One of the key services that we at Overthinking It provide our loyal readers – for absolutely FREE! – is inventing words for concepts you didn’t know needed words. Like the Ghost Ship Moment, for instance. A $19.99 value, yours free just for subscribing.
Today, we let you in on another explosive concept that will unlock your minds to new levels of movie criticism: the benchmark movie.
A benchmark movie stands right on the border between two different classes of movies. Consider the blended genre of “dark comedy.” Serial Mom might be a good example of a benchmark movie for dark comedy. Anything darker than Serial Mom is an outright dark movie; anything funnier than Serial Mom is a straight-up comedy. Serial Mom is the benchmark of dark comedy: the signpost on the border.
You can also use benchmark movies as a standard for movie quality. Anything worse than your benchmark is “bad”; anything better than your benchmark is “good.” The benchmark movie is the perfect median.
A benchmark movie is inherently personal, however. Everyone has different tastes. So the Overthinkers will each contribute some benchmarks of their own. Once you’ve read through ours, post your own in the comments!
Interesting article in USA Today (of all places) delving into the There Will Be Blood milkshake line:
[Director P. T.] Anderson concedes that he’s puzzled by the phenomenon — particularly because the lines came straight from a transcript he found of the 1924 congressional hearings over the Teapot Dome scandal, in which Sen. Albert Fall was convicted of accepting bribes for oil-drilling rights to public lands in Wyoming and California.
In explaining oil drainage, Fall’s “way of describing it was to say ‘Sir, if you have a milkshake and I have a milkshake and my straw reaches across the room, I’ll end up drinking your milkshake,’ ” Anderson says. “I just took this insane concept and used it.”
By the way, it’s now kind of painfully obvious this milkshake thing has gone from inside joke to appallingly mainstream, and really is no longer cool. We need to find a more obscure line from an even indier movie. [Honest to blog. —Ed.]
Just saw There Will Be Blood yesterday, and it’s all that I’m going to be thinking about for a while, so here goes. Warning: this is commentary, not a review. Reviews are supposed to help you decide whether to see a movie, and have an obligation to avoid spoilers. If you’re looking for a review, here it is: go see the damn movie as soon as you possibly can. Then come back and read the spoileriffic ramblings after the jump.