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Copernicus saw NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN in Toronto and wants to appoint the Coens as Co-Secretaries of Cinematic Awesomeness!!!
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. Our long time contributor and friend, Copernicus, has returned in order to fill us all in on the Coen Bros' newest flick NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN. Yeah, I could really, like, watch this flick right now...
When I am President, I am going to create two new cabinet positions: Joel and Ethan Coen will each be given lifetime appointments as co-Secretary of Cinematic Awesomeness. Their movies come in two flavours -- part-brilliant, with some flaws, and staggeringly brilliant. NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN certainly falls in the latter category, and there will be all kinds of arguments over whether it is the best Coen brothers' movie ever made. For some it will be. Having only seen it once, I'm not sure, but ask me again in 20 years. Certainly it should be added to the AFI top 100 movies list. And they should just call an emergency session of the Academy Awards right now, give it Best Picture, Director, screenplay and two or three best Actors, so that they can open the competition back up again to everyone else for the rest of the year.
Adapted from Cormac McCarthy's book, the basic premise is that hunter Llewellyn Moss (Josh Brolin) stumbles upon a drug deal gone wrong in the west Texas desert, complete with corpses and millions in cash. Sheriff Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) starts to investigate, and meanwhile the ultimate cinematic badass, Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), creates a trail of bodies in his quest to track down the loot. Seriously, this guy may be better than Darth Vader circa 1981. And I don't care if Vader can choke people with his mind, Chigurh would track Vader down and murder him. Brutally. With no magic, only technology from 1980. He actually has a device akin to the force, and a weapon every bit as novel and iconic as a lightsaber. He blows in like a tornado, and he almost seems to represent something elemental, primal – a force beyond human control or understanding. Part of the reason Chigurh is such a memorable character is that he is blessed with some truly remarkable dialog. And the other part is Javier Bardem. In anyone else's hands this would simply be a great character, but he has turned it into a piece of cinematic history.
As an astronomer, I have spent a shitload of time in west Texas, at McDonald Observatory, in the exact small towns, and wide expanses of land where there are no towns, where this film is set. From Alpine, it is a 3 hour drive to the closest airport in Midland-Odessa one way, or 3 hours to El Paso the other. It is beautiful, desolate, and about as isolated as you can get in the US, outside of Alaska. The Coens and cinematographer Roger Deakins have teamed up to perfectly capture the look and mood of the countryside, from the continuous hills of scrub brush, to the stormy horizons. But even more important than the scenery are the people – this is the kind of place you can drive 40 miles and come across a single person manning a store or post office, with no other human being as far as you can see in any direction. I have come across real ghost towns. People who can live out there tend to be both independent and friendly as hell, and they look out for one another. In other words, they make perfect Coen brothers' characters. Josh Brolin hits it note-perfect, as does Kelly Macdonald, playing his wife. Both capture the kind of uncomplicated honesty and sincerity that so many folks from that region have. Tommy Lee Jones' accent bothered me in a few spots, but I am hypersensitive to the nuances of west Texas speech – overall he is exceptional. Even the bit-parts give standout performances here.
What makes NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN critical dynamite, but potentially box office poison, is that it is utterly unpredictable. Nothing is wrapped up in a neat little Hollywood package. This makes the violence doubly brutal, because it never conforms to our expectations. It can come out of nowhere, or a beat off from when you expect it, or sometimes they just don't show it at all, and you are shocked to stumble upon its aftermath without warning, through the eyes of another character. Characters don't have arcs so much as threads that sometimes come together before they end without notice. Few could pull this off, but the Coens do it by making every shot, character, and line of dialog compelling. You may not get the resolution you are seeking in one bit of the story, but that just forces you to think a little harder in the end.
-Copernicus
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Damn.
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At which point, the Coen brothers will be long gone. I have to remember next year that everything good happens on opening weekend. That said, I'll still be seeing, among many other things, Sukiyaki Western Django, Stuck, Son of Rambow and Weirdsville.
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AHHH!
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I used to think they were infallable... until I saw 'Intolerable Cruelty.'
Good to hear they're back to form. -
Somebody bring this movie to Austin asap. We're not used to having to wait for the release date of a film. And in this case, i don't know if i can. MuSt sEe MOvIe NOW!!!!
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Your right It will tank . It's the whole genius never being recognised whilst alive thing.
At least the Coens keep making great movies despite box office earnings and are free to concentrate on their art rather than profit margins. -
Film takes place in West Texas, but actually filmed in NM. Great crew btw, and the Coens were great to work with.
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We are talking about the Tommy Lee Jones who grew up in San Saba and Midland, right? Boy, of all the regions for the reviewer to be provincial about...
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was awesome. Then he topped it with The Road.
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i can't way to see how the Coens adaptation plays out.
Should be genius. -
I mean, who says, "Let's see, we need a guy who's the epitome of pure evil. Hmm, how about we get the paralyzed Spanish guy from the Sea Inside".
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remember that you read it here first.
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The ending to the book utterly frustrated me, in that I don't fully understand thematically WHY it had to end that way. I adored the whole rest of the book until the last ten or or pages, when it took a turn for... well, I won't spoil it. I just hope that of the Coens are faithfully adapting this story, they'll do the ending in such a way that I'll finally be able to go, "Ohhhhhh, I see why it had to go down like that, totally, wow." As such, I haven't been this frustrated, pissed off, or let down by an ending to an otherwise brilliant story since THE HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG.
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Bardem IS inspired casting, but he has pretty damn evil roles up his sleeve. Check his performance in Perdita Durango. Boy was he evil.
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Was pointless garbage. It even managed to make a naked Jennifer Connelly largely unappealing, which is hard. What a wretched, rotten movie. I have never seen a Coen Brothers movie as horrible, stupid, or pointless as that depressing piece of hack shit that I wasted two hours of my life I could have spent scratching my ass on.
Just my opinion. -
Looks like Bardem could be giving Robert Downey Jr (Zodiac) a run for his money in the best supporting actor category. Exciting times.
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And when will we ever get to see the director's cut of 'All the Pretty Horses'?
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I think I may be too excited for this movie. I better lower my expectations a bit so I don't ruin it for myself.
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Damnit! Coprenicus, you have to freeze me. When I wake up the movie will be out.
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Your post suggests that you believe the Coen Brothers to have been responsible for the House of Sand and Fog, when, in fact, they had absolutely nothing to do with it. Directed by Vadim Perelman, screenplay by Vadim Perelman...
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You're right, man, the fact that Roger Deakins was the cinematographer for "House of Sand and Fog," and also happens to shoot for the Coens DOES equal "House of Sand and Fog" being a Coen Brothers movie. You're the awesomest.
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Tim Robbins was in The Hudsucker Proxy and also in the excremental "Nothing to Lose" with Martin Lawrence; therefore, I blame the Coen brothers for Nothing to Lose.
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I'm getting more and more excited for this movie. Looks like a return to form for the Coens
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Ed Norton or Johnny Depp. Motherfucker's versatile.
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I'm sooooo hyped for this. Javier Bardem kills the WORLD. Coens back to former glory, shit yes I'm all over it.
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Only that I need to see this as soon as possible. This, along with Eastern Promises, is definitely at the top of the list of movies I'm fucking frothing at the mouth in anticipation of.
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Cormac McCarthy's nearly ufilmably violent western, though I hear Ridley Scott is going to take a crack at it. Fantastic book. Really haunts you, not like a typical western, but like some ancient horror story, along the lines of RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER. Hopefully, with THE ROAD being snapped up by studios, and now with NO COUNTRY looking awesome, McCarthy's work will finally get the screen treatment it deserves, and not like ALL THE PRETTY HORSES.
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Agreed - From the footage that's been in the trailers, Los Bros Coen are sticking DAMN close to the source material, and that material in their hands could well be a Fargo topper. What's with the long wait 'til release on this? I'd be willing to have a shoot out with a lactating hooker right now if winning the shootout with the lactating hooker meant I could see this flick immediately.
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Never read a book as bleak and miserable as The Road but I can honestly say that I enjoyed every word written on every page. It's an absolute masterpiece and I hope it gets treated with the respect it deserves.....Cormack your a bloody genius.
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translating to the screen very well. No Country seems like it'd work very well, and the Coens are fucking ideal to pull it off.
I'm about 100 pages from the end of Blood Meridian (but that was true 2 months ago as well). There is some great shit in there. Intro to the Judge, the story about the traveller, the bit about how to raise a child. But I just bogged down right before the home stretch. Gonna have to finish that sucker up this weekend. -
but the ending was a fucking killer and made up for the bleakness. The bomb shelter interlude is when I knew it had me. I was so fucking happy for a couple of make believe characters.
Plus, it added to my vocab. Never knew what a catamite was till the book made me look it up. -
Billy Bob was right, the Coens don't suck. They're like John Carpenter in that everything they do is at the very least fascinating, and at the very best is phenomenal. How else can you explain the Big Lebowski being fucking hilarious as well as an amazing film-noir flick with killer bowling sequences?
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John Goodman was in "The Big Lebowski". He was also in "The Year Without a Santa Claus" written by Larry Wilson who wrote "The Little Vampire".
I hated "The Little Vampire" so I'm definitely NOT going to see this Coen debacle. -
while reading "The Road" you are one cold-hearted bastard. Absolutely devastating novel; his love for, and devotion to, his son is so palpable and the situation so heartbreaking, man, i was near bawling...the ending does manage a small ray of hope, no small feat for such a bleak subject matter.
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The Road sucks; NCFOM's alright.
Give us Suttree the movie or BM...
Wasn't there supposed to be a Child of God movie written by Sean Penn? -
A live one, uncooked. No condiments either!
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I totally agree with what Copernicus says about the violence: it's off a beat or two. They've found a way to make us sensitive to it, even though we're completely saturated with violence, every day. It's an achievement unto itself.
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the only way to make it complete would be to bring aaron copland back from the dead and have him compose a crazy contemporary score. i join the slobberers in the group slobber going on here and would share a bite of bob's baby snack to see this ASAP.
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I think the guy who directed THE PROPOSITION is attached to THE ROAD. Sounds promising. But I couldn't help think that Spielberg would be perfect to direct that.
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i love spiely but he would seriously cheese up mccarthy. his vision does not jibe with spielberg's. has to be brutal and complex.
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marlon wayans was in the ladykillers a coen bros movie, but he was also in dungeons and dragons, hence, no country for old men will be shit...but he was also in requiem for a dream, and i love that film, sooooo....wait i'm lost...thanks kevin willis.
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kevin willis was merely responding to sam bluestone's comment about house of sand and fog, not saying it was a coen's brother film. he was actually saying that the coen bro's have never made a movie as bad as that. jesus christ almighty. at least i think thats what he was doing.
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I too was frustrated by the end of No Country, but I also kind of felt like that was the point. In fact, the only thing I'm even slightly concerned about with this movie is how they're going to translate the conclusion. The title doesn't make sense until the very end of the book, and then it all came together to punch me in the face. The sheriff spends all that time talking about how it was when he was young, how everything was cut and dry, and now he's come across a scenario that just isn't, that he can't comprehend. I really, really hope that set of emotions comes across in the film.
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just bustin yo balls kevin, but you gotta admit that was a fun lil'game while it lasted.
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Whereas what we have here, a bunch of fig eating gibbons wearing towels on their heads, trying to find reverse on a cruel prank.
This, this is not a worthy fucking adversary. -
I tried to read this book and didn't get past the second page.
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What the hell, can't any of you fucking write inglish?
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"No Country" was one of my favorites by him. "Blood Meridian" is like a kick in the balls...repeatedly. It has to be the most horrific book I've ever read...and I have read many "horror" books and never expected the most horrific to be a western. There are scenes in that book that just haunted me for days after I read them. Also, I agree with Blue Meanie...it's unfilmable.
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And so was 'Blood Meridian' (which is supposed to have Ridley Scott attached?)
No Hollywood ending really, but the Coen's are perfect for this. Could be 'Fargo' in the desert... -
I've only read All the Pretty Horses and No Country For Old Men, but they both had a similar style. When I first started reading All The Pretty Horses I remember thinking "This guy writes like this and he is labeled one of our greatest living writers, and when I write like this I get an F."
There are a lot of "and the blood and the road and the horse and the mule and the grass and the trees and the blanket and the food and the..." at moments, but I can
honestly say that after 10 or 15 pages I no longer noticed. I'd try sticking with it for more than 2 pages. I read No Country For Old Men in 3 days, finding it very difficult to put down.
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Im assuming your handle is taken from A. Vaachs character. Which leads me to believe that you are a fan of Mr. Vaachs sparse, bare-bones style. As a HUGE fan of both Cormac and Vaachs, all I can tell you is this: go into Cormac's dense prose with some patience, you will be greatly rewarded. Myself, I hate paying 30 to 40 bones for a Vaachs Hardcover and finishing it in 2 to 3 hours.
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Sep 09, 2007 1:57:31 AM CDT
so, The Ladykiller is part-brilliant, with some flaws?
by lavatory love machine
because as much as I love Lebowski, this guys have been putting out some crap lately like ladykillers and intorelable cruelty
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unbelievable. I went to see 3:10 to Yuma and No Country for Old Men's trailer played before the film. That trailer is all I could think about during 3:10 to Yuma. This is at the very top of my must-see list.
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