In this strange, intense movie, written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (BOOGIE NIGHTS), the earth is a harsh, dangerous mistress, poised at any moment to reverse pressure on those trying to suck oil out of it and impale them with parts of a drill rig.

It’s a hard forge and a harder man aims to hammer it.

Early 1900s rural California is meticulously recreated, a barren landscape, virtually devoid of women.

Plainview is an oil seller, but a snake oil salesman. Every word he speaks is a carefully considered brick in a wall of scamming. Every conversation has coiled-up violence behind it. More Machiavellian than Machiavelli seems to be his motto.

He’s not a people person, because he hates people. All people. But at least initially he’s pretty good at faking it, bringing along his small son (he claims to be a widower) to sales pitches because people can’t resist a cute kid, and a puppy couldn’t do chores.

He buys up all the land in a small California town and finds his only opposition is a young fire-and-brimstone minister.

This is a better performance than a movie, but it’s riveting. Almost certain to get an Oscar nomination. At times Daniel Day-Lewis seems to be channeling the John Huston character in CHINATOWN.

This isn’t really even a tale of greed, because money ultimately gives no pleasure to this man.

Strangely, at times I found myself rooting for the guy. There’s a malicious fun to be had in watching the gears turning in his head, as he finds ways to turn anything anyone says to him to his advantage.

To quote the villain in SUPERMAN III ostensibly quoting Genghis Khan, “It is not enough that I succeed. Everyone else must fail.”

Incidentally, the last Upton Sinclair novel adaptation was the 1967 Disney musical THE GNOME-MOBILE!

Emile Hersch is a high school senior named Matthew who is about to graduate. Matthew is the stereotypical over achieving student body president. He hangs with the geeks, doesn’t have a lot of fun and pretty well has his life all planned out. That is until a stone cold hottie named Danielle (Cuthbert) moves in next door. It turns out she’s a pornstar, unfortunately poor Matthew doesn’t find this out until after he is way beyond smitten.

This sets up a lot of gags along with a very predictable romantic subplot. Some of the gags are quite good and will make you laugh out loud. However, the editing leaves a bit to be desired. The film feels like it was pieced together like lego blocks going from one gag to the next without a lot of concern for logic. But perhaps the most annoying part of this film is when they go to the well once too often with dream sequences. You know, you’re watching the movie, something unbelievable is happening and suddenly the movie rewinds about 5 minutes and tells you that scene was just a dream. If you do that more than once, then the audience is now looking for it and any over the top scene fails to work as well as the audience is waiting to find out it was just a dream.

We give Girl Next Door 3 stars. If we had seen Elisha’s wonderful tah tahs, we might’ve been more enthusiastic. Instead, she teases us mercilessly, you’ll get to see a lot of flesh, but not the parts you really want to check out. As is, this movie is worth seeing, but it certainly can wait for DVD.