dispatches from the new world of work

No Business at This Blog

I am not a movie reviewer. Movie discussions, save the likes of Charlie Wilson's War, which is directly related to the business of this Blog, have no place here. But there is something I must get off my chest.

I got, at birth, for better or worse, a full dose of the male gene set. I am not very squeamish, and I must reluctantly admit a predilection for rather nasty movies and TV shows—from Platoon to Syriana, to my favorite movie of all time, Apocalypse Now, to 24. (I even own an old video called, I think, The NFL's Hardest Hits.)

I suppose I've been a solo moviegoer for 50 years. And I've never walked out of a movie, no matter how many bombs were exploding or how much blood was flowing.

Until this Sunday.

At the 15 minute mark I left the Rutland VT Movieplex 9, where I was watching No Country for Old Men. It has won a bucketful of awards, and reviews have indeed remarked that it is pretty violent.

I can state without (personal) doubt that I have never seen such continuous, gratuitous, barf-inducing, disgusting violence in my life, including dog shootings, which I abhor.

If the movie wins the Academy Award for Best Picture, I will probably throw a rock through my TV screen.

Your call.

Tom Peters posted this on 01/08/08.

Comments

Hi Tom,
If you do throw a rock through your TV, do you think you could make a video of it and post it on YouTube? I think it would be awesome to watch you do it.

Was it just the gruesomeness that turned you off? Or was there something else to the violence that disturbed you?

Dave

Posted by David Christiansen at January 8, 2008 4:25 PM

Two things seem to be on the escalation track in today's movies. It seems that the latest movies must beat earlier flicks in the amount of violence and the amount of computer graphics, even if neither add nothing to the story.

Posted by Wally Bock at January 8, 2008 6:40 PM

Tom,
Thanks for the review.
I've made a mental note: No
No Country For Old Men.
Sorry to see that a line from
Yeats' Sailing to Byzantium was
used as the title of such a movie.

"II
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress. . . ,

"III
O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity."

From what you say, I suspect they do not understand Yeats.

As he says in another of his poems:

"Civilization is hooped together brought
Under a rule, under a semblance of peace
By manifold illusion. . . . "

Perhaps they forget that, given the wrong illusions, civilization is turned too easily
nto a charnel house.

John

Posted by Shakespeare's Fool at January 9, 2008 1:09 AM

I read the book about a year ago. I thought it was less violent than what the movie is made out to be. I guess Hollywood decided it needed some spicing up to make it appeal to the movie public.

I'll see your "NFL's Greatest Hits" and raise you a complete collection of Don Cherry's "Rock 'em Sock 'em Hockey Hits".

Posted by Brian Tingley at January 9, 2008 9:08 AM

"Was it just the gruesomeness that turned you off? Or was there something else to the violence that disturbed you?"

David: Don't know! I can handle "gruesome," "horrors," etc normally. It was something else. More penetrating. For once, I took a look in my metaphorical mirror and said to myself, "Why in the hell are you voluntarily watching this shit?" (I can while away time on trash with the best-worst of them, but this time it felt degrading even to be in the theater.)

Posted by tom peters at January 9, 2008 11:23 AM

Rugby, not NFL, is the game with the greatest hits. It is a hooligan's game (I broke my leg in 27 places playing the game!)
The greatest tackle is this one. http://www.sporting-heroes.net/rugby-heroes/displayhero.asp?HeroID=2599
I remember watching it on grainy black and white film as a kid but with YouTube there is a whole bunch of them to waste time on! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tc0Ut5y-GRc

Posted by Ronald X at January 9, 2008 11:53 AM

Ronald X, what about Australian Rules Football?

Posted by tom peters at January 9, 2008 1:10 PM

Well, have to say that I made the mistake of taking a first date to this movie. Should have read more reviews first. Was not as put off by the violence as Tom was, but I did find it an overwhelmingly impactful movie.

Only flick I ever have walked out of was Caligula, way back when.....

Posted by gregggallagher at January 10, 2008 11:37 AM

This is a movie you will either love or hate. Definitely not a "chick flick" or date movie, but one of the finest films of 2007 in my humble opinion.

I thought this was a profound meditation on the increasing violence brought on by the 1980's drug trade; as much a lamentation as a story. It certainly doesn't pander to its audience. I didn't think the violence gratuitous as real world drug violence is pretty gruesome.

I found the ending somewhat puzzling, but frankly I wasn't expecting a Disney ending.

The cineamatography was outstanding and Javier Bardem was incredible as a hitman as inexorable as the Grim Reaper himself. He is one of the finest living actors in the world bar none. It was also a fine showcase of Tommy Lee Jones' talent.

The Coen Brothers are the kind of innovative, creative types I would have thought you might admire, Tom. Where did I go wrong?

Posted by Timothy Mund at January 13, 2008 11:58 PM

I am a woman who went to this movie with my fiance expecting to hate it, as I cannot handle violence at all. I loved it. There is a subtle point beyond the violence, and the last scene with Tommy Lee Jones made it all worth my time.

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