As much as I enjoyed the cat and mouse game between Josh Brolin and Javier Bardem (which is less cat and mouse more armored War Bear and monkey [no I won’t stop bashing the Golden Compass])… I was upset, confused and beffudencholy at the seemingly elitist and confounding ending of the film. No, no… I’m sorry ending is a harsh word. Let’s say the way the film just stopped. No closure, no explanation, no reason, just shit happened and then it stopped happening because the screen went black and the credits rolled.
Now I could’ve missed something. Maybe the projectionist switched up a reel and there was something that happened after the credits. But he didn’t, it didn’t and it was a letdown.
For the last 8 minutes of the film watching Tommy Lee Jones (or TLJ as his BFF’s call him), talk about not one but TWO dreams he had, I couldn’t help but hear the Coen Brothers laughing giddily like Knox Harrington, the video artist. They did however find a way to give Milton from Office Space his stapler--and by stapler I mean silenced shotgun and by give I mean shoot in the neck.
Now to a completely different tangent: I love Lindy West. She writes for The Stranger out in Seattle and she’s hilarious when she writes about movies. But after discovering her new-found love of Cheesecake Bites at Arby’s I’m now… perplexed, forlorn and moved to start taking up money for her inevitable double bypass. Basically eating fried Cheesecake is about as healthy as rolling in a pit of bears (armored war ones) covered in honey and meat tenderizer after eating poison and swallowing a jar of bees. Plus I hear they’re about as addictive as fried cocaine. Maybe I’ll pick up a half dozen tonight…
PS: Javier Bardem’s thinking of murder right now.
2 comments:
I feel compelled to follow up with this post after recently seeing that No Country For MurderMurderMurder has been soundly hailed as this year's best film. By many different sources. Let me first say this: don't get me wrong... It was a fantastic film. However I do have notes...
The suspense was great. By the end of the film there was so much tension built up I thought the film itself might just snap. And I get it, ok? I get that in real life things don't always conclude neatly. I mean... Isn't that just called dating? And there inlies the problem. No Country was like a bad relationship. No Closure For Bad Dates. And I'm not just complaining because I have cinematic blue balls, the point is this... Having a movie end like it happened in " real life" is not a "brave" directing choice. Because we all know what real life is like... Boring. So when a suspense thriller ends without delivering on all its built up tension-- tension built using a movie style plot, movie style devices, and then thrusts you back into "reality"--you just sit at home and wonder why people are running around acting like they "get it". The Coen Brothers are laughing at you... Right Now.
Oh, and Javier Bardem is still fondly thinking of MURDER.
Seattle is the shit. Don't you forget it.
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