Funny. Over-written, but then, that was kind of the point. I mean, I liked it, but I couldn't help but notice that the only character in the whole movie who is really criticized is Jason Bateman's, the mid-thirties musician with a case of arrested development (coincidence? hm?) Why is it that in virtually all movies the mid-life guy who's still into horror movies and collecting music is shown to be shallow and maladjusted in the end? Really, Bateman's only sin is not being a famous musician: he's sold out and can only make music for commercials, so it's wrong of him to still be into music and movies the same way a teenager is. Also, Superbad was funnier.
But, whatever. Everyone laughed a lot and had a good time. Can't say that for every movie you see.
Showing posts with label with Micah. Show all posts
Showing posts with label with Micah. Show all posts
Friday, January 4, 2008
Friday, November 9, 2007
No Country for Old Men
First Coen brothers movie in how long? I'd look it up, but I don't really care to. Definitely a return to an older style for them, having more in common with Blood Simple and Miller's Crossing than The Big Lebowski or The Man Who Wasn't There. And maybe more in common with Blood Simple than any other movie they've made due to the fact that it didn't seem like a rehearsal of a type of movie the way almost all of their other films do.
I actually did think a few more scenes could've used incidental music, but that's probably because I think the score from Fargo is so good and they use music so well in a lot of their other movies. The lack of it through most of the film definitely made the one scene where it finally showed up, when Tommy Lee Jones arrives at the hotel to find Moss dead, way more moving than anything else in the movie. They way Moss's death happens off-camera seems even more jarring in the film than in the book, since you kind of expect even more of a film that it will include you on everything important, and certainly the death of the guy who up until then seemed to be the protagonist is an important thing. But they got that structural move from the book, so they get props I guess mainly for recognizing how important it is for what the book/story is trying to do that there not be some kind of climactic battle scene between Moss and his killers.
I never thought I'd say this about any movie ever, but Tommy Lee Jones might've been the best thing about the movie. He was absolutely note for not perfect.
Watching the movie after having read the book so recently, and noting especially how closely they adhere to the book and to what it has for dialogue, the one glaring change they made really stuck out. The conversation between Tommy Lee Jones and his old uncle, the statement his uncle makes to him about thinking that the world has gotten so much worse on his watch being just vanity, seemed like the Coen brothers responding in kind to McCarthy, as if the movie was both an adaptation of the novel and a way for the Coens to respond to the book--I'd say engage the book in dialogue, but it's hard for me to imagine a way that McCarthy would then respond to the movie, so they kind of automatically get the last word in, which isn't really a dialogue.
*****
(11/14 10:30 PM)
I was also wondering a little bit about the female characters in the movie. The Sheriff in the book goes on at length a few times about how great his wife is, and how Llewelyn's wife is really the better half of that pair, and how he's sure Llewelyn knows it and whatever, and I'd say what you get of the female characters in the book kind of backs that up. The female characters are certainly not violent at all, and seem mostly unaffected by that whole violent world of drugs and money, up until Chigurh goes to visit Llewelyn's wife at the end. But her demise is described as Llewelyn's fault by Chigurh, and it either is or it's Chigurh's fault. In any case, the women are truly innocents. But they seem like real characters just as much as any of the men are real characters. In the movie, I'm not sure quite that that came across at all. I don't think the Coens were really interested in that aspect of the story much at all. Llewelyn's wife mostly seemed kind of hapless, and like just the type who sits and stares at the television and that's all she's good for. Of course, her mom was comic relief, and I think she mostly was in the book, as well, but it's weird that the only female character from the book that really got fully translated in the movie, and even got sort of amplified, is the elderly woman for comic relief. The Sheriff's wife was in the movie, and I can't remember if she actually appeared in the book or if she was always only discussed by the Sheriff. But she was very genuinely important to the Sheriff in the book, very genuinely important as a person, as his wife, as sort of his moral compass or something. I think she just kind of seemed like a benevolent non-entity in the movie. It would be hard to convey the importance of someone who's even more beside the story than anyone else in a movie, I guess. But they included the Sheriff voiceover stuff, and none of his discussion of how important his wife was made it into the movie. I think there was a subtle point being made by McCarthy in the book, and I think the Coens just ignored it or didn't notice it. I'm not sure I entirely agree with the point he was trying to make, but it did add a level of nuance to the novel that I think would've not been a bad addition to the movie. This isn't really all that much of a criticism, I'd say, but I did come up with it pretty quickly when I was thinking of something more to discuss about the movie to add the dialogue of the dying Mexican in my cover of the first chapter of No Country for Old Men for my National Novel Writing Month novel.
I actually did think a few more scenes could've used incidental music, but that's probably because I think the score from Fargo is so good and they use music so well in a lot of their other movies. The lack of it through most of the film definitely made the one scene where it finally showed up, when Tommy Lee Jones arrives at the hotel to find Moss dead, way more moving than anything else in the movie. They way Moss's death happens off-camera seems even more jarring in the film than in the book, since you kind of expect even more of a film that it will include you on everything important, and certainly the death of the guy who up until then seemed to be the protagonist is an important thing. But they got that structural move from the book, so they get props I guess mainly for recognizing how important it is for what the book/story is trying to do that there not be some kind of climactic battle scene between Moss and his killers.
I never thought I'd say this about any movie ever, but Tommy Lee Jones might've been the best thing about the movie. He was absolutely note for not perfect.
Watching the movie after having read the book so recently, and noting especially how closely they adhere to the book and to what it has for dialogue, the one glaring change they made really stuck out. The conversation between Tommy Lee Jones and his old uncle, the statement his uncle makes to him about thinking that the world has gotten so much worse on his watch being just vanity, seemed like the Coen brothers responding in kind to McCarthy, as if the movie was both an adaptation of the novel and a way for the Coens to respond to the book--I'd say engage the book in dialogue, but it's hard for me to imagine a way that McCarthy would then respond to the movie, so they kind of automatically get the last word in, which isn't really a dialogue.
*****
(11/14 10:30 PM)
I was also wondering a little bit about the female characters in the movie. The Sheriff in the book goes on at length a few times about how great his wife is, and how Llewelyn's wife is really the better half of that pair, and how he's sure Llewelyn knows it and whatever, and I'd say what you get of the female characters in the book kind of backs that up. The female characters are certainly not violent at all, and seem mostly unaffected by that whole violent world of drugs and money, up until Chigurh goes to visit Llewelyn's wife at the end. But her demise is described as Llewelyn's fault by Chigurh, and it either is or it's Chigurh's fault. In any case, the women are truly innocents. But they seem like real characters just as much as any of the men are real characters. In the movie, I'm not sure quite that that came across at all. I don't think the Coens were really interested in that aspect of the story much at all. Llewelyn's wife mostly seemed kind of hapless, and like just the type who sits and stares at the television and that's all she's good for. Of course, her mom was comic relief, and I think she mostly was in the book, as well, but it's weird that the only female character from the book that really got fully translated in the movie, and even got sort of amplified, is the elderly woman for comic relief. The Sheriff's wife was in the movie, and I can't remember if she actually appeared in the book or if she was always only discussed by the Sheriff. But she was very genuinely important to the Sheriff in the book, very genuinely important as a person, as his wife, as sort of his moral compass or something. I think she just kind of seemed like a benevolent non-entity in the movie. It would be hard to convey the importance of someone who's even more beside the story than anyone else in a movie, I guess. But they included the Sheriff voiceover stuff, and none of his discussion of how important his wife was made it into the movie. I think there was a subtle point being made by McCarthy in the book, and I think the Coens just ignored it or didn't notice it. I'm not sure I entirely agree with the point he was trying to make, but it did add a level of nuance to the novel that I think would've not been a bad addition to the movie. This isn't really all that much of a criticism, I'd say, but I did come up with it pretty quickly when I was thinking of something more to discuss about the movie to add the dialogue of the dying Mexican in my cover of the first chapter of No Country for Old Men for my National Novel Writing Month novel.
Monday, November 5, 2007
There Will Be Blood
There were so many amazing things about this film that it's kind of a shame the final fifteen minutes had to happen. I guess there needed to be some kind of final confrontation between DDL and preacher-guy, at least from the standpoint of narrative and story arc and everything, I mean that it "needed" a "climax" to properly follow the rules of movie-story, but the scene kind of fell victim to that old Great Acting = screaming idea, and the only redeeming thing about the final scene was that there was, indeed, blood.
I suppose, since PTA aspires so much to be Robert Altman, that, like his hero, you just have to take the good with the bad. There was even some of that in Punch Drunk Love, when PTA let Phillip Seymour Hoffman go nuts with his little scream/acting bug.
Enough complaining, though; this movie was incredible right from the start. It was at least ten minutes in before there was any dialogue, and it would be pretty hard to convince me that the opening wasn't a pretty direct reference to 2001, with all the origins-of-man symbolism that might entail. The pan up to the hills with Jonny's score climaxing in a long martian-chord drone, and the score's subsequent descent as the camera pans back down, that whole little shot was easily one of the best bits of film I've ever seen. Worth the price of admission alone.
And it might even have been out done by the well explosion sequence: the way it comes out of nowhere, the totally arrhythmic beating and hammering that gradually finds its way into an insistent pounding not unlike a heartbeat, with the long takes of so many men running around frantically, and the oil geyser burning bright orange against a deep blue sky. I wish I could watch that scene over and over again. It was incredible.
Jonny Greenwood's score is incredible, and PTA is proving with this movie and PDL that he knows how to use scores better than almost anyone else out there, with the possible exception of that guy who made Huckabees, whatever his name is, which I should be able to remember but I can't.
No discussion of this movie should exclude a mention of Paul Dano. DDL was great, of course, but he kind of always is, and he's kind of always great in the exact same way. Paul Dano, though; wow. He might be the best American actor to hit the scene since Johnny Depp. His performance in Little Miss Sunshine was probably the most overlooked thing about the movie, and probably because of the fact that he wasn't speaking for most of the movie. Here he has no shortage of lines, and he should get some kind of Oscar recognition just for completely holding his own in every scene he shares with DDL. I'm really looking forward to watching this kid's career.
I suppose, since PTA aspires so much to be Robert Altman, that, like his hero, you just have to take the good with the bad. There was even some of that in Punch Drunk Love, when PTA let Phillip Seymour Hoffman go nuts with his little scream/acting bug.
Enough complaining, though; this movie was incredible right from the start. It was at least ten minutes in before there was any dialogue, and it would be pretty hard to convince me that the opening wasn't a pretty direct reference to 2001, with all the origins-of-man symbolism that might entail. The pan up to the hills with Jonny's score climaxing in a long martian-chord drone, and the score's subsequent descent as the camera pans back down, that whole little shot was easily one of the best bits of film I've ever seen. Worth the price of admission alone.
And it might even have been out done by the well explosion sequence: the way it comes out of nowhere, the totally arrhythmic beating and hammering that gradually finds its way into an insistent pounding not unlike a heartbeat, with the long takes of so many men running around frantically, and the oil geyser burning bright orange against a deep blue sky. I wish I could watch that scene over and over again. It was incredible.
Jonny Greenwood's score is incredible, and PTA is proving with this movie and PDL that he knows how to use scores better than almost anyone else out there, with the possible exception of that guy who made Huckabees, whatever his name is, which I should be able to remember but I can't.
No discussion of this movie should exclude a mention of Paul Dano. DDL was great, of course, but he kind of always is, and he's kind of always great in the exact same way. Paul Dano, though; wow. He might be the best American actor to hit the scene since Johnny Depp. His performance in Little Miss Sunshine was probably the most overlooked thing about the movie, and probably because of the fact that he wasn't speaking for most of the movie. Here he has no shortage of lines, and he should get some kind of Oscar recognition just for completely holding his own in every scene he shares with DDL. I'm really looking forward to watching this kid's career.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)