Terrific article from the Globe and Mail about Daniel Day-Lewis, who gives what is easily the performance of the year as Bill "the Butcher" Cutting in Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York. The highlight of the article, for me, is the scoop that Day-Lewis prepared for the role by listening to loads of Eminem...which, if you've seen the movie, rings absolutely true. The bit about his apprenticeship to a Florentine shoemaker is interesting, too.

As for the movie itself...on an emotional level, admittedly, it never quite connects, and DiCaprio doesn't provide much of a heroic center...but if you just sort of sit back and let those ripe images of decay and bloodshed wash across you, after an hour or so you may find Gangs slowly exploding and expanding inside your head like a mushrooming bullet. I was vaguely disappointed throughout much of it, but after it was over, I couldn't wait to see it again (and I probably will, before the weekend is up). At the heart of it all is Daniel Day-Lewis's amazing performance, which seems to have sprung full-formed from some twisted Zeus's brain: part Thomas Nast cartoon, part Dickensian silent villain, but weirdly human and affecting. For all its problems, Gangs of New York is more of a movie than anything else I've seen all year, even if it's easier to admire than to love.