JCC Who Stole the Scene? There Will Be Blood: The Baptism. Paul Dano vs Daniel Day-Lewis

Ooh, tough choice. My instant reaction was Day-Lewis because Day-Lewis, and I also though it’d be the “I drink your milkshake” scene.

It’s a great scene, and on this rewatch it walks the finest of lines of being an over-acted high school-level farce. Paul Dano’s character is comfortably working his small town scam, when Day-Lewis’ character comes along with his bigger scam that threatens poor Eli’s position. They kind of both see each other for who they really are, and it plays out against a backdrop of gullible townsfolk.

Ima go Paul Dano here. It’s a ham-off, and the underdog does enough to keep the champ at bay - for now.

 

I once ruined a really good rapport with a teacher once by renaming something I found boring. It was Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. I walked into class while they were mid-conversation about it. I declared how dull I found it, and because it was supposed to be some great cornerstone of American literature I persevered to finish it. I kept the book in the lavatory, and read a page or two every time I paid a visit.

I informed the class I’d renamed that book “On the Toilet”.

The teacher went red as a beetroot, and said “that was the book that changed my life”, and went on to describe how he read it as a young man, and was inspired to go to the states and travel Route 66 like a pilgrimage.

We never saw eye-to-eye on anything ever again

 

That first close up slap looks real, but unscripted