"Every time I’m about to watch a Daniel Day-Lewis movie," writes Variety's Stuart Levine on MSNBC, "I expect to be floored—to be brought into a world I’ve never seen and be enveloped by a character who I will undoubtedly obsess about for days, if not weeks ... Right now Day-Lewis is the Robert De Niro of the late 1970s-early ’80s, back when De Niro was a god among mortals." In There Will Be Blood Day-Lewis has made "as powerful and compelling a character as he’s ever created."

Wilco's Sky Blue Sky was the BBC Radio 6 Album of the Day today, as part of the station's weeklong run-down of the year's best according to its various presenters. Shaun Keaveny, host of the weekday Breakfast Show, named the album his pick for the year's best.

It was a powerhouse line-up when SFJAZZ gathered Joshua Redman, Brad Mehldau, Christian McBride, and Brian Blade at San Francisco's Herbst Theatre with a tribute to Thelonius Monk on May 4 of this year, so it's no surprise that the Contra Costa Times says it was one of the best jazz concerts of the year. 

Jonny Greenwood's There Will Be Blood soundtrack is out in the UK today, and musicOMH says the music sets the scene well for the film's early-2008 release there. "As scene setting goes," says the site, "this is something pretty exceptional, the rising melody lingering in the memory even after the first listen." Come Oscar time, "the judges would do well to consider this fine piece of film writing." Regardless, "As a piece of music in its own right the group of pieces works handsomely ... There's an urgency and tension throughout that makes it difficult to ignore."

Among the nearly 10,000 foreign visitors who'll head to Glasgow this frigid January for the Celtic Connections festival will be two Nonesuch artists: k.d. lang and Punch Brothers—whom Scotland's Sunday Herald has dubbed "hot young Americana dudes"—each performing a set at what the paper says is "the best party in the world."

Filmmaker/provocateur John Waters has famously depicted his hometown of Baltimore on the big screen throughout his career. It's perhaps no wonder then that he admits to being a big fan of the Baltimore-based show The Wire. He tells the Toronto Star: "I'm addicted to The Wire on HBO. Not only is it set in Baltimore, but it's like reading a great novel."

The Savannah Music Festival has announced its 2008 schedule, and Audra McDonald will be among the performers at this, Georgia's largest musical arts festival. McDonald will perform on March 28 as part of the Divine Divas series. The festival will run from March 20 through April 5, 2008.

The Los Angeles Times has revealed its pop music critics' lists of their favorites for the year. On staff writer Dan Heckman's list for the best in jazz is Joshua Redman's Back East and for the best in world music, Youssou N'Dour's Rokku Mi Rokka (Give and Take). Heckman calls Redman "one of the rare under-40 musicians who are making waves" and says the new album showcases "his ability to star in the difficult saxophone-bass-drums instrumental format." And with Youssou's new record, "The irresistible appeal of N'Dour's emotion-laden voice and irresistibly body-moving music has reached well beyond the arena of African music"

Time Out New York, though reluctant to use the word "masterpiece" for fear of contributing to its overuse, says Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood, earning a perfect six stars, is worthy of the word: "[T]he writer-director’s attempt to map the moment when bootstrap mentality curdles into cutthroat corporate culture earns the title. There hasn’t been a more breathtaking, damning portrait of frontier paranoia since [Robert Altman's] McCabe & Mrs. Miller."

There Will Be Blood has been named one of the year's best films by the American Film Institute. The creative team behind the film will receive the AFI Award in Los Angeles on January 11.

CBS Sunday Morning's film critic David Edelstein counts Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood as "the jewel" among holiday releases. Edelstein calls the film "a psychodrama with the epic scale of an Old Testament parable," and says Daniel Day-Lewis, in the lead role, "looms as large as the derricks that dominate the unruly landscape." Even the film's already-controversial final scene is, in Edelstein's opinion, "brilliant," all part of the "mad American classic" Anderson has created.

In the Nonesuch Journal's final episode from Stephen Sondheim's discussion of Sweeney Todd, the composer expresses a preference for singing actors (over acting singers) and has high praise for all of the actors in the film, beginning with Johnny Depp's "extraordinary" performance in the title role.