uh, I called it the first time. Sorry.

Neil Young
13.Jan.08

PS : I think I have two main problems with this film, and they're closely connected. There's the Coens' fundamental and characteristic flippancy, which is utterly at odds with Cormac McCarthy's dead-serious, steely austerity.
Then there's the way they play with the conventions of the noir/thriller form, only to discard them in the final act (at several junctures during which, by the way, it's unconscionably difficult, even at a second viewing, to work out exactly what's going on and why): pleasures without payoff, revealing a rather patrician disdain for "genre" cinema in the process.
And there are many pleasures here, of course – most obviously Bardem, hilarious ("friendo") and chilling at the same time, and thus striking a balance of opposites that the Coens themselves struggle to maintain.
15.Jan.08

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NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (2006) : E.Coen and J.Coen :  6/10

USA
122m (BBFC timing)

director : Ethan Coen and Joel Coen (The Ladykillers)
editor : "Roderick Jaynes" = Ethan and Joen Coen (The Ladykillers, Intolerable Cruelty, The Man Who Wasn't There)

seen 12.Jan.08 Boldon (Cineworld :  £6.20)