There Will Be Blood, the newest film from quirky, indie comedy director, Paul Thomas Anderson, is neither the prequel to Martin Scorcese’s 2005 effort Gangs of New York, nor its sequel. It does, however, feature Golden Globe Winner, Daniel “Day” Lewis reprising his role of mustachioed madman, Bill the Butcher, this time under the moniker of Daniel Plainview, an early 20th century oil tycoon.

While Gangs was based on an exhibit at the MTA Transit Museum, Blood is loosely based on the Upton Sinclair Novel/CBS Sitcom, The Beverly Hillbillies!, and prominently features Day-Lewis as the lead, now opposite Little Miss Sunshine’s, Paul “Book ‘em” Dano, in the role of some angry religious guy.

While most of us are familiar with Hillbillies!, as a delightfully whimsical, care free red state to blue state romp through the lives of the rural poor, it’s easy to forget that it was once, in fact, a book. Sinclair’s original tale, loosely based on the story of a bunch of inbred country-fried rubes who strike rich when oil is discovered on their humble dirt farm, is a much more somber undertaking. The original novel featured strong anti-capitalist, alarmist themes, weighty imagery, and a lot of words. As a director, Anderson, a veteran of the Saturday Night Live writing staff whose previous work includes the quirky indie comedies Rushmoore, The Royal Tannenbaums, a Pat sketch, and That 70’s Movie With the Guy Who Had a Huge Cock (spoiler alert!), hovers between the two extremes. Moments of Farrelly-esque slapstick comedy and Day-Lewis’s hammy mugging, give way to brutal scenes of grim brutality, and savage savagery with stark religious undertones.

Anderson changed the name of the lead character, Daniel Plainview, from Sinclair’s protagonist and real-life self-made oil-man, Jed Clampet, on the insistence of Day-Lewis, who has a strict rule about revisiting roles already played by other actors. If you’re looking for the morally ambiguous tortured anti-hero of Jim Varney or the raw sexuality of Buddy Ebsen, you might be disappointed, but Day-Lewis manages to give his own everyman tinge to Clampet’s infamy, while Dano delivers an MTV Movie Awards caliber performance as the movie’s lead Christ-figure, though he’s actually a bad guy.

Unfortunately, this movie is a bit of a sausage fest, it’s lack of a love interest for the main protagonist, though not unusual for a Western, does set it apart from the usual, yearly crop of quirky indie films. Frankly, I thought it came off as a little “Gay”, and thus so two years ago. The soundtrack, by Radiohead guitarist, Johnny Greenwood, could seemingly do much to buoy its “hipster cred”, but alas even this aspect falls short. Greenwood’s scoring features shrill, bone-chilling string arrangements, with intense bursts of percussion doing much to pace the high-tension moments of the film, yet crucially it falls short in approaching even a B-list iTunes Celebrity Playlist. In the end, would it have killed him to drop some Nick Drake? My friends, Eagle vs. Shark, it ain’t.

All in all, is this movie funny? That depends on your definition of funny. If you chuckle at dark, gritty portrayals of the incestual relationship between church and industry, their subsequently exploitive effects on the working poor, and their grimly detrimental consequences to our environment, then stock up on your clown diapers, for a balls-to-the-wall zany laugh riot. But if you’re like me, and you like your quirky indie comedies a little more subtle, I suggest saving it for the Netflix Queue. Instead, pony up your $8.50 for another Upton Sinclair adaptation, Juno!.

Rating: C+

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Sometimes leadership requires the courage to take credit for something you had nothing to do with.

Elude failure by recognizing your limitations.

Tough times aren’t so tough if you always expect the worst.

Mask your own incompetence by emphasizing the failures of those weaker than you.

The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

Take these, and succeed. Keep an eye out for the upcoming AIR screensaver.

Like many young, hip, affluent, urbane urbanites, I buy my music at Starbucks, but did you know they also sell coffee? Rumor has it theres an upcoming listening party for the new Best of Death Row Records 1991-95, released in collaboration with Starbucks’s Hear Music label. As part of this promotion they’ll be featuring Death Row founder, Suge Knight’s favorite caffeinated beverage, a Suge in the Raw. Basically it’s an extra dry, non-fat Cappuccino with two brown sugar packets and a drizzling of carmel syrup.

And if you’re hungry, Suge recomends using it to wash down a low-fat Cranberry Bliss Bar. Delightful!

SPOILER ALERT!!!!

First of all, the part where that other guy got killed, (or should I say, whacked?), holy ravioli!!!!

And what an ending? I didn’t see that coming, not by a long shot. So much blood too. And explosions. And making the episode a musical, that was a stroke of genius. I suppose we should have seen that coming. After all, the show is called, The Sopranos(despite the fact that Tony is more of a Baritone, but what-ev). Still, Tony’s decision to finally “sing”, couldn’t have been more metaphorically literal.

And that’s a good thing.

Speaking of, what precisely was the significance of the dream sequence with the talking banana? Did it symbolize the eventual betrayal of his wife? Can you believe she’s the one who “rubbed him out”? What a twist!?! She was in league with the Triads the whole time. I didn’t think you could kill someone that viciously with an ice cream scoop. Ave Maria!!! That was so gross, I nearly lost my pasta fazul all over the rug.

I mean, !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And who would have thought, the psychiatrist was a man??? And needless to say, like the rest of you, I nearly busted my garbanzos when I found out that Vinny “Two-Canollis” was really a robot built by the DEA to infiltrate Tony’s inner-circle. And what a great idea, having Bill Parcel’s guest-star as the guy Tony cuts in front of in the grocery store line? I mean, I hate shoe-horned celebrity cameos as much as the next TV critic, but that was completely necessary given the subplot involving his son running off to join the Taliban.

OK, now it’s time for my official rating. On a scale of 6 Mama’s meat-a-balls, I give it a 5.785536621771889999. I would have given it 6, but Loraine Bracco surprisingly does not have much of a singing voice. Huge cock, though. Huge. Like a baby’s arm holding an apple. I didn’t think you could show that on TV, not even HBO. I don’t know how that’s gonna translate to them showing this in syndication on AE, or TVLand for that matter.

Of course, I was as floored as all of you when in the end it turned out the whole show was a dream.

Mama Mia! Best. Finale. Ever.

Not much, duder. On my way to a meeting, just stopped off at Energy Kitchen for a Creatine Burger®.

Solid! I just closed the Wendy’s account!

Aren’t these skateboards totally sweet!?!

On the way back I stopped at an A.P. Teiser’s Old Tyme Family Restaurant®. If you haven’t been to a Teiser’s, you’re missing out. They’ve got all the mainstays of other family restaurants: deep fried breaded meat strips for the kids, alcoholic drinks named after natural disasters, (Mocha Mudslide Explosion, Strawberry Tsunami Extreme, Tequila Typhoon 2 Extreme) for the adults. For the sensory deprived, the walls are adorned with cleverly reworded traffic signs and old movie posters, for sports fans, there’s framed front pages of sports sections at the urinals, and a TV turned to ESPN on every wall. All amidst clean-cut bubbly servers who, for some reason, are all dressed like sea captains. What a great place!!!

If it isn’t deep fried it’s covered in about two gallons of ranch dressing, or served up “Tex-Mex Cajun” style, I.e. about four to five coats of black pepper. All of this is pretty standard for a chain restaurant, so what’s so unique about this place that it warrants a blogging? I’ll tell you what: no entrees! How clever is that? As my server, Chad explained A.P. Teiser’s is a tapas bar…American family style.

For those of you who don’t know what tapas are, it’s a Spanish custom of a light dinner consisting of an array of appetizers and hors-douvres. But A.P. Teiser’s doesn’t confine its culinary arsenal to extracts of the Iberian Peninsula…oh no! Take the California-Style Buffalo Fish Bangers®, the Asian Baja-Fried Lettuce Rolls®, the Cajun Wasabi Bacon Loaf, or for the weight conscious (ladies, swimsuit season’s a comin’), the Tex-Mex BBQ Riblet Cesar Salad®. Come to think of it, they don’t serve any traditional Spanish cuisine, with the possible exception of their Southwest Sangria Slushies®.

I had the dish pictured above, one of their more continental, the Monte Cristo Dijon Onion Nuggets®, (available for a limited time only). Is this indicative of culinary Pax-Americana, or Global imperial Fascism through hors-dourvres? Lofty themes, I know, but ones I couldn’t help but ponder as I forked at my Hot-Fudge Holocaust®, a desert consisting of two large hot walnut brownies between two mouth watering scoops of deep-fried chocolate ice cream, all covered in whip cream, chocolate sprinkles, Oreo crumbs, chocolate chips, brownie bits, Snickers crumbles, M&Ms, dark chocolate sprinkles, bacon bits, Godiva french silk shavings, smashed Heath bars, ground Reese’s Pieces, hot fudge, Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup, dark chocolate Toll-House morsels, chocolate jimmies, non-pareils, and a cherry, then lightly dusted with cocoa atop a bedrock of chocolate mousse crème-brule.

Who was this A.P. Teiser, and from where did his mad vision of desert spring?

When I got home, en route to the toilet, I grabbed my laptop, and emerged four hours later, my legs asleep, and my colon exhausted, but my questions answered. The following is loosely pieced together from the A.P. Teiser Corporation’s mission statement, supplemented with various Wikipedia entries and Lexus-Nexus articles from Ludley v. National Foods and Textile, a 1987 class-action lawsuit on the part of the workers at a Santa-Fe, New Mexico Teiser’s over claims of chronic bacne allegedly spurred by overexposure to fryer grease.

Henry Ford, Abraham Lincoln, Jesus Christ, and Walt Disney: what did these men have in common? All have (or would have) eaten at A.P. Teiser’s, a restaurant that pioneered the all-American bar and grille*. A first-generation German immigrant, in 1878 Adolfus Peter Teiser abandoned a lucrative and promising career in mustache wax sales to follow his dreams of Vaudeville. Being German, and thus not very funny, he failed miserably. With what was left of his now meager savings he gambled on his other passion, deep-frying. This time he proved more successful.

In the back of a Barber Shop in 1888 Wabash, Wisconsin, A.P. Teiser opened his first restaurant, Teiser’s Tapas, a business model based on the Spanish custom of light dinners consisting of appetizers only, or tapas. The business model was simple; ample breasted women in blackface and tap shoes would serve traditional Spanish hors-douvres, but American style, I.e deep-fried. That’s right, no side dishes or entrées!!! It was from these humble roots that a revolution was born…a revolution of flavor.

In 1898 in the midst of the Spanish American War, Teiser abandoned his Spanish menu, switching instead to more American foods, mostly of the deep-fried variety, and renamed it to the current moniker. By then he had made enough money to open two more restaurants, owing to his success the mantra, “If you can eat it, then why not fry it.”

On the Advent of World War I, when anti-German hostility nearly bankrupted Teiser, the direction of the restaurant would again change course. Faced with local anti-German fervor, he sold his 3 Wisconsin restaurants to Abe Mendalbaum, another failed Vaudvillian turned entrepreneur with a passion for tallow. In 1920 Teiser died of congestive heart failure, but his name, deep fryer, and vision would live on.

Mandelbaum, an ex Merchant Marine, was also once a haberdasher, and driven partially mad from Mercury poisoning. The same misfortune had left his sense of taste and smell somewhat dulled, fueling his tendency to over-season. After the 1st World War, Mendelbaum ascribed strongly to Woodrow Wilson’s ideal of a League of Nations. Seeking to create a sense of culinary global harmony, he fused many different seasonings and dishes he had encountered in his journeys. Keeping with the Teiser spirit, he then deep-fried the fuck out of them.

Throughout the Great Depression and the 2nd World War, the restaurant was able to maintain a modest level of success, due mostly to the ample breasted waitresses, and exotic cocktails concocted by Mendelbaum’s half blind nephew, Paul, also a worldly traveler who claimed to have had Alcohol poisoning on every continent, including Antarctica. After his 1947 death from a bowel obstruction, Mendelbaum’s maverick spirit lived on via his nephew’s alcoholic expertise. This expertise paired with a post-war drop in the price of lard, would rocket the restaurant into the Eisenhower years, and unprecedented profitability. More than ever, suburban American’s came to crave fried food and elaborate mixed drinks.

Today A.P. Teiser’s Old Tyme Family Restaurants exist on every one of the 7 Continents that Paul Mendelbaum vomited on. From Teiser’s homeland of Bavaria, to the deepest jungles of Africa, to the scientific observation labs of Antarctica, you can order a plate of Blackened Thai-Chicken Alfredo Poppers®, and wash it down with a Blue Raspberry Tornado-Tini®.

Bravo, Mr. Teiser, Bravo.

*The rights to the term, “All American Bar & Grille”, would later be copyrighted by the chain B.J. Butternut’s All American Bar & Grille®. The distinction being the use of the ampersand, which allowed Chili’s to prevail in the landmark copyright-law ruling of Chili’s v. Butternuts’.