The Santa Barbara Independent takes advantage of the start of the New Year to combine the paper's list of the best of last year with a look at the best of what's to come. There Will Be Blood is among the best films of 2007, and among the city's best live shows last year, the Independent's Josef Woodard lists both Wilco's concert at the Santa Barbara Bowl in support of Sky Blue Sky and the Pat Metheny / Brad Mehldau Quartet gig at Campbell Hall. For this week's Show of the Week, Woodard names Bill Frisell's return to the city's Lobero Theatre, where "the always intriguing and poetic guitarist" will perform on Saturday with drummer Joey Baron. Woodard recalls Bill's 2004 performance at the Lobero as "one of the more enchanted musical encounters in the long history" of the Theatre, and says that Frisell "continues to surprise and delight," citing the guitarist's "dynamic" 2006 Nonesuch release with the "inspired" Ron Carter and Paul Motian.

The Sacramento News & Review calls There Will Be Blood "a real achievement" and says that with the film, director Paul Thomas Anderson "has achieved a bombastic breakthrough ... This is the best work he’s ever done." It is Daniel Day-Lewis, "a titan" in the lead acting role, and Jonny Greenwood as composer of the score "without whose contributions the movie almost certainly wouldn’t work," writes the News & Review's Jonathan Kiefer. He calls Greenwood an "essential performer" in the film and the music just "what this throbbing film needs."