What’s the Most You Ever Lost on a Coin Toss?

There’s no music in “No Country for Old Men.”

No original score, no Merle Haggard or Tammy Wynet twanging away on any pickup trucks’ radios; Okay, there’s a scene with a mariachi band, but that’s more of a gag, and… y’know what, fine: there’s “very little” music in “No Country for Old Men,” and that’s one of the first things I noticed about it.

The whole point, I assume, is so that there’s nothing to distract you from the tension that permeates almost every frame of film; you’re right there in the moment, no hooks, melodies, or familiar lyrics to soften the suspense.

And suspense this film has in spades. The Coen brothers present you with Llewelyn Moss, an average-joe Texan who, while out hunting game in the desert stumbles upon the remains of a drug deal gone very, very wrong. Bodies and guns lay strewn about among a ring of cars, and the opportunistic Moss confiscates a case of about $2 million. Unfortunately, the money’s tagged with a tracking device, and soon enough he’s being pursued by Mexican drug runners, as well as an extremely unsavory character.

With a lack of music and enough gunplay to keep a Texan happy, the film can go from quiet to loud pretty quickly, but in between firefights, something’s got to fill up the screen time, and for one of the first times this year, what does it are the characters. And I don’t just mean the fictional people being portrayed by actors, I mean their character. The cast of this film jump out of the screen, even when nothing’s being said, and give some of the most stark, austere, and downright real performances I’ve seen in a long time. Josh Brolin in the role of Moss affects an unpretentious frankness and simplicity, but at no time do you take him for any kind of dim-witted hick. Tommy Lee Jones is once again the aging law-man trying to discern between right and wrong, this time seeming to add a retiree’s mounting disappointment that the two were never as clearly defined as they should have been. One of the most memorable roles was that of Javier Bardem as Anton Chigurh, the psychopath hunting Moss and the money he’s obtained. Bardem is truly terrifying as this unpredictable killer who will manufacture prey if none are immediately presented to him and follows a psychotic code of behavior because, well, it seems like he just wouldn’t be able to function without it.

The film doesn’t rush itself, but it is constantly moving forward with calculated intent and because of this, one doesn’t really have the opportunity to wonder what is going on here beyond what is going on, if you take my meaning. In fact, the plot seems so straightforward that it’s actually hard to tell what the deeper meaning here is, though it’s impossible not to sense the presence of one.

This, I think, is what I truly love most about “No Country for Old Men:” The film virtually demands to be talked about, discussed, argued over, and most importantly, though about. This is certainly not a movie that can just be watched, quoted, and moved on from, and it’s just what we need more of in the movies: Plots that are thought-provoking, and endings that aren’t easy to figure out.

“No Country For Old Men” is easily the best picture of the year. And if anyone has anything different to say, they might just find me on their tail with a cattlegun at their backs.

30 Days of Night is 113 Minutes of Brutal.

What do we think of when we think of vampires?

I’m sure most of us think of the Bela Lugosi, Anne Rice-style of vampire: castles, fluffy shirts, and androgyny. We think of gorgeous creatures that are brimming with seductive sexuality, a vampire that will smooth-talk their way right into your neck.

How utterly boring. I don’t want some overly-charming European lothario; I came to see a monster. Give me Nosferatu over Dracula any day of the week. Thankfully, 30 Days of Night takes my sentiment and runs: This is the ugliness of Nosferatu mixed with the intensity of 28 Days Later.

The premise here is that a small Alaskan town (“the northernmost city in the U.S.”) that is about to be subject to, well… thirty days of night, is beset by a swarm of vampires. The film begins with a standard expository pace; introducing characters, getting artsy composition shots clearly inspired by the graphic novel source material, and stabbing a yard full of sled dogs. Again, pretty standard stuff. We’re introduced to the ever-squinting Josh Hartnett as Sheriff Eben, who’s spending the last day of sunlight investigating a series of unusual, but minor disturbances. Half the town’s population is leaving for the month of darkness, while the rest batten down for the long haul. But as soon as the sun sets, the film takes off like a feral beast and does not once break its stride.

I went into the theater with my little notepad, intending to jot down any useful insights that may have come to me. I walked out of the theater with just two words written down:

“Unrelenting brutality.”

The death scenes are extremely violent, but still not over-the-top; there’s something sickeningly down-to-earth about hacking at someone’s neck with an axe over and over until at last the head is dislodged. There are a couple of really unsettling overhead “God’s-eye-view” shots showing the townspeople fleeing helplessly through the street as they are each caught, and fall with a spray of blood splattering across the snow-covered ground.

The real stars of this movie are the vampires, who are more animal than human; they leap from rooftops, gnaw viciously upon their victims’ corpses, and are constantly emitting rather jarring screeching noises. They have a distinct, almost rodent-like look to them, and most are dressed as though they were attending a Euro-hipster funeral.

It’s their behavior that is the most effectively disturbing thing about them. One of the first vampire encounters of the movie is also one of the most exhilarating: A vampire leaps on top of the Eben’s truck and in a wide shot silhouetting the truck and the creature, and we see it pounding ferociously, with a frightening desperation, on the roof of the truck. It’s those moments where you feel as overwhelmed and helpless as the characters do that really makes this picture stay with you.

The bulk of the film is spent watching Hartnett and a handful of survivors trying in vain to hide from the creatures for the rest of the month. Here are the only real stumbling points the movie has: there are a few erratic shifts in tone and seeming gaps in the narrative that make it hard to connect to the characters. And the sense of passing time–which is so crucial to the survival element of this movie–is pretty much bungled. It jumps from day 1 to day 7 to day 18 and so forth. It’s sometimes hard to really get a sense of the desperation and fear that these people must be feeling.

But overall, 30 Days of Night is a success. A great, genuinely scary movie that really feels just so brutal. There is absolutely nothing graceful or romantic, or even remotely pleasant about this film. This movie is makes you feel uncomfortable and has plenty of scenes that are difficult to watch. And that’s exactly how it’s supposed to feel.

Gonna Hang Me in the Mornin’…

3:10 to Yuma is arguably the best Western I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen Young Guns. So I know what I’m talking about.

The film was emotional, exciting, well-filmed, exceptionally well-acted, and had a very powerful ending. I’m not even going to waste time writing about it.

I will only say this: Go out and see 3:10 to Yuma.

On Halloween.

I don’t like horror movies.

I find them archaic, archetypal, predictable, and insufferably boring. The best “scare” most horror movies can hope to elicit are cheap “gotchas” that just make me jump and frustrate me because that’s the best they can do. What I’m looking for most in a film is a compelling character, something in which the horror genre is decisively lacking.

That said, I admit  I’ve always had a soft spot for Halloween.  Perhaps it’s sentimental; I saw it way back as a little kid and all the “bogeyman” talk resonated with me. And I always like Michael Myers more than other horror icons, because he didn’t talk, and therefore didn’t spew out awful puns, and he wasn’t a gruesome, lumbering abomination that relied on increasingly graphic (and ludicrous ) death scenes to make his films worth watching. He was very simple, and arresting in that simplicity: he was the Bogeyman. He was Death, plain and simple.

But still, as a film Halloween isn’t particularly wonderful; the dialogue seems hokey, and the acting is eye-rollingly lame (in my opinion the best performance was delivered by Nick Castle, the man under the mask).

When I found out Rob Zombie was remaking Halloween, I was exhilarated. I’ve consistently enjoyed Zombie’s films and I thought if anyone could actually make this movie better, it’d be Zombie.

I wasn’t wrong.

The original film is about a babysitter being terrorized by an anonymous and unstoppable assailant. Zombie’s Halloween is about a tormented child driven to unspeakable acts by “a perfect storm” of circumstance. On synopsis alone, I like Zombie’s movie better already.

The acting is exponentially better: Daeg Faerch is alarmingly effective as the young Michael Myers, Sheri Moon-Zombie give her best performance to date, and flat as he is, Malcolm McDowell is still twice as good as Donald Pleasance.

Most importantly, this film’s given what I want most: a compelling character in Michael Myers. He’s transformed from a mysterious harbinger of doom (which is mildly interesting, I’ll admit) into something almost akin to a Greek tragedy. He is a monster bred, not born. Zombie has transformed something which seemed far-away, a grim fairy tale of a silent madman, into something very, very real. And that is disturbing. And disturbing is the best kind of scary.

Briefly Revisiting 300

It has come to my attention that 300, which I had written a review/reaction to last night, has had a mixed reception, critically. Apparently it’s detractors cite it’s stylized violence and bombastic, bellicose dialogue as well as the black-and-white nature of the story as their reasons for their displeasure, while those who positively reviewed it did so left-handedly; calling it “simple fun” or the kind of movie that “turns 14-year-old boys into hardcore movie buffs.”

This isn’t sitting well with me. I feel as though their focus is misguided.

I’ve been trying to gather a stronger case as to why 300 is not just a good movie, but a great film, but my own words have had little avail. However, Victor Davis Hanson, a military historian and classicist who was asked to pen an introduction to the book accompanying the film, had this to say about its critical reception:

“Ultimately the film takes a moral stance, Herodotean in nature: there is a difference, an unapologetic difference between free citizens who fight for eleutheria and imperial subjects who give obeisance. We are not left with the usual postmodern quandary ‘who are the good guys’ in a battle in which the lust for violence plagues both sides. In the end, the defending Spartans are better, not perfect, just better than the invading Persians, and that proves good enough in the end. And to suggest that unambiguously these days has perhaps become a revolutionary thing in itself.”

 

 

I couldn’t have put it better myself.

Eat Heartily, for Tonight We Dine in Hell.

In the year 480 BC, Xerxes, king of the Persian Empire, invaded Greece. His army was ludicrously massive, yet he was met inevitably with defeat. Defeat at the hands of a handful of warriors under the command of Spartan king Leonidas. The battalion blocked the pass of Thermopylae, the only road through which the Army of Xerxes could pass, and after four days of battle, they were betrayed by a local resident who revealed the existence of a mountain path around the Greek forces to the Persians. Dismissing the rest of the army, Leonidas stayed behind with 300 Spartans. Though they knew it meant their own death, they held their position, ensuring the retreat of the rest of the Greek forces. In the end, the Persians succeeded in taking the pass, but sustained heavy losses, extremely disproportionate to that of the Spartans. But thanks to their ultimate sacrifice, The Greeks were able to plan a successful counterattack on the Persian Navy, turning the tide of the Greco-Persian War permanently in their favor.

Now that the history is taken care of, it’s time to talk about the film that honors those warriors who stood against insurmountable odds, who stood as free men in the face of tyranny, 300.

First and foremost, 300, like Sin City before it, is based on a graphic novel by Frank Miller. Using Miller’s art as a template for visuals in a film, if done properly, can have mindblowing results. Aesthetically speaking, the film is staggering. I cannot even find words to do it justice; it must be seen to be believed.

Gerard Butler, who plays King Leonidas, hits it out of the park. Every word that comes out of his mouth is inspiring and blood-pumping. Every performance in the film is fantastic, actually. No one performance sticks out in a negative way.

The music was at once both classic and modern, but always, always epic.

The story is, of course, inspirational. Despite it’s glorified violence, 300 is about freedom and defending it, and standing up for what you believe in.

I loved 300, but I’m not entirely sure why I loved it. It wasn’t because of the violence, cool as it was; It wasn’t because of the story, of which I knew the outcome going in; I really think that it was the message that got to me. There’s no way you can watch this film and not feel inspired.

In summation, if you’re a fan of awe-inspiring filmmaking, run out and see 3oo. Just try to keep your shirt on afterwards.

A Death Sandwich.

This semester, I am studying the genre of film noir. You’ve all see at least one; usually black and white, low-key lighting, a hard-boiled detective and a sexy femme fatale. The stories have long been favorites of mine, as they explore the annals of the dark, the seedy, and the just plain not nice.

Couple that with my other two biggest loves: musicals and Zucker Brothers films, throw them in a hilarious Cuisinart, hand the results off to Syracuse University student Daniel Gurewitch, and the result is “A Death Sandwich,” a film noir comedy musical; a genre mishmash of near-mad science proportions.

The film itself is hilarious. I was already familiar with Gurewitch through his contributions to comedy website CollegeHumor.com, but my expectations for the film were initially lukewarm, at best. I was pleasantly surprised to find myself laughing uproariously almost from the word go. The film’s influences become immediately apparent; This is clearly a spiritual successor to Airplane! and The Naked Gun.

Clocking in at 38 minutes in length, this is a pretty substantial project for a student film, especially in that it can hold your attention and keep you laughing for the duration.

So please, do yourselves the favor of watching “A Death Sandwich.” If you do not like it, please feel free to ask me for an apology. In likelihood I won’t, but you are still free to ask, and that is what makes America the greatest country on earth.

Hugs,
Christopher.