No Country For Old Men

Alright time to sober up a little bit. For this week and next week, we'll look a more serious films for the most part. So let's get started.

No Country For Old Men is a really damn good suspense movie by the Coen brothers following an everyday man who stumbles upon a whole world of problems after stealing about a million in cash from some drug dealers and is being hunted down by one of the most terrifying characters in film. No wonder Javier Bardem won an Academy Award for his performance, hell if there is ever a reason to see this movie it is because of his performance. This movie is one part suspense thriller, one part character study, and one part trying to figure out what in God's name the ending is. Yeah, one of those movies! But regardless of endings, still a good movie. The cast is a big part of the film's success, Josh Brolin who I think is a good actor does well here, Tommy Lee Jones does fine work like he always does, but Javier Bardem man...he makes a coin toss the most piss pants scariest thing in the world. One of the things I noticed prevalently in the film is the notion of the unknown. Many characters talk about the unknown factors, both in other characters and just in the sense of the world. And more importantly how they don't want to face the unknown but when it comes to Javier's character they have to. It is human fact that we are afraid of the unknown, and in that sense Javier's character is the most fear inducing thing ever. Everything he says is something you never hear, almost riddles mixed with more riddles. You have no idea why he does these things and that's what makes his character interesting and scary. And the other thing I noticed is an unnatural absence of music. Oh, I've heard there is a grand total of about 16 minutes of music but I ain't heard a second of it. It makes the film feel much more tense and uncomfortable so hey, big points for that. I like how the story is set in Texas for the most part, specifically in the year 1980. Although most of the film was shot in New Mexico and Mexico with sparse locations actually in Texas, it looks like West Texas. But after all is said and done, it really an interesting movie to watch and talk about so I say watch it and let me know what you make of it.

Alright, tomorrow we plunge headfirst into Quentin Tarantino's directorial debut.