In the outback of Texas Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) stumbles across a drug exchange that has gone violently wrong. Amongst the dead bodies he comes across a trailer full of heroin and an unclaimed two million dollars. The opportunity to take the money is too compelling. Unfortunately on his trail is psychopathic killer, Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), who relentlessly pursues his quarry and the money. Looking on is Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) who struggles to comprehend the violence that ensues.

I should start out by saying that I’m a huge Coen Brothers fan. I still go around looking for an excuse to quote Tim Robbins’ character in The Hudsucker Proxy “You know, for kids”. Which is quite sad considering that movie came out over a decade ago and I now get the kind of blank looks that Norville Banes used to get.

So, it might come as a bit of surprise that I don’t think No Country for Old Men is the masterpiece that everyone seems to say it is. Now, don’t misunderstand. It’s superbly shot – the use of Texan landscapes is magnificent. The acting is brilliant from start to finish which is incredible considering the amount of dialogue there is in the movie. You would think at some point the actors would start looking sheepish at the having to portray so much without words.

It’s hard not to appreciate the struggle of hair that Javier Bardem overcame to make his character ruthlessly evil and not at all comical. Josh Brolin was excellent as the man pursued. It was also nice to see Kelly Macdonald getting a good Hollywood part. She’s probably still mainly known for Trainspotting but this should lead to some more meaty roles.

I know the whole point of the film is to look at the violence and not the crime itself but I’m not sure it works. I’ve not read the Cormac McCarthy novel but I’ve heard the Coen brothers didn’t stray far with their screenplay. The book may pull it off but I don’t think the film does. The man whose eyes we’re supposed to be looking through is a peripheral character. Although I can appreciate his shock and despair at the sheer violence he sees, it’s hard for his view to have any weight in the film. For me, he didn’t have the onscreen presence to make the incredibly abrupt ending work.

What really happens is the audience invests a lot of time with a psychopathic killer pursuing his prey but don’t get paid off with a climax. When a movie finishes there should be an overall feeling that you’ve been touched by what you’ve seen. No Country for Old Men just sort of glides off the screen and I was left feeling cheated somehow.

Technically and artistically it’s a brilliant movie up to the point where Carson Wells (Woody Harrelson) pops up for a few laughs and then it seems to lose focus. By the time the end came I really didn’t care about any of the characters. Who lived, who died seemed irrelevant and Chigurh’s coin flipping was left meaningless.

It’s definitely worth a watch and I’m sure it will cause all sorts of debate. Unfortunately I just can’t get on the masterpiece bandwagon. Even though I think it’s well done, ultimately I just didn’t find it the story that engaging.

A recent story has surfaced at the Sun tabloid entitled “From Heroin to Heroine” that has Angelina Jolie understandably upset when a part of her seedy past immortalized on video tape has now resurfaced. Smoking a cigarette the 32-year-old actress Anelina Jolie looks wide-eyed and rundown, and is seen with a woman smoking heroin in the pictures The Sun newspaper captured from a video.  Jolie is allegedly shown in a “drugs den” in images published by a British tabloid.

In the video footage, believed to be taken in the 1990s, the ‘Tomb Raider’ star allegedly reveals her drug use:

“I’ve done coke, heroin, ecstasy, LSD, everything.”
But she reportedly adds: “I gave them up long ago.”

The actress’s trip to the Cannes Film Festival to promote her role in kids’ film Kung Fu Panda was overshadowed after a shocking video of Jolie was leaked to The Sun newspaper. The footage, filmed in a New York drug den, shows a young Angelina discussing her experiences with drugs and admitting that she killed her childhood pets. A source close to Jolie told the Daily Mail: “The timing couldn’t be worse, particularly as she’s here to talk about a kids’ film.

Jolie also allegedly discusses bizarre sex games, revealing that it is “just a cool thing” to take part in sexual behaviour where people get hurt.

Angelina, who has a daughter Shiloh, one, is pregnant with twins. She and actor BRAD PITT, 44, also adopted Maddox, six, Pax, four, and Zahara, three.

A fellow den regular said: “Even back then I remember her talking about how she’d adopt a huge family from around the world.”

When I first rented Lust, Caution (Se, Jie) all I knew about it was that it was rated NC-17, had subtitles, and was the only movie my boyfriend was interested in watching that night.  So we rented it.  Overall, I really did like the movie, and I think he did too, but it was very drawn out. 

The movie takes place during the second Sino-Japanese War where there is much resistance from students at a local university.  One group of Chinese students form a theater troop to perform plays that will help support the resistance, but soon enough they realize they want to do more than just act.  A plot is formed to assassinate Mr. Yee (Tony Leung Chiu Wai, who has over 80 film credits of which I’ve only seen this one), a higher ranked Chinese man who is working for the Japanese. They make an elaborate plot that boils down to them using one of their females Wong Chia Chi (Wie Tang in her debut film) to seduce him.  Being inexperience is their downfall and things fall apart.  Four years later, they get another chance.  Wong Chia Chi left the group and is going back to school when the group reconnects with her.  They are working for the resistance again and know that Wong Chia Chi is their only hope to get to Mr. Yee, so again she must go undercover and risk everything to bring down Mr. Yee. 

Based on the novel of the same name by Eileen Chang and directed by Ang Lee (Brokeback Moutain) Lust, Caution is a movie filled with tension.  Lee does a wonderful job of keeping the tension going throughout the film.  The audience never knows what to expect next, whether Mr. Yee will finally get caught, or Wong Chia Chi will be found out.  I was always trying to guess what would happen next.  Wai and Tang also did a great job in their roles as well.  Wai played the “bad guy” perfectly.  He was all smiles to his wife and her friends, but when he was away he let his animal side come out.  While Tang had to go from naïve school girl, to a married woman, back to her school girl, and then back to an all out seductress.  She played the part very believably and with a graceful ease.  I also felt that Wai and Tang had a certain chemistry that worked well for their characters, as they have some pretty intense sexual scenes (here’s where the NC-17 rating comes in).  The supporting actors were also very good, especially Lee-Hom Wang as Kuang Yu Min, the director/leader of the troop.  You could really feel his anguish for Wong Chia Chi as she fell deeper into the plot, and see he obviously cared for her a great deal from the time they first met to later in life.   

Like I mentioned earlier, this movie is subtitled.  This didn’t bother me, but sometimes the dialogue was so fast that I didn’t get a chance to read everything which was a bit annoying.  Also, the movie was far too long.  It runs about two and a half hours long, but it felt longer than that.  Not to say it was a bad movie, but for awhile it just dragged on and could have done well with some better editing and shorter scenes.  Speaking of scenes they could have shortened, I have to mention that there are some graphic sex scenes in the movie that may not be enjoyable for some people. I understand why there were in the movie, and appreciate them being there, but they could definitely have been shorter.  But they were essential to show the relationship between Wai and Tang’s characters. 

In the end I’d give Lust, Caution a B.  If you enjoy foreign films you’ll probably like this one too but, if you’re not a fan of them then I probably would not recommend this movie. 

Just when you the dust had settled from the Miley Ray Cyrus Vanity Fair photo shoot scandal, she’s back in the spotlight yet again with the recent surfacing of more underwear pics circulating the net.  Is it me, or is this girl starting to follow in the footsteps of Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears with constant controversy?

So much for that Disney-esque wholesome image that her and dad Billy Ray have been working so hard to achieve over the span of her career. 

This first batch of pictures circulated on the net and many people speculated they may have been created or altered with an image editing program such as Photoshop.

Back in December, Hannah Montana star and teen idol, Miley Cyrus, shook the core of the tween role model universe, when fans saw leaked pictures from her hotel room of her and a girlfriend sucking on a piece of licorice and messing around in a hotel room.

The 15-year-old pop starlet told Z100 New York before her sold-out, ‘Best of Both Worlds’, concert that the pictures were “nothing bad.” She tried to deny the controversy and said the following about the photos being leaked: 

“At first, I was really upset. It really sucks,” said the Hannah Montana star, who at one point exclaimed, “Look at me getting all upset!  “It’s not something I’m going to let slide,” she said. “I’m really upset about it, ’cause it was, like, not even a big deal.”