My favorite part about my Dark Urge playthrough is that they often phrase the option as something like, “think about hurting the cat,” and that cat was just a dick to me so while I’d never actually hurt the cat, I can certainly think- oops, I just fucking tortured and murdered that cat.
It is extremely clear to me that you’re the one who isn’t getting it. Nice discussing it with you though.
See I think Dark Knight might be his worst movie.
Even Shang-Chi?
That’s the worst climax ever.
A climax is supposed to be the turning point of the story, where the conflict is resolved.
You’re saying the actual story is this old man who’s barely in the movie realizing that life sucks. And this point in the story, where literally nothing happens on screen, is the resolution of the conflict of him not exactly realizing that life sucks.
Ugh. That’s not complex or deep. It’s oblique and pretentious.
The definition of a climax is “the most intense, exciting, or important point of something; a culmination or apex.”
That scene is obviously not intense or exciting. It’s only the most important part of this hidden plotline that’s even more off-screen than Llewelyn’s death since it only takes place in the mind of a character who’s barely in the movie, who has no agency and no part of the actual events shown on screen.
It’s insufferable. The things you’re saying (which I was already aware of, to be clear) make the movie worse, not better.
Even if I was super into this extremely boring theme, it doesn’t preclude the rest of the movie from containing a well-told story. And even if I went into the movie convinced that the Coens are geniuses and ready to forgive every other thing, voiceover exposition talking about symbolism-laden dreams is always going to be lazy writing.
I won’t watch it again. I’m not trying to reevaluate it. I didn’t miss anything. I just don’t think it’s any good.
If it follows a standard story structure, then what was the climax?
I think I’m very open-minded about movies. For example in the mid-aughts I dragged my girlfriend to like five different Coen Brothers movies before I decided that I really just don’t like them. For another example, I even like mainstream movies.
Isn’t it possible I do understand it, and I just don’t like it? I’ve put enough thought into it. I see the themes. I don’t think those things outweigh the poor plot structure.
You can say No Country has a coherent plot, but it doesn’t in the sense I’m talking about.
That’s probably a good point, but yeah, I don’t need to read a book to try to salvage a movie I didn’t like. There’s just no time for that.
Larson did the vocals in the movie version of the song. Sounds just like Emily Haines.
You really never rooted for Walt? You didn’t hope that he’d make the right decision? You didn’t find a little guilty pleasure in the satisfaction of a bad deed done well?
If not, then why did you even watch the show?
I’m fine with rooting for a bad guy. But no, I don’t enjoy stories that only have irredeemable characters that I can’t root for.
Besides, Javier Bardem won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, which doesn’t usually go to main characters.
But ok, even if Llewelyn wasn’t the main character, he’s the central character of the plot. His death resolves the main storyline in the movie, and it happens off screen. That’s not good storytelling.
Yeah, I’ve heard that before, about how Llewelyn isn’t the main character. Not trying to be rude to you, but that sounds like bullshit. He’s the character I’m rooting for. If the main character isn’t the character I’m rooting for, then that doesn’t sound like an enjoyable movie.
If you’re saying Chigurh is the main character: he doesn’t grow either.
If you’re saying Tommy Lee Jones is the main character (which I’ve heard before), then I’m going to strain my eyes from rolling them so hard. He doesn’t at any point interact with the plot. That’s not good writing.
I get the Coens are doing it differently. They’re not following the rules for how stories should be told. But different isn’t the same as good, and the way they told the story was needlessly confusing and pretentious.
I always find it useful to use food as a metaphor to describe how I feel about movies. If No Country For Old Men were a meal, it would be expertly seasoned and cooked, with one extra ingredient that doesn’t belong there and detracts from the whole thing, like if you made a perfect steak and drenched it in liquorice sauce.
And it would be served on a scrap of driftwood, or in a fishbowl, or on literally anything other than a plate. Everyone around me would be raving about the side dishes while I’m wondering why my meat tastes like shit.
You can include themes in a movie and still tell a coherent story. Try this: remove the theme. Is the movie any good? Is the plot entertaining, and does it make sense? No, it’d be really awful, and the inclusion of a theme doesn’t excuse that.
No Country For Old Men.
I was actually really enjoying the whole cat and mouse thing until the main fucking character died off-screen.
How does nobody ever talk about how shitty that “plot twist” is? It’s not clever. It’s not entertaining. It’s just bad storytelling. They don’t even show you a good shot of him to convey what actually happened. My girlfriend and I had to rewind it twice because it was so fucking stupid and made so little sense.
That’s actually how I feel about most of the Coen Brothers’ movies. The classical narrative structure exists for a reason. It’s a good framework for telling a story that makes sense.
Sometimes there’s a good artistic reason for diverting from that and telling the story in an unconventional way. Other times it’s just pretentious auteur garbage.
He used to comment occasionally on reddit. I interacted with him there once. He seemed very gracious and down-to-earth.