Electric Oil-free Turkey Fryer

Chinese auteur Zhang Yimou 's 1994 epic tracks a rocky marriage through the equally perilous historical era of China's Communist takeover. In the 1940s, Fugui ( Ge You ) and his wife, Jiazen (the ravishing Gong Li ), quarrel over Fugui's incredible lack of luck; he loses the family fortune in a Mandarin version of craps. After a humiliating time hawking thread on the streets, Fugui learns puppetry only to be arrested by the Nationalist army. The country's political changes then commence as Fugui...

Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson steps outside his contemporary world of dysfunctional Angelenos to explore a very different dysfunctional man -- an oil pioneer whose trailblazing spirit is equaled only by his murderous ambition. There Will Be Blood is Anderson's loose adaptation of the novel Oil! by Upton Sinclair, and it focuses its attentions on Daniel Plainview ( Daniel Day-Lewis ), a miner who happens upon black gold during a disastrous excavation that ends in a broken leg. Pulling himself...

May 18, 2009: Or maybe because I'd read the book first, I expected too much. I've read all of James Lee Burke's books and often wished I could see them as movies, but it's harder to put action? on the screen well. The acting was great; Tommy Lee Jones was a perfect Robicheaux. The story was accurate; easy for me to follow, but difficult for my friend to follow (she hadn't read the book first).