STOP, if you intend to, but have not yet seen this movie. Come back after you have seen it. I do not want to spoil it for you.



I saw this film last night and find it amazing that it was selected Best Movie. But I should not be surprised because it was selected by the same academy that picked Shakespeare In Love as Best Film above Saving Private Ryan. Well, at least Shakespeare In Love had some redeeming characteristics, but beyond the cinematography and high quality acting, I found no redeeming qualities in No Country for Old Men. Put simply, the story is obnoxious and its resolution completely abhorrent. I intensely disliked the screen writer for allowing Evil to walk away at the end of the film. There is no one to empathize with in the film. All the characters are loathsome, except the washed up sheriff, Tommy Lee Jones, who one can pity as an example of the walking dead. What has it come to in the film industry when despicable Evil justs walks away and is given the award for Best Film?

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
- Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.



It is the first line of a Yeats poem "Sailing to Byzantium"


http://www.online-literature.com/yeats/781/

Its about being ready to flee the earth and find the eternal rest because the soul is so tired of seeing injustice.


The movie is about just what you are talking about. There is no justice and the evil can go unpunished.

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"The essence of the Liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are held, but in how they are held: instead of being held dogmatically, they are held tentatively, and with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment." -Bertrand Russell

Remember when Tommy is sitting at the table in the end talking of the dream of his father and hunting. He ends it with saying my dad rode on ahead and said he would make camp ready for when I cuaght up to him?

He was dreaming of the day his mind could rest. The day he left the earth and would be haunted no more by all the injustice he had seen in the world.

Im 50 and can remember when I really thought the world was a fair place. I now know better but knowing better does make me weary. The only fairness in it is when people like our Tommy lee character and me and you insist on and inforce justice. Not enough of us in this world do so injustice persists.

This is no country for old men.

The world makes you ready to leave when you get old enough.

Im sure you have heard old people say they were ready.

Well if you live long enough this is what happens.

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"The essence of the Liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are held, but in how they are held: instead of being held dogmatically, they are held tentatively, and with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment." -Bertrand Russell

damn I have been dying to talk about this movie with someone. Sorry if I scared you off.

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"The essence of the Liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are held, but in how they are held: instead of being held dogmatically, they are held tentatively, and with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment." -Bertrand Russell

I do not object to the telling of the story. Film makers are free to express whatever ideas they want. But I think it a depressing choice for Best Film a story that depicts injustice served and the continuation of Evil. Tommy Lee Jones, the tired sheriff, at one point says he is "over matched." That is not the message I would choose to deliver in a film about the struggle between Good and Evil. Some may say that the film echos reality in that Evil does continue. Yes, that is true. But I knew that before I went to the film. I go to the movies to be entertained and to find positive value in the story. I do not go to the movies to feel bad, and that is what No Country for Old Men did to me.

Well there you said it. You dont go to the movies to see sad stories.

I dont think the Coen bros promised you a happy story.

You see that is part of the statement of the film.

Life is not always like a movie.

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"The essence of the Liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are held, but in how they are held: instead of being held dogmatically, they are held tentatively, and with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment." -Bertrand Russell

I'm sorry but I could not understand this movie. 3:10 to Yuma was much better and more introspective. I'm gonna have to read the book and then rewatch the movie so I know what the hec is going on.

The Virtue of Selishness philosophy is having its effect on this society, there is no doubt about that.

I also saw this film and thought it superb.

The antagonist is, I thought, the perfect model of a the modern libertarian thinker...unfeeling, completely a sociopathic and psychopathic monster.

Those of us who are older remember when society was less likely to reward selfishness. Some of us can even remember when politicians, caught in lies, actually were forced to resign by their own parties.

We really are a nation of lies, now, folks.

We lie to each other and we lie to ourselves, too. We say lofty things and we lie about things like family values even as we systematically destroy families one stupid economic policy at a time.

We reward selfishness and hold the most effectively selfish as being the most valuable members of this society.

You are what you make.

How many of us know the name of the man who really was the person who made the internet possible? He GAVE the programs that make it possible to humankind, you know?

1/1000th the number of the people who can tell us who Bill Gates is, know his name, is my guess.

I am watching my society here in my little part of the world eat its own young.

It's heartbreaking to see kids I've known since they were little boys or girls, basically abandoned.

Let me tell ya..it's not much a nation for young men, either.

It not a nation now, it's more a boat load of squabbling interests fighting over too few lifeboats.

And some of us wonder why everyone in the world doesn't want to be just like us?

I marvel at our collective and I think WILLFUL blindness.

Saving Private Ryan drives me crazy from the first scene when Ryan is having a flashback to the D-Day invasion when he was not there. How the hell does that happen? Trashed the rest of the movie for me and I never saw it again.

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I am the way into the city of woe.
I am the way to forsaken people.
Dante's Inferno
"Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." Robert Oppenheimer
My God, what have we done?" - Robert Lewis co-pilot of the Enola Gay

I saw this movie last week and it instantly became a classic in my opinion. The Cohen Brothers are great. This is hands down their best movie.

TLJ was magnificent. One of his best movies to date. Javier Bardem was one of the most evil characters I've seen in film in quite a while. All the actors were phenominal.

I saw a review that had this to say about it.

Most people I've talked to always says the same thing, "I hated the ending." I actually loved the ending. You have to listen to TLJ and the dream about his father he discusses. It brings everything together.

I tire of the same, cheesy Hollywood endings that are prevelant in most movies that show the good guy killing the bad guy in the end.

This was a classic.

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Forward motion makes you sway like the ocean
The herb is more than just a powerful potion

NCFOM is a great movie. However, it should not have been Best Picture. HOWEVER, it was the best of the films nominated.

The best film of 2007 was, hands down, Into the Wild, followed remotely by The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The Kite Runner, and Across the Universe.

Films like NCFOM where the bad guy wins are simply critiques on humanity. Sometimes, the bad guys do win. It's life. If we sugar coat everything, then every movie comes out the same, and then I'd get very, very bored.

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An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind. -Mahatma Gandhi

I can't go back to yesterday - because I was a different person then. -Lewis Carroll

Sometimes?!

Look at the world, jsanders

The bad guys have been winning since Cain killed Abel.

We seldom have a choice between good and evil.

We usually have a choice between evil and slightly more evil.

This movie was the best one I have seen in a long, long time!!

Yes, I completely agree. I still haven't seen Atonement or Michael Clayton, but in my opinion, There Will Be Blood deserved the best picture oscar by far while Juno, while kinda cute, shouldn't have even been nominated. Don't forget, the Academy also chose Forest Gump as best picture.