Thursday, November 22, 2007

No Country for Old Awesome

I went and saw the Cohen brothers' "No Country for Old Men" tonight. It was seriously awesome. I happen to be in Portland right now and since I've never been to an art house theater that wasn't located at 300 S. and 300 E. in Salt Lake, I thought it'd be cool to visit one here.

Although I had an enjoyable time, I must admit, I noticed several differences in movie watching etiquette between the two states.

The theater wasn't that large, but it was almost full. I would guess that another hundred people decided to attend the same viewing that my cousin and I attended. During the time between the end of the previews and the beginning of the ending credits, I was able to hear 7 different ring tones from seven individuals.

This isn't that big of a deal, it's just a big change from the things I'm used to back in the beehive state. To these Oregonians' credit, not one of them answered the call to say, 'Dude, I'm in a movie, what do you need?'

There was a couple sitting directly behind me and my cousin. The violence in this awesome movie came as quite a shock to these two, despite the MPAA's clear warning that the movie is rated R for 'strong graphic violence.' Several murders are witnessed in the first few minutes of the movie and each time a shot was fired or blood splattered, the girl behind us would cry loudly, 'No, baby, NO!' And her man-friend would hiss, 'What the f@#% is this s$%t?' Two animal killings, 3 counts of manslaughters and 10 corpses later, the man-friend had had enough and they got up to leave.

All movie-going observances aside, 'No Country for Old Men' is darker, weirder and funnier than 'Fargo.' Go see this movie. It's definitely a career high for the Cohen brothers. Well done Joel. Well done Ethan.

2 comments:

Jessica said...

You make me laugh. Now keep up the blogging!

Anonymous said...

Carla and I went and saw this movie the other night not really knowing what it was about. Someone suggested it to us. We HATED it. The nasty guy in the movie was SO creepy. Ah just thinking about him right now gives me the creeps. Anyway, just thought I would share that with you.