no country for old men

Just a minor point, but when they discussed the ATM it was in Eagle Pass. To refer to that as West Texas is offensive to South Texans.
 
Finally saw it last night & was really blown away. The Coen bros. nailed that one. I've always been a fan of their work but I was amazed at their ability to create tension & suspense in scenes to the point where I found my heart racing. Hitchcock would have been proud.



***SPOILER RESPONSE****











The whole "where was Chigurh" in the hotel when TLJ's Sheriff Ed Tom is outside & contemplating going in is fascinating & will be debated for some time (although the book seems to provide the definitive answer). My personal interpretation is based on the scene just prior when Ed Tom is talking to the other sheriff about what the world is coming to & just what kind of creature is Chigurh. The other sheriff thinks he's a lunatic but Ed Tom doesn't. He says "sometimes I think he's just a ghost".

So as Ed Tom is struggling over the decision to go into the room, to face his fears, face his own death, & face the dark, diseased future that is literally behind the door the Coen bros.' image of Chigurh hiding in the black nothingness of that room plays out as pure brilliance. Is he real? Is he the ghost that Ed Tom imagines (fears?) he might be? Chigurh the being is terrifying; Chigurh the metaphor for a decaying world is even more powerful.
 
Saw it last night - it was indeed probably the best movie I'll see this year. The lack of music was a risky choice that paid off big. Regarding chance and luck - notice all the #'s in the movie referenced 13 - the hotel # (138), the mom's house address (913?), the El Paso hotel (skipped between 112 and 114), and the Eagle Pass hotel was 213 I believe. Woody, when we first see him, observes that the building is missing a 13th floor. Also noticed the only time Chigurh blinks is at the end after the crash - as if chance even brings the supernatural back to reality.

A few things to nitpick - I was disappointed in the cinematography. The beauty of the desert and plains is the play between the sky/clouds and earth. In the early hunting scene we bounced back and forth between nimbostratus clouds and cumulus clouds. Didn't like the wind sound being piped in when the grass in some scenes was still - the stillness of the desert is more powerful for the scenes. The computer generated pronghorns looked weak.

Finally, thought the Coen's gave some of the extras throw away lines that were too close to a Raising Arizona - kept expecting to hear "Not unless you think round is funny." It was a fine line - "How those boots working out for you" was funny, other lines forced.
 
Okay, I will jump in on this nitpick festival. That stuffed animal that was supposed to be the dog Moss shot looked like something the Coens must have gotten a good deal on in Ojinaga.
 
What a great movie. Followed a great book very well. I love these guys.

The Road was a great read and I thought that I heard on here that it will be made into a movie. Though I dont know how it can be done.

I havent been able to get my hands on Blood Meridian yet, but I loved All The Pretty Horses. Unfortunately I've learned that is a Matt Damon movie already.
 
Good interpretation about Chigurh, as ghost. Of course, someone named "GhostofTomJoad" might be expected to look for ghostly symbolism. That may well be what the directors intended, that his movements were ghostlike, and we shouldn't have been so nitpickingly literal about his escape.
And I didn't notice all the #13's being tossed around, although I did catch the building not having the thirteenth floor reference.
 
Having processed NCFOM the past few days I've also found myself coming to the distinct feeling that Chigurh's actions were those of a man who respects life more than most. Sure, he did horrendous things but that was in the nature of the job he was hired to do and has been mentioned by others his principles required him to complete his tasks making killing simply a means to an end.

The scenes where he talks to the locals (guy in gas station, guy giving him a jump start) reveals a lot about Anton's makeup. He terrorizes the guy in the store by asking him meanspirited questions. He seems to detest the man simply for living in such a nothing town, and then when Chigurh discovers that he married into the land & the business--that he didn't even earn his pathetic life--well, that's when the quarter comes out.

You could sense a similar attitude when he spoke w/ the friendly, helpful chicken farmer (that he eventually killed off screen). And when he interrogated Woody Harrelson's character before killing him as well as Carla Jean Moss you sense that he felt he was giving them a chance to atone for their "wasted" (in his eyes) lives.

And yet we see how much Chigurh values the lives of others as well. The way he checked his rear view mirror while leaving Carla Jean's house to keep an eye on the boys on their bikes. I felt that he did that as a way of making sure they were safe & not because he was threatened by them at all. Then, after the wreck, he politely asks the boy for his shirt and insists that he pay for it. A ruthless man without any principle would have simply taken what he needed, killing the boys if he had to.
 
as good as a film as it is, it still ranks down the list for me. I enjoy their style of comedy so much.

1. The Big Lebowski
2. Miller's Crossing
3. Raising Arizona
4. Fargo
5. Blood Simple
6. The Hudsucker Proxy
7. Barton Fink
8. No Country for Old Men
9. O Brother, Where Art Thou?


The Ladykillers
The Man Who Wasn't There
Intolerable Cruelty
 
I love, and I do mean LOVE, Big Lebowski, Raising Arizona, Fargo, etc., but all are a good bit behind this movie for me. I've never had a story put me in a state of reflection like this one has. That's as close to a perfect movie as will ever be made.
 
Yeah, I would put NCFOM a little bit higher on my list but I can see where others wouldn't given the Coen brothers selection. Simply epic list of movies.
 
Anton killed her out of meanness. He was a psychopath, and enjoyed the rush of power involved in killing someone. Carla Jean understood that when she told him that it didn't matter what the coin did, he was going to do what he would do. He was playing god. He had the money, and came back to kill her because he could; the idea that his promise was involved was just a lie he told himself.

I thought the movie did a good job with the character. He was a relentless killing machine (I counted 13 at his hand), but was very careful to avoid situations where it was just him and the victim(s), with him being the only one armed. Lewelly shot him, and he fled. When he was interrogating the trailer park clerk, and heard somebody else, he fled. In a lot of ways, he was a punk, although a scary one.

The sherrif knew when he went into the motel room that there was a good chance he would get killed. You could see his relief at being alive when he sat on the bed. That was probably when he realized he would retire.
 
Nah, he didn't kill her just because he's mean or because he could, he killed her out of principle. He had offered Moss a very simple straight forward deal, and Moss didn't take it. He's a man of his (evil) word if nothing else. Moss got his wife killed more than anyone by being greedy, and only half-assed evil. It's only the people who go balls out -- good or evil -- who survive, and not always even those, as TLJ's father demonstrates. And none of the survivors are unscarred.

I thought the scene with the kids and the shirt was a small scale of Moss' morality; they start out doing something nice (provide a shirt, maybe some water) simply because someone needs help, it's the right thing to do. Quickly thereafter, greed takes over, wiping out whatever good the original gesture had generated. Sounds like the book fleshed this out further, with the gun the kids got resulting in additional evil down the road.
 
LocoGringos, I totally disagree about why the wife got killed. I thought her speech was a turning point for Chiguhr's character. She called him on the fact that he cannot simply explain his actions mechanically (via fulfilling a promise or as the result of a coin flip). He's still making decisions, and he should be responsible for them. That's very different than simply saying "you don't have to do this." Obviously that's true, but when she called him on the coin flip she was saying that if he wanted to kill her, it had to be a choice. To me, it shattered his robotic aura, and that was manifested in his car wreck. That could all just be me though.
 
The story is the story. If the Coens had completely changed the book everyone would be furious.

They did an excellent job of telling the story. If you don't like the story, that is on you, not them(not that there is anything wrong with not liking it). The lack of a hollywood ending I think is part of the draw.
 
The comments about the wife's discussion with Chigurh at the end seem right. Chigurh was playing God, not living per fate, and she called him on it. He was the one who decided the old man in the gas station might die, and that the wife might die.

The Mexican mob was kind of an understated part of the movie. If you think about it, if Moss had evaded (killed) Chigurh, those guys were still going to get him. From the moment he took the valise, he was on a path to ruin.
 
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