Cormac McCarthy + Coen Brothers means this has the potential to be outstanding. Some of the early reviews I've read have people complaining the end is "too faithful to the book". If that's true I bet this is great. Comparisons to Blood Simple also sound promising.

http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/en ... 704864.php

Thursday, May 24, 2007
Coens spin a killer tale in 'No Country'
Cannes Film Festival: They're back to their good ol' dark days À la 'Blood Simple.'
By JILL LAWLESS
The Associated Press
At a hotel beside the sun-dappled Mediterranean, the Coen brothers are recalling a harsh world of dust, drugs and death.

The American siblings' latest film, "No Country for Old Men," is a tale of murder that has impressed audiences and critics at Cannes Film Festival. At its center is an aging sheriff (Tommy Lee Jones) trying to catch a killer and make sense of a world in which violence seems to have no end.

"It's about his character confronting a violent, horrible, bleak, unforgiving world, and trying to come to terms with that," said Ethan Coen, who wrote, produced and directed the film with elder brother Joel.

The luxury hotel room where the brothers are sitting, with its panoramic views of the Riviera, seems a million miles from the movie's hardscrabble Texas terrain.

The brothers remain refreshingly down to earth, dressed in jeans and looking slightly rumpled after several days absorbing Cannes' reaction to their movie – one of the festival's biggest hits so far and a front-runner for its top prize, the Palme d'Or.

Trade magazine Variety called it "one of their very best films, a bloody classic of its type." The Hollywood Reporter praised the film's "electrifying mood."

It's a good year for Americans at Cannes, with several U.S. films generating a buzz, from David Fincher's serial-killer saga "Zodiac" and Gus van Sant's skater-boy story "Paranoid Park" to Michael Moore's health-care documentary "Sicko." It's an especially good year for the sibling team European cineastes refer to as "The Brothers Coen."

The Coens are grateful but philosophical about the attention. "You come here to amplify the attention for the movie, so you take whatever you can get," said Joel.

The brothers – who won the Palme d'Or in 1991 for "Barton Fink" – are known for such stylish films as "Fargo" and "The Big Lebowski" that mix violence with deadpan humor.

Their last two pictures have been lighter fare: "Intolerable Cruelty" and "The Ladykillers."

The brothers' darker side is back with a vengeance in "No Country," which harkens back in tone and Texas setting to their first film, the noir thriller "Blood Simple."

Set in 1980 and adapted from a novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Cormac McCarthy ("The Road"), the movie begins on typical thriller terrain. Vietnam vet Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) stumbles across the aftermath of a drug-gang shootout. Amid the bodies lies a briefcase containing $2 million in cash, which Llewelyn takes home to wife Carla Jean (Kelly Macdonald). In hot pursuit comes Anton Chigurh, an enigmatic, implacable killer – a terrifying, deadpan performance by Javier Bardem – who is determined to get the money back.

So far, so conventional. But the story soon veers in unexpected directions.

Joel Coen acknowledges the filmmakers had to walk "a delicate line" with moviegoers.

"They're expecting certain things from a certain kind of story," he said. "But those things could end up being boring and routine."

He said the brothers' goal was to deliver "something which you hope is equally satisfying but is not necessarily what they expected. If it's unexpected it can be more entertaining or more compelling."

The vast spaces of West Texas are almost a character in the film, as they are in McCarthy's book. The brothers say it was important for them to film on location in the area, basing part of their shoot in the small town of Marfa, Texas.

Said Ethan: "Like the novel, like the story, with the landscape you wonder: Is it really incredibly bleak or is it beautiful? It's kind of both."

I love the Coens. This should be good.

this sounds exceptionally good

Interesting.

Wonderful Yeats reference.

I've seen a few clips. Looks good.

I've been waiting for this for a long time... it'll be good to have this kind of Coens film instead of the intolerable cruely/ladykillers stuff they've been doing lately

Here's the official trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YLfpDBzhFI

dudes this shit looks so bad ass. i think the coens should probably do all of the McCarthy stuff.

Looks great. I'd love to see someone do justice to The Road. That would be some heavy filmmaking.

this looks like it will be both ridiculously good and someting of a departure from the typical coens film. I'm looking forward to this f'sh'

mos def... i'm kinda sick of what they've been doing lately with the mainstream comedies

I just finished the book last night, I'm hoping the movie will do it justice. The Variety review from Cannes gave it some high praise and with the Cohens I have no doubt they will come through. But the last 50 or so pages are the best in the novel and I wouldn't be surprised if they were cut since its all dialogue and internal monologue that American audiences will have trouble interpretting.

What I mean to say is that I'm really excited to see this, but topping the book will be difficult. Just absolutely classic.

Ridley Scott is directing Blood Meridian for a 2009 release

I love the atmosphere of the Coen brothers' movies.

i read this book recently and it was simply astonishing. the coen brothers are the only ones who could possibly pull this off too, so i'm extremely pumped.

QT version of the trailer: http://www.apple.com/trailers/miramax/n ... oldmen/hd/

this is going to be so awesome

A lot of directors could pull this off, it really depends on how they handle the last 50 pages which are an absolute transcendental necessity. Without it, the book is nothing more than a glorified action/western novel.

But there's a ton of potential for them, considering they do the violence/Americana thing so well. I'm looking at a cross between Blood Simple and Fargo. It really could be their best film.

this is almost verbatim what i thought when i first saw the trailer