In the Valley of Elah

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No Country For Old Men

The first theater movie I have taken in this year, and I was not disappointed. Having wanted to see this film for at least 3 months now, I was psyched that I got to see while it was still out. Needless to say, I was blown away. Javier Bardem is terrifying as a murderer with arguably one of the oddest moral codes seen on screen in awhile. Josh Brolin also delivers as the fortuitous blue collar Texan who finds $2 million out in the West Texas scrub brush.

I guess you could say I'm a film buff, and I know my movie trivia fairly well, but I'm certainly not a fanatical fan of one director or actor or genre. I watch a lot of movies, I pick up on directors and whatnot, but I wouldn't last very long in one of those snobby conversations about how brilliant the Coen Bros are and how the plot nuances in Fargo clearly continue into their latter day work, blah, blah, blah...
That said, I have to say No Country for Old Men is my favorite Coen Bros offering since Lebowski. It certainly felt like one of their films as far as quirkiness and moments of dark humor go, but at other times it was something completely different than I have seen from them. Better storytelling, better plot flow, and really just an intensity that was present from the onset.

While I haven't seen too many of the other probable Oscar candidate flicks yet, it would take something extraordinary to knock this one off as my favorite thus far...

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada

Directed by and starring Tommy Lee Jones, this is a stripped-down tale of a hard-scrabble cowboy rancher (Jones) who becomes close friends with a Mexican drifter named Melquiades. When Mel is murdered by an overzealous Border Patrol agent (Barry Pepper), Jones becomes obsessed with first of all finding out who did it, then trying to exert his own brand of Texas justice.

The "Three Burials" refers to the fact that Mel is repeatedly interred and exhumed throughout the movie, and the film is thus set up and the story told according to the three burials. Lots of stuff going on in this film. The story is told in a fairly non-linear fashion, in a sort of Memento-style yet not quite as manic. It makes it a bit difficult to follow at times, and the ending is kind of anti-climactic. Nevertheless, Jones is good (even though he always seems to play the same character no matter what movie he's in), his Spanish is very impressive and Pepper is excellent. Also a nice performance from Dwight Yoakam. I like the bare bones feel of the movie, and the panoramic shots of the Mexican desert give it an old-school western feel as well. One last element of the film is that there are some pretty funny moments, which was quite unexpected. I didn't peg this as having any potential for comedy when I plucked it out of my Netflix queue.

Overall, 3 out of 5 stars.