Into the Wild & No Country For Old Men

Here are my reviews of Into the Wild & No Country For Old Men, two of the best movies of the year. Enjoy!

Into the Wild - Say whatever you want about Sean Penn's politics, but as he writes and directs the true story of Chris McCandless, the college student who went "off the grid" and spent two years traveling America and surviving the Alaskan wilderness before succumbing to his death via eating poisonous berries, his adventure drama celebrates the life of a then modern-day youthful and angry McCandless and the courage to find himself in the Alaskan Wilderness, and the beauty and terror of venturing into the wild to spiritually connect with nature. Emile Hirsch gives the breakout performance of the year, digging deep to show Chris' rebellious spirit and his painful demons. On his travels, Chris meets an assorted cast of characters, such as South Dakota farmer Wayne Westerberg (Vince Vaughn), a married hippie couple (Cathrine Keener and Brian Dierker are excellent), and a veteran widower, Ron Franz (Hal Holbrook shines). All of these strangers, although they never meet, highlight Chris' secret desire to have a family he never had. His sister, Carine (narrated thought most of the move by Jena Malone) explains the secrets Walt (William Hurt) and Billie (Marcia Gay Harden) hid from them growing up and the constant war that was raged between them. Cinematographer Eric Gautier brilliantly captures the exquisite beauty and terror of the American wilderness and Chris' journey through it. Pearl Jam fromtman Eddie Vedder haunts the audience with his songs about the wilderness and Chris, as if he was his soul. But Penn's direction is simply breathtaking, and his passion to tell Chris' tragic - yet inspiring - story jumps right off the screen. Into the Wild is a story that comes from the heart.
**** stars out of ****

No Country For Old Men - For fans of Joel and Ethan Coen's Fargo, Blood Simple, The Big Lebowski, etc., good news: they're back. And in bloody, prime form. No Country can easily summed up by the opening monologue by Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones): he speaks about how his generation went from not being able to carrying a pistol to putting a teen to the electric chair for murdering his fourteen year-old girlfriend, saying, "he'd been fixin to kill someone for as long as he can remember. Said if I let him out of there, he'd kill someone again. Said he was goin' to hell. Reckoned he'd be there in about fifteen minutes." Behind the film's graphic and grisly violence, the Coen Brothers show us a soulless, violent America that is no country for anyone, let alone old men like Sheriff Bell. There are many elements that make this American crime thriller one of the year's best movies, most notably the performances from Jones, representing disillusioned men of the law, and Josh Brolin as Llewelyn Moss, representing the average Joe stuck in the middle between doing the right thing and taking the law int their own hands when push comes to shove. But it's Javier Bardem who reigns over No Country as the psychopathic killing machine named Anton Chigurh. Not Since Hannibal Lecter himself has a movie villain been this diabolically evil and fascinating at the same time. From the cattle stun gun he uses to the sick game he plays where calling the right coin flip might save a person's life, Bardem's Chigurh represents the total evil in humanity. Joel and Ethan Coen, who both share writing and directing duties, are in top form. The scene in which Chigurh and a gas station owner are engaged in dialogue is as scary good and as amazing as anyone will ever see this year. Cinematographer Robert Deakins works with light and shadow with such ease, and gives the movie its suspense-filled atmosphere. The real bleak magic that oozes from No Country For Old Men is silence. It is the howl of the wind, the shadow from the mountains, and the blowing of the dry, desert that will send a chill down your spine. The dreadful feeling that tragedy is on the horizon hangs over the heads of Llewelyn, his wife Carla Jean (Kelly MacDonald), Sheriff Bell, and Anton himself; knowing very well that they can't stop what's coming.
**** stars out of ****