Just finished watching No Country for Old Men. And before I talk about the movie I must share a personal piece of trivia. About a year ago I heard Tess Harper (Tommy Lee Jones' wife in No Country) would be in town to speak at a Writer's Luncheon/Award thing. For some odd reason I thought she'd make an interesting, albeit, different guest for a show we were taping with our Mayor. Most of our guests were the usual suspects and I thought this might move him and our show out of our comfort zone a little so I tried to make contact with her. It took a few days but I succeeded in reaching her and she accepted my invitation. The show went well, our Mayor rose to the challenge and took my notes and questions and added some personal interest. She was cordial but I was surprised by two things - she came dressed for jogging and smoking a cigarette. Back to the movie...
I guess anything by the Coen brothers will be surprising. Overall I liked the movie but was disappointed with the ending. I read No Country years ago but I confess I don't recall how it ends. But somehow I wanted the satisfaction of seeing Chigurh blown away or something - oops spoiler for those who haven't seen it yet.
Anything with Tommy Lee Jones is worth watching and that's the only reason my wife stuck it out to the end. She was put off by the violence pretty early but I guess she got numb to it as the movie went along. I've never seen Josh Brolin in anything before but thought he was convincing and good in his role. And of course now Javier Bardem's picture must be next to the word sociopath in the dictionary.
My wife wondered though why or if Tommy Lee's character ever connected the dots between the cattle-killing air powered thing and his own story about the guy who shot himself while trying to kill a steer.
Cormac McCarthy didn't write a follow-up but the Coen's left the door open for Tommy Lee to continue to hunt for Chigurh. At times watching this I felt like I was in one of Tony Hillerman's novels in the southwest - miles and miles of desert, isolation, etc. And the lead characters seem similar - world-weary, smart detective-types searching for killers.
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2 comments:
i really can't see her as anything but Fairlight Spencer! =)
I too wondered about the ending of that movie. My husband and I just looked at each other and wondered if we were getting too old for the new movies or if we missed something really pertinent to that ending. Glad to see we weren't the only ones left scratching our heads.
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