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 April 15, 2009|No Country for Old Men returns to Blu-ray in a 2-Disc Collector's Edition. The second disc is actually just a DVD containing a digital copy of the film, but the first platter boasts a fresh batch of standard-def supplements to go with the same special features that were found on the previous release--chiefly, "Josh Brolin's Unauthorized Behind-the-Scenes" (onscreen title: "Behind the Scenes of No Country for Old Men: An incredibly unauthorized documentary.") and a "Press Timeline" that chronologically orders a grab-bag of promotional appearances all logged during the 2007-2008 awards season. The former, directed and co-edited by Brolin, is predictably tongue-in-cheek--Joel and Ethan Coen are characterized as a vicious cabal, and Javier Bardem does one interview in silhouette to protect his identity--but there's a surprisingly high volume of filler lifted intact from the relatively straight-faced makings-of, creating a weird and ultimately irreconcilable tonal dissonance. As for the sixteen segments checkering the timeline, they inspire a serious case of déjà vu after a while. Hardcore film geeks will want to skip directly to the "Spike Jonze Q&A" (61 mins.), wherein host Jonze is joined on stage by the Coen Brothers and, variously, by DP Roger Deakins, sound guys Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff, and Peter F. Kurland, and production designer Jess Gonchor (whom Ethan describes as a "palette Nazi") to discuss the cinematography, sound, and production design, respectively. It's astonishing to hear Deakins self-flagellate over shots in this movie, and to learn that the production exposed less than 250,000 feet of film in this era of Knocked Up exposing over a million. I also enjoyed the "Charlie Rose" excerpt where Ethan shrinks from paying Brolin a compliment because he's in the same room with him: it's the kind of recognizably human (if antisocial) behaviour that's usually pumiced away by the time a celebrity reaches the Oprah circuit. For what it's worth, those archival interviews that were sourced from radio (mostly NPR, but Elvis Mitchell's KCRW show "The Treatment" as well) unfold over a static screen that unfortunately precludes the subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing option you get with the video-based extras. Amusingly, clicking on the "Call it, Friend-o" penny icon will randomly choose something from the timeline for you to watch/listen to. The 2.35:1, 1080p transfer of the film itself looks exactly like it did before, though a 5.1 DTS-HD track has replaced the allegedly superior PCM audio of the 2008 BD. I know this much is true: the movie's intricate mix sounds significantly fuller and clearer in DTS than it does in Dolby Digital; I had no idea how much detail I was missing. Spots advertising Doubt, Buena Vista's Blu-ray slate, and the Miramax legacy cue up on startup and join a preview for "Lost"'s fourth season under a Sneak Peeks sub-menu.-
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2.35:1, 1080p (MPEG-4); English 5.1 DTS-HD, Spanish DD 5.1; BD-50 + DVD
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There aren't any heroes in the Coen Brothers' No Country for Old Men save author Cormac McCarthy. His The Crossing is probably the best American novel since Faulkner was writing in high heather, and Blood Meridian, due as a picture with Ridley Scott at the helm, is the most exhilarating, devastating read against that same bellwether. With this film, the Coens have distilled the essence of McCarthy's gash-deep nostalgia for the illusory, ephemeral past--complete with his sparse language and uncompromising way with violence--and packaged it in the very best moments of their own well of extraordinary visions: the hotel Hell of Barton Fink; the folksy voiceover and panoramic shots of the dying West from Blood Simple; the failed assassination attempt of Miller's Crossing; and the procedural (sans mercy) of Fargo. Each of these tried and true tricks is redeployed in a year of redeployments to create something that's not of the past, but rather very much of the present. No Country for Old Men is about what one character late in the piece calls "the dismal tide." This picture I have now in my head is of our moral universe digging a hole in the sand: you stop and it fills, and you're left with a smooth surface made up of countless little compromises and failures. Elsewhere, an old sheriff (Tommy Lee Jones) tells his wife of a dream of his father, riding on ahead on a cold night with a fire in a horn to make camp somewhere in the black. Whether it's a dream of Heaven or Hell, the certainty is that it's a dream of death--and in this world, there's nothing left to hope for but the dead faith that men of fibre can hold fast against the blood-dimmed tide.
Llewellyn Moss (Josh Brolin) does a dumb thing--at least, that's what he tells his wife--and ends up with a suitcase full of money and psychopath Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) on his trail. Others will follow: the sheriff, Ed Bell (Jones); a bounty hunter, Carson Wells (Woody Harrelson); and bands of random Mexicans looking to reclaim that which they consider theirs. Chigurh is one of the great screen bogeys. When he engages a gas station proprietor in a conversation about fate (see: Raising Arizona), flipping a coin for "everything," the sense of menace is almost unbearable. It's pivotal, this idea that life is nothing more than a coin flip (Chigurh: "I got here the same way as the quarter") and not worth much more than two bits in any case. Where Se7en ends with Somerset's assertion that the world is a beautiful place and worth fighting for, this season has already seen Morgan Freeman in another cop role (Gone Baby Gone) offering that the world is a sty beyond saving--and now Tommy Lee Jones, in his best performance ever, hangs up his gun because the solution to the problem is that there's nothing to solve. The world as we know it is ash--it was always ash. Not a thriller despite resembling a particularly well-constructed one, No Country for Old Men is a reverie for the loss of the dream of security. I think it's interesting that McCarthy's follow-up, The Road, is set in the post-apocalypse--in a broad sense, each of his books since All the Pretty Horses has followed a rough chronology, making No Country for Old Men (and the film of it, and all the great films of 2007) a chronicle of Armageddon: all whimpers and no bang; I hardly noticed it happening, and now it's done and there's no helping it. No Country for Old Men is a fucking masterpiece.-
(excerpted from a longer review found here)
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Heresy, I know, but thanks to dodgy projection, No Country for Old Men looks better to me on Blu-ray than it did at the cinema. Not just better, though: almost unfathomably good. The 2.35:1, 1080p presentation is so rich in texture that even in wider shots, you can tell the characters are wearing finely-woven straw hats to combat the scorching temperatures. Blacks reach down deep but never crush detail while whites evoke the heat without ever getting "hot." And although the image is crystalline, the baby (i.e., grain) has not been thrown out with the bathwater. It's a first-rate transfer that could not have happened to a more deserving film. Similarly astonishing is the DD 5.1 audio (640 kbps), an outstanding showcase for Skip Lievsay's intricate sound design; every thwap of buckshot makes you wince and the dialogue is remarkably clear. Hard to believe there's any room for improvement, but an attendant PCM 24-bit option, inaccessible to yours truly for the time being, implies that such is indeed the case. Typical of a Coen Bros. title, extras are meagre and largely unsatisfying. You get three featurettes (4:3 letterboxed in 480i)--"The Making of No Country for Old Men" (24 mins.), "Working with the Coens" (8 mins.), and the less-than-Bressonian "Diary of a Country Sheriff" (7 mins.)--that all essentially say the same things, i.e., that the Coens comprise a hydra monster with a pleasant disposition and a touring company of technicians; that No Country for Old Men adds new wrinkles to the chase formula; and that setting a movie in West Texas circa 1980 is a hell of a thing. I did like one bit of B-roll where Ethan (who does most of the talking in the Brothers' interview segments) asks Tommy Lee Jones to drop "the" from a line of dialogue--it's not fussy micromanaging but rather losing a bum note, and Jones really takes to the suggestion. Blu-ray propaganda and an HD trailer for Gone Baby Gone cue up on startup.-Bill Chambers
© Film Freak Central; filmfreakcentral.net. This review may not be reprinted, in whole or in part, without the express consent of its author.
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Buy at Amazon USA
Buy at Amazon Canada
DVD GRADES:
Image A+
Sound A+
Extras B- |
DVD VITALS:
Running Time
122 minutes
MPAA
R
Aspect Ratio(s)
2.35:1 (1080p/MPEG-4)
Languages
English 5.1 Uncompressed,
English DD 5.1
Subtitles
English SDH, French, Spanish
BD-50
Miramax
Buy NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN posters at Moviegoods (click on image)
Published: February 25, 2008
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