Second one first: No Country for an Old Man aka No Movie for This Middle Aged Woman. I thought I was going to an entertaining Coen brothers movie but nooo, what I got was a bleak, depressing, nihilistic pointless Saw/Terminator/DieHard/Natural Born Killers gore bore. I’d add sexist but all the men, with the exception of the killah, Chigurh are as down home hominy grits Texas stupid as the women. Everything other than the skyscapes is ugly + cruel. If there’s a dog in the movie, it’s a killer dog killed. Dumb friendly hillbilly hicks are killed on the spot for their kindness. That’ll teach you to be neighbourly. Norman Rockwell children sell the shirts off their backs to psychos. Life sucks, everyone’s greedy or pining for some golden past until reminded the past sucked too. Everything is anti life, anti hope. Just killing + death + death+ killing. My stress/paranoia barometer shot to the top. Movie critics/reviewers are praising this thing to the high heavens! ( Hey, I can see it’s merits -- the acting, photography, editing, etc. exemplary, it’s the script/story/ that sucketh.) And unlike most every other Coen movie, it’s not funny. At all. It's macho posturing at its worst. Right after the movie, I was walking on Peel street on a clearly marked painted yellow striped "pedestrian" walk across from a major hotel. A %^%$#@ rhymes with gas bowl in a huge SUV comes barreling towards me, full speed. I cursed him + that hateful movie I just saw + gave them both the finger, a nano second before my husband dragged my angry sorry butt off the road. My point? Movies like this lower the bar of life. Life is nothing + killers are glorified. It’s a huge travesty when talented smart folks like the Coen brothers make such violence porn. We’re supposed to love the planet + not use plastic bags + be conscious of our carbon footprints. Well, what about our moral footprints? I’ll repeat it. Movies like this lower the bar of life. Tomorrow, the second Debby Downer movie + the seque is Javier Bardem, who’d make a fabulous Picasso.
I'll wait until this is on tv for free. I'm getting a bit tired of Johnny Depp's costuming...Happy New Year, to you all, too.
Posted by: edith | 12/31/2007 at 06:09 PM
I saw the preview and decided that it looked like too gory a movie for me. I'm glad I didn't go. I feel much the same as you about such movies. They are killers of the spirit.
Instead, we saw "Sweeney Todd." I loved the stage version with Angela Lansbury and Len Cariou which we saw on PBS, but this version is much like what you say about "No Country". The only uplifting moment--and I mean moment-is when Sweeney is killed. There's only Grand Guignol horror and blood, and none of the humor of the stage presentation. The music as usual is wonderful, but it's too darkly done, both in terms of cinematography (grey skies, grey rooms, dark clothes, etcetera) and tone. Yes, I know it's about a serial killer, but somehow the other versions crackle with a kind of naughty humor. Not this one. But that's only me. John liked it all right.
BTW, Happy New Year to you and your gang.
Posted by: Bev | 12/31/2007 at 02:53 PM