Thursday, January 5, 2017

The Spaces Between Days


Holidays are a funny thing.  While they are a welcome step away from daily activities, they also become a break in routine.  You step out of the routine, you lose your pace and your focus.  Matters get upended, sleep is lost, priorities are shuffled - a basic clusterfuck.  So, while I'll like to blame 'the holidays' for my lack of writing, it's actually my break from routine that is to blame. 

Where were we?  Yeah - True Grit.

Now, with this 'project', I knew that there would come a time where I would watch a film that I had bought but hadn't seen before.  Yeah, I know its a little strange to buy a film you haven't seen, but there was a time when video stores would sell five DVD's for $20, and I would more often than not find three films I would really like and had to randomly choose two in order to complete the sale.  That's what happened in this case - it was the fault of Blockbuster that I own this movie.

I tend to be hit and miss with Coen Brothers movies.  I either REALLY enjoy them (I'm looking at you Barton Fink and The Hudsucker Proxy) or I'm indifferent - for instance, I'm indifferent about this one.  It's a pretty film to look at, mainly due to the landscapes that the film is set in.  It hearkens back to a John Ford movie - beautiful wide country shots for our interpret heroes to ride across.  Real cowboy stuff.

For the most part, the story is a revenge plot.  Josh Brolin kills some girls father, girl gets consumed by revenge, hires a Westerm version of The Dude to track him, Matt Damon does a Brad Pitt impression.  And, like most narrated films, you know that in the end the narrator will survive because they are telling the story.  Sprinkle in a few Biblical images, like a dark tunnel that someone falls into after they achieve their revenge as they struggle to get back into the light high above them - then you cue up a snake that bites them.  Pretty standard stuff - not bad, not great.  A movie that you get to fill out the necessary five titles to get a sale.

Yup.  Over that film, time to go to the next!  But before we do, lets do some housekeeping.

- I bought a movie recently, so it's getting added to 'the list'.  It's a documentary called Never Get Tired.

- End of the year always makes me want to look back and see the great media that was released.  In years past I usually put out a list of the top movies or albums that I listened to, but this year I want to do something different.  Gone will be the traditional numbered list, and instead will be a smorgasbord of different things for people to hear about.  Sure, I've got my 'number ones', but I'm more interested in talking about WHY I liked the things that I did.  Expect that soon - be forewarned, though, because it's going to contain a lot of discussion about Ghostbusters.

New title!!  Hey, ho - lets go!

Lets see what number we get......


....and the movie is.....


DIE SISTER DIE!  We are going to have a field day with this one - promise it will be much longer that this post.

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