Now Playing: What did you see at the movies?

[Atreides]

berrybearie said:

Is Ray Winstone as annoying throughout as he sounds with the line "they say your lands are cursed" in the commercials? I get annoyed every time I hear it.

I'm just glad that they just used his voice instead of his body like the other actors in the film. Thank you Random Hunky Model!

[Smilla]

Just saw No Country for Old Men. Didn't love it overly much, though like most Coen Bros. films it will be good for years of personal analysis. Best I've got for now: condemnation of both capitalism and faux-spiritual counter-reactions to capitalism which notes the decline of human compassion in the face of rising violence in society. Similar to The World According to Garp, only with drug runners and Texas lawmen. Not Joel and Ethan's best work, IMO. Mostly because of some technical glitches that may have been minor but were still irritating to me (I thought the pacing was imbalanced, something I just hate). I hope they don't make too many more adaptations.

[viridian]

That's an interesting interpretation, Smilla.

I saw No Country for Old Men and thought it was brilliant. My take is that the audience is supposed to question what makes a man "good" vs. "evil" - especially when the good guy is the one to leave the driver to die of a gutshot wound in the desert, while taking money from a drug deal. Plus, when it comes to the sheriff, the one truly good man of the three main characters - in the end he doesn't catch, or save, anyone. Is goodness futile when faced with true evil? Is simply saving oneself the best you can hope for?

I thought everyone was perfectly cast, and the movie was totally absorbing. Seriously one of the best films I've seen all year, along with Assassination of Jesse James.

[Deleted]

magazinewhore said:

I just saw "The Future is Unwritten" a documentary about Joe Strummer. I really enjoyed it. It told his story through interviews and film footage. He was such a cool guy. What bothered me was they didn't always identify who the people were in the film speaking to the camera about Joe, and so at times, that confused me a bit.

I just saw it last night (thanks to IFC On Demand) and have to issue the same complaint: Who WERE the majority of those people? It would have been nice for Julien Temple to have identified the non-celebs who stepped up to talk about Strummer. From the context of the conversations, I could kind of get who lived with him in the squat during the early days, but it would have been nice to know their names. I also wonder why his kids didn't participate in the film.

I can't say the film lent much insight into who Joe Strummer really was–and, at times, he came across as quite a dick, but damn. The man was musical greatness.

[plush]

We saw No Country For Old Man last night and I didn't like it at all. Such a waste of good actors and judging by the reactions the movie received from the audience in the theatre, I wasn't alone. I didn't neccessarily think that Josh Brolin's character was good, he wasn't a psycho killer but he was selfish and out for his own good. When Sugar (hehe) kills Lou's wife in the end because her husband chose to not return the money and save her, I thought he was right about the husband.

I have a lot of questions that the plot did not answer: How did Sugar know about the shooting in the desert and who were the two men he killed in the desert? How did he know Carlson (Woody Harrelson) and who was the corporate man who hired him and why was he killed? Did psycho kill the accountant? Was Sugar just some serial killer or was he after the money and the dope and that's why he killed all those people? Who killed Lou? I assumed it was the Mexicans who were after the money just like Lou, the ones who knew where he was living because of the conversation they had with Carla Jean's mother but I'm not sure. Why did Pyscho spare the sheriff's life when they were in the same room after Lou died?

That's it for now. It was frustrating because I kept waiting for the movie to make sense somehow but it never did. I thought the last scene was so anti-climatic. Basically, when evil is of such big proportions that it outmatches the good, there's nothing else to do but quit. Evil is not always defeated. The end. Blah.

Kelly MacDonald's American Southern accent was very good. She is Scottish right? So it can be done Mr. McGregor! Garret Dillahunt sneaked by me once again because I didn't recognize him until the credits rolled. The guy is a fantastic chameleon. I didn't recognize him when he returned as a different character in the second season of Deadwood either. Javier Bardem was absolutely perfect but I loved him ever since I saw The Sea Inside so I'm a little biased here. As a side note, his English accent is much better than Banderas's.

[scarlet]

Chigurh was hired by whoever was behind the drug deal in the desert--most likely the accountant/businessman he visits later. I agree with what viridian said: that the whole movie was basically asking the question of how does someone define good and evil. Chigurh had no moral problem with killing, so it could be said he is pure evil--yet even he let "fate" decide sometimes, ie with his coin tosses. And for all his evilness, he was still a victim of fate when he got in the car accident in the end.

As to Tommy Lee Jones character, he could be seen as the symbol of good, yet he just gave up and quit rather than trying to find Chigurh (or,even worse, let him get away at the hotel). Does that make him a coward, or someone who believes evil sometimes wins and it's up to fate?

I think the movie doesn't answer any questions, but it gives you all that needs to be known to form an opinion.

[viridian]

The ending was a bit abrupt, but I think it worked well to bracket the rest of the film: it opens with Ed Tom reminiscing about his father, and ends with his father appearing in his dream - especially since his father is going ahead, to build the fire for him. There's no way Ed Tom can grant that same sense of security to whoever follows in his place - and after his visit to his uncle, it may be that he finally realizes there's never truly been any guarantee that right will win over wrong. Tommy Lee Jones really is a treasure, I can't imagine anyone else in his role.

[Deleted]

If anyone else out there reads the reviews for The Mist and feels compelled to go to a movie theater to see it because of the overwhelming "OMG! BEST! ENDING! EVER!" critiques, resist the urge. The dialogue feels like it was run through the Cliché-o-Meter 3000, the performances were over the top, the running time was 30 minutes too long, and the ending? Saw it coming a mile away.

[Deleted]

So, in other words: a typical crappy Stephen King adaptation? Dang. I had high hopes since Frank Darabont directed it and he's done well with King adaptations before.

[sugarhigh]

So does it end the same way as the short story does or differently?