Tim Callahan Reviews No Country for Old Men

[Guest Blogger Tim Callahan gives us another movie review. I have not been to the movies in a while but I have a plan to go see a ton of stuff over Winter break: Southland Tales, No Country for Old Men, Charlie Wilson's War, Alien v Predator, Enchanted, Michael Clayton, I am Legend. You may get a slew of movie review responses from me soon. Thanks especially to Tim for helping out in this busy week for me, in which I have grades due.]

For me, No Country for Old Men cannot be discussed out of context. I can’t see it as just a movie, and respond accordingly. No, the act of seeing No Country for Old Men is a convergence of concepts, predispositions, and prejudices. Watching it is a way to answer questions about Joel and Ethan Coen’s ability to bounce back from a mid-career slump, about their interpretation of a great novel by one of America’s greatest living novelists, about Josh Brolin’s emergence as a powerful actor in 2007, about what it takes to make a “western” in the 21st century.

Then again, I always watch movies in this mode: as a series of questions which the filmmakers will answer. Sometimes I think I know the questions going in, as with this film, while other times (usually in the case of foreign films involving cultures I know little about, like City of God or Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance) the questions emerge as the story unfolds. In the case of No Country for Old Men, I knew the questions before the film began to roll, and I wasn’t surprised by any of the answers. That isn’t to say that the movie was formulaic or dull. It wasn’t. It was excellent, actually—thrilling where it needed to be thrilling, still when it needed to be still, suspenseful where in needed to be suspenseful, etc., etc. It may be the best movie of the year, and I say that because it answered my questions completely.

But if you go in with a different set of questions, or if you think it’s a different type of movie than it really is, you will probably be as disappointed as the audience I saw walking out of the Triplex Theater a few weeks ago. I won’t say they had the wrong set of questions in mind, but clearly they expected something other than the Coen brothers provided, and that didn’t work for the audience.

As I said, No Country for Old Men did answer my questions, primarily the one about whether or not the Coen brothers would make another great movie. Everyone who loves film seems to have a different opinion on which Coen films are the best, and perhaps Blood Simple fans would appreciate this movie more than Raising Arizona fans, but certainly No Country for Old Men is in the top tier of Coen films. It’s superior to than anything they’ve done so far this decade, and I would rank it in the Top Five Coen Brothers Films of All Time List. It’s up there with The Big Lebowski, and Fargo, and Miller’s Crossing, and Barton Fink. (I’m sure your list differs, but we can all agree that The Ladykillers and Intolerable Cruelty are near the bottom, right?)

[EDITOR"S NOTE: WHAT SANE PERSON WOULD DISAGREE WITH TIM HERE?]

What, exactly, makes this movie so great? The bleakness. The image of Javier Bardem’s Anton Chigurh pacing toward the camera while the tank of compressed air clanks against the floorboards. The moment Tommy Lee Jones’s Sherriff Bell nearly puts the metaphorical pieces of the puzzle together, but trails away with the line, “the mind wanders.” The death-defying, ridiculous, savage chase between dog and man. The false sense of hope. The charm of Woody Harrelson’s Carson Wells, a man with the swagger of someone who knows the deal—but soon finds out that he understands nothing. Josh Brolin’s quiet performance (neither of the leads has much to say, or much use for words—quite a contrast from the Coen brothers usual zest for verbal wit) centers the film, and although the plot might seem to be about his character, it’s not; it’s about the setting, and his Llewelyn Moss embodies a certain time and a certain place with perfection.

As an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s novel, it’s nearly spot-on. It’s probably the most faithful literary adaptation I have seen, with one of the only missteps coming in the form of Beth Grant’s Agnes, mother-in-law of Llewelyn Moss. The Coens add a scene (at least is feels tacked-on, and I don’t recall reading the scene in the book) in which Grant (whom you may remember as the fascist Sparkle Motion mother from Donnie Darko) hams it up and talks about “the cancer” with a performance that’s 10% Coen brothers and 90% Hee Haw. Her performance might actually kind of fit in something mannered like Raising Arizona or The Hudsucker Proxy, but it’s completely, jarringly out of place in the stillness and inevitability of No Country for Old Men. The rest of the movie captures McCarthy’s tone, and the essence of his characters, with great accuracy. But that Beth Grant scene really doesn’t belong.

No Country for Old Men is, ultimately, the perfect western for this new century. It subverts clichés of the genre (the sheriff is no hero, there is no showdown, justice will not necessarily be served) while treating the characters with dignity. It doesn’t mock the conventions of the western, but, rather, it shows that our romanticism has always been flawed—Entropy is the only constant.

The film is thematically bleak, but, as in classical tragedies like Oedipus Rex, catharsis comes from the perfection of the dramatic form. No Country for Old Men is a great movie because it knows how to be a great movie—its artistry is vividly alive and engaging, even when its characters are doomed.

Timothy Callahan
http://geniusboyfiremelon.blogspot.com

Tim Callahan reviews ENCHANTED

[Guest Blogger Tim Callahan reviews Enchanted, a movie I only wanted to see for Amy Adams and James Marsden. Someone should put Bruce Campbell, Patrick Warburton and James Marsden in a movie together, cause they are all living cartoons. Don't forget that you too, dear, reader, can propose guest blogs here.]

Your tolerance for Disney’s Enchanted will depend upon how much you want to smack Patrick Dempsey in the face. If, like me, you don’t really understand his appeal as a leading man, but you kind of fondly remember him from back in the days when he used to pay blond teenagers to pretend to be his girlfriend, then you might not mind his milquetoasty performance in this film. If you want to slap him upside the head for his vacant smile and his empty charm, for his rise to stardom via Grey’s Anatomy, for his general mediocrity, then you probably won’t have fun sitting through Enchanted. He’s in the movie quite a bit. He’s the straight man to Amy Adams crazy, homeless princess from another land, true, but that means he’s on screen quite a bit, sucking the life out of more frames than not.

On the other hand, if you think Patrick Dempsey is the dreamiest, most charismatic performer to hit the silver screen, then you’ll probably like the movie no matter what I say, and there’s really no hope for you. Good luck, and all that.

Have I really wasted this many words on Patrick Dempsey? Yes, and perhaps my decades-long fascination with his career blurred my judgment as I sat in that darkened theater. (Not that Patrick Dempsey ruined the film for me exactly, but when I should have been watching the wonderful Amy Adams, I kept looking over at the Demp—yes, I will now refer to him as “the Demp”--thinking, “ah, you’re so inconsequential, aren’t you?”—my issue, not yours).

Even with the ever-present Demp lurking in the edges of the frame, Enchanted does have quite a bit of life for a fall family film. The animated opening sequence is gorgeous, and much longer than I would have thought it might be. It’s both an homage to classic Disney animation and an exaggeration of the frolicking, joyous, silly excess of such a fantasy world. The archetypes are all present: wicked queen, dashing prince, innocent princess, sniveling sidekick. But nothing gold can stay, Ponyboy.

When Amy Adams. as innocent Giselle (and really? Giselle? Is that supposed to be one of the jokes? The name resonates discordantly every time it’s uttered), falls into the portal to “the real world” (aka the New York City sewer system), the story leaves behind its Disney-fied trappings and becomes a mid-1980s romantic comedy. Hence, the Demp.

It’s not a bad mid-1980s romantic comedy, largely because Amy Adams is so unbelievably earnest in the lead role, but there’s not much going on in the second Act. There is one great scene, when we learn that Giselle’s ability to coerce woodland animals to help her with the chores applies even in 2007 NYC. As the scene begins, we think it’s being set up to show how different the real world is. How her silly cartoon rules don’t apply anymore. But as the pigeons, and rats, and roaches invade the Demp’s apartment, answering her call, they join in on the housework, scouring pots, tidying up the living room, folding laundry, with their creepy little hands or tentacles or whatever they have (I’m pretty sure none of the animals actually had tentacles, but I wasn’t looking that closely, and there were a lot of them flying around). It’s a funny scene when we realize what’s going on, and it’s funnier still when the Demp and daughter of the Demp (he’s a single dad and he has the ugly girl from Rent as his girlfriend, both of which add CONFLICT to Act Two—nice, try screenwriters!) see the vermin infestation and don’t quite understand the context.

But that’s about it, as far as the laughs go.

Until Cyclops shows up.

I don’t know that I’ve ever seen James Marsden do anything but make serious faces as he says bad dialog, but in Enchanted he gets to make goofy, hammy faces as he says intentionally bad dialog. And he’s quite brilliant. His Prince Edward (another supposedly funny name, I presume?) is buffoonish in a lovable way, and although we don’t really want to see Amy Adams end up with him, since he’s clearly a deluded egotist of mammoth proportions, he’s gotta be a step up from the Demp, right?

I won’t ruin the ending, but Susan Sarandon’s wicked stepmother/Queen Narissa joins the fray, dressed in Disney drag, and bad stuff happens. But not too bad. You can imagine how it ends.

Enchanted feels safe, ultimately. All of the formal play that might have occurred didn’t. The film is exactly what it pretends to be: the story of a fairytale princess in a Hollywood version of New York City. It’s lightweight and fun. In the Disney pantheon, if it even deserves a spot, it’s somewhere between Mulan and The Hunchback of Notre Dame For my wife, it was more than good enough, though. Then again, I think she might have a crush on the Demp.