The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent
Anybody seeing 'No Country For Old Men' ?
ifyoucantfixit:
So your final decisionis; go and see it, but beware, you may not like the ending?
SFEnnisSF:
--- Quote from: ifyoucantfixit on November 21, 2007, 01:36:18 am ---
So your final decisionis; go and see it, but beware, you may not like the ending?
--- End quote ---
I guess you could say that.
I've been reading more discussions on IMDB and this evening I think I've concluded this: Great material. Great thought provoking story. Excellent thriller. Ending poorly executed.
This could have been as great as BBM, but hmmm, I really think they screwed up the execution of the ending. There's many arguments on how it should have been done or shouldn't have been done on imdb. I hate that I'm comparing this to BBM, but in looking back, I do have to say that BBM was FLAWLESS. This unfortunately, is flawed. I wouldn't be surprised if they re-do the ending at some point...
shortfiction:
I may go see it tomorrow since it's finally playing at the movie theatre right behind my house.
shortfiction:
I saw it today. The audience was so riveted that they barely made a sound the whole time.
I can see why some would not like the ending. It plays against expectation and convention. It does not end where or when you think it will. I thought it was going to end when Anton was shown walking away from the car accident....but then it didn't. I didn't mind it though.
I thought Josh Brolin and Javier Bardem were fantastic in their roles. I also liked the desolate landscape and the lack of a musical score, which served to make it much creepier. Bardem doesn't even blink once, and somehow that's very creepy.
Some things which I've never seen in a movie before: killing people with an oxygen tank but not beating them in order to do so; and sending a pit bull into a river to chase a man. Got to give them points for originality here.
I understood the title during the third act and figured it must be existential. The "old men" are the sheriff and other men of his generation who can't stop the world from changing ("you can't stop what's coming") and think everything went to hell when people stopped saying "sir" and "ma'am." The Sheriff retires because there is no place for him in this new world.
ednbarby:
Overall, I liked it. I thought a few scenes in particular were extraordinary - especially Tommy Lee Jones' character recounting the dream about his father to his wife. That gave me chills, because I've had a very similar dream about my mother who passed away many years ago. I liked that it didn't tie everything up into nice, neat little packages at the end. And I thought Josh Brolin was wonderful. I didn't like that Javiar Bardem's character killed 8,000,000 people, and yet was only being sought by two - maybe three - guys. My husband and I both liked that Josh Brolin's character always took the dead men's guns.
For my money, "Fargo" is still the Coen Brothers' masterpiece. My husband disagrees and says it's "Miller's Crossing." Either way, it ain't this one. Too flawed in too many places, and overall, it doesn't maintain a consistent tone like their others so painstakingly do. I give it three stars. But that's all I'll give it. And I recommend seeing it in the theater for Roger Deakins' cinematography alone. It's still better than most of the crap out there right now.
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