Let’s have a mind and raise flowers.

Have you ever done that first exultant hit of pure heroin? Well, I’m sorry to tell you, all subsequent hits will pale in comparison. Thankfully however, the Coen Brothers have now given us ‘Grade A’ Afghan Angel Tar Heroin and lemme tell you: It’s sweet in the veins, brother.

The story comes back like a great repeating wet dream to the Coens. It was told in “Blood Simple” like a suprising Freshman quarterback and again in “Fargo” like a Playoff worthy Sophomore. Here now in “No Country” they have not only scored the winning touchdown as a Junior, but they went home and got to second base with that slut from Economics class.

I will not tell you that “they’re covering familiar territory” in this film. I’ll let other reviews tell you that. Because I don’t really buy it. While you can unearth some of the same character types and motifs, this is a more serious and consistently good film than any of their previous. Let’s just pretend that “The Ladykillers” and “Intolerable Cruelty” never happened.
Just erase them from your tortured mind. You’re then left with a great body of work that tells interesting and dark tales
that are teetering on the edge of “dentistry drugs gone wrong”. “Fargo”, for all of its high points (it really is a great film) still borders on clownishness with overdone accents and caricture over characterization. “No Country” boils off the slag and only falls back into this dangerous territory in two scenes.

The Coens have a sense for place. While I would never want to go back to Texas for any reason, I enjoyed the time I spent there in this film. The scenery and each location breathes and the characters that inhabit them are so believable that it becomes a world that you feel you could step into (and then fear for your life). I want to make out with Nancy Haigh, the set decorator who joins the Coens again, also having done “O Brother”, “Hudsucker”, “Barton Fink”, and “Miller’s Crossing”. She and Lauri Gaffin (who did set decoration for Fargo) have a way of making a room come alive, especially kitchens-where the heart of a home is. The Coens’ scenes done there have a magic honesty that make you smell toast and eggs.

Javier Bardem has now become one of cinema’s great monsters. Emperor Palpatine is a Chuck E. Cheese’s ball pit compared to Anton Chigurh. I’ve never flinched more in any shoot out scene as I did here. It was embarrassing.
The direction of the suspenseful, eery, or action scenes are, simply put: ‘oral sex with a finger in my butt’ good. And that’s good.

I had come to two conclusions about movies:
1) Any movie with shotguns in it is awesome
2) After “Ladykillers” and “Intolerable Cruelty” the Coen Brothers were washed up.

Here, one of my conclusions was proven wrong. A voyage into a desolate land filled with greedy desolate souls, where death can surprise you or corruption eat at your heart slowly, “No Country For Old Men” is a film you’ll go home unravelling.

See this movie now. Seriously.

Ryan McGivern

There are few joys in my life, and watching movie trailers is one of them. Reese Witherspoon, listen to me: don’t take this simple pleasure from me. I had the unfortunate displeasure to watch the movie trailer for “Rendition” this morning while checking out apple.com/trailers and I almost wished that I had never got out of bed.

The movie trailer has the feel that it was written by a community college student who is taking their first Politics and Society class and wants to tell everybody how awful America is.

“America sends people over seas to be tortured! Did you know that!?”
“Yeah. Actually, I told you about it three years ago. Its called rendition.”
“I know! America does that. Whatcha call it?”
“Rendition.”
“…We’re at war with Iraq because of oil! Did you know that?”

Its one thing to have a preachy movie. Its another to have a self righteous movie telling you exactly what you already know-like “All Dogs Go To Heaven”.

Now aside from the movie being a steaming pile of “Let’s Get Outraged About Something At The Movie Theatre And Then Go Have Dinner At Olive Garden”, you’ve also got to hand it to Reese Witherspoon to raise the bar of Unwatchability so thoroughly.

Obviously, Meryl Streep didn’t have time to sit the young actress down and give her the first rule of good acting. “Whisper everything.”

I want to be fair. I don’t think that any A list actress, not even Anne Hathaway herself could deliver with any dignity the line: “Just tell me he’s okay!!!!!!”

I can’t wait until the sequel “Sleeper Cell” starring Reese Witherspoon and tackling the difficult and politically charged topic of stem cell research comes out. Reese Witherspoon’s Handsome Arab Husband will get Parkinson’s and Meryl Streep, reprising her role as an asshole Neo-Con, will deny him the ability to use undifferentiated embryonic cells to do research on. It will get me so outraged!

http://www.apple.com/trailers/newline/rendition/medium.html

Ryan McGivern