Anton Chigurh trollface [split from coffee thread]

Hellbent said:

Loving the Anton Chigurh trollface.

Pretty sure that's Javier Bardem.

Mithran Denizen said:

Pretty sure that's Javier Bardem.

That is the actor's name, yes. But the character is called Anton Chigurh, from No Country for Old Men.

DoomUK said:

That is the actor's name, yes. But the character is called Anton Chigurh, from No Country for Old Men.

I wonder where the film will stand among classics 40 years from now.

call it.

Wow, that was retarded of me to not realize that.

Heh, that trailer actually makes the movie look decent enough to almost persuade me to see it despite the fact that any time I read "Joel & Ethan Coen" somewhere, I grimace inside.

Xaser said:

Heh, that trailer actually makes the movie look decent enough to almost persuade me to see it despite the fact that any time I read "Joel & Ethan Coen" somewhere, I grimace inside.

Best movie of the '00s outside LOTR (ok, and Whale Rider)... and horror is not my genre (furry hobbits are). The movie's so good it's difficult to watch. If you do see it, make sure you see it with a good sound system and proper volume.

Love that movie, was late to see it (last year) but it's up there with my all-time favorites. Javier Bardem as Anton steals the show as Heath Ledger did as Joker in The Dark Knight.

I liked No Country for Old Men, but it was very boring in parts and I realized it's because a majority of it lacks any score. I didn't really realize this till about 3/4 through the movie. There are some songs here and there, but most of the background sound is just ambiance, if anything.

<3 the Brothers Coen though.

Any more music would have ruined the atmosphere in that movie. The lack of soundtrack is great. Still not the best movie of the 00s, though. Also, Fargo rocks No Country's socks. Also, Whale Rider? Cmon, Hellbent.

I thought NCfOM mediocre at best, but then again, I saw it a while ago. I want to re watch it, but I just don't remember anything interesting minus a few stand-offs really.

I agree the lack of score is a major reason why the film is so good. I didn't find any of the film boring. Music would have lowered the film to the level of any other thriller/horror. There was no music telling you how to feel, queuing you in when shit was gonna get ugly, or when you could relax. I thought the lack of music added to the tension.

Whale Rider was the most compelling movie I watched outside LOTR in the '00s. Maybe I just have a thing for Kiwis....

It's odd that I like No Country as much as I do given the type of film it is. No one really to root for, a non-consolatory ending and lots of guns, fear and loathing and murder. It has none of the things I look for in a film when choosing a film to watch. Technically it is a really well done film. This combined with the performances, the cinematography and look of the film, the pacing, the tension--the pregnant scenes and the sound are what make it so compelling. Many films are overstylized which just comes across as cheap to me. Take "Winter's Bone" for example. Just too overbearing in the look and tone of the film. No Country doesn't fall into this trap. It does everything right and then some (like not having music). Music is usually used as a crutch in films--there to augment the emotional state the director wants the audience to feel at a given time. Films done in this way can only be so compelling and can only have so much emotional depth. Films where music is used more for atmosphere than emotional triggers are going to be more successful at being deep and textured (Whale Rider and LOTR music's function was atmosphere/mood/tone more than anything else). A lot of thought went into what kind of music would play for what scenes etc in LOTR. I guess the Cohen Bros. had such a clear vision that they realized that there was just no need for any music and that it would only detract. The quietude was the soundtrack in a way--it's what allowed the scenes to build their tension and to become so pregnant and heavy.

I like the themes in Whale Rider. The mysticism and 'the world is changing' themes. These are major themes in both Whale Rider and LoTR. They also both have unlikely heroes who are humble. EDIT: Compare the 'destiny' themes in Whale Rider and LoTR with Star Wars. Star Wars there is no sublty. Over and over we are told "it is your destiny". Most fundamental rule of story telling is show, don't tell. Whale Rider does an infinitely better job than Star Wars at showing--encompassing--the destiny theme without ever having to tell the audience in any way that the film is about the girl's destiny. Don't get me wrong, I like Star Wars a lot... it's a classic. But Whale Rider is operating at a whole other level to any other film I've seen dealing with the theme of destiny.

Whale Rider was let down by that cheesy, tacked-on happy ending. If it had stopped with the girl drowning out at sea with her grandfather left to realize he was a moron... that would have been an ending on-par with Ran or something.

Xaser said:

Heh, that trailer actually makes the movie look decent enough to almost persuade me to see it despite the fact that any time I read "Joel & Ethan Coen" somewhere, I grimace inside.

I haven't seen a movie of theirs that I haven't liked. Something about George Clooney makes my skin crawl, but I even found O Brother Where Art Thou and Burn After Reading enjoyable. I somehow forgot that I was watching my least favourite actor.

However No Country for Old Men is by far and large their magnum opus, in my opinion.

despite being adaptation of mccormack's book, i can't think of no country other than as less entertaining fargo.

I'd think that No Country would go over most moviegoers' heads due to the subjects it delves in. Definitely not your stereotypical getaway movie. It reminds me of a spaghetti western put in a more modern age. There's action in it but it's brutal action, fast and dirty. And it's only one part of the movie. I feel Llywellyn's fate was handled perfectly, although this pissed off a lot of people that it just came so unexpectedly sudden, plus off-screen. Because the movie wasn't about him, it was about the sheriff. Speaking of, the ending dialogue from Ed Tom Bell about his dream was just amazing. Other great parts including Anton's lines during the coin toss scene with the clerk was vague, but it made more sense when you analyzed it. As I said, certainly not for everyone. Lot of people these days just want to be entertained, by that I mean watch something with no plot, one dimensional characters, cliches upon cliches, and a sappy Hollywood ending and call it good. The mainstream audience wouldn't know what a good movie was if it came and bit them in the ass. So No Country was a very welcome surprise. Another film I feel very passionate about is Dark City AKA The Pre-Matrix, also very underrated.

Dark City is one of those movies that I always forget about, but the instant someone or something reminds me of it, i can't help but get super stoked about it. That was an excellent movie, I should buy a copy of it.

Agreed. Dark City made me very happy. Most people I have shown it to liked it as well.

I was sort of luke-warm about Dark City. I don't think I was really able to suspend my sense of disbelief, probably because the film was almost too atmospheric and stylized, which I think had the effect of keeping me at the edge of the story instead of being pulled into it. My friend who has very discerning tastes really liked this film tho. Just to clarify, this is the film where he's trying to find Shell beach, right? I probably should watch this film again, too. A lot of films are much better the second time around.

I actually need to watch No Country again because I missed the very beginning and I didn't even try to analyze the ending. It's such a hard movie to watch, tho.

Well, I just watched the end scene with the dreams he shares. Not really much needs to be said about the dreams themselves. The significance of the first seems pretty self-evident. You have to listen very carefully to what he is saying in this whole scene which is part of the problem (and part of the art) of the scene. There is a peculiar heaviness in the way he relates the dreams: an ordinary man who was up against something extra-ordinary--an evil he could not reckon with. That's one of the real appeals of the movie; is that there is no hero. If we are to see the Sheriff as the protagonist, and that the film is about him, then that's what is so compelling about this film--is his character. It's not that he is meek, it's just that he is wholly out of his element. There is this monster out there and he is completely powerless against it. It's completely beyond him. The dreams are abstract as they relate to the outcome of the events in the film, which is realistic, but it's not hard to see how thematically they fit in with his character and how he feels about the whole ordeal.

I just watched the opening scene: "The crime you see now it's hard to even take its [fasure???]. It's not that I'm afraid of it. I always knew you had to be willing to die to do this job. But.. I don't want to push my chips forward and go out and meet something I don't understand. A man would have to put his soul at hazard. He'd have to say 'okay

(beat)

I'll be part of this world."

Yes that's the one, I actually "watched" the movie as a kid back when it came out at someone else's house, but obviously I couldn't understand/interpret a damn thing then. I got to sit down with it last year when my friend was talking about it.

As for No Country, I really like how for once the bad guy wins (Anton gets real messed up in the "holy shit" car accident but ends up walking away from it) and the "good guy" loses (aforementioned Llywellyn's fate). Definitely not typical Hollywood, this is just real life, and as we've found out the hard way it rarely plays fair.

Cyanosis said:

Yes that's the one, I actually "watched" the movie as a kid back when it came out at someone else's house, but obviously I couldn't understand/interpret a damn thing then. I got to sit down with it last year when my friend was talking about it.

As for No Country, I really like how for once the bad guy wins (Anton gets real messed up in the "holy shit" car accident but ends up walking away from it) and the "good guy" loses (aforementioned Llywellyn's fate). Definitely not typical Hollywood, this is just real life, and as we've found out the hard way it rarely plays fair.

I actually like hollywood endings. But this film doesn't set itself up for a hollywood ending. There's nothing in the filmmaking that suggests there will be a good ending, or even, you could argue, a more mainstream resolution, so it would have been inappropriate. The ending fits the film.

Shit, I think I just got the significance of the coin toss. It's very simple, really.

Carla Jean Moss: You don't have to do this.
Anton Chigurh: [smiles] People always say the same thing.
Carla Jean Moss: What do they say?
Anton Chigurh: They say, "You don't have to do this."
Carla Jean Moss: You don't.
Anton Chigurh: Okay.
[Chigurh flips a coin and covers it with his hand]
Anton Chigurh: This is the best I can do. Call it.
Carla Jean Moss: I knowed you was crazy when I saw you sitting there. I knowed exactly what was in store for me.
Anton Chigurh: Call it.
Carla Jean Moss: No. I ain't gonna call it.
Anton Chigurh: Call it.
Carla Jean Moss: The coin don't have no say. It's just you.
Anton Chigurh: Well, I got here the same way the coin did.

Chigurh feels the pointlessness of life--that's it's just a collection of random events... the meaningless of what happens--of who lives and who dies. It's all left up to chance in the end.

It's dumb, but always makes me laugh...

I'm a big fan of the Coen Brothers, and I liked this movie, but it was a bit too depressing for me. It was definitely their most serious movie of all time (though Blood Simple comes close). I think I missed some of these themes when I was watching it, though, so I should probably watch it again.

As for Dark City, I love that movie. The opening narration almost ruins the movie, though, because of all the spoilers. Watching it without it would probably make it more of a psychological thriller.

Oh that's easy, I avoided the theatrical version and saw the director's cut, the narration was forced in theatrical (because using our brains isn't as fun). Also they dubbed over Jennifer Connelly when she's singing, her voice is genuine in the director's cut.

Cyanosis said:

the narration was forced in theatrical (because using our brains isn't as fun)

Kind of like Harrison Ford's Naked Gun-esque voice over in the original theatrical version of Blade Runner.

DoomUK said:

Kind of like Harrison Ford's Naked Gun-esque voice over in the original theatrical version of Blade Runner.

Yeah, I saw the theatrical cut after the Final Cut. Never again. I also own the director's cut of Dark City, and once again, you take a voice-over out of a movie, it becomes that much better. To me, it's the weakest style of narration you could have. I firmly believe in the whole "Show don't tell" point of view.

DoomUK said:

O Brother Where Art Thou

That particular movie is the one thing that stops me from outright hating the Coen Brothers. I love that movie somehow, despite it somehow being made by the same guys as...

DoomUK said:

Burn After Reading

...which I absolutely despise. Massive clusterfuck (intentional or not) that I didn't find the least bit funny or entertaining. Very few movies actually have me stand to my feet at the end and shout out "WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?" :P

So yeah, still on the fence about the Coens, I guess. I'll probably go ahead and watch No Country anyway, if only for the fact that it'll at least let me decide once and for all whether I like or hate 'em. :P

it's a great film. watch it.

Just saw 'no country'. Beginning was interesting, kinda anticlimatic, didn't really leave a lasting impression on me. Liked fargo better.

All the parts are posted on youtube by 'zooom28', but lo and behold part 6 has a 'bug' toward the end so you're missing a segment. That has happened to me so many times in youtube movies that I suspect google made some sort of deal with the film industry to always leave a part out, so there's still incentive to buy them (could be why they dice it up into 10 minute chunks so you have to annoyingly click repeatedly too.. I usually load 4 at a time, so the next part will be ready by the time the first is done).

If you're bored, here's another youtube movie (naked prey) I saw recently (and when I saw it all parts worked, they probably let it slide because its an older movie):