"I am a false prophet, God is a superstition!"

Normally, I don't like to give religious fundamentalists any press, but I just had to share this little tidbit from one of my favorite nutcases, Ted Baehr, editor of the Christian movie review website, MovieGuide, about There Will Be Blood:

The realistic, gritty atmosphere created by screenwriter/director Paul Thomas Anderson and actor Daniel Day-Lewis as Daniel Plainview is tremendous. It is practically ruined, however, by Anderson’s evil caricature of Eli, the revenge-minded preacher, and the over-the-top, unrealistic performance of Paul Dano as Eli. In fact, THERE WILL BE BLOOD is one of the most mean-spirited, anti-Christian, superficial, and poorly played portrayals of religion ever created in movie history. God knows there have been plenty of insincere, sinful leaders in the Christian church, but there have also been many good Christians who have exposed and opposed such false leaders. The short length of most feature films often require stereotypes, even negative ones, to tell a good story, but when they are so mean-spirited, superficial and poorly played as this one is, they appeal only to narrow-minded bigots with an ax to grind, whose mental faculties and hearts have been poisoned by their sinful misanthropic prejudice.

Now, I don't know why anyone gives this man any credibility. He obviously knows nothing about acting if he is so ignorant as to call Paul Dano's explosive performance "poorly played." He just didn't like the character.

I also didn't see the film as being anti-Christian, and neither did my generally conservative Christian mother, who called the film "gripping" and was still talking about it hours later, and said that while the portrayal of Eli made her cringe, she knew that there were people out there like that - as even Baehr admits.

I also defy his statement that Eli is a "caricature." I found Dano's portrayal remarkably layered - Eli is not "evil," just as Daniel is not "evil." They are both men consumed by greed whose intentions may start off as good, but end up doing evil things. That does not make either one of them inherently evil. If you miss out on subtleties like that then you miss out on the whole point of the film.

His final statement shows just what a hypocrite he is, as he manages to turn supporters of this film into anti-Christian caricatures. You know what they say about assuming...

Maybe Eli just hit too close to home for him.

And he apparently thinks that There Will Be Blood is worse than Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem.

But then again, this is the same man who got upset when the Golden Globes didn't nominate popular films like Transformers and Spider-Man 3, so as to reflect the tastes of the American ticket buying public, saying "the Golden Globes are not golden at the with ticket buyers. They appear more brown, like something you wouldn’t want to step in" - this coming from the same man who gave Alvin and the Chipmunks four stars. And he wonders why no one takes him seriously.