I’ve done nothing but sleep and drink tea and sniffle and eat applesauce and cough and drink broth for four days. So I’m a little weak. The whole sitting up in a chair thing is pushing the envelope, so don’t expect miracles in the blogging department.
Archive for February 27, 2008
Monday Movie Review: No Country For Old Men
No Country for Old Men (2007) 10/10
While out hunting, Llewellyn Moss (Josh Brolin) finds the remains of an ugly drug war; dead bodies, a whole mess of bullets, and a truck full of heroin, as well as a survivor begging for water (which Moss doesn’t have). A little ways away from the scene, he finds one last body with a satchel full of money. Later that night, he decides to have mercy on the survivor, but when he returns with water he is seen. Now he’s running from the killer (Javier Bardem) who is after the money, while the local sheriff (Tommy Lee Jones) wants the killer and wants to bring Moss in before he gets himself killed. Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen.
I’ve seen numerous plot synopses of this film, and skimmed quite a few reviews (I don’t read them closely until after I’ve seen a film; I’m allergic to spoilers). All of them tell this short tale, of Moss finding the money, going back with the water, and getting identified. It makes him sound like a bumbling fool. Certainly the Coen brothers love bumbling fools in their movies, and the thought of a Steve Buscemi or Billy Bob Thornton being relentlessly pursued by a killer didn’t appeal to me. But what no one seems to mention is that Llewellyn Moss is smart. His only big mistake is the water, and he knows it’s stupid and says so, but how can he leave a man to suffer like that? Moss is a hard man, but a good one. He knows early on that his wife has to be protected from the risk he’s taking, and takes the right steps to do so. He stays one step ahead of deadly and terrifying Anton Chigurh (Bardem) for most of the film. You end up, not just siding with him, but admiring him.
This is the Coen brothers most mature film. They don’t sidetrack themselves with amusement. There’s no mockery or over-done irony. In most of their films, there are characters that we enjoy mostly because they’re dumb, or ignorant, or buffoons. But there’s no one to laugh at in No Country for Old Men. You can fear Chigurh, who shows a face of evil so pure, so horrific, that it may never be matched elsewhere. You can care about Moss and his wife, feel for Sheriff Bell (Jones), but you respect them all. And while the movie is exquisitely filmed, there’s none of the showy, slightly-distorted stylization that is there just to prove to you that the Coens have made their mark.
This sounds terribly critical of the Coen brothers’ past work, and I don’t mean it to be. I have loved most of their films, hated one, disliked a couple. But this movie stands apart from the rest. Like I said, mature. There’s something about it, like the movie itself is so strong that there’s no need to dress it up.
As a tense and brutal adventure, it cannot be beat. Moss runs and Chigurh follows. Sheriff Bell follows both, and then there’s the guys whose money it is, off in some unnamed city, trying to pull strings. Meanwhile, we are continually asked what it all means. Chigurh tells us early on that it’s all random and meaningless. Randomness is the only thing he respects, and he is willing to spare or take a life on the toss of a coin. People pleading for their lives doesn’t matter to him; pleas are empty. But the flip of the coin…somehow, that’s not empty. How disturbing! Bell, meanwhile, wants desperately to find meaning. He arrests killers—how can he live with a world in which such empty souls exist? It’s all getting darker, and he wants it to mean something. Moss takes no position; he wants to be smart and he wants the money. He loves his wife and he sees a way of making a better life for her. That’s enough.
A lot of people who’ve seen the movie dislike the ending, which contemplates these themes. But this isn’t The Man Who Wasn’t There, in which the unwelcome ending was essentially from a different movie. Instead, it addresses themes that have been clear in the movie from the beginning; literally from the opening narration. I could maybe knock a point off because it definitely slows down; there’s an almost Return of the King determination to wrap everything up. But 9/10 might tell you that I think it wasn’t brilliant. And I think it was brilliant. I only saw two of the five Best Picture nominees this year (the other was Juno) but I feel confident that this win was deserved.
I think I fixed the slow load
I think it was a plugin. Let me know how it’s loading for you.
What a killer week I’ve had
Last Sunday I drove up to Massachusetts. I visited my favorite uncle and aunt, took Arthur to two different colleges for interviews, and also visited one of my oldest friends, whom I hadn’t seen in ages. It was a 3 hour drive up, then a visit, then an hour in deep fog to Vermont, then an interview, then another visit, then another interview, then a 3 hour drive home, except I had to pull over for a nap partway home. I got home Tuesday night as dog tired as I’ve been since whenever I was last dog tired.
In the midst of all this I decided to buy a new range, which involved research in the library last Thursday, visits to appliance stores on Friday and Saturday, a purchase decision, and delivery and installation to arrange. So Tuesday night in my state of canine exhaustion, I made the necessary phone calls to delivery and installation type folks. Wednesday morning I also called the condo management and the trash pickup people about taking away the old range.
So, home and exhausted Tuesday night, at work Wednesday morning trying to work and also making these arrangements, and then leaving work early to come home and deal with installers.
And then I had a new range. So lovely. So efficient. Such a source of joy and delight. So I baked brownies Wednesday night to inaugurate the stove, and then Thursday night we had the best roasted split breasts ever. Also, there was an eclipse.
Friday my office closed for snow, and so that gave me time to rest and also to admire the beauty of my range. Except that’s when I started coughing. I definitely have that heavy feeling, like a weight on my chest. And body aches. Fuck. I went to the movies yesterday after the snow cleared, and saw a matinee showing of No Country for Old Men. I plan a review for Monday, particularly as how I’m sure it’s going to win Best Picture tomorrow night. And you all know what tomorrow night is, right? Tomorrow night is Deborah’s favorite night of the year!
I watched the lunar eclipse
Not, y’know, for an hour. But for ten minutes, and then again for five, and so on, while going back inside to bake brownies and warm up.
I don’t believe I’ve ever done that before. I think it’s always been raining or four in the morning or something whenever the opportunity arose.
It was very beautiful. Words fail me. It was astonishing.
There’s no tradition in Wicca surrounding eclipses, but on a previous lunar eclipse I had a strong experience of Hecate.
Tuesday Trivia Answers
All answered within a couple of hours. Answers below the fold… » Read more..
Tuesday Trivia: Name That Character
A while back Deborah did a few quizzes in which she listed a series of roles, and you were asked to identify the actor who had played them all. This is sort of the inverse of that one: I list three actors, and you have to identify the character they all played (note: the same character doesn’t always have the same name). Some are probably easy; others, I think, not so much. There is no unifying theme to this quiz, unless someone happens to discern one, in which case there is and I meant it all along.
Update: All solved.
- Elliott Gould, George Sanders, James Garner
Solved by Melville (comment 2) and Hogan (comment 6) - Judi Dench, Michelle Pfeiffer, Anita Louise, Lindsay Duncan
Solved by Evn (comment 8 ) and Hazel (comment 9) - Keanu Reeves, Laurence Olivier, Dan O’Herlihy
Solved by Melville (comment 5) - Natasha Richardson, Elsa Lanchester, Jenny Agutter
Solved by Melville (comment 5) - James LeGros, Jon Finch, Toshiro Mifune, Charlton Heston
Solved by Melville (comment 2) - Yvonne de Carlo, Anne Bancroft, Debra Messing
Solved by Evn (comment 3) - John Malkovich, Tony Todd, Adam Baldwin
Solved by Hazel (comment 9)
Note: I’ll be in meetings for much of the day, beginning at 10:30 am PST, so if I’m not confirming your answers promptly, be patient.
Monday Movie Review: The Silence of the Lambs
The Silence of the Lambs (1991) 10/10
FBI trainee Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) interviews Dr. Hannibal Lecter—”Hannibal the Cannibal” (Anthony Hopkins)—a psychiatrist who is one of the most dangerous incarcerated serial killers. Starling’s supervisor/mentor (Scott Glenn) believes that Lecter can help find another serial killer known as Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine) who skins his victims. Directed by Jonathan Demme.
As the final credits for The Silence of the Lambs roll, a character walks through a crowd. We are interested in watching him, but he walks away from us, off into the distance as the crane shot recedes. The credits obscure the scene, and when they briefly clear, he is gone. We cannot find him, our fear has disappeared into an ordinary, pretty street scene. The fear remains within.
Maybe everyone has already seen this movie, and there is no point in avoiding spoilers. Indeed, the movie is excellent, and watchable, and terrifying, even when thoroughly and completely spoiled. Yet out of respect for its genius, I think I’ll leave its mysteries intact.
Only three movies in history have swept the Oscars’ four major categories: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, and Best Actor. In 1934 it was It Happened One Night, in 1975 it was One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and in 1991 it was Silence of the Lambs. (All three also won Best Adapated Screenplay.) As it happens, I adore It Happened One Night and Cuckoo’s Nest. I’d seen Silence of the Lambs once before, but it was censored and cut up, and it hadn’t impressed me. I was determined to give it another go, and TCM‘s recent uncut showing gave me the opportunity. So here I am, reviewing a movie everyone’s already seen. Go know.
People say “they don’t make ’em like that anymore” with alarming disregard to what is and is not being made nowadays, or what was made in the past. Yet in regard to Silence of the Lambs, I have to say it’s probably true. They stopped making horror movies that scared by making you imagine, and not see, shortly after Psycho. Silence of the Lambs is about what we don’t see. It is the taut, tightly constrained body of Hannibal Lecter, who is sometimes straight-jacketed and muzzled, but always looks like he is even when his limbs are free. It is the expressive stare of Clarice Starling, who flinches even while not allowing herself to flinch. It is the derangement of Buffalo Bill, whom we barely ever see clearly at all; he is almost always in the side of a shot, or bent over so his face is obscured, or seen in so tight a close-up that his features are distorted, so that the one clear shot of him, bizarre, vulgar, intimately revealing, is actually more shocking, than the autopsy or the head in a jar.
The filming is deceptive in its apparent straightforwardness. Opening at the Quantico, Virginia FBI training facility, it has the grainy look of a made-for-TV movie. But look again. Starling works her ass off on the training course, and then diverges, leaving it incomplete. She runs inside, a small, slight woman, while a group of larger men runs in the opposite direction. And that’s Clarice: Smaller, running in the opposite direction, off-course, tough but out of breath. At the end of the movie, she’ll be in the same position; off-course, out of breath, relying on incomplete training while her compatriots move in the opposite direction. Jonathan Demme clearly studied his Hitchcock; symmetrical film-making of that sort is the kind of thing you learn from the master.
Much has been made of the chilling intimacy of the relationship between Clarice and Hannibal. He is the dark side of the mentoring relationship she seeks with Jack Crawford (Glenn). As she reveals her childhood losses, one can see why reaching towards mentors is appealing to her. And with Lecter, there’s also the sheer joy of winning; anything he reveals to her hasn’t been revealed to anyone else. She’s infinitely special and can reflect this success back to her real mentor.
There is also a feminist undercurrent to the film. Starling is a little bird, preyed upon everywhere by larger men. She is a surrogate for the female victims of Buffalo Bill, who likes large women whom he makes helpless. Instead she is a small woman who can fight back. She can connect to Lecter even though he terrifies her, because he is just the worst possible version of every man who surrounds her, looks down on her, judges her, and tries to victimize her. Like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, she’s the poor sexy little girl running away, who turns around and kicks ass.
Sunday Meditation: Darshan
The word darshan in Hinduism means many things. Here I am referring to the visual contact with the deity, and I am going to be translating it into a Western Pagan context.
We’ve been talking about using an altar for meditation. Some people don’t know quite how to use an altar, or quite how to make the vital connection with deity that makes an altar such an important place in the home.
One thing that really works is to create a visual, one-to-one relationship with the idol you’re working with. Pick up the statue or image (perhaps you have a framed picture). If you can’t pick it up, come close to it. (And this is important when determining how to lay out your altar—make sure you can do this.) Make eye contact. Gaze into the beloved eyes of your Goddess or God, and express love in your gaze. Receive the gaze of your deity, and feel loved in return.
Some statues have expressive eyes that are easy to gaze into. But if a deity statue is a solid—brass or stone—the eyes may lack emphasis. You can adorn your deity with cosmetics to emphasize the eyes. In fact, this can be part of your meditation/worship.
I use a liquid eye-liner to emphasize the eyes on my metal Kali statue, and a touch of red lipstick for shading on lips and brows. The face becomes intensely expressive and I benefit from the extra attention I have given my altar. It instantly feels personalized and intimate.
Breath deeply, ground and center, and gaze upon your altar. Are you able to have the darshan experience as it is now? Can you see your deity easily? Can you bring Him/Her close or yourself come close? Adjust the layout as needed.
Now study the deity and make sure you can truly find Her/His gaze. If the image is “just an image” to you, how can you adorn, emphasize, or adapt this image to make it feel more animated?
Now, breathing deeply and grounding again, light your candles and incense, hold your crystal, do whatever you do that says to you “I am at my altar.” And in that clear and focused state of mind, find your deity’s loving gaze. Perhaps there is a message for you, perhaps not. It is enough simply to breath at peace in this state, and feel the presence.
