Reviews: No Country for Old Men / Across the Universe / Lust, Caution / Street Fight
174. No Country for Old Men (2007)
So I'm the only person I know who didn't like "O Brother." And "Fargo" was kinda meh. So I didn't really have high hopes for "No Country" . . . I figured it was a slow piece about the elderly dying at a care home, y'know, stuff that the Academy would eat up.
So to say that No Country surprised me was an understatement. Why is a movie made by the Coens now one of my favorites of the year?? Here's a few reasons why . .
- I love the complete lack of music. A lot of movies spend a lot of time pushing the soundtrack and No Country apparently doesn't even have a soundtrack!! Not even a "Songs inspired by . ." CD! How cool is that???
- I really like the natural flow of the dialog. Don't have any quotes on me, but the Memorable Quotes page on imdb is like 20 pages long which just reflects how good the writing is.
- I like how implicit it is. Often they'll just show you something without saying anything and it's up to YOU to go, "Oh, he must've hid it there. That's why there's trail marks etc." Compare that to Transformers where Shia's running after his car going "THAT'S MY CAR!! You're not getting away with CARJACKING MY CAR!" On the other hand, I like how the film also shows you stuff that you normally don't see . . like the bad guy in pain and trying to fix himself up, or the hero buying a new set of clothes after a gunfight.
- What a great villain. I read somewhere that the Cohens didn't want him compared to the legendary T-1000, but he kinda is as an efficient and unstoppable hunter. But then he isn't in his thinking. The cattle gun was an unusual and interesting choice for a weapon . . I had actually never heard of a cattle gun, and when I read about it on Wiki, I pretty much wanted to go vegetarian right there. And there ya have it: a movie that gets you off the beef. How often can you say that?
Like most, the abrupt ending really bugged me. It's not Spielberg bad, but it's still pretty anti-climactic. Those who watched it at the theatres probably heard a collective "What?!" when the credits hit. I was reading through that earlier post back here ( http://community.livejournal.com/moviebuffs/2311016.html ) and toslew and mozartfan's comments clarified it a bit for me. Still, I dunno, I guess The Sheriff's character was mostly a big question mark throughout. Even his conversation with Uncle CatLover seemed like something that you'd see in the "deleted scenes" section. At the same time, I'm not sure *what* a conclusive ending would've looked like. The bad guy would've probably had to die; however, I loved how they treated his exit and wouldn't change it. Maybe they needed to show the dream, or have Tommy Lee straddle a bomb to Vera Lynn music, who knows?
And after reading such a long review, you woke up. 9 out of 10
175. Across the Universe (2007)
Most likely I'm the only guy you'll ever know who doesn't like The Beatles. I prefer dance pop and hip hop, stuff I can tap my foot to, and the Beatles just don't have that kinda rhythm. However, I do like Julie Taymor. She can make wine out of crap. She made me LIKE Shakespeare, she made me LIKE art, so could she pull off a miracle and make me LIKE The Beatles?
Ehhhh, no. Music still wasn't growing on me. It was like Party of Five: The Musical with crazy college kids who keep breaking into song for no reason and the love-at-first-sight romance with zero chemistry didn't help much either. And unlike, say, Dreamgirls where the songs were written for the musical, the writers were trying to cram all these unrelated songs together to make something coherent . . kinda like Mamma Mia? Anyway, I can almost imagine the brainstorming sessions between the writers . .
A: "Ok, sooo the next song we got here is Dear Prudence. How do we get that to fit?"
B: "Hm . . hey how bout we name one of the girl's Prudence?"
A: "Is Prudence a girl's name? Heck, is it even a name?"
B: "Eh, we'll sugarcoat the story with enough romance that the teens won't care."
Meanwhile, Julie Taymor's famous style didn't really get going till an hour in and it wasn't as impressive this time around either. Except Strawberry Fields, that was pretty sweet.
Sorry Jules, next time try They Might Be Giants. 5 out of 10 BTW, did Jude's singing voice remind you of Ewan McGregor's in Moulin Rouge? When he says "All you need is love" I had complete deja vu.
176. Lust, Caution (2007)
Lust Caution has more layers than a Super Supreme Pizza Hut pizza, layers that I could actually discuss afterwards. Unlike, say, Syrianna, a lot of the layers were clear enough for Me the Average Joe to get, while still leaving a few challenging layers so my brain didn't get too lazy.
This film kept my attention from beginning to end -- it was just so fascinating watching this story of two actors, ones obsession to convince the other, the others obsession to find trust in this fake world, and how these obsessions drive them mad. Others are involved, but it's really a game between the two, a spy vs. spy, that gets out of control and snowballs to a shocking end that was so maddening, it was good. Y'know, I often cheer for the bad guy, but here they keep building and building up this guy into one of the most loathed individuals I've ever seen, NOBODY could like this guy . . and yet they . . arg! But again, it's a love/hate ending, and it's probably more memorable, profound and realistic this way.
Speaking of memorable, THE SEX. Was it needed? Yes, it served a purpose. Was it gratuitous? YES. It just kept going and going and eventually I'm thinking, "Yeah, I got the point already. Can we move on?" But it still kept going on and on . . I've never seen a non-porn movie get this close to porn. I don't want to think of Ang Lee as a lech though -- I'm thinking he did it more for the controversy, which sells tickets and gets the academy buzzing, and in that sense, it worked. However, as much as I enjoyed Lust Caution, I don't think I'll ever see it with someone else. ;) Date movie it is not. I haven't watch Brokeback yet, but seeing that Ang also clashed with the MPAA on that one, I'm guessing it gets pretty crazy in that one too? 10 out of 10
177. Street Fight (2005)
The history of this documentary baffles me: it was filmed in 2002, took until 2005 to be screened and then wasn't released on DVD until January 2008. It's about the 2002 Newark elections, so my only guess would be that he wanted to capitalize on the 2006 elections (he does add an extended ending about that one on the DVD).
The documentaries I've seen so far have a country and sometimes the world at stake. Street Fight only deals with a community, but it's equally provocative, often more so. It doesn't have the punch, pizazz, yahoo and how of Michael Moore and Al Gore's big budget documentaries, but it doesn't need to: the controversy of this election is scintillating enough. My jaw dropped at some of the shady tactics that were being used to hurt the good guy. I mean, paying cops to sabotage his billboards? Then the race card . . "Don't vote for this guy because he's not black enough!" Seriously, were people buying this crap?? You'll see in the documentary that quite a few were. It's really disheartening to see people vote for others depending on what color their skin is, not because of their qualifications for the job.
If you didn't think there was such a thing as a good politician, check this out. And if you want to see politicians at this worst, it fits that bill too. It's a very compelling and shocking documentary . . I'm not even interested in politics but for 90 minutes, Street Fight made me care. 9 out of 10
So I'm the only person I know who didn't like "O Brother." And "Fargo" was kinda meh. So I didn't really have high hopes for "No Country" . . . I figured it was a slow piece about the elderly dying at a care home, y'know, stuff that the Academy would eat up.
So to say that No Country surprised me was an understatement. Why is a movie made by the Coens now one of my favorites of the year?? Here's a few reasons why . .
- I love the complete lack of music. A lot of movies spend a lot of time pushing the soundtrack and No Country apparently doesn't even have a soundtrack!! Not even a "Songs inspired by . ." CD! How cool is that???
- I really like the natural flow of the dialog. Don't have any quotes on me, but the Memorable Quotes page on imdb is like 20 pages long which just reflects how good the writing is.
- I like how implicit it is. Often they'll just show you something without saying anything and it's up to YOU to go, "Oh, he must've hid it there. That's why there's trail marks etc." Compare that to Transformers where Shia's running after his car going "THAT'S MY CAR!! You're not getting away with CARJACKING MY CAR!" On the other hand, I like how the film also shows you stuff that you normally don't see . . like the bad guy in pain and trying to fix himself up, or the hero buying a new set of clothes after a gunfight.
- What a great villain. I read somewhere that the Cohens didn't want him compared to the legendary T-1000, but he kinda is as an efficient and unstoppable hunter. But then he isn't in his thinking. The cattle gun was an unusual and interesting choice for a weapon . . I had actually never heard of a cattle gun, and when I read about it on Wiki, I pretty much wanted to go vegetarian right there. And there ya have it: a movie that gets you off the beef. How often can you say that?
Like most, the abrupt ending really bugged me. It's not Spielberg bad, but it's still pretty anti-climactic. Those who watched it at the theatres probably heard a collective "What?!" when the credits hit. I was reading through that earlier post back here ( http://community.livejournal.com/moviebuffs/2311016.html ) and toslew and mozartfan's comments clarified it a bit for me. Still, I dunno, I guess The Sheriff's character was mostly a big question mark throughout. Even his conversation with Uncle CatLover seemed like something that you'd see in the "deleted scenes" section. At the same time, I'm not sure *what* a conclusive ending would've looked like. The bad guy would've probably had to die; however, I loved how they treated his exit and wouldn't change it. Maybe they needed to show the dream, or have Tommy Lee straddle a bomb to Vera Lynn music, who knows?
And after reading such a long review, you woke up. 9 out of 10
175. Across the Universe (2007)
Most likely I'm the only guy you'll ever know who doesn't like The Beatles. I prefer dance pop and hip hop, stuff I can tap my foot to, and the Beatles just don't have that kinda rhythm. However, I do like Julie Taymor. She can make wine out of crap. She made me LIKE Shakespeare, she made me LIKE art, so could she pull off a miracle and make me LIKE The Beatles?
Ehhhh, no. Music still wasn't growing on me. It was like Party of Five: The Musical with crazy college kids who keep breaking into song for no reason and the love-at-first-sight romance with zero chemistry didn't help much either. And unlike, say, Dreamgirls where the songs were written for the musical, the writers were trying to cram all these unrelated songs together to make something coherent . . kinda like Mamma Mia? Anyway, I can almost imagine the brainstorming sessions between the writers . .
A: "Ok, sooo the next song we got here is Dear Prudence. How do we get that to fit?"
B: "Hm . . hey how bout we name one of the girl's Prudence?"
A: "Is Prudence a girl's name? Heck, is it even a name?"
B: "Eh, we'll sugarcoat the story with enough romance that the teens won't care."
Meanwhile, Julie Taymor's famous style didn't really get going till an hour in and it wasn't as impressive this time around either. Except Strawberry Fields, that was pretty sweet.
Sorry Jules, next time try They Might Be Giants. 5 out of 10 BTW, did Jude's singing voice remind you of Ewan McGregor's in Moulin Rouge? When he says "All you need is love" I had complete deja vu.
176. Lust, Caution (2007)
Lust Caution has more layers than a Super Supreme Pizza Hut pizza, layers that I could actually discuss afterwards. Unlike, say, Syrianna, a lot of the layers were clear enough for Me the Average Joe to get, while still leaving a few challenging layers so my brain didn't get too lazy.
This film kept my attention from beginning to end -- it was just so fascinating watching this story of two actors, ones obsession to convince the other, the others obsession to find trust in this fake world, and how these obsessions drive them mad. Others are involved, but it's really a game between the two, a spy vs. spy, that gets out of control and snowballs to a shocking end that was so maddening, it was good. Y'know, I often cheer for the bad guy, but here they keep building and building up this guy into one of the most loathed individuals I've ever seen, NOBODY could like this guy . . and yet they . . arg! But again, it's a love/hate ending, and it's probably more memorable, profound and realistic this way.
Speaking of memorable, THE SEX. Was it needed? Yes, it served a purpose. Was it gratuitous? YES. It just kept going and going and eventually I'm thinking, "Yeah, I got the point already. Can we move on?" But it still kept going on and on . . I've never seen a non-porn movie get this close to porn. I don't want to think of Ang Lee as a lech though -- I'm thinking he did it more for the controversy, which sells tickets and gets the academy buzzing, and in that sense, it worked. However, as much as I enjoyed Lust Caution, I don't think I'll ever see it with someone else. ;) Date movie it is not. I haven't watch Brokeback yet, but seeing that Ang also clashed with the MPAA on that one, I'm guessing it gets pretty crazy in that one too? 10 out of 10
177. Street Fight (2005)
The history of this documentary baffles me: it was filmed in 2002, took until 2005 to be screened and then wasn't released on DVD until January 2008. It's about the 2002 Newark elections, so my only guess would be that he wanted to capitalize on the 2006 elections (he does add an extended ending about that one on the DVD).
The documentaries I've seen so far have a country and sometimes the world at stake. Street Fight only deals with a community, but it's equally provocative, often more so. It doesn't have the punch, pizazz, yahoo and how of Michael Moore and Al Gore's big budget documentaries, but it doesn't need to: the controversy of this election is scintillating enough. My jaw dropped at some of the shady tactics that were being used to hurt the good guy. I mean, paying cops to sabotage his billboards? Then the race card . . "Don't vote for this guy because he's not black enough!" Seriously, were people buying this crap?? You'll see in the documentary that quite a few were. It's really disheartening to see people vote for others depending on what color their skin is, not because of their qualifications for the job.
If you didn't think there was such a thing as a good politician, check this out. And if you want to see politicians at this worst, it fits that bill too. It's a very compelling and shocking documentary . . I'm not even interested in politics but for 90 minutes, Street Fight made me care. 9 out of 10