Mmm... good movies!

Maggie says:
We caught No Country for Old Men last night and are still reeling today from its harrowing stillness. Wow. It's hard to imagine another movie this year catching No Country for Best Picture, which is more Coen Brothers brilliance than I could've hoped for. Not to mention, No Country's performances are career-defining for everyone involved. Javier Bardem - always stellar - is simply spectacular here. Josh Brolin is a revelation. Tommy Lee Jones reminds me exactly why The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada is so phenomenal, and why I need to see it again. So watch No Country, now. And if its merits aren't enough of a reason, you can always just see it for Albuquerque.

Huh?

No Country for Old Men was filmed in New Mexico, and parts of Albuquerque are on full display throughout the film. Downtown is shot up and bloodied during one of Bardem and Brolin's fights to the death, and East Central sits in for a seedy El Paso locale later on. Some folks have decried the fact that today's downtown ABQ looks like 1980 Texas, but the setting really is nailed here. Maybe it's a good thing for ABQ's politicians, planners, and place-makers to see how the city appears to others, even if it won't incite much change.

It was fun for the two of us, though, tucked away from a cold Dallas thunderstorm in a packed movie theater, to see two remarkable actors running down the very ABQ streets that we once walked to see each other. It's feeling increasingly forever-ago that we both lived in the Duke City (just about a year exactly, actually). Seeing those places on screen last night, though - in the most remarkable movie I've seen in ages - put a huge grin on my face, however bloodied they were on film.

And that it was followed up by the best cinematic take on self-bullet removal I've ever seen? Perfect.