Monday, November 19, 2007
Saturday Random 10 (but really 20) XXIV: No Country For Old Men
I know, I know; I miss a week and now this post is late. Things have been getting kinda crazy lately, what with work getting busier and more stressful for the holidays (for the uninformed, I still work at FedEx Ground) and projects due for school, my free time is getting eaten away and th blog gets pushed down the list of priorities and, for that, I apologize. I did, however, manage to sneak away from my desk long enough to catch a cool flick playing in exactly TWO theaters in the entire state: No Country For Old Men.
NCFOM is the newest thriller from the Coen Brothers, and Jesus H. Monkeypaws does it deliver thrills. Josh Brolin (who decided that HE gets a career again??) plays an out-of-work welder that, on a hunting trip in the Texas desert, stumbles upon a drug deal gone wrong, blood and corpses everywhere, one lone survivor lay bleeding in a car crying for agua, a pickup truck full of heroin and, clutched by a dead Mexican under a tree, a satchel full of $2 million. He runs home and hides the money, only to be plagued by his conscience about the survivor of the massacre. He sneaks back to the scene of the crime with a gallon jug of water, only to be discovered by several parties interested in finding thier money. And thus, the chase begins. All manner of Mexican drug dealers chase after that satchel, but the most interesting person is a psycopath with a Prince Valiant haircut and an air gun. The psychopath, then, is being followed by a tired, aging sherriff played by Tommy Lee Jones. Telling you guys any more about the plot, I feel, would just be giving away shocks and surprises, but that's pretty much the jist of it.
If you're looking for a rockin' soundtrack a la O Brother Where Art Thou? or The Big Lebowski, look elsewhere. The whole movie is stark; the only music comes from a mariachi band halfway through. The incredible stretches of silence, however, just ratchet up the suspense.
A lot has been said of the ending, as well it should. There is no formulaic shoot-em-up between good guys and bad guys. Instead, it ends with one of the saddest, most heartbreaking monologues I've ever heard in a film before, and then you get hit with a Sopranos ending; a tracking close-up, then cut to black. Not what an audience expects after 2 hours of pulse-pounding nail-biting suspense but it does bring the overall theme of the film to a close.
All in all, this is a fantastic flick, and I highly recommend it. I'm thinking of going out to see it again to try to see all the things I missed the first time around. Luckily for everyone out there, it's looking at a wider release this weekend due to the (thus far) universal positive reviews and great box office it's getting out of a double-digit number of theaters.
Anyways, enough cock-sucking, let's go to the Random!
1. Foo Fighters - Let It Die
2. Kataklysm - In Shadows and Dust
3. 3 Inches of Blood - Deadly Sinners
4. Moxy Fruvous - Love Set Fire
5. Orgy - Gender
6. Seether - Fuck It
7. Modest Mouse - Cowboy Dan
8. The Clash - Walking the Sidewalk
9. Tenacious D - Explosivo
10. eels - Climbing to the Moon
11. Nine Inch Nails - Beside You In Time
12. Modest Mouse - Bankrupt On Selling
13. Pearl Jam - Light Years
14. Madvillain - Money Fodder
15. Incubus - Leech
16. Aphex Twin - gwety mernans
17. Sikth - Such the Fool
18. The Undertones - Teenage Kicks
19. Sublime - Wrong Way
20. Foo Fighters - February Stars
Wow, TWO doubles, and one of those sets are from the SAME DAMN ALBUM. Lucky for you, iTunes, that Modest Mouse rocks the fucking house, and that last Foo Fighters song is off of the best damn album they've ever released. But still, this is a pretty kickass collection of songs. Kick it off with a track off Foo's newest album (a decent one at that, starts off acoustic then builds and builds over 4 minutes to a crescendo of punk/metal crashing) then get some death metal out of the way, dig down into some Canadian nerd-rockishness then into the Joy Division-aping Orgy. One shitty Seether track later and we're elbows deep in MM's Cowboy Dan, one of the best tracks off Lonesome Crowded West. Then *BAM* The Clash! *BAM* The D! *BAM* The eels! before sinking into the best nonsingle off of NIN's With Teeth. One more hit off the Modest Mouse crackpipe before settling into one of Pearl Jam's "other singles"and segueing into crazy stream-of-consciousness rap. Then there's Incubus. But THEN, a track off of one of my favorite albums ever (and my absolute favorite techno album) featuring Aphex Twin and his crazy glitchy noise. Then we get ready to pack it in with some math-metal, old school punk, a 90's rock radio staple and finishing it all off with a kickass track from Foo Fighter's "Colour and the Shape", arguably the best album they've released thus far over the past 12 years.
Not bad, iTunes. Not bad at all; I give it an A-.
|
I know, I know; I miss a week and now this post is late. Things have been getting kinda crazy lately, what with work getting busier and more stressful for the holidays (for the uninformed, I still work at FedEx Ground) and projects due for school, my free time is getting eaten away and th blog gets pushed down the list of priorities and, for that, I apologize. I did, however, manage to sneak away from my desk long enough to catch a cool flick playing in exactly TWO theaters in the entire state: No Country For Old Men.
NCFOM is the newest thriller from the Coen Brothers, and Jesus H. Monkeypaws does it deliver thrills. Josh Brolin (who decided that HE gets a career again??) plays an out-of-work welder that, on a hunting trip in the Texas desert, stumbles upon a drug deal gone wrong, blood and corpses everywhere, one lone survivor lay bleeding in a car crying for agua, a pickup truck full of heroin and, clutched by a dead Mexican under a tree, a satchel full of $2 million. He runs home and hides the money, only to be plagued by his conscience about the survivor of the massacre. He sneaks back to the scene of the crime with a gallon jug of water, only to be discovered by several parties interested in finding thier money. And thus, the chase begins. All manner of Mexican drug dealers chase after that satchel, but the most interesting person is a psycopath with a Prince Valiant haircut and an air gun. The psychopath, then, is being followed by a tired, aging sherriff played by Tommy Lee Jones. Telling you guys any more about the plot, I feel, would just be giving away shocks and surprises, but that's pretty much the jist of it.
If you're looking for a rockin' soundtrack a la O Brother Where Art Thou? or The Big Lebowski, look elsewhere. The whole movie is stark; the only music comes from a mariachi band halfway through. The incredible stretches of silence, however, just ratchet up the suspense.
A lot has been said of the ending, as well it should. There is no formulaic shoot-em-up between good guys and bad guys. Instead, it ends with one of the saddest, most heartbreaking monologues I've ever heard in a film before, and then you get hit with a Sopranos ending; a tracking close-up, then cut to black. Not what an audience expects after 2 hours of pulse-pounding nail-biting suspense but it does bring the overall theme of the film to a close.
All in all, this is a fantastic flick, and I highly recommend it. I'm thinking of going out to see it again to try to see all the things I missed the first time around. Luckily for everyone out there, it's looking at a wider release this weekend due to the (thus far) universal positive reviews and great box office it's getting out of a double-digit number of theaters.
Anyways, enough cock-sucking, let's go to the Random!
1. Foo Fighters - Let It Die
2. Kataklysm - In Shadows and Dust
3. 3 Inches of Blood - Deadly Sinners
4. Moxy Fruvous - Love Set Fire
5. Orgy - Gender
6. Seether - Fuck It
7. Modest Mouse - Cowboy Dan
8. The Clash - Walking the Sidewalk
9. Tenacious D - Explosivo
10. eels - Climbing to the Moon
11. Nine Inch Nails - Beside You In Time
12. Modest Mouse - Bankrupt On Selling
13. Pearl Jam - Light Years
14. Madvillain - Money Fodder
15. Incubus - Leech
16. Aphex Twin - gwety mernans
17. Sikth - Such the Fool
18. The Undertones - Teenage Kicks
19. Sublime - Wrong Way
20. Foo Fighters - February Stars
Wow, TWO doubles, and one of those sets are from the SAME DAMN ALBUM. Lucky for you, iTunes, that Modest Mouse rocks the fucking house, and that last Foo Fighters song is off of the best damn album they've ever released. But still, this is a pretty kickass collection of songs. Kick it off with a track off Foo's newest album (a decent one at that, starts off acoustic then builds and builds over 4 minutes to a crescendo of punk/metal crashing) then get some death metal out of the way, dig down into some Canadian nerd-rockishness then into the Joy Division-aping Orgy. One shitty Seether track later and we're elbows deep in MM's Cowboy Dan, one of the best tracks off Lonesome Crowded West. Then *BAM* The Clash! *BAM* The D! *BAM* The eels! before sinking into the best nonsingle off of NIN's With Teeth. One more hit off the Modest Mouse crackpipe before settling into one of Pearl Jam's "other singles"and segueing into crazy stream-of-consciousness rap. Then there's Incubus. But THEN, a track off of one of my favorite albums ever (and my absolute favorite techno album) featuring Aphex Twin and his crazy glitchy noise. Then we get ready to pack it in with some math-metal, old school punk, a 90's rock radio staple and finishing it all off with a kickass track from Foo Fighter's "Colour and the Shape", arguably the best album they've released thus far over the past 12 years.
Not bad, iTunes. Not bad at all; I give it an A-.
