Vicky Christina Barcelona

Written at the time of the film's release...

"Juan is the Loneliest Number That You'll Ever Do"

or

"To Javier and Javier Not"

Vicky Christina Barcelona (Woody Allen, 2008) The latest film in what will, no doubt, be called Woody Allen's "Scarlett" period, Vicky Christina Barcelona was shot almost totally in Spain, and benefits from the change of location. It's a large part of what drives the plot and the two women who vacation in Spain for different purposes.

Vicky (Christina Hall) is studying Catalan architecture (particularly Gaudi), and spends the time in Spain as a prelude to getting married to staid, reliable Doug (Chris Messina). Christina (Scarlett Johansson) has just written and directed an 18 minute film starring herself, and broken up with the latest in a series of men in impetuous affairs. She has no business in Spain, but goes to spend time with Vicky and get away. Vicky values the safe and dependable. Christina is searching, "certain only of what she doesn't want," as explained by a ubiquitous Narrator (Christopher Welch), whose constant comments make the film feel less a visual experience than a story with pictures.

While in Spain, the two women are approached by darkly handsome artist Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem) who offers to fly the women to the town of Oviedo for the weekend to view the Gaudi works, drink wine, and make love. Vicky thinks Juan is a creep. Christina is intrigued, but both women end up going, Vicky to protect her impetuous friend.

Juan is soulful, attentive, but it is obvious he is in love with his ex-wife Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz), despite the fact a) they couldn't make it work, and b) she stabbed him in a rage. ("Oh, that..." she says dismissively when it's brought up).

Things get complicated, but never enough for the Narrator to be lost for words or explanations, and when Maria Elena shows up again in Juan Antonio's life, the movie turns, at equal turns poetic, and dangerous. Despite the mannered ways that Allen's films can frequently turn out, this group of actors is particularly well-suited to working outside of Allen's tic's and rhythms. The closest any of the characters come to the Allen neurotic persona (a staple in Allen's films, either played by Allen or a stand-in) is Vicky, but she's much more sure of herself, if not her situation.

Bardem is sadly relaxed in the film, but Penelope Cruz is a force of nature, this generation's Sophia Loren. After being stuck in some unmemorable films with some straight-jacketed performances, the last few years and films have displayed a bravura presence, and she runs a gamut of emotions in this one to full effect. It's a tough role to pull off--she's held up as an icon until she appears, and when she shows up later in the film, arriving bedraggled from the hospital after a suicide attempt, Cruz more than fills the bill, with her extremes of behavior never seeming contrived or phony.

And Johansson has rarely been better represented on-screen—one close-up in particular of Christina listening to Juan Antonio explaining his love for his ex-wife fairly burns on the screen with resentment.

 

It may ultimately prove to be a minor Allen film, but as a change of pace and an expansion of style it couldn't be more successful.

Dune: Part 2

Lead Them to Paradise

or

You Can't Have a Messiah Without a Mess at the Beginning.

 

"God created Arrakis to train the faithful"

from "The Wisdom of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan

When last we left Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet), he and his Mother Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) were the last survivors of an attack on their new home on Arrakis by the House Harkonnen, in order to win back the all-important spice-mining business, around which the very Universe itself depends. 

The first film ended with Paul's pivotal killing of the Fremen Jamis—his first real doubter of the Arrakis indigenous tribe—in order to become part of their number and learn their ways, and Dune: Part 2 begins almost immediately after that act.

It is clear—even without a viewing of his continuation—that writer-director Denis Villeneuve dearly loves Frank Herbert's story, and, as a result, it's more faithful than the previous versions (the story is so dense, with plots, sub-plots, and arcana that is was dubbed "unfilmable"), certainly in regards to the ways of Arrakis' inhabitants, the Fremen and their relationships with water and the predatory sand-worms—the "Shai-Hulud"—while also delving a bit more into the ways of the manipulative Bene Gesserit sisterhood, of which Jessica is a part.*

So, along with the blistering action sequences, the vast desert vistas, and the Leni Riefenstahl-styled troop formations, we get a bit more of the sociology of the Fremen, their belief systems, their legends...and that, though they may be monolithic, they are not as homogeneous in their ways as in prior depictions. These Fremen actually have personalities, as opposed to the stoic stalwarts they've been portrayed as before. 

That's good. And it gives them a chance to shine (seeing as how they dominate this second act), and provide rich characters for Javier Bardem and Zendaya to play around with, rather than as merely devoted followers to be led. Bardem's Stilgar is shown to be a bit of a romantic zealot, but with enough years to still be suspicious of the legends coming true, while Zendaya's Chani distrusts the prophecies, knowing full well that giving in to a messianic leader is just another form of slavery.

Those are good concepts, part of a couple of the dualities that Dune: Part 2 leans in on—dualities which Herbert chose not to spell out, but merely allowed to percolate as sub-text. And it shows that Villeneuve is confident enough in his work that he complicates it even more than the original author did.

So, there was quite a death-toll among the A-listers in the first Dune, so, right off the studio logos, we start being introduced to the new cast-members, starting with Florence Pugh as Princess Irulan, daughter of the Emperor Shaddam IV (Christopher Walken, and it's nice that composer Han Zimmer didn't give him any background music with cow-bells), as the Princess notices the Emperor's ruminating silence over the death of Duke Leto Atreides in the previous film; she is the chronicler of the tale, and it's a good thing because there's quite a lot of catching up to do.

We also get to meet Feyd-Rautha (Austin Butler, proving he's not a one-trick-pony depending on his looks) the Baron Harkonnen's younger, more psychotic son, who is Paul's final test, and, as well, a character no one's bothered with before, Lady Margot Fenring (Léa Seydoux) who's deep in the depth's of the Bene Gesserit conspiracy.

"I'd wish you the (best of luck), but it seems you've won your battle."

Then, there's one character, who's always problematic—Paul's sister Alia (yeah, I'm not going to tell you), the last child of Duke Leto Atreides. Villeneuve eliminates the two year gap that Herbert inserted into the book, so we don't get to see a walking talking two year old, instead we see the child in Jessica's womb, talking to both mother and brother through her thoughts. Okay, weird, but not as weird as it could have been.

A lot of set up here, much like you could say Dune was merely the set-up for Part 2 (which is accurate, but there was so much of worth in the first one that it wouldn't be a fair assessment). It is nearly three hours of non-stop posturing, gritty action and a soundtrack you can feel in your ribs, with all sides circling around each other for a big pay-off that is, justifiably, a little melancholic. Think of The Godfather meeting "Game of Thrones". It certainly does the book justice, and although "Dune" devotees may quibble with a couple of changes—no two year gap, so no Alia and no Guild and the changes to Chani (which I'll get to in a second)--one can't deny that this is as close to movie-form as we're going to get. It's amazing. It's fantastic. It's a must-see. Simple as that for being as complex as that.

And I want to see where they go with the next one ("Next one?" Yeah...author Herbert wrote a few books!). They've done a very logical, character-driven change to the character of Chani...to the betterment, I'd say, as I've always had an uneasiness about her character, previously. It will add a complication, and a personal element to the road ahead (if they follow Herbert's road-map) and if Villeneuve is willing to already muddy the...er.. sand and stir things a bit, I'm all for it.

It's one of those movies that I can recommend without hesitation, and those are few and far between. And I'd love to be able to eavesdrop some of the post-viewing discussions. 

 

For me, being a fan of the book (and a couple of the others), it's nice to be able to look at these two films back-to-back and say that we finally have a "Dune" adaptation, we don't have to make excuses for.

He was warrior and mystic, ogre and saint, the fox and the innocent, chivalrous, ruthless, less than a god, more than a man was. There is no measuring Muad'Dib's motives by ordinary standards. In the moment of his triumph, he saw the death prepared for him, yet he accepted the treachery. Can you say he did this out of a sense of justice? Whose justice, then? Remember, we speak now of the Muad'Dib who ordered battle drums made from his enemies' skins, the Muad'Dib who denied the conventions of his ducal past with a wave of the hand, saying merely: "I am the Kwisatz Haderach. That is reason enough."

--from "Arrakis Awakening" by the Princess Irulan

 

* In fact, the only thing Villeneuve ignores is the Spice Guild, particularly its Navigators, spice-mutated humans who have attained the power to "bend space" and thus travel between worlds, a necessary component in a story about commerce, and the resources needed to maintain them for power. 

The Little Mermaid (2023)

A Woman Needs a Man Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle ("I've Got Twenty!")

or 

Mermaids Aren't Real But Racism Sure Is.  

Disney's The Little Mermaid was a revelation when it came out in 1989. At the time, Disney had been in the doldrums, creatively and financially (hard to believe, I know—this was before they found a new creative voice and, if not having it, buying it). Oh, they'd experiment a bit half-heartedly and always with an eye to the budget, which would constrain the imagination or goals. And the Disney brain-trust, "The Nine Old Men" as those original brilliant animators were called, were one-by-one dying off.

 

Then, Jeffrey Katzenberg came in on the coat-tails of in-coming Disney CEO Michael Eisner. A head-strong Paramount exec who finally tired of that studio's inexhaustible ability to shoot itself in the foot in order to assuage middle management egos, Katzenberg skedaddled to Disney and determined to take it back to its glory days of being THE animation studio. Directors John Musker and Ron Clements had the idea of making an animated version of Hans Christian Anderson's "The Little Mermaid" (not knowing the studio had once considered doing that in 1935). A Broadway veteran now working at Disney, Howard Ashman—with composer Alan Menken, the two had a hit with their musical version of "Little Shop of Horrors"—was approached to help with structuring the story and songs, and, together, Ashman and Menken took a Broadway musical approach to the proposed film. The result of that work is legendary.

Now, with Disney recycling their past cartoon triumphs as live action films, eventually they had to revisit this one, the first of the Disney "renaissance" films. The 2023 "live" version of The Little Mermaid is as good as it can be, given that it couldn't possibly live up to its animated version; this was the problem with Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, and most of the others in this doubling-down effort. Live-action (even live-action enhanced by CGI) just can't live up to the pace of animation, so there are moments that drag and make you wish for a song to interrupt things.

As for those songs, they're the best thing about this version (although there are three new ones—by Menken and Lin-Manuel Miranda—that are good but can't compete) and produce moments that are positively goose-bumpy (one song—the giddy and murderous "Les Poissons" was dropped, perhaps wisely). One interesting aspect to this version is the choreography for the already-Oscar winning song "Under the Sea" was done by the Alvin Ailey dance troupe.

Anything new in the mix that's good? Well, I like that they've moved the locale to the West Indies, as opposed to colonial Europe. That's a breath of fresh air and certainly justifies the Caribbean rhythms in the songs. And, the casting, certainly (and we won't even address the initial internet bitching...which never made any sense to me). As Ariel, the mermaid who wants to get out of the pool, Halle Bailey is a real find. Exotic of features to seem truly otherworldly, she carries the entire movie on her shoulders and belts out the songs exquisitely, throwing her own spin on them and taking them to a higher level.

I can't even imagine the tortures she had to go through making this movie—the location work on water, the constantly moving underwater shots that had to be done in front of a green-screen, and the awkwardness of basically having to work only from the waist up and project joy and grace while doing it. That's tough duty for what is essentially a first feature starring role. You think there's pressure underwater? Try pulling something like that off!

In the role of Atlantica's crusty-as-coral-King Triton, Javier Bardem takes the too-familiar pater familias character from the cartoon and, as usual, slyly informs it with little subtle bits of business one doesn't expect and appreciates. Awkwafina is a fine substitute for Buddy Hackett as Ariel's squawking friend Scuttle, Daveed Diggs is just fine as crabby Sebastian (although the character design is a bit...off), and, hey, Art Malik gets to not play a villain after so many years! I just wish Jacob Tremblay (who is usually scary good!) had more to do in his fish part.

But, the piece de resistance is Melissa McCarthy's turn as the sea-witch Ursula—the part played by Pat Carroll with such venom in the original. McCarthy is a comic gem, who has too often settled on sub-par movies that she has troopered through trying to improve. Here, she's got a great part, a great song—"Poor Unfortunate Souls"—with an "Angela-Lansbury-nightmare" intensity, combined with a whip-saw sense of timing that's simply amazing. And give some credit to Jessica Alexander who manages to match it for Ursula's human guise.

Even the traditional Prince Charming chap is okay (Jonah Hauer-King), unthreateningly handsome in a bewildered sort of way, the way Disney likes them. And adapter David Magee has made sure that Ariel and the Prince at least share the dissatisfaction of living in royally oppressive households so they have something in common. Still didn't solve the issue of why Ariel just doesn't write what she needs to say after her voice-ectomy.

But, there's another issue that didn't come up with the original and that mostly has to do with timing. In an environment when we've had Brave and Frozen in the children's entertainment mix, isn't the old canard about "true love" and a "handsome prince" pretty old-hat? Sure, it seemed commonplace in the 1950's and any number of rom-coms still depend on it, and, yes, the 1989 version presented it unquestioningly. But, they could have changed it, challenged it, maybe nuanced it a bit more; after all, the 1989 cartoon changed the ending of Anderson's story where the mermaid didn't get the prince and died. Children would have been traumatized, of course. The tears would have flowed like rivers down the aisles, breaking like waves against the concession stands.

Speaking of concessions, I don't know why, given Triton's apparent powers, he couldn't make things a bit more even-keeled in the sacrificing department of the Ariel-Eric relationship. He can give his daughter legs, but can he also change the Prince into mer-Eric? How are the couple going to visit Atlantica on holidays? Why does she have to change? Why can't he? Her song says "Part of Your World" not "I'm diving in with both"...(what's the word?) "feet." A little parity would have been nice. A little less stalking of the human, and maybe a little less "once they find true love it'll all turn out all right"*.

 

No one believes THAT fairy-tale!

* It's what bothered me about the Wonder Woman films, too.

Biutiful

Written at the time of the film's release. With any luck there will be a review of Iñárritu's new film tomorrow.

"Cast-aways"

or

"Living on the Razor Blade"

 

Director Alejandro González Iñárritu has directed three features starting with the much-beloved Amores Perros that deal with interlocking stories and the tangential way that things interconnect—all butterflies and hurricanes. Now, with Biutiful, he's abandoned that global gambit for a more focused film dealing with the ramifications of one life trying to do something decent in the underbelly of exploitation. Rather than Iñárritu going to far-flung locations to show the skein of inter-connectedness, it all takes place in Barcelona, the diaspora of the world, rather than spreading out, coming to one place. The world's economic crises—the current one and the on-going struggles of third-world countries, has created a surplus of one thing: refugees and immigrants, easily exploited by those trying to keep costs and prices down by keeping the labor lower.

The spider in the web is Uxbal (Javier Bardem, and he's amazing in this), part-time single father—his wife is a bi-polar, drinking, sluttish massage therapist and has lost custody of their two small children to him—and full-time black-marketer and employment agency for the disadvantaged. That's being polite. He works for a sweat-shop that ekes out its living by supplying warm bodies to various enterprises: the Senegalese sell crafts (and drugs) on the streets with increasingly ineffective bribes to the police in lieu of licenses, the Chinese make copies of movies and other cheap knock-offs, and...with Uxbal's brother's help...are farmed out for cheap labor on construction projects, which is the big score. He's sort of an HR guy, without regard to humanity or resources.

He also has an ability—as in The Sixth Sense, he "can see dead people." The recently departed are usually hanging around (sometimes literally) their bodies not knowing what to do or where to go, and Uxbal quiets their whispers, takes in their final words to help the grieving kin, and sends them on their way. For this, he receives a small fee from desperate families. Uxbal is teetering on the ledge of so many worlds, it is amazing that he is as  balanced as he is, sheltering his children from the encroaching corruption—that he is a gateway to—from all sides.

Oh. One other thing: he has pancreatic cancer that has metastasized and he only has a couple months to live. With so much blade-running, he's ignored his own health issues and condemned himself—but with so much responsibility, he won't just lay down and die. What he needs is someone like himself to allow himself to move on. He's a "dead man walking" on a tight rope. The only question is...what will send him over the edge.

And this is the problem (if you want to call it that) with Iñárritu, the writer/director—he doesn't know when to stop. For all the digging he does to bring his audience down into the mire of man's inhumanity and crimes against brothers, he can't help but take it to the realm of not just the fantastic...but the unbelievable ("magic realism" aside). We can believe the exploitation of workers and sweat-shops and slave-barracks because we've seen it, but to pile on a ghost story seems a desperate bid to make things mystical and "significant," when the story already has heft and worth. By gilding the mass-produced imitation lily, he undercuts a searing look at human desperation that would have been fine on its own.

Maybe...just maybe...he wanted to cushion the impact of our race to the bottom by providing a happy landing for its protagonist. But it seems a bit like hedging his bets to provide that, while reducing the importance of the very people he's trying to give a face to. Which "big picture" is more important?

Being the Ricardos

The Red-Headed Scare (It's All True)

or

Looo-cy, You Got Some Sorkin' To Do

 

I had a Lucy Ricardo reaction to this project first coming to mind: curling my lip to show all my teeth and going "Ewwww." Even though Being the Ricardos is helmed by Aaron Sorkin, Sorkin, as he's demonstrated, isn't the most effective when delivering comedy material—drama with humor and irony, sure. But comedy? C'mon, I watched the entire run of "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip." I may have been the only one.

 

Lucy's been on a lot of people's minds lately: TCM had a month of Lucy movies last month in conjunction with their "highlights" podcast about her life. This movie covers a bit of what that covered, but squeezes it all in within the space of one week of production of the "I Love Lucy" show, those issues being Desi's affairs, Lucy being pregnant just ahead of shooting a season's worth of shows, and the disclosure—on Walter Winchell's radio broadcast—that Lucy (coded as "America's favorite TV comedienne") was a communist.*

 

All true. Desi was sneaking out on Lucy. Lucy did become pregnant while shooting a season and, despite resistance from CBS, sponsors Westinghouse, and Phillip Morris, and incorporated Lucy's pregnancy into the story-line—a first (one of many) that distinguished "I Love Lucy" from the stone age of television. And Lucy was a communist, but not a practicing one. She had checked "communist" on a voter registration card in 1936, at the behest of her beloved grandfather Fred Hunt, who raised Lucy and her brother in their childhood.

It's also true that Ball and Arnaz were better together than they were apart. Both were quick-witted dedicated hard-workers with gambler's instincts and business savvy. Together, they bought the old RKO studios (which years before had released Lucy from her contract), created the 3-camera technique for documenting TV shows—which made better clarity, guaranteed delivery, and allowed episodes to re-run—clobbered television taboos, Desi gave the green-light to "The Untouchables" (narrated by Winchell, ironically) and Lucy said yes to production of TV's "Mission: Impossible" and "Star Trek." At one point, the greatest assets for Westinghouse and Phillip Morris...and CBS. They had a lot of power, but it was all power that could be taken away, if they didn't deliver. the goods.

Aaron Sorkin knows his way around television—he's made three TV series ABOUT television ("Sports Night," the afore-mentioned "Studio 60" and "The Newsroom") and the backstage turmoil involved in filling up broadcast time on a regular consistent basis. It is a meat-grinder, and anybody wanting to cut corners to make it a little easier, risks the wrath of millions of viewers. Desi-Lucy knew that. And so does Sorkin. He also knows what it's like to produce a carefully scrutinized show while your life is falling apart. Even when things are going well, personalities and egos have to be considered and worked around, editing and second-guessing happen constantly, interference from outside sources need to be batted out to the foul-zone and sometimes the drama off-stage is more intricate—and better—than the one on-stage.

Sorkin segments the film into a television work-week: Monday-"Table Reading; Tuesday—"Blocking Rehearsal"; Wednesday-"Camera Blocking"; Thursday-"Dress Rehearsal"; Friday—"Show Night". Those are the steps for the actors and technical crew to take from the first reading of the script on Day 1. Things get changed, problems get discussed, it's staged, and how it's going to be recorded is worked out, then the final touches and intricacies before the final day when it's presented before an audience. A 25 minute play produced each week, and the audience has to be "warmed up" that it's going to be a good time and they're free to enjoy themselves.They see the fun parts. They don't see the work. 

They also see the parts being played. They do not see the actors. Which brings us to casting. Cate Blanchett was first cast but dropped out. Nicole Kidman got the "Lucille Ball" part and Javier Bardem the "Desi Arnaz" part. J.K. Simmons plays William Frawley, and Nina Ariadna plays Vivian Vance. And they work. Some may grouse that Kidman doesn't look like Lucille Ball, but then we didn't see Lucille Ball, we saw "Lucy Ricardo." Lucille Ball was a tough business woman, who knew that time was a commodity and shouldn't be wasted by niceties—there was work to be done. Kidman gets that. Yeah, she can do the schtick, exploding the blue eyes and pitching the voice to screech-mode to play "Lucy"—but she spends most of her time as the intense, driven actress with a cigarette-growl and is very serious about comedy...and character. "Lucy Ricardo" didn't just happen, she was created, given what Lucille knew about getting attention and laughs. And like the silent comedians, she worried about timing and earning guffaws without doing it cheaply. It's an interpretation, not an imitation and it works. The voice is phenomenal.

Bardem doesn't have the boyish good looks of Desi Arnaz, but he's all over the charm and the drive...his scenes with Kidman are played like an old movie with too-perfect lines and better timing. And he's pretty good doing the songs. J.K. Simmons is a delight as Bill Frawley, with the rasp but not the girth, full of cranky jibes, belying a worldly wisdom (Sorkin writes a lovely line when he invites Lucy to a bar for a drink during a fraught work-day. "It's 10 am!" "Well, it's always 10:15 somewhere!") and Ariadna's Vivian Vance is a frustrated actress, worried that she'll be typecast frumpily, playing a woman "married to my grandfather."

But, Sorkin pays particular attention to the writers of "I Love Lucy" with actors portraying them at the time of the show's creation and with "witness testimony" of the same people older trying to set the record straight: Executive producer Jess Oppenheimer (played by Tony Hale and John Rubenstein), Bob Carroll (played by Jake Lacey and Ronny Cox) and Madelyn Pugh (played by Alia Shawkat and Linda Lavin!). Being a writer himself, Sorkin gives them the roles of experts, the elder versions smoothing over the inevitable pecking battles we see occurring in a bull-pen during the earlier scenes.

And—like a good sit-com—it all gets resolved in the end. Well, almost resolved. And, while it's true that Desi (in his usual role warming up the audience) did talk to the waiting crowd about the communist accusations, but he did not use the gambit Sorkin employs—although it is true that Arnaz knew the person mentioned, having met him at the race-track. Instead, Cuban-American Arnaz merely reminded the crowd that they were all Americans, and that, in this country, the accused are innocent until proven guilty. He merely appealed to their better natures. I kind of like the truth better. And Lucy was greeted, when introduced, to thunderous applause. But, Sorkin leaves out what happened after the taping: she went back to the crowd—something she never did—and said "God bless you for being so kind," then went to her dressing room and broke down.

 

Tough but not invulnerable.

Instead, Sorkin leaves us with one last enigmatic image. The crises have been averted. "I Love Lucy" goes on and no is being fired or losing their job. Sorkin shows the continuity after near-disaster, and the show going on, the actors on set, and the camera slowly moves up into the stage-lights looking down on the activity, until it hovers above the beams and bracers forming a television shaped screen around the scene below. What's he saying? Are they trapped? Is this a ploy showing the metaphoric similarity of the Arnazes to the Ricardo's?—because if it is, it doesn't work. What's the gist here? Maybe it'll come to me, but it sure doesn't communicate.

 

And it ends with television static. I only say this because it will cause confusion when it starts streaming on monitors December 21. Do not adjust your sets.   

* I love Desi's resulting line: "maybe they're talking about Imogene Coca..."

No Country For Old Men

Written at the time of the film's release...

Signs and Wonders

Llewelyn Moss is out on the Texas veldt tracking a caribou he shot, following the blood-trail when it is suddenly crossed by another blood-trail. Following it, he finds a drug-deal gone bad--five vehicles, and several dead Latinos, a truck-bed full of cocaine and eventually a satchel filled with stacks of of money, $10,000 to a stack. Fate is good to him.

Anton Chigurh is hunting, too. He needs a vehicle, and as he's driving a stolen police car, he can pull over anyone he chooses. He walks over to the driver side of the car, carrying a gas canister and a nozzle. "Get out of the vehicle," he says. And the driver complies. "Hold still, please, sir," he says, and the driver complies. He points the nozzle at the man's forehead and fires.

Sheriff Ed Tom Bell has been Sheriff of Terrell County since he was 26 years old, and that was a long time ago. You'd think he'd seen everything, but he's beginning to wonder if such a thing is possible. Looking over that drug deal gone bad while horse-back, he surmises the way things went down. "That's very linear, Sheriff," says his deputy. "Age'll flatten a man, Wendell," he not particularly replies.

The first time I'd heard of the Coen Brothers was a Time Magazine review of their first movie Blood Simple. When it wound up being featured at the Seattle Film Festival I went, expecting great things and their quirky ways of telling a story, like that travelling shot (by future director Barry Sonenfeld) that glided over a bar-top, rising up and over a fallen bar-fly. But what I wasn't expecting was a sequence that is one of my favorite in all of film, and is such an obvious thing to do, I wondered why nobody'd thought of it before. Ray has just murdered his lover's husband and stashed him in the back-seat of his car to take him someplace remote to bury him. But as he drives the long, flat Texas highway at night, the corpse behind him moans and moves. He slams on his brakes, pulls to the side of the road and runs...runs in a panic to get away, into a field. He runs into the dark until he stops, panting in fright and exertion. He stands there, looking back at the car. Now what? He's "safe." He got away. but he's no better off than he was before. He has to go back. And he especially has to go back before another car or truck approach and bathe the scene in light.

He has no idea what he'll find when he goes back there, but back he must go. It's the center of the Big Undecipherable that is the heart of the Coen brothers' movies--when people start to ask "how did I get here? And how do I come out, if I can't go back?" There's no going back to Square One with the Coen's. There is only the going-forward, head up or head bowed.

In its way, No Country for Old Men has bits of other Coen movies all over it. The "cat-and-mouse" games of Blood Simple. The airy philosophy of O Brother, Where Art Thou? The sharply written common dialog of all their films. The questioning law officer with philosophical questions of Fargo, the "what's it all worth" tragedy of Miller's Crossing, and Barton Fink. It stands as a good primer for all that is good in their work.

Is it their best work? The "Masterpiece" that it's been touted as? Hard to say. There seems to be a decided effort on their part to NOT make it that, to undercut the impact that the film could have had had they been more direct, hit things on the nose, as they say, rather than leaving things unsaid and perhaps confounding their audience. They've left room for interpretation and controversy, to make one think about the importance of dreams, of Fate and Destiny. One has to review the film that is, not the film that could've been. And No Country, as is, has some exquisite cinematography (by Roger Deakins--night shooting has never looked more convincing or as beautiful as here), note-perfect performances by just about everybody in the cast, but especially all the leads--not just Tommy Lee Jones, and Javier Bardem and Josh Brolin, but also Tess Harper (where's she been?), Woody Harrelson, Stephen Root, and Barry Corbin.

What makes No Country for Old Men different from the other Coen movies is a departure from the insular, claustrophobic worlds they have presented in the past. Before the films never strayed beyond the orbits of the main characters of their films--the surroundings filled with extras were there as filler. But this feels like a fuller world, a complete world, where every character has worth and life seems to be going on beyond the frame. That's new, and it will be interesting to see where this aspect of their film-making will take them.

It is not as fully realized a vision as Raising Arizona, or Fargo, or even The Big Lebowski. It is not as accessible as O Brother, Where Art Thou? But it far outshines such experiments in style as Barton Fink, The Hudsucker Proxy, The Man Who Wasn't There, or Intolerable Cruelty. No Country for Old Men is a stellar summing-up of where the Coen's have been, even if it doesn't quite rise above it. But the expanded universe of theirs—the more full world they present here—presages bigger and better films still to come.