DVD Review - No Ending For Old Men

I more or less liked "No Country for Old Men" when I saw it late last year. I was confounded by the ending, but still thought it was okay.

Well, my wife and I watched the DVD last night, and on second viewing, it just makes me more angry that the film denies us a proper ending.

The acting was uniformly great, and Bardem's Oscar was well-deserved. But the presentation of the film ultimately failed for me.

I know how the film is SUPPOSED to be about the path everyone takes to get where they are, and how it's about the senselessness of violence and greed, but that's not what the movie gave us for the first 95% of its running time. We had a well-plotted, clear, concise film, with incredibly tense scenes. But then the Coen Bros abandon this over the last ten minutes or so, and decide that telling a cohesively-plotted story isn't what they were doing after all. The movie ends with (spoiler alert!) the main character getting killed offscreen by people who we didn't see until moments before the shootout took place (offscreen). And then we don't learn for sure if Chigur did indeed end up with the money, then we're only given the implication that he kills Josh Brolin's wife, and then we don't find out what ultimately happens to Chigur after he walks away from a car crash.

Some people loved that this film went against convention and turned the ending on its head, but it didn't work for me. And I also don't care if that's how the book ended.

But... it won Best Picture, so I guess someone really liked it.

Lawrence of Arabia - Review

Okay... I'm about 46 years late in getting this review out. Tough. I just finally watched it this past weekend. Blockbuster had a great sale on the special editions of a bunch of movies and I finally decided now was the time to tackle old Lawrence.

All I can say is that it totally lives up to all the accolades it has received over the years. Even though it was nearly four hours long, and featured lots of traveling across desolate stretches of desert, it never felt like it dragged. Even 46 years later, the cinematography is still stunning (watching the restored special edition doesn't hurt, I'm sure).

I didn't know a whole lot about T.E. Lawrence, so while everything that happened was a surprise to me, a deeper understanding of the history and the politics evaded me a little on this first viewing. I eagerly look forward to revisiting this film in the future.

This film garnered a lot of press for its cast, most notably introducing Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharif to the world. I thought Omar Sharif in particular was outstanding and really projected star power whenever he was on the screen. I've always been familiar with him, but never really had that high of an opinion of him and always wondered how he became so highly regarded. But after seeing him here, I have no more questions.

Lawrence of Arabia is rightly considered a classic, and perhaps the greatest of the old school epics.

Nine and a half teeth out of ten.

[Movie Review] Curse of the Golden Flower

Curse of the Golden Flower may be the most beautiful movie I've ever seen. It's certainly not the best movie I've seen, and there's a lot about it that left me scratching my head afterwards, but one thing that's not in doubt is that you've never seen anything like this.

Like most movies in this genre ("Hero", "House of Flying Daggers", "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"), the movie itself had lots of inscrutable parts. In fact, I had trouble scruting most of the second half of the film. You think you have an idea of what's going on, but then people start flying and balancing on top of a flower, and armies start popping up out of nowhere and you realize you probably missed a key bit of explanation twenty minutes earlier. The plot of this movie concerned secrets and revenge and the repression of women in 10th century China, but none of that mattered.

No, all that matters is that from the first frame to the last, this movie is a feast for the eyes. The image included at the top of this post is just one example of the orchestra of color you will experience. At no point do you ever really feel that you are seeing something real, or that this is in any way a true representation of the period, but I'm sure it's exactly what that period FELT like.

Here's a link to a gallery of still photos from the movie, which really don't do any justice to seeing this stuff in motion.

http://imdb.com/gallery/ss/0473444

I don't have an HDTV yet, but I may have to get one just to watch this film again, to see it in even richer detail.

"Curse of the Golden Flower" is Chinese director Yimou Zhang's third wire-fu, period film, coming on the heals of the almost-but-not-quite-as-beautiful films, "Hero" and "House of Flying Daggers." After this unofficial trilogy, I'm not sure what ground is left for Zhang to cover in this genre. I'm sure there are hundreds of other Chinese legends yet to be filmed, but are any of them unique enough for him to spend his time on? Fortunately, he's just as well-known (in Asia) for his non-genre films, and I'm eager to check some of those out.

In addition to the stunning art design and cinematography, I have to also commend the acting in this (despite the sometimes bewildering directions the story would take). Gong Li and Chow Yun-Fat were both mesmerizing and prove once again that foreign actors and actresses should stick with films that allow them to speak their native language. Gong Li was forced to speak English in "Miami Vice", and as a result, her entire performance was awkward and stilted. In a similar vein, I've never liked Penelope Cruz, but I'm curious to check her out in "Volver" (for which she was nominated for Best Actress) since she speaks in Spanish in this movie, rather than English.

So, to sum up, Curse of the Golden Flower is a mesmerizing movie, beginning to end. If you're one of the lucky few that is able to follow the plots of these Chinese "Wuxia" legends, then you'll really like this movie. As it is, I'm looking forward to seeing this movie again, in the highest resolution possible.

Story: Five Teeth. Overall: Eight Teeth.

DVD Stack - Reds

Finally watched Warren Beatty's Reds. I have to admit that it wasn't at all what I was expecting. I knew it was about the Russian Revolution, but that's pretty much the extent. My assumption was that Warren Beatty and Diane Keaton played Russians caught up in the tides of the revolution. But I was completely wrong.

Instead, the movie is based on the lives of Jack Reed and Louise Bryant, two American socialist/communist activists/writers from the late 1910's who managed to be in Russia during the revolution and got caught up in it. It's really a love story between the two of them set against this backdrop.

I enjoyed it. It was suitably epic in its scope and intimate in its focus. What really added a lot to this film were contemporary (1981) interviews with people that actually knew Jack and Louise back in the day. It gave the film much more of a sense that this all really did happen, and made the dramatic parts seem more like these were the actual people.

Acting was superb throughout as was the cinematography. I'm sure as I watch (or re-watch) more period epics from the 70's and 80's I'll end up with similar opinions, but Reds felt like a movie that was produced within the last few years rather than 25 years ago.

I give it 9 teeth out of 10.