The other day I noted the absence of the lauded-to-the-heavens No Country for Old Men from many a year-end best-of list, a backlash seemingly in full effect. On a related note, There Will Be Blood tops a lot of them and is on many more. Now, over the past couple of months it was tough to find a critic capable of mentioning one of those movies without mentioning the other in the same breath, if only to say “Paul Thomas Anderson will have his work cut out for him to top the Coens” or what have you. So I wonder: Does Blood‘s Christmas release date keep it in the sweet spot for the year-ender lists–smack in the first major flush of adoration, before the emperor-has-no-clothes contingent has a chance to coalesce?
