So, after we saw the movie, I had to take a leak, again. I go in there, and soon some old guy starts spouting off at someone, anyone, because he's pissed.
"What movie did you see?"
"No Country For Old Men," a guy says.
The old guy then goes on about how mad he was about the end. He had NEVER been so dissapointed!
Probably he was upset because this movie beat him up, like it beat me and my companion up.
It was our post Thanksgiving dinner movie. I don't know if it was something I ate or the Mountain Dew I'd just got but I nearly soiled myself many times during this movie. After few tense scenes, after a simple scene of a coin toss game, just a bit into the film, I jumped up and ducked off to my right, and ran my face into the black carpeted wall of the theater. Turned out, there was no aisle there. I went to the left, squeezed by knees, went to the "family restroom."
It makes sense to write a review based on the bladder and intestinal distress experienced during this movie. Can't really say why it's a real head-fuck without spoiling. It's violent, yes. Scary. No music, no musical cues, in most of it. Sound drops away until you're listening for the guy who has the tank of air and an air gun... PISSHUTE!
If you haven't seen it, here's a review that works: http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/t...
If you have seen it, did the end disappoint? Make you angry like the old guy in the restroom? (SPOILER ALERT). The point was, after all the violence, there is no suitable vengeance of the neat movie sort to be had at the end. All violence is is blood and death and it could come from a psycho or Mexican drug runners or something random, but it becomes self-generating. The old sheriff at the end just has to retire and live with uneasy dreams because he can't do anything about it, and sometimes no movie ending will tie up the mess and make sure the bad guy is dead.
oooh
King Ugh
I ended up watching King Kong "on demand" in the master suite at dad's house. It looked very expensive, but I really think it could have been 90 minutes shorter. Wait, maybe 60 years shorter?
Well, spoiler or no, I would like to see this movie, but haven't yet.
WOWEEE WOW!
Crazy
Hopper was kind of the cartoon psycho. Bardem seemed a little too real. And that's why I near soiled myself.
yes
rotten tomatoes
The only negative review I've seen so far was a sort of inscrutable, rambling piece from Andrew Sarris, which was followed online by a slew of posts, many hailing him for finally calling out those horrible smug Coens! i had to reply:
"The old saw that the Coen Brothers' work is somehow "smug, condescending (especially to ordinary people, who are surprisingly not so ordinary), smirking, and hollow" has always been completely infuriating to me. Who ARE these "ordinary" people that you think you're defending with such statements?
As a northern midwesterner (born and bred), I was genuinely puzzled when I first heard this type of criticism by critics on the coasts, who took such great umbrage with the Coen's depiction of the midwest in FARGO. As somebody who's from the region, I thought it was spot on. I think they're some of the few filmmakers who ever even BOTHER to consider the complexity of life in the flyover states without turning their "ordinary people" into cutsie-pie pollyana folk charicatures. The craft and storytelling with which the Coens dress their movies is appreciated by folks who like films that don't condescend to their intelligence or serve the corporate demand for pat answers and feel-good finales. You may not believe it, but folks who appreciate these things include "ordinary people."
Please stop defending me from the imaginary insults of the Coen Brothers and their horrible, horrible, well-crafted, well-written films!"
I watched about 10 minutes
I watched about 10 minutes of the 'filmmaking' of that awful pretentious hack Quentin Tarantino the other night and THAT was some forced ironic hipster doofosity. I haven't seen 'A Country for Old Men' yet but from my impressions from seeing Fargo, Lebowski, Raising Arizona, etc. I would say that the Coen brothers work, though it definitely at times panders to the hipster doofi, isn't even in the same universe of bogus detachment and self-referential smugness as the work of say Tarantino.
Andrew Sarris is still alive?
He didn't like 2001: A Space Odyssey either. Oh well, I'd rather get my movie reviews from blowhards on TV (big news - fake Siskel and Ebert dispensed with the "thumbs" ratings on last night's broadcast - has real Ebert demanded they cease and desist?)... though it's easier to take Peter Travers seriously in print.
I don't think it's half wrong to note that the Coen Bros. are fond of utilizing ridiculous caricatures in the service of their stories. I haven't seen No Country but I get the impression it's in line with the tone of Blood Simple, which certainly employs film noir stereotypes, of which people are less critical because they're more familiar with the conventions of crime drama. Maybe critics like Coen Bros. better when they're making crime films because they think those films are more rooted in reality? Though I've missed out on a number of recent Coen Bros films, I was completist through Man Who Wasn't There - anyone who followed them for that length of time should have realized that Coen Bros. are fable-makers, not film realists. Caricatures, however they're perceived, are what make their films work. If one is offended by the caricatures, then, like Sarris, they probably just don't get the films at all, and will feel more at home with the works of Woody Allen or Nora Ephron, which won't challenge their world views in the least. God forbid they revisit any Marx Bros. movies!
And let me flog this dead horse some more - say what you want about Tarantino, but as a video store vet from the late '80's/early '90's, I'm glad the success of his films helped breathe new life into mainstream action filmmaking. Two words - Steven Seagal. Four words - Jean Claude Van Damme. Give me Sam Jackson speaking whatever hipster doofus lines QT writes any day over that putrid "blowed-up-real-good!" crap.
yup
Miss Info and I watched No
Miss Info and I watched No Country For Old Men last night. Man, that was killer. That was exactly what i was looking for in a new film. It'd been awhile since a movie really grabbed me by the poo-poo and fucked with my head.
There was a preview for "There Will Be Blood" the new Paul Thomas Anderson film. I'm really looking forward to that one. I bet that one won't have a tidy, morality based ending that most folks need.
To answer Cajun's question above about the ending. I think it would have really undermined the whole story if it turned out hunky dory. Llewellyn was a one tough dude but you know there was no way he could win against an airgun totin mofo. I was rooting for him but it was like watching the the Karen Carpenter story - you know it's not going to end well.
Most movies have a resolution. It's a nice break for me when there's not. There's more to contemplate and makes it even more intriguing to revisit.
just got home from finally
just got home from finally seeing no country for old men....
got zooted up on my way to the theater....got the perfect seat....
lame ass munchers plop down behind me.....crinkle crinkle....lips smacking...sipping on the soda.....handful after handful of popcorn...uch...i could see the kernel shell stuck under their gums....blech....fuck....i got up and found another seat....far away from these two.....
movie starts.....instantly absorbed...stayed that way till i could exhale at the end...hooray for amazing films....shot?....amazingly.....story?...its absolutely the anti-western....must go see....yeah i know im late to the game...i finally had to go see it by myself.....its hard for bill and i to time movie days as of late......
im walking out of the theater....when i start to hear people bitching about the movie....?....what?...i asked a gent whether we just watched the same movie...."you liked that?" he asked....and i proceeded to break it down for him and another couple about why that was a good movie....i told them to watch it again....
the couple who plopped their nasty asses right behind me with snacks?...i watched them go to get their xl bag o poop corn refilled twice.....i was so glad i moved......they were dissin my flick....ass munches...go see narnia or some shit....
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