Oh Lawdy, No Country For Old Men!

[Gay Boy]

Eh I agree it won't win in the end. But its getting hype. They did the same thing for LMS.   It will probably go to No Country in the end.

DVDTalk has a nice little chart predicting who will be the nominees based on other awards/nominations they are getting:

Picture
1. No Country For Old Men (NBR, BSFC, WDCFCA, NYFCO*, NYFCC, CFCA, SA, BFCA*, LFCC*, GG*, AFI**)
2. Juno (ISA*, NBR*, SA, NYFCO*, BFCA*, GG*, WFCC, AFI**)
3. There Will Be Blood (NYFCO**, LAFCA, CFCA*, BFCA*, LFCC*, GG*, AFI**)
4. Into The Wild (NBR*, GA, CFCA*, BFCA*, AFI**)
5. The Diving Bell And The Butterfly (ISA*, NYFCO**, LAFCA***, BFCA*, AFI**)

Director
1. Joel & Ethan Coen, “No Country For Old Men” (WDCFCA, NYFCC, CFCA, SFFC, SA, BFCA*, LFCC*, GG*)
2. Julian Schnabel, “The Diving Bell And The Butterfly” (ISA*, BSFC, LAFCA***, BFCA*, GG*)
3. Paul Thomas Anderson, “There Will Be Blood” (NYFCO, LAFCA, CFCA*, LFCC*)
4. Tim Burton, “Sweeny Todd: ...” (NBR, BFCA*, GG*)
5. Joe Wright, “Atonement” (BFCA*, GG*)

Actor
1. Daniel Day-Lewis, “There Will Be Blood” (NYFCO, LAFCA, NYFCC, CFCA, BFCA*, LFCC*, GG*, WFCC)
2. George Clooney, “Michael Clayton” (NBR, WDCFCA, CFCA*, SFFC, BFCA*, LFCC*, GG*)
3. Viggo Mortensen, “Eastern Promises” (CFCA*, SA, BFCA*, BIFA, GG*)
4. Ryan Gosling, “Lars And The Real Girl” (CFCA*, SA, BFCA*, GG*)
4. Frank Langella, “Starting Out In The Evening” (ISA*, BSFC, LAFCA***, CFCA*, SA*)

Actress
1. Julie Christie, “Away From Her” (NBR, NYFCO, WDCFCA, NYFCC, CFCA*, SFFC, SA*, BFCA*, GG*)
2. Marion Cottilard, “La Vie En Rose” (BSFC, LAFCA, CFCA*, SA, BFCA*, LFCC*, GG*)
3. Ellen Page, “Juno” (ISA*, CFCA, SA, BFCA*, GG*)
4. Amy Adams, “Enchanted” (SA*, BFCA*, GG*, WFCC)
5. Angelina Jolie, “A Mighty Heart” (ISA*, CFCA*, SA*, BFCA*, LFCC*, GG*)

They have like a million others for every award but its too big to feel like posting

[Mandark]

The Oscars were confirmed shit after last year when Children of Men wasn't nominated for any of the big awards and didn't win cinematography. 

And Cheebs, Juno has no shot.  It's this years LMS, a feel good quirky indie flick that will win some categories (Ellen Page maybe, dunno) but serve no purpose in being in the best picture category.

I had my Oscar outrage moment when Titanic beat LA Confidential.  I still want to see things I like get some recognition, but I don't expect it.

Haven't seen Pan's Labyrinth, so I can't comment on the cinematography award, other than to say The Illusionist really shouldn't have been nominated.  The sets and costumes were pretty, but the filming was really meh.

[The Fake Shemp]

Juno does seem like this year's Little Miss Sunshine.  Cheebs is a sucker for sappy, quirky films, but I mean - just look at his haircut!  He looks like the main character for next year's sappy, quirky indie hit, Little Miss Yenor.

And, yeah, a number of films have gotten snubbed, but nothing has got anything on L.A. Confidential getting beat out by Titanic.

I plan to see No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood over Christmas break.  I might pass altogether on Juno after being letdown by Little Miss Sunshine, but I do love me some Michael Cera.  Then I will post my personal Academy Award winners, but it looks like Transformers is going to sweep this year for sure.

[The Fake Shemp]

Side note, I just recently saw Pan's Labyrinth and the cinematography was award-worthy.  I agree that Children of Men has better cinematography, but Pan's Labyrinth was able to do far more with a lot less.

[Tauntaun]

Pan's Labyrinth is an amazing movie, I should go buy it and make my wife watch it tonight/tomorrow.  The best way I can describe the movie is that it was beautiful in more than just looks.   

[Human Snorenado]

The Oscars were confirmed shit after last year when Children of Men wasn't nominated for any of the big awards and didn't win cinematography. 

And Cheebs, Juno has no shot.  It's this years LMS, a feel good quirky indie flick that will win some categories (Ellen Page maybe, dunno) but serve no purpose in being in the best picture category.

I had my Oscar outrage moment when Titanic beat LA Confidential.  I still want to see things I like get some recognition, but I don't expect it.

Haven't seen Pan's Labyrinth, so I can't comment on the cinematography award, other than to say The Illusionist really shouldn't have been nominated.  The sets and costumes were pretty, but the filming was really meh.

I had managed to block that out.  Thanks, dude.

Also, LA Confidential is another example of an actor turning in a great and award worthy performance (Crowe as Bud White) and getting his oscar later for something shitty (Gladiator).

[TVC15]

I still have no idea how Little Miss Sunshine got nominated for anything of worth.  It was a good movie, but I'd hesitate to say that I felt like I'd seen anything great by any measure after seeing it.

[Phoenix Dark]

LMS is a fun 8/10 type film at best. Kinda heart warming, funny, etc, but didn't strike me as a BEST PICTURE candidate.

I'm more interested in seeing There Will Be Blood than NCFOM, but obviously I'll watch both.

[Gay Boy]

LMS is a fun 8/10 type film at best. Kinda heart warming, funny, etc, but didn't strike me as a BEST PICTURE candidate.

I'm more interested in seeing There Will Be Blood than NCFOM, but obviously I'll watch both.

What PT Anderson movies have you seen?

[Phoenix Dark]

GUESS

[Gay Boy]

GUESS

the one with adam sandler, punch drunk love.

[Phoenix Dark]

The correct answer is none. Come on Jake, you know me

[Gay Boy]

Rent Boogie Nights. It's a PT Anderson movie about PORN staring Marky Mark.

[CajoleJuice]

I liked it a lot more before the abrupt tone shift than afterwards.

I agree with this. I'm guessing you're talking about the last 1/4 of the film? The first 3/4 is so fucking awesome that I'm able to overlook the last 30 minutes or so.

[Robo]

Doesn't Pee Dee have a boner for Tom Cruise?  Get Magnolia.  I'm actually surprised he hasn't seen it yet -- it's Cruise's best performance.

[Gay Boy]

Doesn't Pee Dee have a boner for Tom Cruise?  Get Magnolia.  I'm actually surprised he hasn't seen it yet -- it's Cruise's best performance.

He hasnt seen like any of Tom Cruise's best movies. He only watches the blockbuster ones.

[Bloodwake]

So, uh, I finally fucking watched this this week.

FUCKING PHENOMENAL.

Javier Bardem basically took my ass and owned it. End of story. Probably one of the most epic onscreen villains EVER. I'm calling it right now. And the suspense is amazing.

Please watch if you haven't seen it. And, it's going to be on the most awesome-est HD formats, BLU-RAY, and I will purchase it day one. Guaranteed.

FUCKING GREAT.

[Mandark]

I liked it a lot more before the abrupt tone shift than afterwards.

I agree with this. I'm guessing you're talking about the last 1/4 of the film? The first 3/4 is so fucking awesome that I'm able to overlook the last 30 minutes or so.

Yeah.  It's still a very good movie, and even the last part is good, taken as individual scenes.  It just doesn't fit too well with the rest of the movie, and undermines what had happened up to that point.

[AdmiralViscen]

Can someone answer

spoiler (click to show/hide)

What the fuck was going on when Tommy Lee Jones revisited the crime scene where Main Man died? They made it look like Murder Dude was hiding in the room, but then Tommy Lee Jones just kind of pokes around and walks out with no consequence. Was Murder Dude in there or not?

[close]

I didnt love it, nor like it as much as all the hype/praise from trusted peeps would have led me to believe I would

Word.

[Gay Boy]

Why do I get the feeling that most of the people on the internet who are going crazy over this have seen at most 1-2 other coen brother movies?

[CajoleJuice]

 

Although, the friend I saw No Country with has seen Fargo and absolutely hated it. He liked No Country though.

[Gay Boy]

It's a great movie, don't get me wrong. In my top 5 of the year, easily. But I have seen a decent number of Coen films that are of equal quality or better. I find the internet masturbation to it a bit over-the-top.

[CajoleJuice]

The internet masturbation to a lot of things is over-the-top.

[Gay Boy]

The same thing happened with The Departed last year.

[AdmiralViscen]

Can someone answer

spoiler (click to show/hide)

What the fuck was going on when Tommy Lee Jones revisited the crime scene where Main Man died? They made it look like Murder Dude was hiding in the room, but then Tommy Lee Jones just kind of pokes around and walks out with no consequence. Was Murder Dude in there or not?

[close]

? Plz

[bud]

fargo is fucking amazing.

the scene with macy's character trying to excape through the back window always cracks me up.

[CajoleJuice]

The same thing happened with The Departed last year.

And Batman Begins the year before.

I love all three movies. I guess I'm part of the problem. Oh well.

[Gay Boy]

The same thing happened with The Departed last year.

And Batman Begins the year before.

I love all three movies. I guess I'm part of the problem. Oh well.

I love all three as well but things get out of hand. I should be head over heels hyping TDK but the gaf insanity has made me bored of the internet viral stuff for it.

[bud]

harold and kumar 2 is going to be better anyway.

[Mandark]

Can someone answer

spoiler (click to show/hide)

What the fuck was going on when Tommy Lee Jones revisited the crime scene where Main Man died? They made it look like Murder Dude was hiding in the room, but then Tommy Lee Jones just kind of pokes around and walks out with no consequence. Was Murder Dude in there or not?

[close]

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I've seen it suggested that Chigurh is actually a projection by the sheriff, to personify the encroaching evil of the world around him.  I don't think that's the case, or at least I don't think it should be the case.  Up to that point, there's too much verisimilitude for that sort of thing.

[close]

[CajoleJuice]

It's not just the internet in some of these cases...at least in my experience. Both Batman Begins and The Departed were fairly hyped by people I knew.

The Oscars were confirmed shit after last year when Children of Men wasn't nominated for any of the big awards and didn't win cinematography. 

And I just wanted to quote this.

[AdmiralViscen]

Can someone answer

spoiler (click to show/hide)

What the fuck was going on when Tommy Lee Jones revisited the crime scene where Main Man died? They made it look like Murder Dude was hiding in the room, but then Tommy Lee Jones just kind of pokes around and walks out with no consequence. Was Murder Dude in there or not?

[close]

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I've seen it suggested that Chigurh is actually a projection by the sheriff, to personify the encroaching evil of the world around him.  I don't think that's the case, or at least I don't think it should be the case.  Up to that point, there's too much verisimilitude for that sort of thing.

[close]

 

[Solo]

The Departed and Batman Begins were dealt with just fine by the peeps I know in the real world. They were both well-liked, but Ive never seen anything even approaching the circle jerk on the internet. I find this to be the case with most popular movies/games/whatever. Ill chat with people I know and they'll be like "BB was great fun, can't wait for TDK" and stuff, whereas on the net, its flavours of "BB is the greatest American movie in 50 years, and one of the best movies ever made, and Christian Bale deserved an Oscar!" and other such wank.

Real people 1
Internet 0

[CajoleJuice]

When I say fairly hyped, I mean "Yeah, it was awesome" coming out of the mouths of the majority of my friends. It should be assumed that people in real life aren't as insane and hyperbolic as people on the internet. I guess I was just trying to say that if it's like that with my friends, than I'm prepared for the hype on the internet being 5x worse.

[Solo]

Hype and loving stuff is good. Makes things fun. GAF just has the uncanny knack for turning the volume to 11.

[Phoenix Dark]

Just got back from seeing it. VERY good movie. Best villain ever confirmed

[Phoenix Dark]

I saw the movie last night. Sadly the theater fucked up and was showing the movie in this weird, fullscreen-esque quality picture. Luckily a few people contacted the theater and they decided to fix the picture - so we had to watch the first 5 minutes again, as well as all the previews. le sigh

I won't bore anyone with a long review: No Country For Old Men is simply amazing. Going into the movie I didn't know much about it, outside of the trailers. I certainly didn't expect to see such a thrilling, intense film. Interestingly, there is no musical score in the film; music often dictates emotion in films, and in suspenseful/horror films it often paces certain scenes - the shower scene in Psycho, or the shark music in Jaws are both perfect examples of this. Yet without any type of "danger danger" cue music No Country managed to keep my heart pounding. The first confrontation between Llewelyn and SUGAH is so jarring, so intense my heart was pounding; very few movies cause me to react so strongly.

Every performance is amazing. Tommy Lee Jones plays an aging sheriff, a relic of an older time who cannot cope with the dangerous place the world has become. And as his simple world comes under threat by a truly menacing psychopath he finds himself torn between protecting his town and maintaining his way of life. Josh Brolin is pretty damn badass as the unlucky bastard who stumbles across a fortune of blood money from a drug deal gone bad. But the entire film is defined by Javier Bardem, who brings one of the most disturbing (and amazing) villains to life I've ever seen. SUGAH is simply inhuman, yet driven by a manic, linear thought process; he's heartless yet follows a set of rules, sparring those who pass his test while brutally butchering those who don't. Perhaps brutal isn't even a fitting description - the violence he sows is beyond ruthless.

While the cinematography doesn't blow you away with long shots or unorthodox angles, it manages to really bring the western plains of Texas to life, almost like a separate character. There are some beautiful shots to be seen here.

Overall it's just amazing. While the pacing seems to falter a bit towards the end, overall the film doesn't have many points I could raise complaints about.

9/10

My favorite films of 2007 thus far (as you know by now, I'm hella slow when it comes to seeing new movies. I won't have a proper 2007 top 10 for awhile, given all the stuff I need to catch up on (Eastern Promises, Jesse James, American Gangster, etc). And There Will Be Blood isn't out yet

1. No Country For Old Men - 9
2. The Bourne Ultimatum - 9
3. Zodiac - 8.5
4. Hot Fuzz - 8
5. 300 - 8

[cubicle47b]

The character played by Tommy Lee Jones can deal with how dangerous the situation is.  He can't deal with Chigurh because the violence comes seemingly without motive which he can't understand.  Here's the opening monologue again (I don't think it's completely accurate but it's close enough).

There was this boy I sent to the gas chamber at Huntsville here a while back. My arrest and my testimony. He killed a fourteen-year-old girl. Papers said it was a crime of passion but he told me there wasn't any passion to it. Told me that he'd been planning to kill somebody for about as long as he could remember. Said that if they turned him out he'd do it again. Said he knew he was going to hell. Be there in about fifteen minutes. I don't know what to make of that. I surely don't. The crime you see now, it's hard to even take its measure. It's not that I'm afraid of it. I always knew you had to be willing to die to even do this job - not to be glorious. But I don't want to push my chips forward and go out and meet something I don't understand. To go into something you don't understand you would have to be crazy or *become part of it*.

I came across this while looking for a better version of the monologue.

It's also worth remembering that the movie began with Sheriff Bell talking about where he thought he'd been and where he found himself at the moment the film starts. Evidently Bell believes that, in the not-too-distant past, criminal activity was connected to motives. A lawman who fought crime eventually might get around to understanding what he was up against. In any case, Bell's two monologues -- one off-camera and one on -- serve as battered old bookends, leaning against all the sorrow and horror the movie has to offer.

In the opening monologue -- delivered while the Coens' camera reveals a desolate Western landscape -- Bell recounts the story of a 14-year-old boy who not only committed a senseless murder, but made no attempt to hide a matter-of-fact attitude toward the evil he had wrought. Bell made the arrest. The kid went to the chair.

What a waste. It wasn't even a crime of passion. Crimes of passion can't be justified, but they can be understood.

"No Country For Old Men" deals with incomprehensible violence, incomprehensible to everyone except Chigurh, the character played by Javier Bardem. Chigurh, whose first name is Anton, operates on a different plane than those he pursues. Although he's versatile when it comes to killing, Chigurh's preferred method involves use of an instrument normally employed to kill cattle in slaughterhouses. People. Cattle. It's all the same to him.

Chigurh has principles of some sort, although we're not entirely sure what they might be. Whatever they are, they're not the same as whatever motivates folks in the ordinary world -- greed, lust or a desire simply to get away with something. No, Chigurh brings a purer kind of menace to the proceedings, and maybe he stands for just about everything that's driving Bell toward defeat, the horror he (and we) can't see coming.

But back to that final scene. The newly retired Bell sits across the breakfast table from his wife. He's just hung up his badge, which we take as less of an act of satisfaction than an abandonment of hope. We may fairly conclude that Bell's twilight years will be tinged with puzzlement and sorrow. In his troubled leisure, he'll probably dream the same dream again and again, the one he describes to his wife, the one in which his lawman father rides ahead of him, negotiating a dark mountain pass to make a safe place for his son. Each time Bell dreams about the father who silently rides ahead, he'll awaken to a defenseless world in which there are no safe places.

[Phoenix Dark]

Yeah that makes much more sense. It's definitely the type of film I'd have to see twice to "get" more