BS: A movie review I really like

Subject: BS: A movie review I really like
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 12:19 AM

Here's a movie review I can heartily agree with, and I think it's well thought out. It's by some private person who posted on imdb.com, not a professional reviewer, and it's a review of the movie "No Country for Old Men"...a film that many professional reviewers (including Roger Ebert) raved about. I found the film extremely distasteful...although it definitely had some rather striking scenes, specially in the first half...but it left one with a very bad feeling. I guess if a really bad feeling is what turns you on, you might like it.

Here's the review...pretitled by the phrase:

Despicable Snuff Film with Pseudo-Intellectual Pretensions


"No Country for Old Men" is for the kind of film fan who remarks, "Gee, wasn't that murder a clever mise-en-scene?" and who asks, "What kind of lens do you think they used in that strangulation shot?" The skeleton of "No Country for Old Men" is a cheap, 78-minute, gun-monster-chase B movie. Javier Bardem plays Anton Chigurh, the monster. He is Frankenstein; he is Max Cady from "Cape Fear;" he is from your childhood nightmares. He may be death personified.

One of many completely implausible scenes: an arresting officer, defying any logic, turns his back on Chigurh. Chigurh, displaying the supple sinuosity of a Cirque du Soleil contortionist, or an orangutan, slips out of his handcuffs. This is done out of camera view, because for Bardem it would be impossible; thus the scene's implausibility. Chigurh then, in real time, strangles the young police officer to death on camera. This is an extended sequence. This is the payoff for "No Country for Old Men": watching one human being kill other human beings, in scene after scene after scene, using various weapons, including a captive bolt pistol usually used on livestock. Guess Chigurh couldn't get hold of a Texas chainsaw. This is a slasher flick for the pretentious.

Early on, there are well-done, if standard, chase scenes. A man outruns a car: not believable, but fun to watch. A pit bull chases this fleeing man down a whitewater river. The man reloads his gun at the very last moment (of course) and shoots the pit bull dead just as it is about to sink its teeth into the man. Later, in a hotel, a beeping transponder informs the killer where his prey hides. Your pulse may race and you may think that this is all leading up to something interesting. You will be disappointed.

Tommy Lee Jones, whose ear lobes appear to be metastasizing as he ages, wanders aimlessly through the film as Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, delivering cornpone, homespun, cowboy poet ruminations that are more or less opaque in meaning. No doubt the film's fans are even now feverishly compiling a companion volume that decodes Bell's dreams and conveys their depth.

Woody Harrelson, late the bartender of the TV sitcom "Cheers," shows up for a completely pointless half-hour role that yanks the viewer right out of the movie. "What is Woody Harrelson doing here?" Some years back, some bored English majors decided that conventional narrative structure was not intellectual enuf, and decided to play games with narrative. "No Country for Old Men" plays these sorts of games. The viewer is invited to invest time getting to know characters who are eliminated from the plot in ways that convey no meaning and are not moving. The narrative flow is truncated and yet the movie keeps going; viewers ask themselves why the movie is continuing -- sometimes out loud, even in a movie theater -- this is supposed to be a deep, intellectual experience. It is not. It is merely annoying.

Other than bratty English major head games, pretty much the entire substance of "No Country for Old Men" is a series of murders and tortures committed by Chigurh, who may symbolize your high school's worst bully – a bully so terrifying exactly because he targeted English majors. His victims are often courteous; their likability makes watching them be humiliated and then murdered an uncomfortable, and, given the film's structure, ultimately pointless exercise. Not only are the Coen Brothers torturing their characters, they also torment their ticket-buying audiences.

Chigurh's nice victims are often poor, rural, Southern, whites, the kind of people often not featured as positive, lead characters in Hollywood entertainments. They are often villains – witness films like "Deliverance." Here they are murder victims. Chigurh is associated with Mexicans, part of a rising "dismal tide," as one Anglo character puts it. No matter how you feel about immigration, you may find this association of Mexicans with a rising tide of evil to be offensive.

The film's boosters insist that the movie offers three deep and shocking lessons: life doesn't always follow a neat narrative structure; evil often triumphs; and the old days were more peaceful and, nowadays, things are getting really bad. In truth, everyone walking in to the theater already knows the first two "lessons." No one needs the Coen brothers to inform him that life doesn't always follow a neat narrative structure, or that evil often triumphs. We expect filmmakers, and all artists, to offer us a more substantial thesis. As for the third "lesson," that the old days were more peaceful and things are getting really bad today -- have the Coens, or Cormac McCarthy, heard of Attila the Hun, or any number of other less-than-peaceful and courteous personages from our common human past? One might well be dubious about "No Country"'s "lessons." Visit internet discussion boards devoted to this movie, and you will find fans asking, not "What is fate?" or "What is the role of a good man in a bad world?" but questions like, "If Hannibal Lector and Anton Chigurh were locked in a room, who would come out alive?" Given such reflections, one is safe in concluding that the appeal of this film is its emphasis on graphic violence, rather than on any more advanced intellectual or artistic merit.

Subject: RE: BS: A movie review I really like
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 11:27 AM

Thanks, Little Hawk. I enjoyed the review, especially, 'This is a slasher flick for the pretentious.' (English majors may make good victims, but they have ways of getting their revenge.)

Recently I picked up a book on movie-Making for dummies. It said that if you want to make a full-length feature movie, then you have to stick to familiar plots and predictable characters. That's just the reality of moviedom. You can't get the financing any other way. It sounds like 'No Country for Old Men' follows the rule.

by the way, I don't understand the name Chigurh. It doesn't sound Mexican. Reminds me of the German word 'Chirurg,' which means surgeon.

Subject: RE: BS: A movie review I really like
From: Charmion
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 01:22 PM

I suspect that it may be difficult to make a good movie out of a Cormac McCarthy novel -- viz. "All The Pretty Horses". At the end of it, I had a nasty taste in my mouth and a keen awareness that I had just wasted three hours of my valuable time.

Subject: RE: BS: A movie review I really like
From: Wesley S
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 02:01 PM

I loved the movie and the book. I was pleased that the movie didn't use music as a way of informing the movie goers how they were supposed to feel. There was no soundtrack of any sort. But anyone who went to this expecting to see anything other than a very violent movie hadn't done their research. I can only assume that they saw the film in order to be offended.

Subject: RE: BS: A movie review I really like
From: RangerSteve
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 02:17 PM

I liked the movie, but I see LH's point. I believe most critics, and not just film critics, like things because they believe they're supposed to. That movie with Daniel Day Lewis as an oil driller - I think my brain is doing me a favor by forgetting the title - was a prime example. After what seemed like four hours, I realized I was not even close to the end. I've never seen the end. I don't want to. I don't care how it ended. But the critics loved it. I don't need excitement in a movie to like it, but a car chase along the lines of Bullitt or the French Connection would have elevated this movie to just boring. (My own opinion. If you liked it, I'm glad.)

Subject: RE: BS: A movie review I really like
From: Art Thieme
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 03:15 PM

Chigurh: It's a play on the word chigger---which is a small biting insect. When they happen to you, it's over quick, and not much can be done to avoid it.

I found the book MUCH better than the film; brilliantly unsettling as it was. Like much of Cormac McCarthy's work, you must be ready for the randomness of life; The absurdity of life---the fact that violence often comes out of nowhere. Do as well as you can to be ready for the stuff to hit the fan, because it WILL hit the fan!!! Just you wait and see...

Good though!!

Art

Subject: RE: BS: A movie review I really like
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 03:40 PM

"I can only assume that they saw the film in order to be offended."

Definitely not, Wesley! I only watch movies when I fully expect to enjoy watching them. It was a slow night and I felt like watching a film, so I went to the video store and there were a few new ones in. One was "No Country For Old Men". I had read the review by Ebert, and he loved the movie...so I assumed it would be really good. I almost always agree with Roger Ebert's reviews on films. In about 1 case out of 50, I disagree with him most thoroughly, and this was the one case out of 50! ;-)

I did find the first half of NCFOM quite fascinating...although a bit sickening in spots because of the sheer sadism of Chigurh's attacks on various innocent people. I had hopes that he would presently meet a suitably appropriate end. Alas, he did not! By the end of the film my reaction was the same as Charmions': "a nasty taste in my mouth and a keen awareness that I had just wasted three hours of my valuable time."

Believe me, Wesley, I do not seek out films in order to be offended by them....! (grin) What offends me is making the strategic error of spending my time and money on a film I don't like...and that happens every now and then. My mistake and mine alone when it does.

Following the rental of "NCFOM", I took the movie back to the video store and thought, "I must be more cautious in future...." I had a look at "There Will Be Blood". Thought...."Hmmm. I think I'd better investigate a bit more this time. Went to the internet and looked up Ebert's review. He seemed to like it. Read a bunch of other reviews by a large variety of people on IMDB.COM.......

My conclusion was that I would probably absolutely hate "There Will Be Blood" (despite the very fine acting of Daniel Day-Lewis) and I would again end up with "a nasty taste in my mouth and a keen awareness that I had just wasted three hours of my valuable time".

I did not rent it. ;-D

It's true that in real life "life doesn't always follow a neat narrative structure, and evil often triumphs". For sure. But so what? Do we create art in order to reinforce our feelings of helplessness, futility, despair, hatred, and nihilism? If so, what does that say about us as people and where will it lead us? Nowhere good. I would rather devote most of my time to art that reinforces feelings of courage, idealism, hope, and purpose...art that inspires. I don't insist that all art be like that. There is some place for an occasional excursion into nihilism, if only to remember what it is. But I would certainly rather most of the art I see were inspiring, not depressing. People who get their kicks by wallowing in deep negativity may not end up entirely unaffected by it as time goes by...

Subject: RE: BS: A movie review I really like
From: GUEST,Neil D
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 03:58 PM

I completely agree wit the review. This movie was a big disappointment and not at all because of the level of violence. After all I enjoy Tarrantino's stuff. It might not have been as big a disappointment if I wouldn't have had such high expectations. I like Tommy Lee Jones, love the Coen Brothers (first time they've let me down) and it did win the Oscar for best picture. It just seemed so pointless and lacking of denouement. If you want to see Javier Bardem in a really good movie and you don't mind subtitles, check him out as Inquisitor turned Napoleonic Magistrate in "Goya's Ghosts", a much subtler and more textured portrayal of evil.
   "There Will Be Blood" was also a disappointment but a much milder one. Daniel Day Lewis is a joy to watch in almost anything. My problem with this film was its length and that, having heard it was based on Upton Sinclair's "Oil", I thought it would be more of an indictment of the greed and corruption of the early days of the oil industry.

Subject: RE: BS: A movie review I really like
From: PoppaGator
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 04:02 PM

My wife and I saw this movie the the theater when it was new. We were very much absorbed by the experience (although we left with a few questions ~ such as, where the hell did Woody Harrellson's character come from?). All in all, we thought it was a good film, meriting its various awards, etc., because it had captured our full attention so successfully.

Just last night, it was on TV. On the small screen, in a well-lit room, it was much less impressive, and boring when being viewed for a second time. I suppose that our knowing the ending (or lack thereof), along with the overwhelming negativity of the entire enterprise, made it not worth seeing again.

I wonder, LH, if you'd have been more favorably impressed if you had first seen the film on the big screen in a nice dark auditorium, like I did ~ ??

Subject: RE: BS: A movie review I really like
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 04:21 PM

Oh, I'm not saying it wasn't effective in absorbing the viewer and capturing your attention. It was extremely effective that way and would have been that much more so on the big screen, but I really focus when I'm watching movies...even on a small screen. I take my movies seriously. It didn't bore me at all...but it left me with a really bad feeling, that's all. I don't like being left with a really bad feeling by a movie nor do I like a movie that's, as you say, so unrelentingly negative.

I love most of the films the Coen brothers have done, but not that one. I can't even fathom what they did in the second half.

I think Ranger Steve's comment was right on: "I believe most critics, and not just film critics, like things because they believe they're supposed to."

Yeah! They all want to be "cool" together...sort of like the herd instinct. Then there are the few who get their kicks by opposing the prevailing viewpoint. Either way, are they really reviewing the film honestly or are they self-consciously acting out the role of "brilliant critic" and being their own appreciative audience, delighted with their own cleverness and intellectual grandiosity? It's a little hard to tell sometimes.

Subject: RE: BS: A movie review I really like
From: Ebbie
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 04:43 PM

"Chigurh: It's a play on the word chigger---which is a small biting insect. When they happen to you, it's over quick, and not much can be done to avoid it." Art Thieme

Oh, Art, you may have a different insect in mind; the chigger, far from "biting quickly and it's over", burrows into and under your skin and feeds there, from which it eventually releases itself and falls off, bloated with your blood. In the American south, one learns to check for chiggers after having been in the woods or tall grasses.

Subject: RE: BS: A movie review I really like
From: Wesley S
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 04:46 PM

"Yeah! They all want to be "cool" together...sort of like the herd instinct."

Yeah - a lot like Bob Dylan fans......

Just Kidding.

But really - were you unaware of the amount of violence in the film? I thought it had been pretty widely discussed. I'd be suprised if Ebert hadn't mentioned it. And I'm going to suggest that you avoid the movie "The Road" like the plague. It's also based on a Cormic McCarthy book and the violence it that one will make this movie look tame. Possibly the most depressing book I've ever read.Stay away and save your money.

And I'm with Poppagator. You might have had a different reaction if you had seen it on the big screen.

Subject: RE: BS: A movie review I really like
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 04:48 PM

David Lynch's Mulholland Drive drives the lineal plot line crowd up the wall *LOL*
It's an absolutely fascinating film

Subject: RE: BS: A movie review I really like
From: Wesley S
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 04:48 PM

"The Road" trailer

Subject: RE: BS: A movie review I really like
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 05:29 PM

I don't necessarily object to the violence itself, Wesley...I object to the depression factor and the motives (?) behind the violence...the relentless negativity and nihilism of the plot. I've seen some ultraviolent films that I enjoyed quite a bit.

"The Road" looks like it might have possibilities. Maybe. Some fine actors are in it. I like post-apocalypse scenarios a lot better on the whole than serial murderer or slasher scenarios.

One really depressing film about a serial murderer that I was very impressed by, though: "Monster"

I thought Charlize Theron and Christina Ricci just did an amazing job, and it was a very moving tale of someone caught up in a downward spiral who just did not have the life skills to get out of it...incredibly tragic. The movie made you really care about the characters. It was made with the heart very much involved. That's all it takes for me to like a movie. I have to care about the characters and what happens to them. There has to be some compassion there. If I don't care about at least one of the characters and what happens to them, then why even watch?

That's it. That's the key. I can take a pretty heavy dose of nihilism, but I have to care about someone while I'm watching it. I have to believe there's something in them worth caring about.

This is why, for example, I liked "Natural Born Killers". It was a tragedy on a certain level...and it was also a great piece of social satire, of course, skewering all kinds of corrupt forces in society that deserve to be exposed for what they truly are. I've watched it several times, and the violence does not offend me.

There was some kind of moral emptiness at the center of "No Country For Old Men". No heart at all. Emptiness and defeatism. I don't go for that. It's not "cool" in any way to me, it's just ugly.

Subject: RE: BS: A movie review I really like
From: DougR
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 05:30 PM

L.H.: I'm with you on this one. I thought this movie was almost as big of a waste of time as "There Will be Blood."

Two WAY overrated movies.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: A movie review I really like
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 05:44 PM

Yeah, I think so, Doug. You know, many teenage boys tend to go through a phase when they think that incredibly dark, brutal, and depressing stuff is totally cool. They love it. They despise stories that show compassion, hope, idealism, and mercy. Why this is, I don't know, but one would hope they'd grow out of it in a few years...! I figure they'll grow out of it when they start to feel some other people's pain as well as their own...

But some never do, I guess.

Subject: RE: BS: A movie review I really like
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 05:56 PM

Here's Roger Ebert's magnificent review of "Monster", and this time I agree with every word he says:

Ebert's review of Monster

Subject: RE: BS: A movie review I really like
From: heric
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 07:49 PM

here's Roger Ebert's comments on No Country:

Subtitle: . . a merciless killer in a study of incomprehensible evil.

" . . Chigurh (Javier Bardem) is a tall, slouching man with lank, black hair and a terrifying smile, who travels through Texas carrying a tank of compressed air and killing people with a cattle stungun. It propels a cylinder into their heads and whips it back again."

But in the genre known as dessicated Tommy Lee moping around in the desert, what you want to see is In the Valley of Elah. (Roger Ebert 5 star).

Subject: RE: BS: A movie review I really like
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 08:00 PM

Thanks for letting me know it's not my kind of film. The fact that it's by the Coen Brothers might have tricked me into watching it some time.

Subject: RE: BS: A movie review I really like
From: Peter T.
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 01:29 PM

Actually, the real problem is that these movies have drifted into what I call "the symphony of violence" school, which started out as a valid device (Bonnie and Clyde is perhaps the first example) and is now -- under the guise of a meditation on something or other -- just being used to goose up a film. There is a structural validity to the use of violence as an illuminating dramatic tool (most Greek tragedy), but the current use is just a substitute for the real energy of drama.

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: A movie review I really like
From: Stringsinger
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 02:43 PM

This is a movie that I would avoid. It seems to reflect the increasing role of violence in
the selling of movies for those inure themselves to humanitarian values. It's kind of
a social dumbing-down that comes with a lack of education about the humanities and
art in general.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: A movie review I really like
From: Acorn4
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 02:53 PM

I suppose watching violent films is rather like that stupid thing we used to do when we were younger called "I can eat a hotter curry then you!".

Subject: RE: BS: A movie review I really like
From: robomatic
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 02:54 PM

I think the movie review was a poor one. It does not review the same movie I saw.

What made "No Country For Old Men" memorable was the characterizations, and particularly Javier Bardem's chilling portrayel of Chigurh. I would put the movie in a class of criminal/ killer flicks that have great success in the United States, such as "White Heat" "Public Enemy" and possibly "High Sierra" although there was an extra component of romance that enriched that last flick.

I'm not sure of the rating this movie should have for plot, I had a problem with such an important character as Brolin's going off-screen for pivotal moments. I agree that Woody Harrelson's character seemed to be "non-load bearing". BUT, the movie was being true to the book, events and messages included. The movie was excellently done, acted, paced, and held my attention.

The Coen Bros have a great body of work, by no means are they all great, but they are all worth seein' at least once.

The review is actually a series of cheap shots made up to look like its being clever, sort of like the works of Dan Brown. It has no real point to make, and it is circumscribed by a certain pretentiousness, which is the very thing it is trying to say about "No Country For Old Men".

(And "Deliverance" was a great effin' film!)

Subject: RE: BS: A movie review I really like
From: Art Thieme
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 03:36 PM

Thanks! It's good to no what chiggers are, and what they do.

As I said, I thought it a fine book--but unsettling to the 'nth degree.

Keep in mind, people, that Ebert has been through a personal hell lately. One after the other, these things happen to a person as life proceeds. In a real sense, after a certain point in a life, it is one loss after another all leading to the biggest loss.

To me, it is no wonder at all that we find a philosophical edge, an insight into the actual nature of this life, in well crafted works of art like this novel. The film tried and failed where the book succeeded. The film, for various reasons, was much more visual and graphic than were the pictures I allowed myself to see in my own mind while reading the book. I was appalled by the film's imagery. The book, on the other hand, allowed me to see the brilliance and the insightfulness of having the same ideas introduced to me. It helped to have a way to buffer the intensity as I read.

Also, in the film I was seeing the directors sicknesses on the BIG SCREEN. And they were designed to get the R-rating so the big bucks would come and change hands.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: BS: A movie review I really like
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 10:58 PM

robomatic - I agree that "Deliverance" was a great film. I'd almost call it a masterpiece. I can't say that about NCFOM.

I think Peter T. has, in his usual inimitable way, nailed what is the problem with the excessive and gratuitous use of violence in many modern films: "There is a structural validity to the use of violence as an illuminating dramatic tool (most Greek tragedy), but the current use is just a substitute for the real energy of drama.

Bingo! The real energy of drama is what should drive a great film, and it's what's lacking in so many of them nowadays. I don't mind a lot of graphic violence in a movie, providing it's not just, as Peter says, a substitute for some kind of real and meaningful dramatic content. And...I have to care about the characters. I didn't care much about any of the characters in NCFOM except for one thing: I wanted very much to see Anton Chigurh reduced to a grease spot before the damn thing ended.

Subject: RE: BS: A movie review I really like
From: Peter T.
Date: 11 Jul 09 - 07:48 AM

A related thing is true about the use of sex in films. It is very, very difficult to make nudity and sex work in films (and the theatre!) -- the immediate response (let me check out her/his body parts) and the intimacy pulls the viewer out of the scene. These kinds of things are almost always a failure that the movie then has to recuperate from to reassociate the viewer with the plot. That is one reason why filmed sex scenes (outside of pornography) are so poorly filmed -- we have all seen endless shots of arms and legs and bellies and all you think is: this is as far as they were allowed to go; or, when will we move on to the next scene; or, isn't the music here junk, and so on. There are very, very few sex scenes that are an integral part of a movie -- the only one I can think of, offhand, is Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie in Don't Look Now -- and only because of the infinite sadness of it. I would be interested in any other examples that people can think of.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: A movie review I really like
From: Peter T.
Date: 11 Jul 09 - 07:59 AM

The sex scenes in "Et Tu Mama Tambien" are not remotely sexy, but are crucial elements of the characters and the plot.

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: A movie review I really like
From: robomatic
Date: 11 Jul 09 - 01:46 PM

I think George Carlin kind of nailed it, for Americans anyway, when he suggested that we imagine a seen where the word "F***" is substituted for the word "Kill".

"Sherriff, we're gonna **** ya now, but we're gonna **** ya S L O W!"

The point bein' that we're embarassed by sex more than we are by killing, so in the movies we've accepted the latter as a substitution for the former.

And this may go for other cultures as well, Shakespeare had more killings than he had rapes in his plays.

LH, I found your acceptance of the flick "Natural Born Killers" surprising in light of your non-acceptance of NCFOM. Natural Born Killers had no redeeming values nor characters in it, they were all SOBs, except for some of the victims. I needed a shower and an emetic after watching it. NCFOM has a moral center, it's just that characters pay a penalty for having 'em, and it's more of a 'center cannot hold' feelihg, which is a rarity among popular American films.

Subject: RE: BS: A movie review I really like
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Jul 09 - 02:07 PM

It would depend, robomatic, on whether you liked the basic point of the satire in Natural Born Killers or not. I loved it. That film was skewering all kinds of common and ugly things in society that deserve to be skewered:

- the inane comedy shows on TV that make humor out of people's pain and cruelty to one another
- the ridiculous worship of guns and violence that is so prevalent in this society
- the stereotypical linking of sex and sensuality with gross violence
- the corrupt and oppressive prison system
- the politically motivated court system and its show trials
- the "life imitating art" thing that causes all kinds of people to turn themselves into hypocritical monsters (like the detective Scagnetti in the movie, imaginging himself as some sort of supercop when he's actually just a sadistic creep with a big ego)
- and FINALLY (big drum roll.....) the utterly crass, exploitive and destructive nature of our news media who pander to and profit from sensationalism and who appeal to the lowest instincts of the viewing public...and what for? So a few people can get rich and famous and make a shitload of money.

It's horrifying what has happened to our society since the advent of television...and the movie Natural Born Killers was putting the horror right in front of your face to make the point.

I loved it. Furthermore, I did feel some empathy at times for Mickey and Mallory. Some. I could understand what was driving them and why. (they just took it way too far) There was an element of real tragedy there.

Mind you, I love most of Oliver Stone's movies. They have a message, and it's a message I can relate to. He stands up for what is right.

The Coen brothers had a message in NCFOM too. As you say, it was, basically that "the center cannot hold". Well, I don't like their message as much (though it may be a valid one...that's up for debate), and I don't like the way they presented it...although some of the scenes were certainly very effective, and it did hold one's attention throughout.

Subject: RE: BS: A movie review I really like
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Jul 09 - 02:13 PM

One thing I remember. The first time I saw NBK I was shocked by the degree of violence and weirdness....sort of stunned. But it was an Oliver Stone movie, and I did like the social satire in it...so I watched it again. I liked it a lot better the second time and was not nearly so shocked by the violence since I knew it was coming. Sort of like getting to like the taste of beer or coffee, I suppose... ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: A movie review I really like
From: heric
Date: 11 Jul 09 - 09:47 PM

I generally like my sex and violence but I just remembered the movie that gave me the sickened feeling you describe: Training Day.

Subject: RE: BS: A movie review I really like
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Jul 09 - 03:28 AM

I'll just skip down to the bottom of this, after reading the review:

Other than bratty English major head games, pretty much the entire substance of "No Country for Old Men" is a series of murders and tortures committed by Chigurh, who may symbolize your high school's worst bully – a bully so terrifying exactly because he targeted English majors.

Clearly this reviewer has tangled with English majors before, and wishes to dismiss their opinions regarding the film version of a book by Cormack McCarthy. It looks like he is anticipating a response to his opinion by offering several preemptive attacks upon those English majors he disagrees with (the bad ones he disagrees with, not the good ones who get murdered). I'll hazard a couple of guesses: that he is an a adherent of the Formalism school of thought, and that he hasn't actually read the book, is only looking at the film.

Film is different than books, even films based upon books. If he's pissed off at the story as it appears on film, then he should take it up with film students, perhaps, or directors, not English majors. If he'd read any Cormac McCarthy then he would know that McCarthy writes some of the darkest, most violent, and incredibly well-written novels out there today. There is a nihilist streak that runs wide through McCarthy's works.

McCarthy started out with gruesome plays and novels set in the Deep South, and moved west a couple of decades ago. His writing is incredible, but I won't pile on superlatives beyond that. You feel like you're walking along with him through his novels. Blood Meridian is a historical novel, many real people populate it. I suspect it would trump even No Country For Old Men for its violence. I would caution that disgruntled viewer not to go see any more films based on any of Cormac McCarthy's novels, but especially Blood Meridian.

As for his opinion of English majors, I'd guess he got into a discussion of Post Modernism with the big kids and got his ass kicked. Too bad. I suggest he get a copy of Modern Criticism and Theory by David Lodge. It would help him understand various positions and points of view in modern English studies. There is even a tiny little niche for Formalists (mostly in classes with the professors emeritus who should have stayed retired and not stand at the front of the class and tell students that a book has just one meaning and that there is no other that counts for anything.)

SRS. MA, English, 1999

Subject: RE: BS: A movie review I really like
From: Jack Campin
Date: 12 Jul 09 - 04:29 AM

What's the book got to do with it? The review was of the film. Being based on a good book (if it was; I haven't read any of McCarthy's stuff and probably won't) doesn't make the film any better.

It's the same romantic fallacy that teenage singer-songwriters (of any age) often make, that basing your song on a deep and meaningful experience makes it ipso facto deep and meaningful. Crap.

One of my favourite flms ever is Terayama's "Farewell to the Ark". It's based on Garcia Marquez's "A Hundred Years of Solitude", which is also a masterpiece. The film is a masterpiece in its own right, not because of anything it took from the book - it makes next to no difference whether you've read the book or not when you see the film.

Subject: RE: BS: A movie review I really like
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Jul 09 - 12:32 PM

Read a little deeper Jack, it's in there.

If the reviewer is taking issue with what English majors think of a film, then he is presuming that all literary criticism is somehow fully transportable to the film genre. Some of it is, intertextuality in particular, but for the most part, his slamming English majors over what they think of a film is like focusing on what the carpenter has to say about the sink installation, and not asking the plumber first. The carpenter has some familiarity, may have a lot, but isn't necessarily the best first person to discuss the sink with.

If we're simply discussing good thoughtful reviews, then any viewer is certainly going to have something to say about the film. But to isolate one set of viewers (English majors) and turn them into straw men is disingenuous. The reviewer is arguing against a made-up opponent, and of course, since he made up the opponent, he is going to make the opponent look ridiculous, and make himself look reasonable.

I can see the reason for his frustration. The English majors come to the film with more information because they actually read the source material, in this case a book, so they understand intricacies of the plot that may have been difficult to convey on film. The clues may be minute, and may have been missed by a viewer on the first viewing, or aspects of the story may have been glossed over (or left on the cutting room floor).

Consider the Harry Potter films. The producers know full well that a large percentage of the viewers of any of these when they're newly released will have read the book and will understand a lot more about the story than the film has time to show. The filmmaker makes choices and tells the story on film in a way that makes sense for a film, so future generations who may not have read the book will still follow the story in the film. My daughter complained that the last Harry Potter film left out too much. But that's because she re-read the book and knew the complete story well. Given a few years and if she watches the film again, I think she'll see that it hangs together well as a work of art on its own, and that she doesn't need to go re-read the books to understand story the film is telling.

There is a lot going on in that "review" LH posted, and a lot of it has nothing to do with the film. He has an ax to grind.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: A movie review I really like
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Jul 09 - 12:51 PM

Everyone probably has an ax of some sort to grind, Stilly. ;-)

I think he just plain detested the film, as did I, therefore he definitely had an ax to grind immediately after having seen it.

I AM the "English major" type of person he is alluding to...that's the type of kid I was when I was in school, the highly read and highly articulate intellectual, and yes, I did get unmercifully bullied by the bullies in my classes because they figured I was an easy target and they also figured I was smarter than they were (or at least thought I was!), and they resented it.

So why am I not the least bit offended by his sardonic references to "English Majors"????

Heh! ;-) Nope, I'm not offended at all by it, and I don't think he has an ax to grind against English majors...he may even BE one of them himself...I think he has an ax to grind against nihilism and really sadistic movies that don't take you to any kind of good place when you watch them.

He probably hasn't read the book, and neither have I. I've just seen the movie. I think, Stilly, that because you have read the book and you really like the author's writing, that it has given you some additional reasons to like the movie. That's fine, but I don't think it sheds much light on the validity of the reviewer's or my reactions to the film. We're just reacting to a movie we saw, period...not to the book it was based on.

I understand the kind of head-game intellectual pretensiousness he's referring to in the movie review. I'm familiar with it. One finds it in quite a few people...the majority of them being males in my experience. The fact that he chose the term "English majors" to characterize it may be fairly arbitrary, because all English majors are obviously not, by definition, guilty of that sort of intellectual pretentiousness. He was probably just looking for a handy term that would encapsulate the idea, I would figure.

I see no reason to take it that seriously.

Subject: RE: BS: A movie review I really like
From: robomatic
Date: 12 Jul 09 - 01:10 PM

One book I really enjoyed, which had a lot to say about a place and time that yet resonates to the present day, was Tom Wolfe's "Bonfire of the Vanities" I recently re-read it, and enjoyed it all over again.

It was turned into a movie about five years after its publication, and the movie was truly horrible, so horrible that I purchased a DVD of it. So horrible there is a book about the making of the movie. It's made more interesting by the fact that a competent and well known director, Brian De Palma made it, some excellent actors were in it (Tom Hanks, Melanie Griffiths, Kim Cattrall, Morgan Freeman, Bruce Willis), but it was defeated by miscasting and cowardice. Tom Wolfe's story was a pitiless romp through the ethnic soup of New York City, gaily splashing about the bowl. The story was modified to fit the PC mores of the time and to curry viewership. And talented as the actors are, few of them fit their assigned roles.

The movie was so bad there's a book about it: "The Devil's Candy" which is not bad.

Subject: RE: BS: A movie review I really like
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Jul 09 - 01:16 PM

So they turned a savoury stew into a tasteless pablum, did they? Well, that seems to be the job of the politically correct in this society.

Subject: RE: BS: A movie review I really like
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 13 Jul 09 - 01:03 PM

And back to chiggers--in the 50's, the Politically Correct were calling them chegroes. God only knows what's acceptable today.

Subject: RE: BS: A movie review I really like
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Jul 09 - 02:57 PM

I haven't read this book, though I have read and written about other McCarthy books, and I haven't seen this film. I'm responding to the review, and in that context, you missed my point. I said in my first post--the movie and the film shouldn't be considered together. They are different creative ventures, even if one is based upon the other.

There are some reviewers who choose to stick to the subject when they write reviews of books or films. This writer choose to drag in a straw man and hang it out to dry to try to give his review more veracity. It didn't seem to be enough for him to simply say "I didn't like this film with it's non-sequential story line and excessive, even gratuitous, violence."

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: A movie review I really like
From: robomatic
Date: 14 Jul 09 - 11:43 AM

I re-read the movie review at the top, and I do not agree with it, but I dislike it less. It is like an opening salvo in what should turn out to be a dialog. But I feel it's okay to say some things I like about the movie:

I like the personality of Brolin's character, his clear mastery of long distance shooting (although he misses), with the question in my mind was he a sniper in the past? His thought process as he tracks one of the participants in the shootout, his conscience troubling him, and his ability to figure out some of the ramifications.

And I like the fact that despite his intelligence, his own toughness and the fact that he's pretty dangerous, he simply can't anticipate Chigurh. Chigurh's character makes the story and the movie different, and contributes to the body count and the incomprehensibility of it to the law enforcement people, who are mostly rural and used to standard rancher's shenanigans.

I disagree with the notion of the rise of Mexican criminality as a factor here. We're clearly close to the border, most of us should know from the news that the cost in Mexico of this trade is far far higher than in the US, but I took the 'Chigurh' name to be East European, though undefined. He's a player from another place with anothe set of standards.

Talk of the Nation on NPR recenlty had an hour devoted to movie bad guys. And of course Chigurh came up, along with a host of others. The problem from the movie-maker's point of view is how to present a memorable bad guy in an era where many moviegoers and all critics have experienced quite a few already. Clearly the Coen Brothers brought it off with that great performance by Javier Bardem (and that haircut).

"I will not tell you you can save yourself"

Subject: RE: BS: A movie review I really like
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Jul 09 - 01:59 PM

I found the personality of Brolin's character intriguing too. It was one thing I liked about that film. To deal with someone like Chigurh, you have to make yourself his bait...then kill him without any hestiation whatsoever the moment he arrives. To do that, of course, you'd also have to already know what you were dealing with...

Brolin's character had a chance to do that. He could have killed Chigurh when he arrived at the hotel room door. The fact that he didn't do that was, of course, so that the story could continue... ;-)

In real life people like Chigurh always end up dead, usually sooner rather than later, because they are not invincible and their luck runs out. One that comes to mind was Baby Face Nelson. He was at least as dangerous and psychotic as Anton Chigurh, but he still died anyway, riddled with bullets....much like his numerous victims.