No Country For Old Men (dir. Joel & Ethan Coen)
Well, there was a tremendous amount of hype going into this one, and while I can't really say I'm disappointed, I don't know that I'm exactly blown away. I may still have to sit with this one for a bit, or perhaps read the novel to fill in some of the blanks. And I'm not referring to the oblique, somewhat unresoved ending, but more about the nooks and crannies of what appears to be a much deeper story that what the Coens have illuminated in their adaptation. I feel like I should probably give Cormac McCarthy a try anyway as I've heard many good things about his writing.
Anyway, on a technical level the film was near perfect; there's not much more you could say about the photography of Roger Deakins (who should win an Oscar this year between this and his immaculate work on James/Ford), the acting of Tommy Lee Jones, or the directing and writing skills of Los Bros Coens. What really stood out here was the editing (again, the Coens, under longtime pseudonym Roderick Jaynes), the acting of Josh Brolin (who's having quite a year) as well as Kelly MacDonald and of course Javier Bardem, who will at least be getting an Oscar nom, not to mention a handful of critic's awards, I imagine.
Ultimately, I'm not so sure this is the best Coens film, or even near the top, as so many are proclaiming. While this film plays to many of their strengths, I like it when they go for broke visually, and disappear into their own strange worlds. So I can't say that this strikes me in the cinematic heart in the way that Barton Fink and The Man Who Wasn't There do, or even Hudsucker or O Brother. It's clearly miles above their last couple missteps, and is on par with the chilling Southern Gothic of Blood Simple and the bleak beauty of Miller's Crossing. Still not sure how I'd rank it. There have been many comparisons to Fargo, which was never one of my favorites as I felt it wasn't weird ENOUGH. This is even more straight, but perhaps it's better because it's not hedging its bets.
Anyway, this is a really a film that's worthy of more group discussion...