Three films a day

#83, 11/18 – No Country for Old Men (2007) (tofw)

My fascination with Cormac McCarthy is pretty recent. It started just this winter (late February), when The Road came up in several different conversations and I decided I had to give it a look. Soon after I’d eventually read that novel (in June, for my book club), I was hanging out with a friend from book club and a friend of hers who loved McCarthy’s earlier stuff but who really didn’t care for his more recent work. And I’m not sure why or how, given my take-it-or-leave-it attitude about The Road, but that whole conversation made me interested in experiencing more of the author’s work.

So, No Country for Old Men is the first McCarthy-inspired work I’ve seen in this, my era of McCarthy fascination (hmmm, I almost wrote McCarthy-ism there). And I’m itching to read the novel now, because I’m wonder what liberties, if any, the brothers Coen took with the material.

As heretical as this may seem, I’m not a big Coen brothers fan. Oh, I like most of what I’ve seen from them, but whenever I hear they’ve come out with something new I usually can’t seem to make myself care. Which is why I was surprised when I walked out of this and thought "flaws and all, this is my favorite Coen brothers movie yet". How that happened I’m not really sure.

Maybe I was in the mood for something icily dispassionate and yet incredibly suspenseful. No Country for Old Men is certainly both of those. Perhaps I was taken in by Javier Bardem’s absolutely perfect performance, or Josh Brolin’s, or Tommy Lee Jones’s. Or maybe it was something else. I really don’t know.

But I’m pretty sure I liked it more than Fargo. Yes, seriously. And I know I’m going to read the book soon. Well, sooner or later. I think I’ll tackle Blood Meridian and The Border Trilogy first.

#82, 11/12 – Gone Baby Gone (2007) (tofw)

Not my cup of tea, really. There were scattered moments which caught my interest, and I thought the big question at the end was certainly good fodder for discussion. But I found it mostly to be a very average thriller set in Boston. Of course, the last average thriller set in Boston I saw won a Best Picture Oscar, so….

#81, 11/10 – Lars and the Real Girl (2007) (tofw)

I have been rather critical (mostly offline, but occasionally in this space) of the recent American independent movies which seemed to consider "quirk", in and of itself, a virtue. I could name a laundry list of culprits, many of them well-considered things, which I find ultimately unsatisfying beyond a few basic chuckles because there’s simply no there there. (Worse, many of these films are mean-spirited exercises in "comedy", something I’ve little patience for.) But I guess it’s better to speak of a "quirky" American independent movie which managed to have something very interesting and satisfying inside of it.

Honestly, I was skeptical about Lars and the Real Girl. I’d first heard of it a few hours before I saw it, and the premise seemed…. bad. But Ryan Gosling, Emily Mortimer, and Patricia Clarkson are all favorites of mine and so I had to seriously consider any movie which features all three of them. I’m glad I did.

The actors (especially Gosling, who has now given three of the most wonderful performances I have seen in recent years) all bring something wonderful to this film, there is no doubt, but the real beauty is in the story and its tone. Here, thankfully, was a quiet, touching, human piece of work which eschewed the cheap pranks the movie’s basic premise seemed to make all too tempting. Every time I braced myself for the kind of joke I have grown to expect from recent "quirky" American independent movies, it didn’t come. It never did. And that’s worthy of some kudos.

But, just in case I’m overemphasizing my admiration for the movie’s restraint, that’s not what I adore the most about it. Lars and the Real Girl worked for me because it was genuine and sincere. It made you empathize with its central character, by never losing focus of his humanity (or his dignity, frankly), even in the midst of the story’s splendid absurdity. Maybe I’m getting sappy in my old age, but as the movie started its final reel, you could hear sniffles all throughout the theatre. I honestly can’t remember the last time I heard a Saturday night audience so affected by a movie which wasn’t, in my opinion, being manipulative or cloying. 

Really, maybe I am getting sappy (or maybe I’ve spent too much time watching basic Hollywood movies this year and my expectations have suffered as a result), but I consider this a beautiful, soulful piece of filmmaking.

#80, 11/4 – American Gangster (2007) (tofw)

The great movie mobsters are all quite interesting characters, aren’t they? Edward G. Robinson’s Rico Bandello, James Cagney’s (absolutely insane) Cody Jarrett, and even De Niro’s (interpretation of) Al Capone were all very captivating people. And Denzel’s Frank Lucas is in that very same company, if you ask me.

I liked American Gangster, though probably not as much as I’d hoped. All the same, it was an enjoyable movie with some impressive bits of storytelling (though I admittedly got lost during one important scene early on, and so did the friend I saw it with). I’m especially happy with how it was largely framed inside the issues of organized-crime-as-big-business and police corruption.

Which leads me, of course, to The Wire, a show which deals so beautifully with those two issues. And I don’t know anything about real life Frank Lucas beyond what the film’s epilogue told me, quite honestly, but I think Denzel’s portrayal has (what I would presume are entirely unintentional) shades of Stringer Bell. So it’s kind of funny to me that Idris Elba (Stringer himself) plays someone Lucas has to overcome at the start of the film.

Briefly back to my overall impression, one of these days I’m going to figure out why I love Ridley Scott’s earlier movies and only kinda like his more recent efforts. It’s definitely not a function of when I saw them, since I thought very highly of The Duellists, a movie I only saw for the first time two and a half years ago (see?). I really do want to figure it out. It may be a really simple explanation, but I’d like to figure it out all the same.

(OK, and a totally unrelated bit here. I wandered over to IMDB to see whether Michael Haneke has done anything recently, because I’ve been very, very out of the film loop recently. And what do I see but he’s made a remake of his own Funny Games for the United States with Naomi Watts? That’s gonna go over like a lead balloon. As much as I love Haneke and as brilliant a critique of the Hollywood thriller as I think Funny Games is, that’s got to be one of the most puzzling filmmaker choices I’ve seen in ages. )