There Will Be Teh Stupid.

Kyle Smith's thesis, that There Will Be Blood is pro-business, pro-family conservative movie, is preposterous. It's a transparently fuckheaded attempt on Smith's part to claim Paul Thomas Anderson as one of his own because, let's be candid here, Roger L. Simon and Ron Silver are the best his team's got.

And they suck lots of ass.

But even if the impetus for the piece is stupid, you'd expect the guy to at least nail down the plot line. Right?

Plainview first shows some humanity when he cradles his infant son while a mine turns into a gushing oil well before our eyes. Without a word being spoken, it’s clear that Daniel’s painful sacrifices are partly driven by his love for his son, whose mother never appears and whom Daniel never voluntarily discusses (although he will later claim she died in childbirth — his wavering glance tells us this is a lie — to a housewife whose property he needs for oil exploration).

Cripes. Even The National Review, which hated TWBB, got this right:

Daniel Day-Lewis turns in a memorable performance as Daniel Plainview, a California prospector for silver and oil. The risk and brutality of this way of life is driven home in an early scene in which Plainview is seriously injured in a silver-mine accident. When his partner dies in yet another accident, Plainview takes in the dead man’s infant son and raises him as his own.

Got that? The reason the kid's mother is never discussed is because he's adopted. Nice job, PJs fact checkers!