anyone else have trouble warming to "No Country for Old Men"- Page 2

[broadway86]

Posted: 1/11/08 at 7:38pm

^Agreed.

I think that the Coen's are masters of the craft. I was involved and entertained the whole way through.

[Cruel_Sandwich]

Posted: 1/11/08 at 7:40pm

By the way...

Why do the Coens never use their "stock company" anymore? Aside from Stephen Root, they never use anyone they previously worked with. John Turturro, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi (Surely his remains can get smaller!), George Clooney, John Goodman, Francis McDormand, and did I mention John Goodman?

Hell, they don't even give Bruce Campbell cameos anymore. I think he would have been a decent Moss in NO COUNTRY.

[robbiej]

Posted: 1/14/08 at 10:35am

Well...I know this isn't the thread, but why the hell not.

I was left cold by NO COUNTRY, but I did think it was fine filmmaking.

I actively HATED There Will Be Blood.

Actively.

Hated.

Anybody else?

[lildogs]

Posted: 1/14/08 at 10:48am

I thoroughly enjoyed No Country, alomst to the point that I missed a great deal of the subtext and "meaning" because I was so actively involved in what might happen next. I was a bit let down, mostly because I didn't think it was as good as Fargo, but what is?

I really resisted THERE WILL...but I must be honest, it's stayed with me in a way no film has in quite a while. I think its literary merit is almost endless and I have no doubt I'll be watching it alot once the DVD's out.

As for the Coen company, I would imagine that is has more to do with budget and timing than it anything else...I do miss my Buscemi tho....My name is Chet....

[best12bars]

Posted: 1/14/08 at 10:55am

I haven't yet Robbie, but I'm fixin' to.

(Hey, I've been fixin' to use "fixin' to" in a thread for some time now!)

******SPOILERS*******

I wasn't so much "cold" to No Country as I was let down, mildly confused and ultimately turned off.

It was a good movie, with great cinematography, and a great "wow/sensational" performance by Javier Bardem. But...

Really piss-poor ending with Tommy Lee Jones playing backup singer to his own dining room window, with a puzzling open vista of an empty yard just ACHING for Bardem to pop up in it and scare the crap out of us.

And that whole "he's still out there" idea? Where'd they borrow that one from... Friday the 13th? Halloween?

I'll borrow the rest of my own rant copied-and-pasted from another thread:

Why do so MANY films of the past couple of years have serious trouble with their endings? A cut to black, once the major plot is done, is NOT an ending. It's a clumsy cut-off. Quit being afraid to end your stories gracefully (which isn't easy at all, BTW), with actual codas and afterthought and assessment... but an ambiguous "artsy," abrupt ending is pretty easy to do, and SO often a cop-out. I'm tired of them, truly. I don't need to "think" about your ethereal ending. You chose to be vague because you didn't know what else to do. It's a cheap trick. Stop it.

"Leave 'em confused with an ambiguous blackout and they'll talk about your movie when they leave the theatre."

Nice parlor trick. Been used quite a bit lately.

[lildogs]

Posted: 1/14/08 at 11:05am

I don't see the cut to black as a trick...hopefully it has meaning when used. In the Coen case, I think it has more to do with creating a sence of dread in that Bardem doesn't meet a tidy end and the world isn't put back into balance like the end of Fargo, leaving the audience with the image of marauding, nonchalant evil. Barton Fink ends on a similarly abstract note...

[robbiej]

Posted: 1/14/08 at 11:26am

I wasn't as bothered by the ending as some...even though I agree that it just seemed to stop. And I go back to ZODIAK for a similar kind of ending. *Spoilers ahead* The killer was never caught. But that great moment of Gyllenhal looking at him and knowing it was him (at least in his mind) offered a great sense of closure. Not for the actual case, but for the movie.

One of the reasons the ending of No Country didn't bother me was because I simply wasn't invested in any of the characters, nor how they dealt with their situations.

When you find out that *Spoiler Again* Kelly Macdonald has bit it, it left me utterly non-plussed. And when Kelly Macdonald, an actress whose every physical and vocal feature seem perfectly put together to elicit the most amount of empathy, if not sympathy, meets here maker and I feel nothing, I know that this movie has not allowed me in fully.

But that There Will Be Blood movie? It made me want to drown a puppy. A fatally miscast Paul Dano, a bag of tricks peformance by Day Lewis (whom I always find pulling from the bag of tricks; I just don't fully get him) and characters you couldn't care less about in situations that you are told should be interesting but are not...it was the Emporer's New Clothes for me.

[lildogs]

Posted: 1/14/08 at 11:40am

I thought Kelly was awful--almost Rebecca Pigeon awful...so I guess I can see how you're not invested in HER, though you liked her it seems...

I think it also plays into my sensibilities: if one sees the world as an irrational place, then movies espousing that theme will appeal to you, as in my case.

[robbiej]

Posted: 1/14/08 at 11:58am

"almost Rebecca Pigeon awful"

That would be a new favorite phrase. Thank you for that!

I generally like Macdonald. As I do Brolin, Jones, etc. I think, in the end, I agree with you about the picture's worldview. And I did appreciate and respect the hell out of it. I just think, for me, the concept of evil portrayed was more intellectual than gut. Which may very well be their intention. Or perhaps that's just the way the film hit me.

[lildogs]

Posted: 1/14/08 at 12:10pm

SPOILER ALERT!!

I saw Bardem as a shark, completely unable to control himself in his killing (I'll never forget the perverse grimace of glee he sports when throttling that cop) and completely oblivious to the emotional harm he causes, truly inhuman in both thought and deed.

Oddly enough, I think THERE WILL is thematically similar: a man tries to destroy everything human about himself...and for what end? That's the question neither film answers.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 1/14/08 at 1:10pm

I loved No Country For Old Men from start to finish. I was completely engaged. And before I saw the film, I was afraid I wouldn't like it. I was horribly disappointed with The Man Who Wasn't There and Ladykillers, so I was doubly surprised at this interesting film that contained some of the Coen brothers' signature marks, yet still remained different from their previous collaborations.

One of the most interesting aspects of the film was the pov. With the absence of Bardem's motives as well as the absence of a score to provide mood and foreshadowing, we were left almost as clueless as the characters hunting him down, which to me, added to the tension and suspense of each scene. I found the situation and the story engrossing without having to explain everything or neatly arrive at a conclusive resolution. Personally, I think those things would have made the film and characters less interesting to me.

**SPOILER**

I arrived at my own conclusion of who Bardem's character was and what he represents, which I believe was the human embodiment of a concept, which is what gave him that "Michael Myers" quality people speak of. The Coen brothers inject a supernatural element into many of their films and I felt Bardem's character was a subtler approach to this familiar device. After a lengthy conversation about the film immediately after viewing it, I am eager to see it again from a different perspective. I thought it was absolutely brilliant.

Updated On: 1/14/08 at 01:10 PM

[lildogs]

Posted: 1/14/08 at 2:19pm

Interesting point, Mister Matt--never thought of Bardem as another in a long line of Coen baddies--he's very similar to Randall "Tex" Cobb in ARIZONA, Peter Stormare in FARGO, Goodman in BARTON...

"And here ya are...and it's a beautiful day. I just don't understand it."--Marge Gunderson

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 1/14/08 at 2:34pm

Film left me cold. Didn't care about any one of them. Loved Bardem. Pitch perfect performance.

Horrible ending.

[Roscoe]

Posted: 1/15/08 at 9:02am

I posted on this the other day, and it seems to have vanished. Sorry if it turns out to be a double post---

I saw NO COUNTRY. The acting is of a very high quality, and I liked the way the film was made.

But I don't really see what all the shouting is about. It is a perfectly good film in every way, but I just felt nothing at the end. Another not particularly interesting film that is getting a lot of "masterpiece" buzz, joing the wildly over-rated THE DEPARTED and MILLION DOLLAR BABY.

I don't think it is nearly as interesting or effective as SWEENEY TODD or ATONEMENT or ZODIAC.

[Roscoe]

Posted: 1/15/08 at 9:06am

New posting, after what might have been a double:

And NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN is a pleasant couple of hours' diversion compared to the astonishing THERE WILL BE BLOOD, which I saw last night and was absolutely floored by.

It looks like NO COUNTRY will this year's MILLION DOLLAR BABY, winning all the awards that should go to other better films.

[lildogs]

Posted: 1/15/08 at 9:38am

Well, I think NO COUNTRY is WAY better than BABY...the only thing I liked about that one was Clint's performance.

And you know how the Academy likes to play catch-up--as for THE DEPARTED, I think it's win had as much to do with its box office as its merit. Give Marty one when he has a hit--that sort of idea. The same thing will likely happen with The Coen Boys.

[best12bars]

Posted: 1/15/08 at 11:31am

Is "No Country" a hit?

It's been out 10 weeks (not a huge release, but not exactly limited either) and has made $46 million.

EDIT: If the Academy wants to back a hit this year, they'll vote for "Juno." It's made over $70 million in 6 weeks.

Updated On: 1/15/08 at 11:31 AM

[lildogs]

Posted: 1/15/08 at 11:41am

For the Coens, yes...lol

In all fairness, JUNO is on WAY more screens (244 than NO COUNTRY (657) and to say that JUNO has more audience appeal is an understatement!

[Auggie27]

Posted: 1/15/08 at 11:58am

I agree with Robbie about our invitation to invest in the the young woman's plight and fate, only to find the final outcome ugly and empty. I cannot deny the film's near genius, and emotional power in places (I think the first coin toss sequence is bravura in every way, and the actor who plays the station/store own inspires deep empathy, almost effortlessly). But we're still left with a grim take-away, and I find myself just depressed by all that true artistry in service of such bleakness.

[sidjones09]

Posted: 1/15/08 at 12:08pm

I will agree. NO COUNTRY had me in the palm of it's hand until the last 15 minutes. I was completely invested and then it just dropped me like a bad habit. I'm usually good at picking up metaphors and what not in films. But whatever they were trying to do at the end of that movie failed on me completely, and in my opinion lost it some awards.

On the other hand. I loved 'THERE WILL BE BLOOD'. That movie is so relevant right now it is down right SCARY. It's completely about this battle between Good and Evil, in the most American sense, right to the very last scene. The script is brilliant, Daniel Day Lewis is brilliant (I'm not sure about Paul Dano yet, I need to see it again), the cinematography is brilliant, and the score is brilliant.

[lildogs]

Posted: 1/15/08 at 12:10pm

SPOILER!

See, I never felt sorry for her at all--First, I don't think she's a very good actress and I also found her character to be so naive and dim...I wasn't GLAD when she got it, but didn't feel any sympathy either.

And the first coin toss scene is amazing!

[Cruel_Sandwich]

Posted: 1/17/08 at 12:02pm

DRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAINAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE!