Left in the Country

By Aaron 11/26/2007

No Country for Old Men starts real fast when Llewlyn Moss (Josh Brolin), a retired army veteran out pouching, stumbles across an abandoned group of cars with bodies of dogs and people littering the desert. He pulls a tarp off the back of a truck to reveal a truckload of Mexican coke. Figuring there was a bunch of money around, he follows the blood and footsteps to a suitcase of drug money. Unable to shake the request of the dieing man he abandoned in the desert, he sets out to take him some water. But they wanted their money back. Now, unexplainably locked onto his trail is Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), a man described as having principles surpassing any other man – and being a psychopathic killer. As Brolin scrambles to hold onto the money, his life, and his wife’s life, the dealers bring in another killer to join the fray as Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), tries to figure it all out.

Before I talk about what I liked from the movie, let me say that my favorite Coen Brothers’ movie is O Brother, Where Art Thou – NOT Big Lebowski (overrated) or Fargo (still good, just not my favorite). That being said, this movie is more intense – in terms of tension and violence, then most movies I have seen in a long time, much less any other Coen Brothers’ movie. With ridiculously good performances from Josh Brolin and Javier Bardem, the movie has a young, fast, feel to it that never lets up. Then Tommy Lee Jones is finally cast in a respectable movie where he can still do his same role from The Missing/The Hunted (the role actually works here!) The acting across the board is great, but so is the direction and editing (for most of the movie) which is sharp and fast. The lines are great too – well adapted from a great book by Cormac McCarthy. Put all of that together, and you have a really good movie.

But there is always a but. There are some things wrong in this movie. While American Gangster left you with a taste in your mouth of good but not great, No Country leaves you thinking you saw a great movie (and story) that is hurt by weak vision. Much of this problem is probably because the Coen Brothers loved this book but chose to emphasize one part of the book over the other. While the part they emphasize is great, and what they do with that part is great, they need to choose an ending that fits that part of the book. Maybe the Coen Brothers’ refusal to entirely abandon the book led them to choose the ending they went with. Unclear. Either way, the last twenty-five minutes are confusing at best. Three or four scenes separated by one scene that could have made sense, or at least had the same feel of the movie, and the rest of the scenes seeming to be entirely separate, connected only to the long forgotten narration/introduction.

In the scheme of modern movies of first act, second act, third act, this movie blurred the lines. A ridiculously good first act is followed by a second act that is choppy and unexpected. And don’t even get me started on the third act. To make matters worse, the delineation between acts, that is usually clear, is EXTREMELY murky here. The result is that there are so many questions left unanswered (my apologies for possible spoilers if you continue reading): who shot him in the end? Did it matter? Was there a purpose to Woody Harrelson’s character? Why did Tommy Lee Jones go into that murder scene? What happened to the money? What was Bardem’s motivation? What was Tommy Lee Jones’ deal? There are others, perhaps more ‘spoilerific.’ But the point has been made, a movie that could have left you with that satisfying glow that meant an Oscar for The Departed last year, left you with a disappointed, ‘if they had just done this…’ feeling.

All that aside, it would be criminal to give this movie anything less than 8/10 saltystix. After the first fifty minutes, they could have shown me the last fifty-minute of Gigli and I would still have thought the movie was good. But if they had just done this one thing….

Could “Avatar” Win Best Picture?

By Brett Hogan

 

Last week, the trailer for James Cameron’s sci-fi experiment “Avatar” debuted. While initially unimpressed with the teaser, I began to wonder: Could this film win best picture? 

 

Buzz has been generating for this movie for years. Years. The technology to make this movie didn’t exist when Cameron conceived it, so he invented it. When is the last time you heard of a director spearheading the invention of anything? The casting started in 2005. Most movies these days, even epics, are done in half that time. I could go on. 

 

The most important thing to take away from all of this is that people are saying this will be the future of movies. Now, I don’t agree with the idea that CGI will become more prevalent than it already is. But I do believe that this will set the bar miles higher for sci-fi. I mean, that is what Titanic did. And that won some awards if memory serves.

 

I’ll bet you’re asking yourself, how can you even suggest that a film like this will win Best Picture when the initial trailer was nothing better than visual stimulation? Well, there are a couple of reasons. First, the Academy has expanded Best Picture to ten films. This doesn’t guarantee anything other than improved chances for most films on the cusp.

 

Second, after last year’s Oscars debacle, which saw the best film of the year, “The Dark Knight,” not only get shafted in awards but nominations as well, the Academy is pulling out all the stops to appease those with the loudest voices in the film industry, the fanboys. Now, the Academy probably didn’t lose anything because of that other than some viewers of the award show. Perhaps if people are again outraged with the winners or nominees, the heads of the Academy would lose their jobs. So this is all about the Academy protecting itself, which is not so outrageous.  

 

 

Third, there is an economic motive here. I’ve heard this film will cost $190 million, not counting the R&D costs associated with Cameron’s inventions or the cost of getting 3-D cameras into every theater in the country. The Academy will do everything in its power to get people into the seats and make this the next “Titanic” or “The Dark Knight.” But the Academy doesn’t have much power, besides nominating and awarding, so they will slap the “Nominated for Best Picture” moniker onto every commercial and print ad to get the people who didn’t believe the critics to relent and see this movie.

 

Of course, all of this is pure conjecture, and no revolutionary film (Terminator 2, Jurassic Park, etc.) has ever won the Best Picture category because it changed the game. Except maybe Titanic. But still, could this movie actually win? My answer is no but a nomination is certain and who knows what could happen from there. We’ll know more come February 2010.