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So how silly is it gasbagging about a movie you haven’t seen based on a book you haven’t read? Since that’s approximately where I’m at vis-a-vis Joel and Ethan Coen‘s No Country for Old Men, adapted from a Cormac McCarthy novel of no particular distinction, at least if you trust what the literary rags tell you. But already we’ve been inundated from all sides as the national release date approaches (11/9), and preliminary impressions have been formed. Not least from the track records of all the parties concerned—the two sibling filmmakers, the novelist—which, for me anyway, sets anticipations galloping in contradictory directions.
Cormac McCarthy Days of Heaven is an awfully good movie.Joel Coen Yeah. Well, he is great, Terry Malick. Really interesting.CM It’s so strange; I never knew what happened to him. I saw Richard Gere in New Orleans one time, and I said, “What ever happened to Terry Malick?” And he said, “Everybody asks me that.” He said, “I have no idea.” But later on I met Terry. And he just–he just decided that he didn’t want to live that life …JC One of the great American moviemakers.CM But Miller’s Crossing is in that category. I don’t want to embarrass you, but that’s just a very, very fine movie.JC Eh, it’s just a damn rip-off.
