Superbad: Thoughts

I dedicate this post to The Dropcloth and her dearly departed Augustus:

It is good advice, if one wishes to maintain their credibility, to avoid the dreaded “overstatement”, less one be thought simple, or worse, gullible. It is with such thoughts in mind that I can say, without equivocation, that Michael Cera is…the funniest man alive! Being aware that Cera is only 19 and hardly “manly” material, it is a bold claim, especially while Bill Murray lives. But I’ve come to realize that I prefer Cera’s turtleish concern over Murray’s drunken (and increasingly weird) buffoonery. Basically, there is nothing Michael Cera does that hasn’t make me laugh (here, here, or here). This may be due largely to the fact that I was indoctrinated early on by Cera’s performance as the earnest but clueless George Michael from Fox’s short lived Arrested Development (or the fact that every episode of his web-show, Clark and Michael, has been downloaded onto my X-Box 360).

In Superbad (produced by Judd Apatow), Cera plays Evan, an every-dude who just wants to get to know his childhood crush, Becca. Jonah Hill (no doubt reminding many in the theater of Jonah Hill’s Jonah from Apatow’s other film this summer, Knocked-Up) plays Evan’s best-bud Seth, a guy desperately willing to do whatever it takes to obtain your average blow job (the vagina being “not his thing”—a mysterious region too complicated to master in relation to the simple/expected high school blow job, "expected" because, well…the internet says so). If the internet is to be blamed for the sexual revolution/perversion of teenage youth, the one thing it has undoubtedly failed to do is provide answers regarding adolescent inadequacies and conflicted morality, instead serving up the illusion of false intimacy... and a blow job becomes just a blow job. But porn is very clearly not intimate, and what it offers is far beyond the purview of love, which is, after all, what most teenagers really crave in the companionship that will offset the growing existential angst of adulthood (in this case, Dartmouth). Well, at least Evan does… Towards the end of the film it’s heartening to see Evan, when confronted with his (or Seth’s) “ideal” moment to (as the immature cops played by writers Rogen and Goldberg) “engage”, can’t seem to access those downloaded vulgarities and instead falls back on old faithful…health class: Becca: I’m so wet right now. Evan: Yeah…they said that would happen in health class. Ha! And he means it! Cera is like Murray without the irony or arrogance. Apatow is wise to hitch his wagon to actors like Cera, Rudd, and Rogen, decent mopes who feel the withered pull of chivalry filtered through MTV, the internet, and 80’s comedies.

Of course Apatow and crew understand that such goodness can only stand out when contrasted with the most crass male stereotypes, which is why the addition of Hill as Cera’s partner makes them such a winning duo; both look like turtles (one in face, one in shape—neither in speed: “He’s… he’s, the fastest kid alive…”). Still, Apatow is canny enough to understand that a majority of the male audience coming to Superbad live immersed in the world of porn, completely detached from the real intimacy of oral sex, or the notion that reciprocation is indeed, in fact, simply that, and not intimacy. Those people will probably find Christopher Mintz-Plasse’s (McLovin) misadventures more humorous, and see Becca’s “sex-kitten” behavior as a great missed opportunity and not the confused attempt to connect that it is (as if women don’t watch porn and have to deal with its expectations). If a larger critique of youth sex-culture (a Hollywood film subject since Porky’s) goes unnoticed, what will not is the tired but true struggle of male fidelity, epitomized in Seth’s desperate rescue of BFF Evan from the cops; watching Seth use Evan’s head to clear a table of beer bottles says more about the adolescent effort to maintain our pseudo-sexual male relationships than an hour spent engaging in ethnic chop sokey in a Paris brothel (take that Brett Rattner and Rush Hour 3).

In short, it’s hard to declare Superbad the best film of the summer, but I wouldn’t rule out calling it the most decent. You know, if I were prone to overstatement…

Partyisms

"Act your age, not the size of those pants."
-Full Force

Stardust: Thoughts

Matthew Vaughn’s long gestating fantasy epic, Stardust, would love to be elevated to the venerable heights of that other classic fantasy film full of expertly timed cameos—The Princess Bride (itself recently turned 20, huzzah!); and try as Stardust does to attain such sweet heights, it falls short…but just barely. Sadly, the energy propelling Stardust is far too reliant on the well timed appearance of Hollywood A-listers (Robert DeNiro, Peter O’Toole, Michele Pfeiffer, and, heck, Ricky Gervais), unlike The Princess Bride, which was propelled by the introduction of stable-boy Wesley and the subsequent wonderfully long-winded chase of the Dread Pirate Roberts and his quest to steal Princess Buttercup back from formidable Sicilian intellectual Vizzini (the iconic Wally Shawn), Wesley/Roberts and Buttercup were played by relative unknowns, Cary Elwes and Robin Wright (soon to be, Penn). Whereas The Princess Bride was a rare example of cinematic fusion—sweetness made manifest; Stardust is irony made corporal, a fact due, in large part, to the very existence of The Princess Bride, making it almost disingenuous to talk about Stardust as if it weren’t attempting to cast a direct shadow over the past (much the way Bay’s Transformers attempted to do with Spielberg’s Jurassic Park 2). If Stardust offers up something unique, it’s the film’s adoption of the liberal awakening currently being found in the childhood fantasy epic, something simplistically hinted at in the Harry Potter series, but attacked full-force in Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials Trilogy. No longer is the literary fantasy epic dominated by the traditional biblical allegory, nor are such films still rooted in the conservative ethos of Regan-era Hollywood (something, regardless of its intent, The Princess Bride was). But all of this is just politics. In the end, Stardust’s attempt to become a pop-cultural, generational, phenomenon will be based solely on its contributions to the genre and what it gives us that we haven’t seen in fantasy.

Those contributions include the sporadic Claire Danes and Charlie Cox, who, before trading in his British bob-cut for a mane of virile locks, looks too much like Sam Rami on the floor of Comic-Con. The plot concerns Cox’s young adventurer, Tristan, and his quest to return a fallen star to his (temporary) “true love” Victoria (Sienna Miller—slumming it here). During his adventure, Tristan and Yvaine (the star: Danes), encounter the evil witch Lamia (Pfeiffer), a prince and the ghosts of his slain brothers (one of the more humorous bits in the film), and, being summer of ’07, instead of ’87—you guessed it… a gay pirate (DeNiro)! Along the way, Tristan (of course) learns what love is really all about (so liberal! so willing to learn!), unlike young Wesley, who from the opening moment of The Princess Bride, never had to learn (so conservative! so resolved!). It’s this paramount cliché that prevents Stardust—unlike the unwavering unapologetic decency of Bride—from elevating itself to the heights of Bride. In the end, despite all the fancy spells (read: CGI), there’s no such thing as magic as leaps of faith are prohibited and treated skeptically. It’s just Hollywood, baby. Hollywood.

The Simpsons Movie: Thoughts

Fans of Fox’s The Simpsons will find much to like in The Simpsons Movie. Everyone—and I do mean everyone—is here, and how good a movie it is will largely depend on your relationship with the source material. I myself greatly enjoyed seeing my favorite animated show make the belated leap to celluloid following numerous other inferior cartoon staples (South Park, Bevis and Butt-Head… Jimmy Neutron). People who’ve never seen an episode (if that is possible) might leave the theater wondering if the show has always been that consistently funny (generally, yes—start at season 2 and go…). Fans of the show will, however, no doubt feel slightly less optimistic, for we understand that the best episodes are often the ones that feature the supporting characters (Pick one: Mr. Burns, Krusty the Clown, Ralph Wiggum, Sideshow Bob, Principal Skinner, Wayland Smithers, Grandpa Simpson, Groundskeeper Willie, Millhouse, Rainier Wolfcastle, Appu Nahasapeemapetilon, etc.). We can at least take solace in the fact that the movie’s delayed arrival allowed the Bart fad to wither (those episodes, while funny, are never classics), liberating us so that we could bask in the presence of the single greatest television character of the last fifteen years: Homer Jay Simpson. Sure, the movie would have been better if it had used the supporting cast better, but who will argue Homer’s moment in the sun as he has been the central character at the core of many of the show’s best moments and lines. With James L. Brooks (a creator) heavily involved, you knew the film would lean more towards a "cohesive" plot, rather than the scatological humor of later seasons. The film's plot follows Homer and the fallout over his role in an ecological disaster involving a new pet pig, thus relegating many of the fine bit characters to proportionately smaller parts (alas, poor Mr. Burns). Eventually the family is forced to flee Springfield, spending a disproportional amount of time in Alaska and leaving the rest of the town to survive the machinations of evil corporate environmentalist Russ Cargill (Albert Brooks: famous among Simpsons fans as the first Hollywood celebrity to actually allow his name to be shown in the credits—a fact that may have been shocking then, whereas now you it would be hard pressed to hurl a sex-tape at a celebrity who hasn’t appeared on the show). Like any random episode, the film is consistently hilarious and uncomfortably emotional. Marge’s video tapped confession to Homer, recorded over their wedding video, is particularly moving as it pulls off the amazing feat of making the audience complicit in her sadness—we, after all, do love Homer’s buffoonery. The film might not be the breakthrough the South Park film was, but it stands as a glorious tribute to a universe we’ll gladly re-visit, like Appu (even gut-shot) politely asks, again and again.

Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix: Thoughts

Here is a list of the Harry Potter films from best to worst:

1. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

2. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

3. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

4. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

5. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

Reasons why the fifth Harry Potter is better than the first two:

1. Chris Columbus didn’t direct it.

2. Radcliffe and friends are more buff, both physically and as actors. Radcliffe takes what is arguably the most annoying version of Harry and makes him more than a tantrum prone “teenager”.

3. Not so pretty in pink, Imelda Staunton, as Dolores Umbridge, is fantastic, and is the first true villain in a Harry Potter film. Sure Voldemort is the big bad, but often times Harry and his interactions result from their crossing paths during their own individual adventures. Umbridge is front and center and is directly in Potter’s face.

4. The showdown between Voldemort and Dumbledore is even more spectacular than in the book, made more so by the fact that we now know it will be the only time they face off the entire series.

Reasons why the fifth Harry Potter is not as good as 3 and 4.

1. Alfonso Cuaron is one of the top three directors working today. His version of Harry Potter was one of the most beautiful films of 2004, and the first film to tap into the rich textures of Rowling’s universe.

2. As “serious” as 5 was, it lacked the action of 4 and involved one of the least surprising “twists” of the series. Not the movies fault per se, but it’s hard to compete with the twist of 3, or that final image of Voldemort and the dead Cedric Diggory in 4. This, as well as the increasingly limited input from Harry’s mates, is the possible result of filmmaker David Yates’ desire to make the longest book of the series the shortest film.

3. Seriously, not enough Alan Rickman (Professor Snape) or Maggie Smith (Professor McGonagall).

Ratatouille: Thoughts

At some point the etymological root of the word “consume” (to eat/drink) evolved to include the desire accumulate (absorb) items; as if the catalyst to horde relics of our monetary means had somehow become a carnivorous task, an impulse as base and as intrinsic as our desire for sustenance, and a word, sprouting offspring with additional appendages, became “consumerism”. It is within this history that the geniuses of Pixar, and the heartfelt and fertile mind of animator Brad Bird, provide us with a perfect parable of our day.

Remy (Patton Oswalt) is a rat. More importantly, Remy is a rat with a refined pallet and who can hardly, like a good rat should, stomach the indiscriminate consumption of the traditional garbage and refuse, and would rather, using his unique abilities, create elaborate dishes, a problem that naturally results in a unique omnivore’s dilemma. It is a tribute to Brad Bird that Ratatouille is as much about food as it isn’t. The metaphor of the individual artist’s struggle amid the economic entity of his upbringing easily stretches beyond the most populist kitchen in Paris. The rat’s (lead by Remy’s father) goals are, as a plague, to feed and live—the more they eat the better their quality of life. The guilt Remy experiences, as his desire to create consumes him, is felt by any who have wished to express their own artistic impulses in something as simple as a peasant dish, or book, or painting, or song. Remy, as the boss’s son and inheritor of his system, has a responsibility to contribute to his society, like using his talent in less pedantry ways by sniffing out the poisoned bits of garbage. In Remy’s economic social system this is an essential task, one that ensures the safety and livelihood of not only his family (including his lumbering doofus brother) but his community. But it is Remy’s continued desire to engage in the art of gastronomy that makes him a pariah, and, for those of us who have tried to explain to parents and family why we’ve chosen to be nearer to poverty than a 401k in the pointless fantasy pursuit of art, Remy’s discussions with his father are eerily pertinent. I myself have had many discussions with my own father regarding the method in which I approach my desire to discuss film, books, and politics (he thinks I’m a bit long-winded and snotty). Of course, he is right. But, sadly, to do so in a different manner would betray my own refined (or mangled, depending) pallet. A sin if I ever believed in one.

Ratatouille is another triumph for Pixar, the latest link in an amazing chain, and I nervously fret over the day when I will go to the theater and not be moved. In Ratatouille, is was during vampiric-critic Anton Ego’s (the superb Peter O’Toole) review of the (Remy) revived Gusteau’s, and his sublime acceptance of his role as a responsible critic, obligated to truly reexamine, in every event, how one truly evaluates art, for what purpose, and how this purpose must be inextricably tied to the willingness to accept that great art can come from anywhere (for instance, a kiddie film with rats), that I was most shaken. Whether it was simply the old knight O’Toole’s voice—aged and serene like the most eloquent requiem—or Bird’s words concerning said art, I found myself wistful and melancholy at the notion that, assuming one maintains their principles and strives for artistic perfection in all things, even the most stringent classicist or hardened parent can be moved to acknowledge the wonderment of it all. New York Times film critic A.O. Scott claimed that Ratatouille was “…a nearly flawless piece of popular art, as well as one of the most persuasive portraits of an artist ever committed to film.” And, seeing as I cannot find fault with such a claim and would indeed applaud it, I would simply add that Ratatouille is, by far, a truly exquisite and wholly satisfying emotional experience. In short: a work of art of the most excellent flavour.

The Bourne Ultimatum: Thoughts

A bizarrely specific box office “report” recently asserted that—pound for pound—Matt Damon was the most profitable actor in Hollywood, a fact that, until The Bourne Ultimatum, I had refused to accept. Damon and his elfish good looks seemed too ordinary for such a title. Whereas Tom Hanks owns his askance geekness, and Tom Cruise his unbalanced and crooked face, or even the way Brad Pitt manipulates that Californian speech impediment (from Oklahoma!) to blur adonis beauty in a way that makes us question how much grey matter may have been lost in the creation of such a physical specimen, each of them, justly, earns their place as a legitimate Hollywood face. Damon was always too boy scout, a fact that has helped his career (for instance: making him the perfect bone to fetch in Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan). If there was a trademarked flaw in his visage to be found, it was a slight bulbous mass at the end of his otherwise flawless nose, and he was unable to even retain the sliver of a Bostonian accent that Mark Whalberg has spent a career trying to ditch. In short, he was rather bland. Yet he kept making movies, and I kept watching.

As an actor, Damon was solid, whether it was memorably dismembering Harvard and MIT snots, or obsessively lusting after idyllic British “mates” to homicidal affect, he was a rock. And then, one summer: The Bourne Identity. And here was Damon, much like in Good Will Hunting, playing a supernaturally talented special ops agent, disarming Swedish policemen as quick and as rough as he did Ivy League cads. Jason Bourne wasn’t much of a stretch for Damon, a juiced up Will Hunting who, as if one his way to see that girl, decided to stop by the NSA and instead take that job his buddy Ben Affleck pissed away, soon finding himself, after a bit of mental rewiring, diagramming assassinations instead of Math proofs. In fact, the speech Bourne relays to Franka Potente’s Marie in The Bourne Identity is almost verbatim the speech he gives Minnie Driver’s Skylar back at Harvard in Good Will Hunting… only without the sugar. Damon’s performance in the first Bourne film was jittery, amazed, as if, for the entire film, he kept thinking: “Holy cow! I’m Matt Damon: action hero! No way!” Sadly, Matty, this was no joke. The Bourne Identity went on to make $120+-mil and a sequel was made (The Bourne Supremacy), this time with British filmmaker Paul Greengrass at the helm. Greengrass tackled the convoluted plot of secret Black Ops training and Russian oil barons with what seemed like a digital handheld and a can of Jolt. The effect was strange…nauseous, really… and… incredibly, awesome. Damon still seemed startled by the hubbub, and, by the end of the film, we couldn’t help but sense his bewilderment evidenced in many of Bourne’s growing ticks: the shifty eyes and hands, the quick furtive glances over his shoulders. Still, coupled with Damon's performance as eager rookie heistman in the Ocean films, we were mightily entertained, but wondered, like Damon himself, when we’d finally see that there was no way he could be super-agent Jason Bourne, and that to push it with a third film might risk venturing into self-parody: Austin Powers without the laughs. After all, Bourne was no Bond.

But something clicked with Damon the actor during the filming of The Bourne Ultimatum. Here he was, accepting and confident in his role as blockbuster super-spy, and, in re-teaming with Greengrass, successfully blows the lid off of the “Summer of Three’s”. Bourne has lost the ticks. His face is at once serene, while at the same time staunchly virile, soaked in espionage to the point it is hard to determine whether he is being cold, calculating, or both: the ultimate intimidating poker stare. Damon, at last, sits confidently in the role he now appears born (ugh!) to have played. Greengrass senses it too, and, more than ever, steadies the shaky camera on Damon’s suddenly lined visage, and we, knowing completely that this is a killer, more importantly a killer searching to understand his motive, must nervously look away. As for the plot, not much seems to have happened to advance the Bourne Universe. He’s still running. Covert heads of skulduggery (this time David Strathairn) still bark orders to computer techs in dour suits, while the constabulary bounce futilely off Bourne and his various modes of transportation. But who cares with talent like this, committed and confident. Here’s to hoping big brother never gives up the chase.

Sunshine: Thoughts

There was a time when all men knew of God was The Sun. Bathed in God-light, mankind was warmed and invigorated, and, inspired with its restless energy, they traveled across the earth as God watched, sleeping as It slept. Man was a loyal disciple of the Sun until discovering fire, and, with the harnessed the power of light and heat, were free to more without God’s blessing and warm their children when It neglected them. And so the Sun’s dominion over man, although still powerful and always prevalent, dimmed, and man’s existential quest for knowledge and the power prescribed to God (lordship, knowledge) began.

It is the reawakening of this long rationalized awe that director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, 28 Days Later) and novelist/screenwriter Alex Garland (The Beach, 28 Days Later) attempt to tap into with their newest collaboration, the sci-fi meditation/thriller Sunshine. The earth is dying. Ra’s strength is feeble and diminishing rapidly, and it is the last ditch effort of a racially diverse group of space cowboys to rekindle his light by flying a giant metal umbrella, (nay!) shield, called Icarus II to his doorstep and leave him a Manhattan sized nuclear payload before ringing the bell and hotfooting it back home as heroes. Piece of cake. And, oddly enough, for the first part of the film, it is. That is of course until the crew picks up a distress beacon from earth’s first attempt to save itself, Icarus I (uh-oh!), and, like in any dutiful sci-fi film, make the decision to “investigate”, at which point things go… wrong. Credit crewman Mace (the increasingly compelling Chris Evans) with the understatement of the year, who, before venturing into the eerily quiet (and dusty…human skin we’re told) bowels of Icarus I, cracks wise to a nervous colleague who is against splitting up, “Why, because we might get picked off by aliens?” Ha! He wishes! What the crew uncovers is too fun and bizarre to spoil, but suffice it to say that the increasingly close proximity to our oldest God unleashes a wicked righteousness and runic spirituality not exclusive to Dr. Searle (Cliff Curtis), who, like any “doctor” in a sci-fi film, is looking a bit singed around edges. It’s no spoiler to say that eventually the cast is elaborately whittled down and we are left with physicist and nuclear engineer Capa’s (Cillian Murphy) marbelous blue eyes and big brain (seriously, the proportion of Cillian Murphy’s head to the rest of his small and frail body hints at some kind of alien relationship) to save the day (with some excellent help from Mace/brawn and Cassie/boobs).

What happens next is what happens in every Danny Boyle film: a calamity of genres energized with the technical skill and psychological brutality of a Jaeger Bomb. As the movie races to the climax, Boyle increasingly cuts and blurs the film, like sunspots, with overexposed frames that give cinematic form to both the bending of time and the warping effect of the gravity created by man’s desire to demand the attention of his all-father, even as he slowly wastes away and dies before him. Sunshine is a memorable film largely due to the talent of the creators and actors involved, but also for being what its peers this summer have not: A thinking man’s blockbuster with a passing awareness of the beauty of human endeavor.

Transformers: Thoughts

Say what you want about Michael Bay, but (by God!) don’t call him cheap. There is no denying that the man knows how to spend $100+ million dollars, and this time (in a film produced by Steven Spielberg) it’s Hasbro’s money that gets tossed into the blockbuster machine. What emerges from this meeting of the focus groups is probably one of the loudest, most colorful and clueless, movies of the aughts. Shia LaBeouf plays Peter Parker—I’m sorry (but...hmm...), I mean, Sam Whitwicky, an outcast dork too cool (it’s Bay!) to not have an innate aptitude for science or computers, and who’s superpower seems to be sarcasm, and even that is absent of irony, something that Michael Bay, with all his commercially honed wizardry, has, yet to understand. For a movie about robots that can change into machines (think, intergalactic shoppers), I found the film so earnest that it was difficult to find places in which I could add the appropriate ironic quotes (except for maybe John Turturro’s performance as agent Simmons, an agent of “S7”, who’s “crazy” eyes and underwear seem to suggest a none too subtle attack on his agent, who no doubt told him this was the kind of movie that would help pay for that vacation house in the Caribbean).

None of this is really a complaint mind you. Transformers has, at its rotten commercial core, the apple pie flavor that resides at the center of many a Spielberg picture. And, let’s be honest, irony is overrated and has ruined many a blockbuster this summer (Hello, Pirates! Good morning, Shrek!). However it is Bay’s own cluelessness as a filmmaker/human being that leads to many of the most stunning faux pas, particularly when he's making simplistic allusions to his idols (Spielberg and… himself): an homage to the most product heavy Spielberg picture (Jurassic Park…2, no less!), followed by the swirling camera shot Bay himself unveiled to much better and aesthetically pleasing effect in Bad Boys 2, an impulse that makes one wonder if Bay is simply parodying himself, or attempting to (pathetically) draw parallels between his elaborate commercials and Spielberg's honed nostalgia. Even more troubling is when this disconnect with reality is felt during a crucial plot point that has the Army, while attempting to hide the largest Rubik Cube in the universe from the Decepticons (bad guys, who've already demonstrated a willingness to engage in the mass slaughter of Army bases and Iraqi villages), decides (I kid you not) to take the cube to the nearest, most populated, area they can find, all of which leads to a scene in which Megatron (bad guy, who can change into a spiky space-jet) flies Optimus Prime (good guy, who can change into a semi-truck) into an office high-rise, bloodlessly killing hundreds of terrified and screaming computer people, a cinematic feat so shocking and blunt, it was only several hours later that my brain awoke to the implications post-Sept. 11^th. Such daring do (or dunderheadedness) can only be the brainstorm of a man completely detached from humanity and human complexity, and who is completely immersed on the commercial viability of even the most heinous images. That Bay never considered, for a moment, the implications of such a scene, illustrates the great tragedy of Michael Bay the filmmaker: a technical wizard who never met a dolly shot he didn’t like (one wonders if the DVD will include outtakes of Tyrese Gibson and Shia dancing—or better, tripping—over the dolly tracks that litter the ground out of frame), and is a filmmaker who, while looking for his favorite open collared shirt, sold his soul to someone much more pathetic than the devil and thus lacks the faculties to ever be considered a true artist. I don’t care what that essay on my Criterion Edition of Armageddon says.

But Transformers is still a movie about robots, and, not surprising, it is the robots who steal the show (melancholy Bumble Bee, Prime, that persnickety CD Player/rat thingy), and it’s when they clash, metal on metal, and—yes—transform, that kids and fans of the toys and the old Marvel comics, young and old (present!), feel a tug inside our gut and find ourselves sucked back to the glory days, memories of Martha Quinn and Gorbechev are unearthed, and real sparks fly

Upcoming

15 Feet will be taking a much needed break from politics in the upcoming weeks, starting with movies, movies, movies, with thoughts on Transformers, Ratatouille, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Sicko, and, possibly, Sunshine. Followed by: music, music, music, and thoughts on Datarock, Wilco, Ryan Adams, The White Stripes, and Nick Cave. Plus an announcement regarding the first 15 Feet contest winner!

I’d also like to take a moment to direct you to this awesome preview of the Cohen brother’s new film No Country for Old Men (click here). If you like the preview, feel free to read my review of the book by clicking here.