believe the hype: this movie is really really fucking good.

with his 5th film, paul thomas anderson tries something different, shirking the scorsese and altman influences and making a decidedly kubrick movie. gone are the long, winding takes and the flashy stylistic flourishes and instead replaces it with good ol' composition and solid storytelling.

the acting is phenomenal. daniel day lewis so fully embodies plainview that it can barely even be called acting; he is so into the character, he's simply being plainview onscreen. paul dano also does a great job as a money hungry religious fundamentalist and he spends a lot of the movie squealing and screeching. a lot has been said about jonny greenwood's score. at times it's very intrusive and is almost another character. there are several passages of the film with little to no dialogue (including the opening 15 minutes, which is devoid of any dialogue save for grunts and groans) where the score is allowed to shine, shifting from traditional classical/baroque themes to more tribal sounding percussion that is reminiscent of some of his pieces for "bodysong."

though the stylistic panache isn't there this time, the movie is still packed full of great images of turn of the century california (shot almost entirely in marfa, texas, the location for "giant" and "no country for old men"). the images of the burning oil derrick with plainview's exultant silhouette is at once telling, haunting and beautiful.

i still need some time to digest it, but i can safely say it's the best movie i've seen this year and one of the best in the last 10.

after the screening, there was a q&a with paul thomas anderson and daniel day lewis, moderated by (of all people) judd apatow. i had seen the apatow posse in the audience (leslie mann, judd, bill hader, rogen, jonah hill) but was surprised to see that he'd lead the discussion. his first question: "daniel, i know you're a private person and you don't like to share a lot with other people, but i have to ask...what did you like more, knocked up or superbad?" apatow also asked how PTA got DDL into a movie. apatow said he was working on a script entitled "my left nut."