The Movie Club Redux, Part 9: At Long Last, Levi!

TO: Boltron, Tavis, Lin
FROM: Levi
RE: Sidelines Report

Hello there -- sorry I had to watch from the sidelines for the day.

But I'll always set aside a few moments to defend the ending of No Country for Old Men. I agree with Tavis. The movie belongs to Tommy Lee Jones' sheriff and in that context, you can really appreciate the fade out. There is something mythic about the old sheriff retiring, realizing that the world has passed him by. Crime has become more monstrous. There was a time when people had real motives for doing terrible things to each other -- lust, greed -- and drugs just doesn't seem to register for these sheriffs. We all laugh at how the "get off my lawn" crowd just cannot accept change, but Jones really transports you. How a man of honor is forced out not by a hard blow, but through softly defeating himself. It was a tough moment for me when he even realizes that his wife artfully dodges him at the end. Everybody thinks he is a relic.

As for Anton Chigurh, I just assumed he was still old there, cattle-stunning his way across the south with a pocketful of shiny quarters. I hope he never updated his hair.

Now, Boltron asks for a worst of the year list. Transformers is such an easy target, but I am not bigger than a chicken shoot. That was a dreadful movie -- and not just because I am one of those man-children that still gets sad when Optimus Prime dies in the animated flick. (Which was far superior to the summer movie, by the way. And I'll argue that until "all are one.") It was horrible because the story was weak, empty, and didn't even serve to set up some good set pieces. Plus, I can accept the preposterous (one of the better books I've recently read, The Ruins, demands nothing short) and suspend disbelief as long as the rules stay the same. Transformers ejects rules whenever they are convenient. Take the glasses as an example. So, the etching points to the Arctic in one half of the movie, but Hoover Dam in the back half. No. That's lazy. That's not even trying.

Tavis, you mentioned we could have an entire discussion about the upcoming "Indy" movie. Indeed. Raiders of the Lost Ark remains my favorite movie -- ever. Which probably makes me doubly afraid of next summer's release. I just pray the trajectory of the three existing "Indy" movies doesn't set up the fourth movie. Remember how in the first movie Marcus Brody is a wizened professor with real fire in his gut and Sallah was a badass? By the time we catch up with these characters in Last Crusade, they have been reduced to comic relief. I just hope Indy 4 isn't too jokey for its own good.

Levi has written professionally about video games for the last decade. He keeps his own blog on the IGN website.