Archive for November, 2007

No Country for Old Men… a review

November 9th, 2007 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Have you ever had the dream where you were at a “Cirque Du Soliel” show drinking a warm cup of piss with Mahatma Ghandi?

Ya, I’m pretty sure that my subconscious is being directed by the Coen Brothers.

In my mind I’m trying to be all “hip” and stuff because, well , Ghandi made it and I don’t want to look like some sort of Philistine by saying “Yo Mahatma. There’s a hair in my beverage”, but I still can’t get passed the fact that it’s piss.

That’s sort of how I feel watching a Coen Brother’s film.

Everyone around me is 150 times smarter than Stephen Hawking and I’m the guy with an Archie Digest sticking out of my pocket protector.

“No Country for Old Men” is about how Josh Brolin’s character (Llewelyn Moss) stumbles across a satchel full of drug money near the Rio Grande and angers a psychotic hitman (played brilliantly by Javier Bardem) who has a penchant of dispatching people with a pneumatic hose.

Sure it’s about as inconspicuous as bludgeoning someone to death with a cigarette vending machine, but you have to give them brothers bonus points for originality.

Anyway, Tommy Lee Jones is also in the film and he really stretches his acting skills by playing a crusty Southern sheriff who is always cleaning up the mess left behind by Bardem.

How many movies has Tommy Lee Jones played a crusty Southern character? Answer: “All of them.”

If there’s a sullen Texas cowboy character in a film and it hasn’t cast Tommy Lee Jones as the lead, you might as well be watching “Sweating to the Oldies” with Ru Paul.

The movie has crisp dialogue and brutal violence which are two Hallmarks of any Coen Brother’s flick, (the third Hallmark being a hard left hand turn into “What the FUCK?!!”).

Watching a Coen Brother’s film is like watching a documentary on CPR in which the victim has a cold sore and a porcupine embedded in their chest. You know the ending is going to be uncomfortable, and possibly unsatisfying.

If anything I have to take away a point for how shockingly unoriginal it is. It WOULD have been original 6 years ago, but I’ve recently seen a television commercial that ended similarly.

Bonus points for the freakish shirtless teen with gynecomastia though.

Tommy Lee Jones gives some sort of soliloquy that completely sailed over my head because all I could keep thinking about was the kid with bitch tits.

I’m sure what he said was really deep.

Probably not though.

Anyway, I’m giving it 3.5 out of 5 stars (penalizing the weird and plagiaristic ending) but I’m just a tourist visiting the Cult of Coen. Fanboys everywhere will no doubt disagree.

OK… update… I had a few weeks to think about it, and so I’ll give it another.5 points. If you’re doing the math that means 4 out of 5 because it’s grown on me like the moustache on a seven year old Italian boy.  

I still say it’s more fucked up than Britanny Spears’ family and the ending was copped right out of a scene from “The Forgotten” but I liked it more than that pretentious sack of crap called “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead” (great acting aside).


American Gangster… a review

November 2nd, 2007 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

The great thing about Hollywood is that you can shoot someone like a dog in the street and people will still love you, (as long as you don’t have a middle eastern accent).

If a Muslim guy is putting a baby bird back into its nest after rescuing it from a cat he MUST be up to something, but if a black guy sells heroin to kids? He’s an entrepreneur!!

By the time I’m 60, Fiddy is going to be prez-e-dent.

“American Gangster” is basically “Heat” if the wardrobe was done by Huggy Bear.

Denzel Washington plays “Frank Lucas” a heroin dealer and organized crime boss from Harlem who made his fortune during the late 1960s and early 1970s, by purchasing his drugs directly from the Viet Cong and smuggling it back into the USA in the coffins of dead servicemen.

Ok come on, it’s no sleazier than Martha Stewart’s line of sweaters at Kmart.

Russell Crowe plays uber-honest cop “Richie Roberts” who becomes ostracized by the New York Police department because he turned in $1,000,000 in untraceable bills to his boss rather than keep the cash for himself.

Hey, I’m honest, but I’m not THAT honest.

Anyway, the movie basically is split into two halves in which we see Frank shooting rivals and hugging his family whereas Richie is getting divorced while getting bullied by corrupt cops. If this was a cartoon Frank would be Tigger and Richie would be Eeyore.

Ok, Tigger if he was packing.

But, really nobody cares about any of that crap. Get back to the shooting of the pimps please.

The “Godfather” had those great scenes that people will talk about forever. The horse head, the offer you can’t refuse, the never go against the family stuff. It was full of violence, and treachery. Badda Bing baby.

In “Scarface” you got to say hello to my little friend.

In “American Gangster” you get to see a fat Russell Crowe eating a donut in an alleyway with binoculars for 2 hours and 40 minutes. It’s not that the story isn’t compelling, it’s just not exciting in the way that a guy holding a chainsaw over a bathtub is.

I never really understood how Frank could sit in the window booth of a café every morning eating a piece of toast without getting gunned down by a rival. Here’s a guy who pisses off the Italian mob, corrupt cops and every guy wearing a mink hat in Harlem and he’s sitting there drinking orange juice with his back to the subway platform.

It’s about as believable as him fondling the breast of the KKK Dragon’s wife while wiping his ass with a picture of Hank Williams in a Jack Daniel’s distillery.

I counted one attempt on Frank’s life in the whole damn movie and it was telegraphed so badly that I half expected a balding guy with a Morse Code machine to be sitting on the corner cupping his ear with a steno pad.

I guess what I’m saying is, that for most of the movie you’re a passive observer of a clever businessman. It’s like watching a documentary about Enron with naked chicks.

It’s good, but it’s no “Goodfellas”.

Still… 4 out of 5 stars.