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Published on Sunday, Apr 06, 2008
There Will Be Blood makes its DVD debut on Tuesday and it is must-see viewing for any film buff.
Not only does Daniel Day-Lewis richly deserve that best-actor Oscar for playing the oil man at the middle of the film. The movie has moments of sheer cinematic dazzle, including an ending as troubling — and far more bizarre — than the much discussed conclusion of No Country for Old Men.
Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson (the California-born son of local TV legend Ernie ''Ghoulardi'' Anderson) is a magnificent director of individual scenes. His major flaw, in this and in other films, is that he sometimes loves those scenes, or moments within scenes, too much so that they go on longer than a reasonable viewer's patience might accept. (The movie runs more than 21/2 hours.) But There Will Be Blood as a whole is a marvelous achievement.
And the much parodied ''milkshake'' line makes complete sense in the context of the movie.
Paramount is releasing the movie on a single DVD ($29.99) and a two-disc version ($39.99) with a curious collection of extras. They include The Story of Petroleum, a 1920s silent film about the oil business, which provided one of the visual templates for There Will Be Blood. A piece with music by Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood (who also did the score for the movie) combines clips from The Story of Petroleum and period photographs with clips from the movie, showing how close to history Anderson's images are. There is also a pair of deleted scenes.
Also on DVD this week is Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, the very funny (if not hugely successful) faux music biography starring John C. Reilly.
It made great sport of films like Walk the Line, with a cast that also included Tim Meadows, Jenna Fischer, Chris Parnell, Kristen Wiig and — as the Beatles — Jack Black, Paul Rudd, Justin Long and Jason Schwartzman.
Columbia is releasing the theatrical version with some extras on a single disc ($28.95); a two-disc set with the theater piece, a longer ''director's cut'' and lots of extras ($29.96), and a Blu-ray version of the two-disc set ($43.95).
The two-disc version is your best bet since it includes still more comic insanity; don't miss the Christmas video.
Movies about war and terrorism in the Middle East have not done well at the box office, with Stop-Loss the latest to suffer. But Lions for Lambs (Fox, $29.98 in full-frame or widescreen format) seemed to have a chance because of its high-powered cast: Robert Redford (who also directed), Tom Cruise and Meryl Streep.
Unfortunately, the movie itself is a talky piece consisting of three parallel, and eventually overlapping, stories about war, the people who theorize and the people who have to fight. (One commercial for the DVD, which emphasizes the action sequences, is blatantly misleading.) Cruise is especially good, but the movie is not.
DVD extras include a commentary by Redford and a making-of piece.
On the TV side, fans of the long-running series Matlock can now get the first season on DVD (CBS, 23 episodes plus the pilot movie, $30). Andy Griffith was an amiable centerpiece to the show, but the stories creaked. And no extras, unless you count the inclusion of the pilot.
Fans will also note two different actresses playing Matlock's daughter: Linda Purl in the series proper and Lori Lethin in the pilot film. And Dick Van Dyke is a villain in the first hour-long episode.
The most obvious antecedent to Matlock is Perry Mason. While CBS DVD has (finally) gradually been putting out complete seasons, on Tuesday it offers a sampler, Perry Mason: 50th Anniversary Edition (12 episodes plus a reunion movie, four discs, $39.99).
I know, the series started in 1957, so the 50th anniversary was actually last year. In any case, the set draws on episodes from 1960 to 1966 with guest actors like Robert Redford, James Coburn, Burt Reynolds and Dick Clark. The fourth disc is all extras, with introductions by Barbara Hale (who played Della Street).
The extras include the Perry Mason Returns movie, the cast playing charades on the Stump the Stars show (although the piece is edited so we see only the Mason cast, not the team they competed against), clips of star Raymond Burr being interviewed by Charlie Rose on the old Nightwatch series and audition film.
The auditions are interesting because they include Burr trying out for the role of the prosecutor, and William Hopper — who ended up playing Paul Drake — auditioning as Mason.
And there's the full-length, agonizing, anti-smoking film made by William Talman, who ended up playing prosecutor Hamilton Burger. Talman made the film when he was dying of cancer. His pain is evident, far more affecting than Mason's lighter entertainment.
Rich Heldenfels writes about popular culture for the Beacon Journal and in a blog at http://www.ohio.com. Contact him at 330-996-3582 or rheldenfels@thebeaconjournal.com.
There Will Be Blood makes its DVD debut on Tuesday and it is must-see viewing for any film buff.
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