NMR: Double Feature

I've got nothing in terms of an intro, so let's get to this...

No Country For Old Men: This is probably the last movie from 2007 that I wanted to see. And as you probably know this won Best Picture this year. While I enjoyed this, I'm not sure if I would agree with giving it top honors. For the first 2/3rds of the film, this was phenomenonal. I can't remember the last time I was this consistently tense while watching a film. Javier Bardem's Anton Chigurh is one of the creepiest movie villains in a long time and was well deserved of his Oscar for Supporting Actor. In addition to being a great thriller, the film is gorgeous looking and does a good job of capturing the Texas landscape.

It's in the final third of the film that they lost me and, as I've read, a lot of the audience. The Coens decide to start playing fast and loose with the narrative, which makes things very confusing. Although I'm not sure if they should be faulted since it seems that they remained pretty faithful to how the story unfolds in Cormac McCarthy's novel. By the end, I guess I understood everything that had happened and I could see the symbolism that they were going for, but it felt unnecessarily unconventional. Knowing how everything played out, I may want to watch it again and see if I see the whole film differently. With a second viewing, this has a chance at being part of my top ten for 2007. But for right now, it just misses the cut. And since this was the last film I needed to see from last year, I'll officially call my Top Ten list finalized. Netflix rating: ****

This Film is Not Yet Rated: I was recommended this documentary by one of my students who felt it was applicable to a lot of the topics we're dealing with in my Media History and Theory course. This film takes a hard look into the MPAA and how ratings are given to films. This process has been under scrutiny for sometime, so it was nice to see a film finally made on this subject.

While I enjoyed a lot of the information that was addressed in this film, I felt the film itself wasn't really that well made. The director is really all over the place here and doesn't provide a strong narrative. At times he wants to expose the hypocrisy of the MPAA in the way they focus too much on sex and not enough on violence. At others times, he'd rather be playing junior detective in trying to find out who the secret members of the ratings board are. While it's clear that changes to the MPAA's methods need to come, the film doesn't provide a strong enough attack on them. If you know nothing on this subject, but are interested in it, then I'd recommend you give it a look. Otherwise, you'll just end up being frustrated at being reminded how pointless the ratings system truly is. Netflix rating: ***