Last year, I saw one picture in the theaters, No Country for Old Men. It won best picture at the Academy Awards last night. The year prior, I also saw one movie in the theaters, The Departed. It also won the Academy Award for best picture. I have good taste, I guess. Though I left the theater puzzled after No Country for Old Men (thinking maybe it was a message about the persistence of evil), for the two hours previous my eyes fixated upon the screen. This was particularly true of Javier Bardem's Anton Chigurh, whom I have heard described as a "psychopath." I think that word doesn't do him justice as he posesses a logic and a morality, just not ones we're accustomed to. Particularly engrossing was his dialogue with the rural shopkeeper. Movies are supposed to make you watch, and I have never watched a movie as intently as No Country for Old Men. I don't know if this makes it a great film, but it's certainly an arresting visual narrative--highlighted by its non existent soundtrack--that keeps you in your seat.

The coen boys do make good movies. love millers crossing.

Considering that this was one of the few movies highlighted for an Oscar that anybody had seen, I think the odds were with you Dan.

See what happens?

speaking of kids. At least juno won something and the golden compass didn't get nominated for anything.

(asdf, juno has double NCFOM's box office earnings)

There Will Be Blood was better, imo.

The main theme of No Country for Old Men was chance, Dan. This is most heavily highlighted by Chigurh's coin flip, the fact that Llewellyn is killed by the Mexicans rather than by Chigurh, and the the car crash towards the end.

Ben-T,

Llewellyn was killed by Chigurh not the Mexicans. For some reason unknown to me the Coens decided to not show it although it both happened in the book and is indicated to have happened that way in the film by the fact that the Mexicans are blown apart and a few barely make it out alive when they encounter Chigurh (not Llewellyn) in that room. Remember the really strange scene where Jones is choosing which door at that motel to open and we get a glimpse of Chigurh behind the door of one, then Jones chooses the door he isn't behind?

Anyway,

This was a piece of shit film. Completely and utterly nihilistic and evil. The Coen brothers are just two douche whankers w/ exaggerated opinions of themselves and nary a serious thought in their heads. This is their most pretentious film of theirs to date (which is saying something). It is complete nonsense if one tries to take its narrative seriously (simply as narrative) and is a complete failure at "serious message art cinema" if you attempt to decipher and then reflect upon its themes and "message."

The worst part is that these two assh0les have completely inverted numerous scenes from Raising Arizona (their best film) in this movie, thus destroying the ethos they created in that earlier far superior film and replacing it w/ sneering cynicism and utter contempt for simple good country folk. Their disdain for normal non-elite bicoastal white Americans has finally got the better of them. They are now the epitome of what this website mocks:

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/

No wonder they are now Oscar winners.

If it happens in the book (I haven't read it) then of course that is what occurs. But the film scene seemed to indicate the Mexicans got him, as they were shown following Llewellyn's wife and mother to the hotel, then leaving. The fact that Chigurh was behind the door and had taken the money seemed to indicate that the Mexicans had missed the money and he had picked it up later. That being why he was still there when Jones arrived.

mother in law*

Bruce: Whether this film is nihilistic is not clear to me. I will have to see it again and pay very close attention to the final few conversations of TMJones. It seems to me that nihilism can refer either to a fact of a person's or culture's life, or it can refer to a philosophical position about the cosmos. Isn't it the case that an Augustinian view of human nature and of the fallen realm, by pointing out the former, can easily be confused with the latter?

Be careful everyone not to give away the movie to readers who have not seen it.

*SPOILERS*

Bruce, are you sure you aren't thinking of Llewellyn's wife? I asked my friend who has read the novel, and he confirmed to me that Llewellyn Moss was killed by the Mexicans.

Juno? A lot of people with way too much time on their hands when they go out of their way to see a movie about a pregnant teenager.

Why? Is it inconceivable that there could be any story worth telling about a pregnant teenager?

Inconceivable? Of course not. Interesting enough to make a full length movie about it? I would think not.

But ultimately, I don't really care what people spend their time or money on.

Uberfrau.

Please don't do this to me. I tried to begin to write about the film seriously and have 3 pages single spaced. Yuck. And that is before I even talk about Augustinianism, man I wish you hadn't thrown out a comment about an Augustinian view of human nature!

I suppose I want to argue about it but man I hate this movie and am so sorely dissapointed in the lameness of the Coen brothers now. We would be better off explicating an actually great film about the nature of evil, Se7en, or something like say Hitchcock's Lifeboat which also blows this one away.

I think I will try and edit my response down one more time today or tomorrow and then send to you offsite.

I really really like Lifeboat, but I am very unconvinced about the greatness of se7en. I think this movie is better than se7en. Remember that Flannery O'Connor was also occasionally accused of nihilism.