No Country for Old Men
I went to the movies to see No Country for Old Men the other day. Very violent, tough movie, but I have not seen a screen villain as vividly rendered and lingeringly unpleasant as Javier Bardem is in this picture since Henry Silva played the angel-dust-snorting hit man in Sharky's Machine with Burt Reynolds. Bardem is not to be believed, he is so intense and eerie.
Thanksgiving was...peaceful. In all of my adult life, I have rarely seen Americans so in need of a vacation, a break, a place to go that is safe and comfortable. I have rarely seen Americans rush toward the Thanksgiving weekend with such need and commitment. This country is coming apart. And people are in a lot of pain about that. Eight years of these lunatics raping everything they see has been exhausting. Americans are exhausted. Our system is breaking down, slowly, and people are, when they get honest about it, frightened about what that means, short and long term. Iraq is a mess and they botched that so badly. Now, some say Iran is next. How can that be?
The American military is staffed by brave, highly trained, competent people. But it's run by idiots. Idiots who are going to kill a lot of innocent people and get some of us killed along the way.
Go see No Country for Old Men. It's a metaphor for Iraq and the post 9/11 world.
Comments for this post are now closed
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
i'm definately there with you on this new Cohen Bros. movie, Alec. i've seen the previews online since mid-summer. i've never seen Sharky's Machine, tho. Burt has made a few foul potty streaks over his movie career, and his celebrity alone isn't enough of a draw for me to sit through a rough and tumble "by the books" gangster film. i much prefer that ALL of the characters have flaws and weaknesses, not just "the bad guys". it's not enough to have the dichotomy of "good vs. evil" seperated into such simplistic terms. Sam Peckinpah was one of the last Directors of western lore to make all of his characters susceptible to greed, lust, vanity and redemption.
Thanks Alec. Yep, you're right about America, its breaking down but fortunately not crushed as badly as Iraq...but all the outsourcing of livable wage jobs to slave and child labor markets will finish the job on America. Mission Accomplished.
I've got to go polish my nazi medal my dad picked up in europe while fighting there...never knew it would come in handy.
"No Country" strikes me as an interesting but ineffective movie that falls apart in the last twenty minutes and will leave audiences scratching their heads. I love the Coens but this is what Pauline Kael would call "an honorable failure."
Alec,
I agree about the dissembling of our democratic society. The middle class is too beaten up to rise up.. and our politicians are too fat to defend the rights of those they represent.
I believe Nero also was the idiot son of a failed ruler . Draw some interesting comparisons.
I wish Charlie Rangle was young enough to be president. He gets my vote.
Who has the heart to sit thru a movie?
We are presently downsizing from a large house in an affluent community to a Town House in a much more middle class community. All my adult kids said they hope that someday , they might be able to afford that.
We have lived through the actual death of the middle class.
One of my kids asked if there was a time when a family could thrive with one income? Can you imagine?
Our children will need our help.. and after the mess we have helped make, we owe it to them.
I could cry.
Boomer
Hey there Alec. Good to see you.
As for the movie--I'm sorry. I usually end up waiting for PPV. Just the way life goes...
Thanksgiving was peaceful. It too, was exactly as you described. We needed it desperately. We kept our extra day off simple and quiet and we were sad to see it go but tomorrow is Sunday and we will rest again before our next six-day week.
We see the desperation far too often. It is quiet in the grocery stores where people wander with circles under their eyes.
I helped a woman the other day by reaching for raisons for her that were too far back on the shelf. Her surprised warm thank you told me too well that simple deeds of politeness are have been too far between for her for too long.
We cannot walk in a clouded daze of exhaustion, fear and loneliness. If we look around and see each other, perhaps we Americans might not fall apart.
Our government is failing us. We the People can overcome if we wake up and try.
Let's push pelosi on impeachment. She has no right to aide and abett this butchering crew in the white house by obstructing justice. She becomes as guilty as they.
Let's find a true American for the White House. What do you think of Dennis Kucinich, Ron Paul, and John Edwards?
Is there another true American (one of us out here in the real world) you would like to draft for the job?
"No Country for Old Men." Read the book and loved it, haven't yet seen the movie. I trust the Coen Bros not to screw it up. But I don't see any metaphor here. The sick and twisted greedheads who've have spent the last 7 years trashing America and committing us to endless war are intelligent and cosmopolitan and thoroughly clueless when it comes to the real world, since they have little experience in it and probably don't want to remember it too much. Alec, you're one of the best we have, and I'll bet every one of these America-hating nerds was on the receiving end of a variation of your Mitch and Murray speech in "Glengarry Glen Ross" at one time or another. Sneak thieves and embezzlers and cowards to the man, if I could be excused for using that particular word. That explains the secrecy and the hardcore smugness and the embarrassingly fake machismo. We don't need FDR or even JFK to call them on it. Just thousands of people who want to know, why do you hate America? Why do you not support the troops? Why do you assume we're stupid?
Myself? I'd love to give George W a push on his shoulder and say, "Three o'clock? After school? Behind the bleachers, ass-eyes."
I am one to quote the classics, thus due to the fact that one, what they say is valid to the here and now, but also very timeless in its honsety.
1. "when a whole nation is roaring Patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and purity of heart.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Anyone that does not see the irony of this statement needs to get checked.
2. "It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong." - Voltaire
It seems to me it is alot more traitorous to speak out against the government than it is to believe all of the idiotic things that our "chosen" government does to "protect" us form the axis of evil.
And finally:
3. "Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve" - George Bernard Shaw.
I see this as a "we are what we eat" kind of deal. Somebody re-elected this guy and we all must be not only willing participants, but also willing to suck it up when the majority was obviously wrong.
All of these statements were given long before W. got into office. So all of you out there, don't say you haven't been warned.
My opinion...Washington D.C. needs any enema!!!
I’m afraid there is no way out. And when you thought all these issues, all the stuff unbalancing us around, the news, natural and man-made disasters striking us here and there, found an audience elsewhere while we are running towards the hills on a holiday weekend, here it’s the price of gas sparking off major argument and debate in the car. Or here comes Hollywood, the teacher, with an opening weekend movie bringing up the subjects we shelved on our way out.
At the end of the day, I finally was left alone in front of the TV. I happened to be clicking away till I found something that I could easily forget going to bed. There is nothing better than watching a foreign film on TV (without subtitles) to make you feel smart, to revamp the bigger picture.
You are not the only one being frustrated over how politics has been taken care of, Alec, and the US of America is not alone in the sense of having strange and dangerous people in power.
We are frustrated too although we are not at war with other countries, but we are going to lose what we built up together due to stupid and short termed decisions from our politicians. What is owned by the state = the people is more and more practically given away to private owners for instance health care, schools, railroad and the roads in general, just to mention a few.
You do not have to be fighting with weapons against your fellow man to feel the same fatigue and sadness as you do. If the people in charge are bad guys with stupid ideas, like the ones we see in several countries in Europe right now, then you get exhausted and tired and eager for some time off to be with your family and friends.
I think the Advent and Christmas ahead of us this year are more important than ever and you do not have be especially religious to long for them. Mankind is getting worn out, that is the sad truth of today.
I wish you a very nice and relaxing weekend, Alec.
No country for old men but one country for rich men, the America. The rich men are Bush and his cronies. The America is not the United States of America but the Bush's America where they get their supports, about 27% of American population.
By this percentage is hardly to believe Bush can win any election. Then, believe or not Cheating was the trick that got him to the top.
This American styled democracy makes the world eye opened. More than 70% of Americans wait there helplessly with their hands robbing and teeth grinding for Bush to move over from his post. Is this the way Bush tells the world democracy is working over here?
With stock piles of weapons that can destroy this world several times Bush keeps saying there are threats from all directions and about WWIII. Then, He gives himself a name as 'Protector" but he was hiding during Vietnam war.
"Iran will not allow to have nuclear bomb" said Vice Dick sounds like an emperor in a press gathering. He, then, is a sick man completely since he can not be an emperor of Iran.
A few people from Al Quada could make Bush to spend trillions and thousands of lives of American soldiers. For 6 years the war is still no end in sight but Bush does not admit he makes mistake.
Those hardcore warmongers of GOP congress members who still hold on their positions and do their tricks again and again to support Bush with their poisonous votes.
Where is the rule of majority? The 70% is led by that 27%? That should be other way around.
Or, something wrong in that 70%. Wake up!!!
Alec, your right about Americans attitudes, but be thankful you can afford to go to a Movie. Iraq is a mess, this Country is in a mess, George W. Bush & Co., in a matter of 6 1/2 years has ripped & shattered this Country, and the spirit of this Country, and the spirit of its people in this Country.
The really sad thing is this, these people in Washington, are more concerned about what they look like on C-Span, bickering like children among the parties, to prove what, their men, that we can win in Iraq. When Bush stood up before the Country on that aircraft Carrier saying Mission Accomplished, he was right, they had accomplished, the beginning of the largest Bank robbing scheme of the United States Treasury, compliments of the American Taxpayer, to make themselves richer and destroy the Middle Class of America.
Then I have to think about, What IF, we had been a Nation of Example, Lead by Example. Than a Nation of the largest Weapons Arsenel in the World and using them everytime time to win the Hearts & Minds of People. How do imagine they do that? Point a gun to your head and expect your Heart & Mind.
Oh and Alex, watched an old Black & White Movie this weekend, George Orwell's 1984, this movie is in real need of a Reproduction, as soon as the writers come back to work, there is a project for you. Love your posts.
Um, could we have some specific examples on
things breaking down, and stuff? Remember to
account for perceptions...and that's the Big
Game these days, politics is nothing if not
the Mother Of All Funhouse Mirrors, I don't
see the country ready to fold up like a cheap
kite, yet, I see a lot of people agitating for
this and that, I see a lot of people behaving
maybe stupidly, but that's the norm and par
for the course for any given day of the week
in the good old US of A, or anywhere else,
for that matter. I think what HAS changed is
the method of reporting, the Internets kind
of gives you this magnifying glass, I think,
where you can dwell on one issue and zoom in
probably past all point of decency, and it's
just absurd some of the stuff you do read in
the papers, and ya just gotta wonder, there,
what's Really Going On In People's Heads.
(350 word limit, how do I hate thee, let me
count the ways, Pt.II follows)
Amen brother. I have never in my life seen the country so adamantly divided. I have also never seen so many staunch republicans who are disgusted with their own party. I myself have always been a democrat (as well as my family), but they are almost as bad. They will not stand up to these lackey's in the white house, yet they have the numbers. I'm strongly thinking about voting against every incumbent in office now. They should change the word incumbent to incompetent.
alex: look at it another way. instead of seeing the country coming apart look at the universal law of karma.
what is happening in America proves that karma exists. Did we really expect to have a country of capitalists where greed is considered good and materialism rules the day and not have this breakdown of a country and not be heading straight for fascism.
this is not about any god punishing Americans as the evangels claim but universal laws of love and intelligence providing feedback as a blessing not punishment.
without this karma as feedback there would be no evolution of consciousness.
from capitalism to unchecked capitalism to hollow corporations to soulless corporations to savage capitalism to wars for profits to imperialism to a rapid decline in the middle class to economic disaster to imperialism to fascism.
congress is working hard and fast to prepare this country for fascism. hope we Americans like waterboarding and swimming in blackwater.
did americans really think our republic could withstand this type of capitalism on steroids without these side affects?
The American military is staffed by brave, highly trained, competent people. But it's run by idiots. Idiots who are going to kill a lot of innocent people and get some of us killed along the way.
Amen. The failure of leadership for our boys and girls, and all who have served has been atrocious. Those of us who were proud to serve and were then betrayed by endless deployments, the lies we ere told about Iraq and why we were going, the dissmissive attitude of Rumsfeld, Bush and the whole administration about our concerns. The use of Iraq to justify the dismantling of our civil rights, and using the US military to help enforce this without the consent of almost every uniformed soldier.
And worst of all, the deplorable, DEPLORABLE, treatment that vets have suffered at the hands of a Veterans Administration that was too busy drinking the Rumsfeld/Cheny/Bush "Koolaid", to actually look after injured vets with massive physcial or psychological injuries. Bush is responsible for ALL of this, as is his party. This is one reason I will NEVER vote Republican again, as long as I live.
Loading comments…
Posted November 23, 2007 | 02:40 PM (EST)