There Will Be Blood is a film that isn’t for everyone. It’s at times slow moving with a plot that jumps around and makes no apologies for it. The film centers on the friction between oil man/entrepreneur Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) and a local town preacher/charlatan of Little Boston, Eli Sunday (Paul Dano). It is with these two characters and their performances that makes this film shine and worth watching. Actor Paul Dano, who you may remember as the teenager that made a vow of silence from Little Miss Sunshine, should have also been nominated for his wonderful portrayal of the cunning preacher.

There Will Be Blood came out back in April but only in the standard DVD version. Now it’s available for the first time in Blu-ray and looks amazing. All of the same features that were available on the standard two-disc edition are also available here. There is “15 Minutes,” of a collection of vintage stills that teeter back in forth of shots from the film to help show where they found their inspiration and overall art direction. This appears to be here instead of any featurettes or a documentary. There are two great deleted scenes, dallies and nicely produced trailers. The deleted scenes last about ten minutes and are actually worth catching. The dallies are an extended and alternate take of the restaurant scene with Plainview and the employees of Standard Oil. Finally, there is a short silent film from 1923 entitled “The Story of Petroleum,” that shows the process of the oil business. It’s entertaining but feels like one of those informative filmstrip movies you watched in school as a kid.

It’s nice to see that all the bonus material appears in HD, but with that said, my one disappointment is there is nothing new available exclusively just for Blu-ray. For example, it would have been nice to have a commentary track for this edition or perhaps finally a real documentary on the making and the eventually success at this years Oscars. Oh, if you don’t like the original cover it’s reversible and that’s nice I guess but that’s it.

There Will Be Blood is shot in a beautiful epic like style and even if you watch it once, this is the only way to view the film. It’s a shame in releasing it in Blu-ray they didn’t take the time to offer up some new bonus features. A movie like There Will Be Blood has to have some nice nuggets on the cutting room floor. Perhaps in the near future they will offer us a special edition. In the meantime, this is what we have and it’s still worth watching at least one time.

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