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No Country For Old Men (spoilers)

Posted: April 3rd, 2009, 9:43 pm
by Ed Dantes
Okay, I just watched 'No Country for Old Men'.

I enjoyed the first three-fourths of the film.

Can anyone explain the last half hour to me? What the heck happened? Why do people enjoy this film?

Posted: April 3rd, 2009, 9:49 pm
by mrmacphisto
Because it's awesome. What didn't you understand?

Posted: April 3rd, 2009, 9:55 pm
by adam42381
I think the Coens made a great ending. It left a lot up to interpretation and was definitely not "by the book", which I really liked.

Posted: April 3rd, 2009, 10:51 pm
by Sly Fox
I love it for many reasons including how it portrayed the Texas-Mexican border life.

Frankly I loved how the ending shook things up. My wife despised this film with a passion.

Posted: April 3rd, 2009, 11:10 pm
by RubberMallet
i've ranted before on here about how pretentious and stupid the original author was and how i wasn't surprised that the movie was exactly the same why. Every book mccarthy has written have terrible endings.

the last 1/4 of the movie you see none of the good stuff, it ends with basically with tlj giving us some stupid social commentary about the downfall of the humanity and how evil we've become...YAWN..

NCFOM is basically and emo cowboy movie....

hollywood has forgotten how to end a movie and instead of fixing it are just leaving it up to the viewer to decide what happened.... and its being praised by white people everywhere "IT REALLY MADE YOU THINK, ITS SO INTELLECTUAL!!"

Posted: April 4th, 2009, 7:30 am
by Ed Dantes
RubberMallet wrote:"IT REALLY MADE YOU THINK, ITS SO INTELLECTUAL!!"
Oh, kind of like how 'American Beauty' was sort of artsy, so people thought to themselves, 'i need to like this or else I won't seem artsy', so critics raved about it and gave it an Oscar, even though it was the worst piece of trash to screen?

Here's the thing with NCFOM.

It's a great thriller for three-fourths of a film, then it fades to black and the next thing you know the protagonist is dead. Then is slows down as Tommy Lee Jones waxes about how things have changed; the bad guy kills the wife, gets into a car accident, and walks away scot-free. Then Tommy Lee Jones talks about a weird dream.

So... I understand 'the bad guy gets away and we're all old' stuff, but seriously? That's the best you could do?

I mean... go watch 'se7en' if you want to see how the (spoilers ahead) ending of a movie should be if you want the bad guy to 'win'. Like Morgan Freeman says, 'Hemingway once said, "the world is an awful place, and needs saving." I believe in the first part.'

Posted: April 4th, 2009, 11:06 am
by adam42381
I also really liked American Beauty.

Posted: April 4th, 2009, 11:12 am
by mrmacphisto
adam42381 wrote:I also really liked American Beauty.
Me too. And I would not consider myself artsy. If you don't get it, that's cool, but there's no need to put down those who do.

Posted: April 4th, 2009, 12:30 pm
by Ed Dantes
adam42381 wrote:I also really liked American Beauty.
What's funny is when I posted the 'movie genres' thing, I thought you and I were dead-on... and yet now...

Posted: April 4th, 2009, 1:03 pm
by RagingTireFire
American Beauty was a "message movie" which -- like other message movies -- relied entirely on stereotypical characters and a script that would have been better served to wipe the hindquarters of horses with dysentery. The "artsy" crap was merely the director using a visual distraction to keep the audience from realizing how bad of a movie it was. Clearly, it worked.

Posted: April 4th, 2009, 2:42 pm
by adam42381
Ed Dantes wrote:
adam42381 wrote:I also really liked American Beauty.
What's funny is when I posted the 'movie genres' thing, I thought you and I were dead-on... and yet now...
I like a wide variety of movies. I don't consider myself to be artsy at all but I like a lot of movies that aren't typical.

Posted: April 4th, 2009, 3:28 pm
by RubberMallet
Ed Dantes wrote:
RubberMallet wrote:"IT REALLY MADE YOU THINK, ITS SO INTELLECTUAL!!"
Oh, kind of like how 'American Beauty' was sort of artsy, so people thought to themselves, 'i need to like this or else I won't seem artsy', so critics raved about it and gave it an Oscar, even though it was the worst piece of trash to screen?
yeah exactly like that

Posted: April 4th, 2009, 9:24 pm
by LUconn
mrmacphisto wrote:
adam42381 wrote:I also really liked American Beauty.
Me too. And I would not consider myself artsy. If you don't get it, that's cool, but there's no need to put down those who do.
perfect example. You didn't like it? Well you just don't get it.

Posted: April 5th, 2009, 4:39 pm
by mrmacphisto
LUconn wrote:
mrmacphisto wrote:
adam42381 wrote:I also really liked American Beauty.
Me too. And I would not consider myself artsy. If you don't get it, that's cool, but there's no need to put down those who do.
perfect example. You didn't like it? Well you just don't get it.
Very good, you understand.
Ed Dantes wrote:It's a great thriller for three-fourths of a film, then it fades to black and the next thing you know the protagonist is dead. Then is slows down as Tommy Lee Jones waxes about how things have changed; the bad guy kills the wife, gets into a car accident, and walks away scot-free. Then Tommy Lee Jones talks about a weird dream.

So... I understand 'the bad guy gets away and we're all old' stuff, but seriously? That's the best you could do?
Come up with a better ending without ripping off another film. Readysetgo.

Posted: April 5th, 2009, 5:13 pm
by Ed Dantes
The Mexicans come to Josh Brolin in El Paso. They're about to kill him, but one of the Mexicans (who just happens to be the guy Josh Brolin gave the water to at the beginning of the movie) convinces his compadres to let him live, in exchange for the remainder of the money.

Shugar makes some sort of appearance at or around this time and gets into a fight with the Mexicans; Brolin grabs the pneumatic gun and shoots Shugar's in the beans & frank. He lives and escapes some how, maybe we have the cops and the Mexicans flee.

Tommy Lee Jones eventually has some sort of confrontation with Shugar, and Shugar gets killed this time (although Jones' young partner is also killed, maybe because of Jones. I don't know), then Jones later retires because he's not cut out for this line of duty, that this just isn't a country for old men such as himself.

Posted: April 6th, 2009, 8:12 am
by LUconn
Ed Dantes wrote: that this just isn't a country for old men such as himself.
it's crucial that he says this out loud while looking at the camera.