: Oh yeah.
Pam: Daniel Plainview was also a villain.
Drew: He's the anti-hero.
Pam: He's the Tony Soprano.
Drew: Eli's the antagonist. He's the one who's trying to bring down our main character. And I don't think he has a lot of redeeming qualities, to be honest.
Joe: It definitely felt like a vindictive success when he renounced his own religion that he had been shoving down everyone's throats.
Drew: Oh my god, isn't that amazing? And obviously, spoiler alert with this thing, but, he makes him renounce god... and then murders him. [laughter] It's literally the lowest he'll ever be, he makes this preacher say, "Yup, I'm a fraud, and there is no god," and then was like, "Okay, yeah, I think I'm gonna kill you, yup, now's the time."
Pam: I mean, if he didn't kill him, then I think they would be pretty even. Because when they were in the church and Eli made him say, "I abandoned my child!" That was also horrible.
Drew: But he wouldn't have gotten the Bandy tract otherwise! That was the big thing.
Joe: I don't know if I've ever talked with you about this, Drew. Are you, or have you ever been religious, in any way?
Drew: Yes. I'm not—I don't really practice now. I was raised Catholic.
Joe: I don't really think any of our [mutual] friends practice.
Drew: I think at the time, in high school, I was considerably more religious than I am now. And it's not like I identify with Eli Sunday, like he was a "good person" or anything like. But even... the take I had was that if he was truly a prophet, he would've been burned at the stake before denouncing god for money. So I walked out of there like, "Oh yeah, that guy is clearly a fraud." There have been people in the Church in the 1800s who would literally get crucified, and tortured for hours on end, and die, before saying anything like "I am a false prophet, god is a superstition, give me five thousand dollars." My take at the time was, this guy is full of shit, clearly was.
Joe: And I guess the movie made that clear. It wasn't ambivalent in any way. They built him as a villain pretty well.
Drew: And Daniel does some fucked up things, but again, the whole anti-hero thing is something we're very accustomed to nowadays. At the time, there was Tony Soprano, and that's pretty much it. The only other person you'd be like, "he's a piece of shit, but we love him."
Joe: So let's assume Eli is right, and there is a heaven, and there is a hell. Who's more likely to go to hell? If you had to compare the two, Eli vs. Daniel.
Drew: Daniel murdered two people, so I guess... I guess Daniel?
Pam: And he did abandon his son on the train.
Drew: Because he became handicapped! That's what's really fucked up about it. His son became handicapped... and they had a relatively good relationship. They went camping, he was his business partner. And as soon as this kid is, like, annoying, and won't go to sleep, he literally puts him on a train and says, "I don't want to deal with you anymore."
Pam: Up until that moment, it was like, "He's a really good dad to this kid."
Drew: He kind of was! And he adopted him! It's not his kid! Isn't that a great moment, when there's H.W. as an adult, and he's talking to [Daniel], who's like, "You're not my son," "Don't say that, it hurts me." "No, really, you're not my son." [laughter] It was that other guy in the beginning who got killed in the accident, it was his baby. And that was another thing I noticed, there's these great religious allusions. There's this really subtle moment in the beginning, before H.W.'s real father—
Joe: This is trivia point #2!
Drew: No, it's not trivia. It's just something they do! After they strike oil, H.W.'s biological father takes oil, and smears it on H.W.'s forehead, as if it's ash. It's supposed to be a religious allusion; instead of baptizing this baby in water, I'm baptizing him in oil. And those are the big... I know you talk a lot about "themes" in these interviews. Religion and capitalism.
Joe: Is it religion versus capitalism?
Drew: Yes! 100%. It's not about religion versus capitalism, but how those two things interact with each other. It's at a time when... Daniel Plainview wants control over these country bumpkins, to become wealthy. He promises them: "Oh, we're going to prosper, you're gonna make money yourself, the town will be great." And then Eli, on the other hand, controls them through faith. It poses that question: What really is going to save you in the end? What's going to give you peace of mind? Is it having money in your bank account? Or is it knowing that your soul is clean?
Joe: And I think they give the answer of... neither?
Drew: Yeah, are both of those parties doing it for their own self-interest? Clearly. But that's sort of the question that it poses. Which do you choose? What really matters? Is it money or is it religion? I think the film... in the end, Daniel wins, saying that money makes the world go 'round.
Joe: But, he's definitely a miserable fuck by the end. Even disregarding the murder...
Drew: He's unhappy.
Pam: And he pushes away the only person in his life who was family.
Drew: The whole reason he's doing this... he wants money, so he can be happy. And that is through getting away from people. There's a moment where he's like, "I don't like people, and I want enough money that I don't have to deal with them."
Joe: He can see enough on the surface of people to know that they're shitty.
Drew: That's the whole reason why he's doing this, because he thinks wealth will give him the freedom to get away from people. The only people he would really trust are family. He liked H.W. for a very long time. Those were the only people he could consider trustworthy.
Joe: I mean, he turned when H.W. outed himself as a "competitor" for his money. It had nothing to do with a personal grudge. It was just "you're going to take a slice of my money away."
Pam: And when he found out that that other guy was not actually his brother. Actually, do you think that he knew the whole time that he wasn't his brother?
Drew: No, I think the guy fooled him for a while.
Pam: And he killed him, when he found out he wasn't really a brother.
Drew: That's the only time when he felt like, maybe he could trust someone. But, he had a son that wasn't really his son. He had a brother that wasn't really his brother. Even Eli, through marriage, was related to him. Eli's sister married H.W. He even says, "Daniel! We're family, through marriage!" So, I dunno, is there something ironic about that, the fact that family is the one thing that could've really redeemed him, and it was all... a lie? I dunno.
Pam: [burps]
Drew: Pam burped. Write that down.
Pam: [laughter] He chose money over family.
Joe: So Pam scoffed when she saw my notes that said, "Is this an anti-capitalist movie?"—
Pam: Oh, I only scoffed because you asked me this same question for It's a Wonderful Life.
Joe: For sure, and me and Dwyer definitely talked about it.
Pam: I said, "Do you think every movie is an anti-capitalist movie?!"
Drew: [laughter] The Dark Knight had a lot of modern themes.
Joe: Well, Bruce Wayne wasn't properly taxed.
[laughter]
Drew: Sorry, what was the question?
Joe: That's the question. Despite Pam's not wanting me to ask the question, do you feel like one of the purposes of this movie is that, P.T.A. was saying that capitalism is not good, that it leads to death and destruction, and, um, a loss of self-identity?
Drew: I don't think it necessarily leads to that, but maybe it doesn't guarantee happiness. The whole point was he wanted wealth to be happy—he really did—he thought wealth could give him the freedom to be alone and do what he wants. But, by the end, when he has a huge mansion, and he's living alone, doing nothing all day, fucking miserable, with nobody. So he's clearly in a horrible state once he gets to that point. But he has that same attitude toward religion, it's also fraught with... sure, it could make you self-realize and give you peace of mind on your deathbed. But not necessarily. Eli himself, once the fucking market starts crashing, he's like, "Oh! These mysteries that God presents! I don't know what to do!" So clearly it wasn't about faith, it was about money. I think he does a good job balancing... I don't think he necessarily favors capitalism or religion. I think he says that there's flaws with both.
Joe: Despite the... again, despite the murder—
Pam: Murders.
Drew: Multiple murders.
Joe: Yeah, I guess so. Do you personally relate to Daniel Plainview in any way?
Drew: Like, in the way he drinks too much, or...
[laughter]
Joe: In literally any way. Sure, if you relate to him that way.
Drew: Um... not really. I think he's more human than he appears. He's a very extreme character, but his big thing is ambition.
Joe: You feel like you don't have any ambition?
Drew: No, but I feel like... honestly, I don't really identify with him that much. If anything, for most people, the characters you relate to our these little hick country bumpkins, that are posed with that question—
Joe: That you know are getting fucked.
Drew: Yeah, who do we point to for salvation?
Pam: That's usually the majority of people.
Drew: So no, I don't particularly relate to Daniel Plainview, in that he goes to very extreme lengths to achieve what he wants.
Joe: You don't feel like there's any truth in Halloween costumes?
[laughter]
Drew: Um... that Halloween costume crushed it, first of all.
Pam: Now I finally get your Halloween costume!
Drew: If you notice in the photos, I'm doing this [makes face and points with finger], and this is [Daniel Plainview impression] "DRAINAGE!" This is—when he's talking with H.W.—this [the finger pointing down] is sign language for "drill." When he's talking to Eli, like, "DRAINAGE!" he's point like that, "You sniveling ass!" and flicks it in his face.
Joe: I feel like I've heard you do the "milkshake monologue" before.
Drew: See, now you're trying to prompt me to do the milkshake monologue. It's not going to work!
[laughter]
Pam: Do you know that monologue?
Drew: ...see, you keep trying to get me to say it! Oh, subtle, Pam!
[laughter]
Pam: I didn't even know that's something you did before!
Drew: The next phase is reverse psychology, "No, he's not going to say it, he's too scared!"
Joe: "He's a fucking pussy if he doesn't talk about milkshakes right now!
Drew: Honestly, interestingly enough, it does explain drainage very well.
[Editor's note: Drew then goes on to describe the entire final scene line for line, basically. I'm not going to transcribe all this. Who cares about spoilers, I just don't feel like doing it.]
Drew: Which, by the way, that pipeline is a hundred miles long. Like, Philly to New York is 90 miles. He made a pipe one hundred miles to the Pacific Ocean.
Joe: I guess those scenes where him and Henry are staking it out... they went one hundred miles?
Drew: Yeah! That's the last shot, of them looking at the Pacific Ocean, because they were in the middle of the state, and that's when they—again, every time you watch a movie, you notice something new. I feel like I had seen everything I needed to see with this movie, but rewatching it yesterday, I loved the way they shot that scene, like, that profile from the side, and that constantly moving camera, and the whole "stake in the ground, keep moving, stake in the ground, keep moving." And they see the Pacific Ocean, and then [later] he stakes in the table, like, "Yeah, guys, we did it! Fuck yeah!" That scene was so good! I had totally breezed past that.
Joe: Daniel Day Lewis definitely did a very good job—
Drew: He apparently had two years to prepare for the role.
Joe: So... let's dig into that.
Drew: Yeah.
Joe: Let's ask this: did he deserve the Oscar for this movie?
Drew: Are you kidding?! Of course he did!
Joe: I'm just asking the question!
Drew: Oh my god. It's one of the greatest performances. I don't think it's overhyped. I think, twelve years later, watching that... oh my god. That's the thing I love about Daniel Day Lewis, is that he's that transformative. There are some people out there—okay, I'll say it, Leonardo DiCaprio. He's a very good actor, but I can tell he's acting. I'll walk out of a DiCaprio movie and be like, "Wow, that was a great performance by Leonardo DiCaprio." I'll walk out of a Daniel Day Lewis movie, and I'm like, "Wow, I just watched a 19th century oil prospector!" I'm not watching an actor, I'm watching the character, ya know? He transforms in a way that no other actor can... well, a few, maybe—Meryl Streep.
Joe: I—
Drew: But yeah, are you kidding me?! Like, no, it was not overhyped—
Joe: I'm agreeing with you!
Drew: It's one of the greatest performances in, probably, my lifetime.
Joe: It was a leading question! Because I'm leading up to this: Do you feel like method acting is necessary?
Pam: Oh god.
Drew: Not always, no. I think it can pay off, but it can also—
Joe: I mean, it paid off with three Oscars for Daniel Day Lewis. But my point is that I think method acting is stupid.
Drew: I think that most people don't do it to the extent that he does it. Some people will spend, oh, a couple months preparing for a role, whereas Daniel Day Lewis will not do a movie for five years, and then once he's set on it, spend two years preparing. Daniel Day Lewis learned how to be a miner. He went to a mine, he learned how to mine for silver—
Joe: That's stupid! For what?
Drew: For art!
Joe: For art?
Drew: He's not doing it all the time. It's not like he does it for... he doesn't take this lightly. He says he's retired now. He'll spend five years—
Joe: Right, I get it.
Drew: —if I'm going to do this, I'm going to devote my entire life to it. He's not doing it for Oscars, he's doing it because it's his path.
Joe: To me, that's like, taking your job home with you.
Drew: People do that. People take their job home with them.
Joe: I don't agree with it. I don't agree that you should do that.
Pam: But I think acting is a passion.
Drew: I think in his case, it's paid off. There are many actors that say it's not always necessary. Like, Helen Mirren is very vocal about, like, when they yell "cut," you can just fucking chill. But he is a person that thinks it works for him—
Joe: Like, fucking Jared Leto sending his... he sent his jizz to the other cast members—
Drew: What, for Suicide Squad?! Shut the fuck up. Are you kidding me?!
Joe: He did all kinds of crazy shit, and Will Smith was like, "I'm not going to be in this anymore."
Drew: Heath Ledger did a lot of method acting. Allegedly, he developed insomnia and overdosed on pills. So it can have some very negative consequences. [Editor's note: This interview took place prior to The Dark Knight interview being published, where we touched on Heath Ledger's method acting a little bit.] I think in Daniel Day Lewis' case, it pays off, because he has very remarkable performances, and in his personal life, he seems fine. I don't think it's always necessary—
Joe: But imagine being his wife and having to be married to Daniel Plainview for two years.
Drew: ...I know.
Pam: Well, when you're married to Daniel Day Lewis, that's what you put up with.
Drew: In My Left Foot, he had cerebral palsy, and he was in a wheelchair—
Joe: And he stayed in the wheelchair. That's stupid!
Drew: When he was on set, he made them carry him over cables and stuff.
Joe: That's fucked up.
Drew: "Let's feed him with a spoon" or whatever.
Joe: I hate it.
Pam: [annoyed] Well it helps develop character, and it helps you feel that pain, and what it feels like to be that person.
Drew: What you're asking is like, "You're not a true actor unless you're a method actor."
Joe: No, what I'm actually saying is the opposite. If you're a method actor, you're a worse actor.
Drew: Stop! No!
Pam: Joe wants to angry about something in every single one of these movie interviews. He has to fight with the person he's interviewing.
Joe: Well then let me do it! Let me do it!
Drew: Daniel Day Lewis is probably the most extreme method actor of our day, where he takes two years to do it. A lot of people go through those lengths to get into that character, and they'll do it for like a month. They're getting paid a lot of money, and the studio expects results, they expect them to take it seriously, and they spent a certain amount of time getting into character.
Joe: A certain amount.
Drew: If they're getting paid ten million dollars to do this movie, they're going to fucking take it seriously. You're not going to phone it in.
Joe: If you are a professional actor, you should be able to turn it on and off at will.
Drew: And many can!
Joe: So you're admitting that Daniel Day Lewis cannot!
Drew: That is not what I'm saying.
Pam: [groans]
Drew: Method acting is not a requirement. Some people, like Daniel Day Lewis, he clearly has a system down, and it's working for him. I think most actors that are of A-list caliber spend at least a month or two really getting into it. They do a lot of research. Even if they're not living in that character all day. Like, "Oh, I'm playing a baker? I'm going to work at a bakery for a month." They do that shit. Even when they go home to their wives, they're not saying, "Call me a baker when we have sex." That's not happening! But they're still devoting an extreme amount of time to learn this craft. Daniel Day Lewis might take it to the nth degree. He's the most extreme case in method acting alive today. There is no else who does what he does. And I think it pays off in his case. And for some people, it probably fucks them up a lot! I don't think you have to do it to have a good performance, but for some people it works.
Joe: I don't think you should have to do it, is my point. I equate it to, like, if Chase Utley had to sleep with a bat in his bed or something.
Drew: You've never heard of [baseball players] taping bats to their hands?
Joe: No, I haven't.
Drew: Or when Nick Cannon was in Drumline, he taped the drumsticks to his hands to drum better!
Joe: It would be like if [our firefighting friend] Dave K*** had to turn the temperature of his house up to 110 degrees.
[laughter]
Pam: To be the devil's advocate, I feel like one of the best movies that you [Joe] enjoyed in the last five years was Whiplash. And it was pretty method! Miles Teller's character.
Drew: He had to learn that shit! He had to go home and learn the fucking drums.
Joe: Let me be clear, I'm not saying that There Will Be Blood was a worse movie because of Daniel Day Lewis's method acting.
Drew: What, method acting as an institution is bullshit?
Joe: Right, we're talking about a movie, and I'm delving into a very specific, niche part of the movie that I disagree with.
Drew: In his case, it paid off.
Joe: I mean, it clearly did! He won the Oscar for Best Actor! But you should say, "In his case, it's required."
Drew: That's up to Daniel Day Lewis. That's not up to me.
Joe: He has never won an Oscar when he didn't do method acting.
Drew: [laughter]
Joe: My point is... fuck Daniel Day Lewis.
Pam: What?!
Joe: I'm joking!
Drew: Well, he's retired.
Joe: Phantom Thread blew dick.
Pam: Do you think he's actually retired?
Drew: No, I think he's just going to take a ten-year break.
Pam: How old is he?
Drew: He's like 60.
Joe: So I guess we'll talk about someone else who was in the movie in an opposite scenario. Jonny Greenwood.
Pam: Who wrote the score.
Drew: Yes.
Pam: For the readers.
Joe: He is the guitarist in Radiohead. I guess he's not quite the opposite of Daniel Day Lewis in this idea that I have. But, the music was very, very good. When I was talking about it being a "horror movie" earlier, I thought the music was the reason I thought that.
Pam: It constantly felt ominous.
Drew: Between those dissonant tones that crescendo, like [makes the noise]. Or... is it polyrhythms? The term for when it's like [emulates the rhythm], and they line up eventually.
Joe: And it's interesting, because I feel like, the more prominent Jonny Greenwood becomes in the movie world—he's done more movie scores—
Drew: He did Phantom Thread. What other movie scores has he done? Off the top of my head—
Pam: Wasn't Phantom Thread classical, almost? The score?
Drew: I mean, it probably more mid-20th century.
Pam: But it was very different from There Will Be Blood.
Joe: But the point I was leading up to was... the more respect he gets in the movie world, the less respect he gets, from me, in Radiohead. Radiohead used to be a rock band! And now I feel like he and Thom Yorke are putting all these movie score influences into their music.
Drew: Didn't they have a song, earlier...
Joe: ["Exit Music (for a Film)"]
Drew: I mean I can't really attest to some of their newest stuff.
Joe: Okay, but that song was a rock song. Whereas, if you listen to, a couple years ago, A Moon Shaped Pool—by Radiohead, their most recent album—it seems like a movie score. And it sucks ass! It's horrible!
Pam: And you can blame that on the fact that they're writing movie scores.
Drew: When you write a score for a movie, it works. When you write a movie score for just, like, an album, it's gonna sound like shit. It's the wrong medium.
Joe: And I'm not saying that Radiohead wrote a score for anything. I'm saying that the influences—the things that are important to Jonny Greenwood are now bleeding into his rock band's sound.
Drew: Another... Trent Reznor and Atticus Finch from Nine Inch Nails, they're another group. They do a lot of movie scores now—
Joe: They did the Facebook one.
Drew: Right, The Social Network. All of David Fincher's stuff. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. The first season of House of Cards, when Fincher was working on that. And I agree with you—I can't really attest to those albums—that film scores bleeding into their albums probably diminishes their integrity as rock stars. Not "rock stars," but—
Joe: That classic "rock" sound.
Drew: I think that their film scores, coming from that rock background, are very different than most of the film scores you see now. And that's why they're so great!
Joe: That is a good thing. I definitely agree with you there. I'm singing the praises of Jonny Greenwood right now.
Drew: Actually, There Will Be Blood['s score] was ineligible for the Oscars that year, because a lot of it was written before the movie came out.
Joe: Trivia #3!
Pam: We were talking about that.
Joe: He wrote a score for another movie that he borrowed from.
Drew: What was the movie?
Joe: "Body" something. I'll footnote it here. [Editor's note: Bodysong, both Jonny Greenwood's debut solo album, and a soundtrack to the documentary of the same name.]
Drew: Invasion of Body Snatchers?!
Joe: Sure. [sarcastic] The Bodyguard?
[Editor's note: I'm cutting Drew's very long take on The Bodyguard, as well as Drew's extremely loud yelling about A Star Is Born.]
Joe: I will probably listen to a film score right after I listen to a podcast.
[laughter]
Joe: Okay, so we started to squeeze some There Will Be Blood trivia out of you. Can we squeeze some more out of this stone? What are some of your other... I'll be surprised if you don't have any more trivia.
Drew: Eli Sunday, played by Paul Dano. I don't know if you know this, but that role was recast while they were film.
Joe: I know everything about this movie. You're explaining this to the people who are reading right now.
Pam: ...and me?
Drew: You know about the recasting process??
Joe: I have a whole fucking sheet of notes here.
Drew: Okay! Alright, so, to Pam. So whereas Daniel Day Lewis had about two years to prepare for this role, Paul Dano had four days to prepare. He was original cast as Paul Sunday, the brother in that early scene, where he tips Daniel off about the land, and then you never see him again. They had another actor playing Eli Sunday, an actor named Kel O'Neill—who's not from Kenan & Kel, different Kel.
Pam: Damn!
Joe: It was implied by some salacious sources that he couldn't handle Daniel Day Lewis, and that's why he dropped out.
Drew: Is that why? I hadn't heard that.
Joe: Daniel Day Lewis and Paul Thomas Anderson both deny it, but...
Drew: I assumed it was like a Back to the Future scenario, where, after a few days of shooting, they realize that this guy kind of sucks. They had started filming, and Paul Dano was available, because he was already in the movie, and on the set, and they were like... originally Paul Sunday and Eli Sunday were just brothers. On the fly, they rewrote it that they were identical twins. And I totally bought that. But when the film came out, probably 50% of the people that saw this movie thought that they were the same guy, and that he had Multiple Personality Disorder.
Joe: I was saying that to Pam.
Drew: Did you think that?
Joe: I did originally, in like '09, then I was reading about how they were different people, and I told Pam [prior to the movie, to warn her]. Do you think you would've—?
Pam: I don't know. I probably would've not thought that they were brothers. I probably would've been really confused.
Drew: People had all these elaborate theories about him having multiple personalities. I was like, why the hell would Paul Sunday tip off Daniel Plainview about drilling and then two days later, Daniel distrusts him like a motherfucker? It doesn't make any sense, how could they be the same person?! People were like, "notice how they are never on screen at the same time, they must be the same guy!" I know, just because I'm a twin, that I totally just accepted it, like, "Yeah, they're twins."
Joe: That's the personal details that we are now requiring in Your Favorite Movie. We wanted an actual twin to interview about a twin movie.
Drew: To this day, on YouTube, searching for There Will Be Blood, 50% of the videos are like, "Paul Sunday and Eli Sunday are the same person." And I'm like, "Shut the fuck up! This isn't Fight Club!"
Joe: So when someone is walking down the Parkway, and sees Drew's twin brother working on the top of the double decker tourist bus, and yells, "Yo Drew!" and he says "I'm not Drew!"...their response will be "Drew must have Multiple Personality Disorder."
Pam: They are never together!
[laughter]
Drew: I don't even know what he's doing right now.
Joe: Exactly, how do we know you're not the same person?!
Drew: Even when we were living in Philly together, my family would be like, "How's your brother doing?" and I'd be like, "I don't fucking know."
Joe: Okay, so... last chance. Without any feedback from us, just drop some more trivia that you need to get out.
Drew: Did you know that the actor who plays the real estate agent—his name is Al Rose, the character, he looks at the maps, and says, "Oh, this land belongs to..." I forget the actor's name, but he was in Billy Madison. He was the moderator of the academic decathlon. "I award you no points, and may god have mercy on your soul."
Joe: Interesting!
Drew: He's fatter, with a beard.
Joe: I did not know that. You got me with that trivia point! I thought I knew everything.
Drew: Yeah!
Joe: Alright, here is some trivia that I'm going to ask you about. We're going to test IMDrewB's trivia knowledge about this movie.
Drew: Okay.
Joe: Three questions. One. When H.W. and Mary are getting married, what is the chapter and verse of the bible reading?
Drew: Oh god! I don't know!
Joe: John 4:14-15.
[laughter]
Pam: So this is just nitpicky trivia—
Joe: [cutting her off] What is the name of the Boom Operator?
Drew: ...The Boom Operator of There Will Be Blood?
Joe: Yes.
Drew: I don't know.
Joe: David M. Roberts.
Drew: Great.
Joe: What is the third distinct word spoken in the movie?
Drew: Distinct? I'm serious, so at the beginning of the movie, when he's prospecting, he says "No"...
Joe: He says so a bunch of times, so that's the first word. What's the third word?
Drew: "And."
Joe: You got it! Holy shit!
Drew: "Ladies and gentlemen."
Joe: Good for you man! You got one out of three!
Drew: Yeah... great.
Joe: You like this movie 33% of the amount I expected you to like it.
Drew: I have a question for you. Why do you think this movie is called "There Will Be Blood"?
Joe: Interesting.
Drew: I don't think there's a concrete answer, but there's a few theories, and I want to know what you think.
Joe: When I watched this movie, I felt a lot of the religious moments in it. Not that I was hardcore religious growing up, but I was definitely a little more religious than my peers. So, just, thinking about it from a personal aspect, and really looking at those scenes with a critical eye. I suppose they mentioned the blood of Christ, or the lamb, or whatever the fuck, in those scenes. I thought it was a reference to Daniel Day Lewis' probably-Oscar-winning scene, ya know, "I abandoned my child!" Eli's implication that the figurative blood was shed in that act. That he was "asking penance" for.
Drew: In that scene, right after he finally gets baptized in the water, the song that's playing is "There Is Power in the Blood." [singing] "There is power, there is power in the blood!" What does that mean? Oooh.
Joe: So is that why you think it's called "There Will Be Blood"?
Drew: I'll give you a lot credit. There are three reasons why I thought it might be called "There Will Be Blood," but that was not one of them, the religious aspect. I really didn't consider it that way.
Joe: I was just making it up.
Drew: So I think the most on-the-surface... at the very end of the film—this movie isn't very violent—he finally kills Eli, and the first thing we see is a huge pool of blood. There's a little bit of blood during the various accidents—
Joe: What about when he kills Henry?
Drew: There's not a lot of blood. He shoots him at the top of the head, it's not very graphic. The first time you really see a lot of blood is at the very end—they promised that there will be blood. When I saw it in theaters, everyone gasped. Because the movie's really not that violent, and when you hear him beat his skull open with a bowling pin, people were like, "Oh my god!" Because you don't expect it in a movie like that. So everyone goes [gasping sound], and then some guy muttered "there will be blood."
[laughter]
Joe: So, in other words, Daniel Day Lewis didn't need to turn to the cameras and say the words "There will be blood!"
[laughter]
Drew: [Another theory is], what we touched on earlier, with themes of family. Blood of the family, that's a big thing. But that would be in a sort of ironic sense, I think. Family is the one thing that would save him, but his son is not really his son, he has a brother that's really an impostor, he has a brother-in-law who he murders. Anytime he comes close to the one thing that really makes him a human being, he destroys it.
Joe: But so it's his hope that there will be someone who he can share that with. "There will be blood" never comes to fruition. It's not, "There is blood," it's "There will be blood." And there never is!
Drew: So I like that take on it. I don't know if it's true. Another one, and this dates the film a little bit. So... "blood" referring to oil. It's referred to as the sort of blood of the lamb, this seepage, this liquid seeping out of the ground. The oil is the blood, is how... I think that was the biggest theory when this movie came out. When it came out, 2007, we were at the height of the Bush presidency. This is not what the movie is about at all, but when it was advertised, I think people thought this was going to be a metaphor, or like a scathing indictment, of the oil industry, or the Bush presidency. I think they thought this was going to be a metaphor for how oil corrupts mankind.
Pam: It kind of was!
Drew: They really thought, "Oh, this is going to prove that Bush did 9/11!"
[laughter]
Joe: Bush is drinking Sadam's milkshake!
Drew: Dead serious. This movie did okay, it wasn't a box office smash. But I think the reason this movie was paid any attention at all, aside from Daniel Day Lewis being a draw, what that people thought it was going to be a scathing indictment of the oil industry. At the time, in 2007, we were fighting a war over oil. It was a huge hot-button issue. Like, yeah, "This is 1917 oil industry, but it's clearly a metaphor for the War in Iraq." And it's not at all!
Joe: Is it documented that people were disappointed by There Will Be Blood because it wasn't? Like, the Rotten Tomatoes User Score was bad?
Drew: Interestingly, if you look back on reviews when it first came out, almost every review tried to connect it to that in at least one sentence.
Joe: And for what it's worth, I read a lot of ten-year retrospectives, from 2017 I guess, and none of them mentioned oil in that way.
Drew: People wanted "blood" to mean physical oil. And that's not what the movie is about! The movie is about wealth, it's about capitalism. It was an interesting interpretation at the time that does not hold up at all.
Joe: Okay, what haven't we talked about yet?
Drew: ...Was there a song that featured the line "Brother from another mother"?
Joe: [laughter] Great question! Because you had that feeling too, when Henry said it?
Drew: When I saw it in theaters, more than one person laughed. I just thought of that again, like, is that a song? A hip hop song from the '80s or something? Why don't I know that?
Pam: I think it's just something people say.
Drew: I assumed it was a song or something. [Editor's note: I did some cursory research, and while there are certainly songs that use this phrase in title and lyrics, there didn't appear to be any that actually brought the phrase into the general cultural lexicon.]
Joe: [Most people have] more comedic timing than Henry had.
Drew: He was in The Mummy.
Joe: The original one? Not the newer one with Tom Cruise, part of the Extended Cinematic Dark Universe?
Drew: Oh god, no!
Joe: Kevin J. O'Connor. Like our good friend, our Back to the Future friend, but one letter off.
Drew: Anyway, he was the comic relief in The Mummy.
Joe: Anyway again, no I don't think it was a song. I think it was just a grade school rhyme.
Pam: Seems like something hippies say.
Joe: I definitely chuckled when he said that. Pam might not have, because she was sleeping.
Pam: No I was not! I did not sleep at all.
[Editor's note: cutting out some long plot rehashing again, jesus fucking christ Drew.]
Joe: So to that point, I think the movie did a good job of gradually ramping up the violence. It wasn't a movie where guns were a'blazin' from the very beginning. That was the first time a gun was shown the whole movie, when he pulled a gun out on his supposed brother. The only reason I noticed that was, for the first two hours, I was thinking, oh shit, we're going to have a "Your Favorite Movie" movie that didn't have a gun in it.
Drew: They've all had guns?
Joe: We're nine for nine right now. but, I thought they did a good job of, gradually amping it up, where you got to the last scene, and you did not expect Daniel to have murder in him—
Drew: He already murdered someone though!
Joe: Yeah, but it was done in a way that he was almost doing it reluctantly. The side of his head. It wasn't a brutal. So if you want to look at it in a cynical way, he killed [Henry] for the plot, but he killed Eli because that was his character.
Drew: [Daniel Plainview impression] "I'm finished."
[laughter]
Drew: And a lot of people have qualms about the butler coming down, like "Who is this butler? What's his motivation? Why doesn't he care that much?"
Joe: Here's some trivia for you! Apparently, I dunno, [while the movie was filming,] some fucking tabloid took a picture of the butler, and put it in their magazine, and said, "Look how much Daniel Day Lewis changes himself for his roles!"
Drew: The Onion?
Joe: Whoever published it legitimately thought it was Daniel Day Lewis. And it was really the old butler.
Drew: There's this channel on Facebook called "Script-to-Screen." [Editor's note: Looks like it might be this YouTube channel called "Screenplayed."] What they do is play scenes from movies, and have what's in the script scrolling beneath it. The point is that, a lot of times, the dialogue that's in the script is very different from the final cut. Because they change it day of, "we're gonna cut this, we're gonna change that." Nine times out of ten, the scene is very different from the published script. In this, they did that scene at the end [Daniel Day Lewis voice... again...] "DRAINAGE!" It's pretty much the same, but the one big thing is that the way he kills Eli is different. In the final cut, he beats him to death with a bowling pin. In the original script, he stabs him in the face with another inanimate object, a stein or something?
Joe: A tumbler.
Drew: A tumbler! Yeah! It's a different inanimate object.
Joe: Trivia number five!
Drew: How did you know... did you look that up?
Joe: Oh yeah. I did my fucking research for this, man! I'm interviewing somebody about the movie, I'm gonna know the fucking movie.
Drew: I don't know why they changed it.
Pam: It also might say something about capitalism—
Drew: Tell me Pam, how does—
Pam: He has a bowling alley in his house!
Drew: I was gonna say, how do bowling pins represent capitalism, Pam?
Joe: [sarcasm] The bowling pins are billionaires, and the ball is socialism.
Drew: Good work Pam.
Pam: I cracked the case. [laughter]
Joe: Alright, let's start to wrap it up here. I don't know if we're gotten yet a clear answer yet as to why this is your favorite movie. One can guess by now, based on this discussion, why. But why don't you just state it outright?
Drew: So, when you asked to name my favorite movie for this... Nate touched on it, when it's difficult to pinpoint when you're someone who's seen a lot of movies.
Joe: So this was a "gun to your head" moment, like, "I need to answer this question because I'm going to be interviewed about it."
Drew: Gun to my head, I will say I have a top three. I really don't have a number one. For someone who has seen as many movies as I have, that's as good as it's going to get. What do you think my top three are?
Joe: Okay, first, I'm not interested as to why you didn't choose the other two... but I am interested in what the other two are. So name them.
Drew: What do you think they are?
Joe: Uh... Grease and Grease 2.
Drew: [laughter]
Pam: Someone had said Silence of the Lambs...
Drew: That's in my top ten.
Joe: Room and The Room.
Drew: I would say both of those are in my top ten.
Joe: [laughter] Get out of here.
Drew: So The Room—
Joe: I am not interested!
Drew: Okay, so my top three. There Will Be Blood. Drive. And Whiplash. And I think that I get a lot of—
Pam: What's Drive?
Drew: What's Drive?! Alright, I'll come back next week and we'll talk about it. Ryan Gosling. 2011.
Joe: I thought you meant Baby Driver.
Drew: Stop. There would be no Baby Driver without Drive, first of all.
Joe: Please note that I shrugged in response to that.
Drew: Anyway, those three are the only three times I walked out of a movie theater truly exhilarated. There are movies that make me feel things, feel emotions, they're intense. But the only times I walked out in a daze, like, "I can't stop thinking about what I just saw" for weeks and weeks.
Joe: Thanks for not picking Whiplash, because I felt the same way, and I feel like this whole interview would've been me and you just jerking each other off in front of Pam.
Drew: But that was the last time it happened, in 2014, after Whiplash. In the past five years, I've sat in a movie theater upwards of 200 times—
[laughter]
Drew: I'm not even joking!
Joe: I'm laughing because I know it's true!
Drew: So those were the only movies I walked out of the theater saying, "What did I just see?" All three of them, I discovered on my own. And I sort of... people expect your favorite movie to be a "classic," like an older film, because that proves they "stand the test of time." Your favorite is supposed to be Citizen Kane, or something like that. That's what it's supposed to be the movie you say is the best. And [for me]... all three of those movies have come out in the past twelve years. And I think, all I can say is... I saw them when they were new, I saw them when they were hyped, I think—
Joe: I think might speak to your journey as a cinephile.
Drew: It's still a substantial amount of time to be able to tell whether they hold up or not. All three of them hold up extremely well. There Will Be Blood stands out just because it was the first of those three. It's different for everybody. I'll admit—at times, it's slow. Many people would say it's boring. I will admit, it's a slow burn.
Joe: There were moments when I thought our stream was buffering, because the actors just froze. And that was the point, and it was great, and I enjoyed it, but—
Drew: It sounds pretentious saying "This is art, because it's so slow and boring." But, it just had an effect on me, where, like, I walked out of there thinking "What the fuck did I just watch?" And there was just a mission to watch movies the sort of way I watched There Will Be Blood. And to this day, only two other movies have had that same effect on me. It's different for everybody. I know Sara B****** fucking hates Whiplash.
Joe: When me and her talk about Whiplash this winter, I will get her full opinion on it.
Drew: But those are legitimately my top three. There Will Be Blood just stands out because it was the first of those three. Just treating movies as an art form. And honestly, I never watched a movie the same way again after There Will Be Blood. I looked for different things. I was like, "Oh, this person standing next to this person can actually symbolize something?" That sounds pretentious. But the movie is so complex and so multi-layered that, I just... it was just a big turning point. Like, people walk into an art museum and see their favorite artist, or walking into a concert and seeing your favorite band. It was a turning point. Something flipped when I saw it.
Joe: You gave a very interesting answer because, up until this moment, I saw that, for these interviews, the reasons were split between: "Because I am appreciative of movies in general, and this did it very well." Versus: "Because I watched it at XYZ time, and it affected me in these ways, and I want to talk about that." What interests me about your answer is that it's both, and its causation—you appreciate it as a well-made movie, which it is, and the fact that it was a good movie affected you in a personal way.
Drew: That's absolutely right, yeah.
Joe: So when you first saw the movie, it wasn't at that time that you thought it was your favorite movie, right? Was there a moment when you realized that this is a top tier movie?
Drew: I mean, the movie came out in 2007. We met, and our current group of friends got together, in 2008. I remember, in 2008, within a year of this movie coming out, talking up this film. I think that I knew... Again, I could never say my number one, but from the get-go, I knew it was going to stand out. Maybe naming it as my number one, if you want an example of "cinema," of something "artful," then start with this.
Joe: What do you feel like this says about you, that you are putting it out to the world—all three and half people who are still reading this right now—and you are claiming this is your favorite movie. What does that say about you as a person?
Drew: I don't want to come off like a pretentious asshole—
Joe: Too late!
Drew: —this artsy, highbrow drama is my favorite film. It is a legitimate piece of art, and I think it encourages people to look back and think, what was your turning point in your life? With whatever is your think. Like with music, what was that one album that was a pivotal moment in the way you look at music? That's a serious question, Joe. Do you know? Do you know?!
Joe: So this is your Sgt. Pepper I guess.
Drew: ...Sure. I think if there's anything you can take from that, it's that I would encourage people to look back, to find what does hold up in the art that they choose to enjoy. That's a really... sordid answer. I think it's a movie that, as the years have gone on, it's aged extremely well. I look back on it like, "I wasn't wrong! This isn't a piece of crap!" You know I love the Oscars, everyone knows I love the Oscars. They are very political. There are plenty of movies where you can watch them one time, and no one ever fucking talks about them again after award season.
Joe: We've been talking about Crash for twelve years now.
Drew: Shut the fuck up. But yeah, twelve years later, There Will Be Blood still holds up. Daniel Day Lewis is still the best. He's retired now.
Joe: Did you ever consider that he might be playing a retired person in his next film?
Pam: He's doing the ultimate method acting.
Drew: Oh fuck you, goddamn it.
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