Dear friends,
Here is another bulletin full of more news of all kinds, interesting
plays, workshops, auditions, and other information about what’s going
on in Cork (and one workshop in Dublin!). I hope you find it
interesting!!
Best wishes,
Marcus
Review of No Country For Old Men
Rated as /5 on Feb 22 2008 by Frank
Despite waiting eagerly nearly four months to see this film before finally getting to it, and despite all the hype, I was still massively impressed with No Country For Old Men. Damn this film is good.
The Coen broethers can be an acquired taste, and sometimes stray into a realm of their own where they can lose mere mortals like ourselves… but No Country injects just enough Coen magic to soar but not so much as to fly off the mark (where do I get this complete bullshit?).
Perhaps being constrained by the base material of Cormac McCarthy’s novel was what kept the film grounded in a version of American reality that is at once familiar and yet unsettlingly alien.
All the performances are excellent, Javier Bardem is a genius and his performance as Anton Chigurh is simply legendary, comparable perhaps to Eric Bana’s portrayal of Chopper for the insanity and psychosis plainly evident in the eyes.
Woody Harrelson in brief moments appears to be trying to hard, but he deserves an Oscar for his scene with Javier Bardem. Tommy Lee Jones finally gets to act again - it’s been a while since anyone gave him anything to work with, and Josh Brolin is incredibly convincing as the relatively normal man caught up in the chaos of missing drug money, hit men and crazed mexican drug dealers.
Great also to see Kelly Macdonald give a wonderfully understated and convincing performance, but Beth Grant seemed an odd choice due to the fact that she had to be made up to look older, especially when the Coen brother’s casting of smaller roles is usually incredibly authentic.
So, why four stars instead of five? The Coen brothers will be devastated that I witheld that fifth star and I’m sure it will taint forever the Oscars they will win for this film. But I had a problem with the end. While I love the plot, and have no problem with the ending from a story perspective, the editing seemed to get sloppy toward the end and the storytelling suffered as a result.
The Coen’s editing is superb throughout the film, so one wonders how they could have screwed this up, but everyone I spoke to has different opinions on certain final scenes, and I don’t mean in a good way, I just mean in a downright confused way.
Passage of time is not indicated clearly enough, and certain cuts seem to signify further plot developments which never materialise.
Nevertheless, this is one of the finest films I have seen in a while now, and I think this one may go on to become a classic. You read it here first. If you’ve been living under a rock.
Some poking around in Google Analytics led me to this odd little fact… in the last year, apart from the BifSniff homepage, what was the most visited page in the site?
I think it was due to some StumbleUpon referers… it’s just funny because it really would be far from my favourite BifSniff cartoon.
Yes, yes, yes, I know I’m late to the party, but Eoin recently loaned me the Firefly box set - I had watched Serenity, the film based on the series, and thought it was excellent, so was curious to see what the series was like.
The series was created by Joss Whedon, of Buffy Fame. But don’t let that put you off, I was never a huge Buffy fan myself.
Firefly was cancelled by Fox on television after only eleven episodes. But don’t let that put you off either - it’s an excellent show. Why on earth would a show like this get cancelled?
Firefly mixes the science fiction and western genres, wraps them up in great scripts which are humourous and engaging and best of all Firefly often delivers the unexpected. Just when you think they are getting too comfortable in their approach to each episode they throw something unexpected at you to keep the show tipping along nicely.
Although Firefly is overall a fairly light hearted show, it can be a lot more violent than you’d expect, but then that’s Firefly all over - mixing up everything it can.
Why a smart, funny show like this got cancelled is beyond me. They made 14 episodes and yet only 11 got shown on TV - it got canned before they aired the last three episodes. Bizarre. And it seems if anyone knows the truth behind why it got canned, they’re not saying.
Anyway, the good news is that after the series got canned, they had enough of a following and enough awards and award nominations and the like to get traction on making a film version: Serenity.
If you’re a fan of Westerns, or Science Fiction, or just a fan of entertainingly smart tv without having to engage your brain TOO much… get the box set of Firefly, and then watch Serenity too. BTW - Serenity is available in some shops for as little as €5!
Technorati Tags: review, rating=4, firefly, serenity, joss whedon
I don’t watch much TV, but sometimes I have a flick around and see what’s on and every now and then I catch the Daily Show, with Jon Stewart. There’s a section on the show called torture talk which is pure genius.
Here’s some clips from the excellent Daily Show website.
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