Friday, July 4
GIVE A SHOUT TO WORD UP! wordup@papermag.com
Posted Nov. 7, 2007, 11:10 a.m. ET
Best Movie of the Year: No Country For Old Men
By Dennis Dermody
Opening this Friday is the best movie of the year: No Country For Old Men. The combination of acclaimed novelist Cormac McCarthy and directors Joel & Ethan Coen create one of the Coen brothers' finest films -- an unbearable tense thriller and a sober mediation on man’s escalating dark nature.
The story couldn’t be more blood simple. A hunter (Josh Brolin) stumbles upon a drug deal gone wrong out in the desert and finds a briefcase filled with $2 million in cash. Unfortunately a ruthless killer (Javier Bardem) is on his trail, leaving a bloody path towards the Mexican border in pursuit of the money. Tommy Lee Jones plays a weary West Texas sheriff, on the eve of retirement, who follows them both with grim resignation. Bardem creates one of the most unforgettable, truly frightening portraits of a cold-blooded assassin -- dragging across the desert landscape his deadly oxygen tank and air gun (the kind they use to murder cattle) and tossing coins to decide on his victims’ fate. A stark, superbly crafted dark vision.
Comments
Oscar Buzz: Josh Brolin. --Hello?
Posted at 11:51 a.m. ET on Nov 07, 2007 by Ron Mwangaguhunga
Best movie of the year, really? I thought it was a great, gritty little crime film up until - what? - the last 20 minutes or so? Then it DIED. The climax involving the Brolin character happens offscreen (there are letdowns, and then THERE ARE LETDOWNS), the film as a whole got a bit confusing (who were those Mexicans who intercepted the Kelly McDonald character and her mother?), Tommy Lee Jones' meditative sermonizing about violence and shifting morals was beyond tedious, and I'm sorry, but...the Javier Bardem character was supposed to be some sort of ghostly metaphor for senseless violence? UGH. No. I don't buy it. The audience I saw the film with in San Francisco really seemed stunned (in a bad way) by the abrupt end. Everyone kind of shuffled out of the theater with crushing looks of disappointment on their faces.
Dennis - wait till you see Paul Thomas Anderson's "There Will be Blood." Now there's a candidate for best movie of 2007...
Posted at 12:07 p.m. ET on Nov 12, 2007 by Rob
Good movie but wish the Coens would do their own material than adapt others
Posted at 1:22 p.m. ET on Nov 15, 2007 by randy focazio
Post a Comment