Espero que hayan cumplido el reto de ver tooodas las películas de Halloween llenas de sangre, violencia, adolescentes estúpidos…mmm, confio en que algunos de mis lectores son psicópatas y vaya que disfrutaron verlas y leer las palabras anteriores; y algunos que si no lo eran descubrieron que lo son por amar ver tanta SANGRE, VIOLENCIA, ADOLESCENTES ESTÚPIDOS (se que les gustan esas palabras…o mejor dicho, que les valen). Yo? Si, si disfruto verlas…porque me puedo reír de ellas, aunque desgraciadamente no las pude ver todas este año porque muchas personas se volaron las películas del Blockbuster…no los culpo. En fin: psicopátas. Son las personas más geniales que he visto en el cine. Son manipuladores, agresivos, calculadores, inteligentes…ahhh. Eso según los psicólogos. Pero según yo, aquí va un recuento de las personas geniales -y malvadas- del mundo del cine con patología imprecisa:
Jean-Baptiste Grenouille
Nuestro chico francés que tiene un gusto especial al aroma de las mujeres jovénes y hará todo para obtenerlo…en especial matar.

Catherine Tramell

La mujer que arrancó…suspiros a muchos hombres en Bajos Instintos y que encontraba un placer mayor en matar a los hombres que …estar con ellos. (No la culpo…sólo vean el Espacio de Keso y díganme si no se convertirian en asesinos al leer lo que dicen…haha)

Earl Brooks

Pues, este Mr. Brooks es un psicópata agradable (en los estándares comunes) y muestra bien a sus …amiguitos que viven en su cabeza.

SWEENY TODD

Ohh, me gusta mucho la película! Mrs. Lovett quién ama a un psicópata asesino y él la mata al final lanzandola en una caldera…Que hermosa historia! Esperen…me suena conocida…Oh…

Anton Chigurh

Bueno…pues me sonó a Harvey Dent lo de su moneda esa, pero aún así la escena final es genial y más aún la cara de “que más da” de Javier Berdam.

LEATHERFACE

El sonido de la sierra + una chica gritando horrible durante toda la película= Boo! Hasta a mi me asustó por sus gritos y aún peor cuando esta en la hermosa reunión familiar de psicópatas: oh, que honor! El abuelo de 150 años va a partirle la cabeza para la cena! Llena de miedo psicológico tiene la cinta ” La masacre en Texas” y quién no? Con un carnícero con una máscara de pieles humanas. Me llevo dos!

Hannibal lecter

El ex psiquiatra Dr. Hannibal cuyo plato favorito somos tú y yo. Bastante culto e inteligente y con diálogos llenos de ingenio hacen que entre en la categoría de psicópatas refinados. Pase usted, es hora de la cena!

JIGSAW

Vaya lecciones de vida nos da! Acosado por una enfermedad terminal, busca enseñar a todo aquél que no disfrute su vida a cómo “Vivir la vida” con unos simples y divertidos juegos: No pierdes nada al jugar! Sólo que si pierdes, mueres de una forma horrible y dolorosa. ¿Quieres jugar?

ESTHER

Una “niña” completamente diabólica!!!! Ok, es una psicópata. Basta ver los lindos dibujos que tiene pegados en su cuarto, bueno, ya sabemos porque no quisieron ponerlos en la puerta del refrigerador. Sabe mostrar muy bien lo psicópata y más aún con la escena de la paloma. Bueno, claramente con una pedrada en el cráneo dejara de sufrir.

NORMAN BATES
Creación de Hitchcook de un hombre que se disfraza de su madre para asesinar. Es prota de la famosa escena de la ducha. Usa frases cortas como estas. Muy buena actuación. Vaya madre debió ser esa. Han de oirse raras estas frases. Diablos.

PATRICK BATEMAN

A poco? Por algo se llama Psicópata Americano, no? Ohh, muy buenas escenas hay en la película. Desde el vago asesinado, la chica asesinada con la sierra desde las escaleras, su crisis mientras confiesa sus crímenes. Vaya que vale la pena y Christian Bale aquí es muy genial!

Alex McDowell

El ultraviolento Alex es sumamente genial en Naranja Mecánica y un claro ejemplo de psicópata…un psicópata fanático de Beethoven y de Gene Kelly, cabría suponer.

Y AHORA…EL NÚMERO UNO!!!!

THE JOKER!!!

El de Heath, claro. Bueno, bueno…él no es un psicópata. Más bien es un sociópata (simplemente Joker <3), pero no importa. Ya no falta decir POR QUÉ, verdad? Creo que ya lo he dejado claro. Ohhhhhh…<3 <3

5. Gangster Intimidation: Nicky Santoro in Casino

Sarebbe stato impossibile stilare una classifica come questa e non menzionare Joe Pesci. Sicuramente Pesci è più che adatto a ruoli leggeri e divertenti, come dimostrano Home Alone o Lethal Weapon. Il punto è che quando questo “Piccoletto” vuole fare sul serio c’è ben poco che lo possa fermare…

Se per intimidazione vogliamo considerare anche la brutalità più subdola, allora dobbiamo senz’altro citare il personaggio più meschino e fastidioso della carriera di Joe Pesci; Nicky Santoro in Casino. E’ senz’altro Pesci all’ennesima potenza, per quanto concerne violenza e volgarità. Il personaggio è basato su un individuo realmente vissuto a Las Vegas, Anthony “Tony the Ant” Spilotro, senz’altro una bella personcina.

Menzione d’onore: Tommy DeVito in GoodFellas.

4. Western-Style Intimidation: Anton Chigurh in Non è un Paese per Vecchi

L’aspetto esteriore di Chigurh è un tentative di modernizzazione del personaggio della “Morte” apparso nel classicissimo di Ingmar Bergman datato1957 “The Seventh Seal” mediato con un pizzico di Terminator. Una forza del male, che convive facilmente con un codice etico del tutto personale ed incomprensibile. Gran personaggio (Interpretazione premiata con un oscar), non a caso uno dei migliori cattivi della storia del cinema.

Menzione d’onore: Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood.

3. Sci-Fi Intimidation: The Alien in Alien

Realizzare che nessuno, nello spazio, può sentire il tuo urlo disperato, può essere alquanto inquietante.

Qualcuno preferisce il sequel del 1986, ma per quanto riguarda l’intimidazione e la suspence in puro Hitchcock-style, l’originale non può essere battuto.  Oltretutto volete mettere Ripley che combatte e si danna in reggiseno e mutandine, piuttosto che l’equivalente in tuta spaziale??

Menzione d’onore: HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

2. Ghoulish Intimidation: il Conte Orlock in Nosferatu

Per quanto riguarda questo genere d’intimidazione, ci sarebbe da scegliere fra le centinaia di mostri che hanno popolato il cinema negli ultimi 120 anni. Lupi mannari, zombi, fantasmi e goblin, tutti hanno il potere di terrorizzare, ma nulla ha il potere terrorifico di un fottuto succhiasangue dalla pelle Bianca come la luna, I vampire non li batte nessuno.

Ovviamente il grande Bella Lugosi merita una menzione speciale, così come Christopher Lee e Gary Oldman, ma se proviamo ad arrivare alla “Radice del male” non si può non giungere ad una sola conclusione: il numero uno è nato a Berlino, e risponde al nome di Max Schreck, colui che interpretò il Conte Orlock in Nosferatu (Correva l’anno 1922). Tra le altre cose il cognome del buon Max, se tradotto, significa proprio “Terrore”.

Menzione d’onore:  Il Diavolo (Quello dentro Linda Blair) in The Exorcist.

1. Handsome Cool Intimidation: Harry Powell in The Night of the Hunter (La Morte corre sul Fiume)

D’accordo, gli Alieni, I mostri e I gangsters, ma nessuno può (E deve, cribbio!) dimenticare il prete più carismatico e crudele della storia del cinema. Robert Mitchum interpreta il laido e vendicativo serial killer Harry Powell, con un sangue freddo così raccapricciante da essere secondo solo alla sua bellezza e al suo fascino magnetico. Come può una donna timorata di Dio resistergli?

Il personaggio di Mitchum, gigantesco, negli anni ha influenzato pesantemente il lavoro di grandissimi registi come David Lynch, i Coen Brothers e Martin Scorsese.

Menzione d’onore: Rutger Hauer in The Hitcher.

"You've been putting it up your whole life, you just didn't know it...You stand to win everything."

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned.

“The Second Coming,” William Butler Yeats.

The book and film of Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men ought to have scared the hell out of you.

If it didn’t, with all due respect, you just don’t get it.

The ruthless evil of the narcotraficantes that this story portrays is not just the fancy convention of an extremely talented writer.  It is as close to real as you might get, short of submerging oneself in the hell of the real thing.

Cold-blooded killer Anton Chigurh, the role for which Javier Bardem won his Oscar, is as pure a distillation of evil as anything not capped off tightly in a vial behind the wires at Ft. Detrick, MD.

When you get the Chigurh bug, you’re dead.

Thailand About to Spring Merchant of Death Viktor Bout -- No Time for U.S. Diplomats to Equivocate

The movie’s infamous “call it” scene comes to mind today thinking about another pure distillation of evil, international arms merchant Viktor Bout.

Bout exploded out of the cold war as a well connected Merchant of Death.  He played a pivotal role in the arming of children as warriors in Africa and the continuing agony of that continent.  He was brought down by a brilliant U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration sting, overseen by  supervisory agent Michael Braun.

Arrested in Thailand, Bout seemed to have been on the way to justice in the United States.  But our “friends” in Russia leaned on the Thais, who now seem to be close to springing Bout.

Here is how the Russian news agency Novosti summed up the case last month:

Former Russian army officer Bout, 42, was arrested in Thailand in March 2008 during a sting operation led by U.S. agents.

The Bangkok Criminal Court refused in August to extradite Bout to the United States, where he is accused of conspiring with others to sell millions of dollars’ worth of weapons to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), among other illegal arms deals, and “threatening the lives of U.S. citizens.”…

The Russian Foreign Ministry said it will give Viktor Bout all the support he needs. The ministry said it hoped Thailand would not reverse its initial decision of not extraditing Bout to the United States.

“All the support he needs” seems to be working.  Thailand is about to unleash this evil upon the world again, Braun warned in today’s The Washington Times newspaper:

An appellate court in Thailand appears primed to uphold a recent lower court ruling that will unleash Viktor Bout, universally known as the “Merchant of Death,” back on the global community. To say that Bout is upset with the United States after spending more than a year in a Thai prison would be a gross understatement.

…

Bout exploded onto the international scene shortly after the breakup of the Soviet Union, when he effectively leveraged his high-level former Soviet military and intelligence contacts and pounced on a capitalistic opportunity to sell a limitless assortment of Soviet arms that had been stockpiled during the Cold War. I’m talking about everything from AK-47 assault rifles by the millions to such advanced heavy weapons as Mi-24 Hind helicopter gunships, tanks and Igla surface-to-air shoulder-fired missiles that can knock down commercial airliners as easily as a sawed-off shotgun could blast ducks in a barrel.

His clientele were the potpourri of modern-day scum: global terrorists, ruthless dictators, merciless drug kingpins and other transnational organized criminal groups. However, it is the mark that Bout left on Africa that qualifies him as the world’s deadliest “shadow facilitator.”

Bout flooded the continent with hundreds of thousands of AK-47s and other modern weaponry before his arrest. Those arms replaced machetes and other archaic weapons wielded by heavily exploited and drugged young boys, who made up the ranks of several insurgent groups, and instantly transformed them from random murderers into perverse, mindless killing machines operating with assembly-line efficiencies. A million or more innocent Africans were slaughtered.

Read the entire article here.

Braun’s article apparently caused a panic of puckered pants at the State Department.  The Attorney General himself may have been galvanized into action.

Here’s the point: the Russians have tossed the coin and it’s up to the Obama administration to call it.  Bout is not just some guy who sells guns.  He is part of a chain of evil than spans the world:  drug traffickers, terrorists, ruthless and heartless.

The question may be this for the Attorney General:  Is letting Viktor Bout back into the world to sell more death and destruction to terrorist groups like the Colombian narcoteroristas FARC less important than getting admitted pervert and child abuser Roman Polanski back on our soil to serve his time?

When you stand to win everything, you also stand to lose everything.

"Call it!"

I made this same list a couple months ago, but the other day I deleted it and decided to remake it. The list wasn’t perfect and it had to be perfect. Other than a list of my top ten favorite movies of all time, which will be coming soon, this list is the most important post I could possibly create. Villains are the backbone of the industry. Their are almost always the most interesting characters to watch and plots would go absolutely no where with out them. Films need them and I absolutely love ‘em.

I’ve decided to remake this list because after re-watching a couple films and even watching a few new ones, I’ve finally decided on what I’ve found to be the perfect order when it comes to film villains. I’ve moved some characters around and I’ve removed a few characters and added a few new ones. The two I removed were Roy Batty from Blade Runner and Jack Torrence from The Shining. Both are incredibly performed characters and are in some aspects more interesting than some of the characters on this list, but they’re evil for different reasons and just don’t match the caliber of villainy that each character on this film is able to reach.

I’ve tried this a couple times now, but I think I’ve finally compiled the perfect list to establish my opinion on this almost impossible conundrum. So with out further review, here’s my top ten favorite cinema villains of all time in order. I hope you enjoy.

10. Alonzo Harris

Denzel Washington received a well deserved oscar for his intense portrayal of the crooked cop, Alonzo Harris. Many films have had officers or detectives on the wrong side of the law, but no actor has ever been able to top the intensity that Washington draws from the character. In my opinion, Alonzo Harris is the most sinister cop ever put on screen.

9. Frank

The western gunslinger known only by the name of Frank is a spectacularly menacing villain, but the thing that makes him most interesting to watch is the actor whose playing him. This was an out of the ordinary choice for Henry Fonda, a man’s whose career is full of do-gooders and family men, but in the mix of all those good guys, you’ll find one black hearted fiend and he plays him to perfection. Its his best performance and that my friends is saying something.

8. Keyser Soze

When you look at the master scheme of things, Keyser Soze should probably be a bit higher on this list, but I believe with his basically 8 minute screen-time that he’s not able to show the evil the way the others on this list are able to. He’s still a classic villain who pulls the strings behind almost every crime that’s commited. He’s thought of to be legend and he likes it that way. “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” -Verbal Kint

7. Bill the Butcher

Daniel Day-Lewis is probably the greatest actor in cinema and it’s only fitting that his portrayal as the malicious Butcher; Bill Cutting, known better as Bill the Butcher. Cutting is the ruthless american born tyrant of New York 1800s in Scorsese’s masterfully made period piece. He’s played to absolute perfection by Day-Lewis, because while he is a terrible and ruthless murderer, at times it seems he even has morals. Very few though, of course.

6. Little Bill Daggett

Unforgiven is in my opinion by far the greatest western I’ve seen, and one of the main reasons its so fantastic is because of Gene Hackman’s Oscar winning performance of Little Bill Dagget. He’s ruthless, brutal, and you never know what to expect, making each of his scenes very suspenseful, and he’s supposed to be the good guy. Bill Dagget is the sheriff of Big Whiskey, Utah, and its his brutal tactics to bring about justice at any cost, that makes him a villain for the books. He just barely missed my top 5.

5. Amon Goeth

Ralph Fiennes has a long list of fantastic villains and an even longer list of fantastic roles. His greatest role just so happens to be my fifth favorite villain. Amon Goeth is the face of evil behind the classic WWII epic Schindler’s List. He dictates the labor camp where most of the film takes place and Fiennes plays it so disturbingly well. His morning routine consists of getting up, taking a piss and shooting randon jews in the camp with a sniper. He’s sick and degenrate, and if you step out of line it becomes quite evident early on what will happen to you.

4. Hannibal Lecter

It was quite hard to put Hannibal “The Cannibal” Lecter so high on this list. Most would say he deserves the top spot, and when I do see him there on other lists, I’m never disappointed, he does deserve it, I just think there’s a few qualities (for lack of a better word) that I enjoy more in my top 3. Anyways though, Lecter is probably in my opinion “the” classic movie villain. He’s sinister, intelligent and at times even courteous. He hardly ever blinks and never once does he doubt his eventual victory. It’s one of the greatest performances ever put on the silver screen and by far Anthony Hopkins’ best work.

3. Anton Chigurh

Silent, creative, intelligent, confident, determined, arrogant (but for good reason), and above all else, evil. These are just a few of the words that can define the ruthless killer that is Anton Chigurh. His weapons of choice include a cattle gun, hand cuffs, and even a sawed off shot gun with a foot long silencer. Chigurh always has an innovative way to get what he wants and he will never stop. At one point, he decides the fate of man’s life by the flip of a coin. He’s not insane as some might call him though, he’s just nothing else, but his own gain. Javier Bardem is fantastic.

2. Col. Hans Landa

Almost all would agree that Colonel Hans Landa of the SS is an amazing villain. Most wouldn’t agree with his high placement on this list so soon after the release of the movie. Well, I’ve seen the movie seven times and I can honestly say that there is only one other villain that I enjoy more than Hans Landa. I want to point out that numbers 3 and 2 are very equally matched on this list, but I had to give it to the more entertaining villain. Landa is not your cliche nazi. He’s an intelligent and charming detective whose able to work his way through the threads of past, present and coming events so that he can assure his own gain. Nothing else matters, not even the fuhrer. He always has a plan and focus and doesn’t care who he has to step on to achieve his goals. Christoph Waltz is absolutely breathtaking in every single one of his scenes. He is one of the most eveil villains ever put on screen, but its so entertaining to watch every single thing he does, whether that be drinking a glass of milk or strangling a person to death.

1. The Joker

Heath Ledger’s Joker is by far the greatest villain ever put on the silver screen. Not only that though, I believe the Joker is the most entertaining and interesting character ever and the greatest performance by any actor I’ve ever seen. The Joker is bent on creating chaos in a world he believes desperately needs it. He doesn’t want anything else, especially not money. He just wants to watch the world burn and he wants to be the cause. All he really wants is to have a blast. He’s always one step ahead and even if something goes wrong in his plan, he just laughs it off, it just adds to the thrill. There are many times when he has the chance to kill his nemesis Batman, but he doesn’t take them because he’s one of the few villains who release that they need each other, without Batman, the world would just seem dull. Batman won’t kill him either though because it’s wrong and he knows it’s exactly what he wants. When faced with the Batman’s speeding Bat-pod The Joker insists on him to hit him and when The Joker is thrown off a building he laughs hysterically the entire way down. He’s willing to die to show the worlds true colors. The Joker is the epitome of evil.

Jean Claude Trichet, Governatore della BCE

Toglimi una curiosità! Se le regole che hai seguito ti hanno portato sino a questo punto, a che servivano quelle regole?
Anton Chigurh Non è un paese per vecchi di Cormac McCarthy

Anton Chigurh, killer psicopatico

Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), the incomparable leader of the Inglourious Basterds.

by Matthew Groves

Quentin Tarantino.  A name synonymous in film circles that causes simultaneous praise and derision.  For every sycophantic fanboy, there is also an even more passionate detractor.  I most definitely fit into the latter description, and came into his latest film, Inglourious Basterds, with a strong bit of apprehension.  One of those very reasons was because Tarantino’s infantile, self-righteous dialogue and myriad references to other better filmmakers has always come across poorly to me.  In my mind, he is the true father of inane winking at the audience and attempts at “clever” dialogue that has always come off as patronizing and silly.  Another reason for my apprehension was the plot description; after all, the film is about Jewish soldiers led by a Gentile who scalped Nazis with some of the same vigor that their real-life Nazi counterparts exterminated the Jews.  Concerned that this was an exploitation picture full of grotesque bloodlust a la Kill Bill Vol. 1, I felt that Tarantino was not only messing with history, but also directly messing with history that included such cataclysmic events as WWII and The Holocaust.  This coupled with some negative reactions from other Jewish viewers and critics who saw the film earlier at Cannes; I was absolutely on edge until the credits rolled.  Then much to my astonishment, the film was…quite mature, restrained, and dare I say nuanced, words that I could never entered my vocabulary when it came to this filmmaker before.

Three of the Basterds played by actors, Samm Levine, Til Schweiger, and Eli Roth.

Yes, the film is still about those Nazi-scalping Jews known as The Inglourious Basterds, including two nicknamed names such as Bear Jew (gore-sploitation filmmaker, Eli Roth) and Little Man (star from The Office, B.J. Novak).   The group is lead by half-Apache Tennessean; Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) who proclaims that every man under his command owes him 100 Nazi scalps each.  But that’s only a small part of the story; really it’s part of Tarantino’s clever ruse to get people into the theater.  Yet most of this content gets more play in the trailer, and The Basterds actually don’t have much screen time and are relative minor, yet key players.

Parisian cinema owner, Shosanna Dreyfus (Melanie Laurent) changes letters on the marquee.

The story really centers on an escaped Jew turned owner of a local Parisian cinema, Shosanna Dreyfus (Melanie Laurent in her American debut).  In the beginning of the film, she narrowly escapes ruthful SS officer Colonel Hans Landa, nicknamed “Jew-hunter” (Christoph Waltz), who gladly interrogates a French dairy farmer and then once he gets a confession murders Shosanna’s family.  This then sets in motion the rest of the film.  Years later, when Shosanna is running her theater she is given a proposition to premiere the new propaganda film from Joseph Goebbels (Sylvester Groth), Nation’s Pride, a film about an expert Nazi sniper at her theater.  And the twist is, that at this premiere, most if not all of the German high command will be in attendance.  She then resolves to burn the theater down with all of them in it, using the flammability of the thousands of film reels in her collection in order to do it.  Simultaneously, there is a separate mission to take out the Nazi high command named Operation Kino that includes a famous German actress turned double agent, Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) and a former British film critic turned soldier, Lieutenant Archie Hicox (Michael Fassbender) and the Basterds as well, rather than the trailer’s promise of scalped Nazis, these two missions are the thrust of the film.

Archie Hicox (Michael Fassbender) and Bridget von Donnermark (Diane Kruger) have an eventful meet and drink in local tavern.

One of the shocking and impressing things about the film besides its dense and well-structured plot is the film’s pacing and the tension that arises from that.  Unlike other Tarantino fare, his long stretches of dialogue usually in German and French and subtitled in English really work to build up to white-knuckled suspense that keeps you on the edge of your seat.  This gives a quality to these scenes reminiscent of Martin Scorsese’s gangster classic, Goodfellas, with long stretches of dialogue where anything or everything can happen and the audience is left suspended waiting to see if mayhem ensues.  Speaking of mayhem, the film expertly is restrained in that area especially after knowing the original premise.  When violence comes it is quick, dirty, frightening and absolutely as brutal as it should be.

For me, Tarantino has always been a filmmaker who has ability, but has always had a foot in two distinctive camps, much to the detriment of his work.  One camp is that of a serious artistic filmmaker who brands his unique vision, but also has something that amounts to little more than pulp.  Then there is the other camp, where he constantly winks at the audience, unnecessarily uplifting B-movie schlock, over-the-top unrealistic dialogue that should be cut down, with his sense of screwing with the audience that provokes an audience response solely for his perverse little games.  With each film, he seems to be catching that middle where he just has a muddled mess that combines the two camps, and the results are wildly hit and miss.  Thankfully though, in this film, rather than trying to do both for the most part, Tarantino stays in the first camp, making not a blood-drenched, soulless revenge flick, but a tight thriller that works on many levels; it may be revisionist, but not in the way the film advertises itself.  The film is tantamount to what Sam Peckinpah when he made and released The Wild Bunch, which redefined the western genre.  Basterds does the same, however, it is far less violent than Bunch.

One of the most memorable and tensely suspenseful scenes involving Col. Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz).

Another great quality of the film is how it allows great European actors Waltz and Laurent to shine amongst the rest of the cast; they truly are excellent.  Waltz’s absolutely vicious and cunning performances, I believe, will go down in cinematic history along with Heath Ledger’s The Joker and Javier Bardem’s Anton Chigurh as recent screen villains that will stand the test of time.  Laurent beautifully shows that she is a strong female protagonist who has can show signs of weakness without allowing that to hamper her bravery, and her performance alone makes me anticipate her future roles more than anyone else.  Kruger and Fassbender have given great performances in their minor but key roles.  This isn’t such of a surprise for Fassbender, who should have been nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for his career performance in last year’s Hunger, but Kruger shows that she is more than she appears in studio fare, like the derivative National Treasure films.

Flaws do arise with the Basterds themselves and that’s where the filmmaker’s usual immaturity reigns.  All of them, with the exception of Til Schwegier’s German soldier turned Nazi killer, Hugo Stiglitz, are all broad one-note performances, especially those of Pitt and Roth, which are, in many ways, a waste of time.  They are there to cause comic relief and to their credit they fulfill some cheap, easy jokes occasionally, but every time they are onscreen they seem to move the film in different direction, distracting us from the main thrust of the story.  To be honest, they should have been rewritten with more depth or not be included in the film entirely, and either one would have really strengthened the film.  Also Tarantino has a large tendency during these scenes to cut off music cues and include bits from the films of Leone and Melville that feel more like rip-offs than actual homages.

Here's a prelude to a remarkable scene with Shosanna (Laurent).

Despite those minor problems though, Tarantino has made his most measured and grown-up film and it even supersedes his former masterpiece, Pulp Fiction.  With great performances, pacing, and a keen photographic eye in underrated DP, Robert Richardson’s cinematography, Basterds is an experience that is wholly worthwhile. The finale will not only will make you reconsider your bloodlust but also delivers one of the most horrific sights ever presented on the big screen.  Even with brief moments of Tarantino’s moronic proclivities, he seems to have turned the page to a more welcome and hopefully continual maturation of his craft.  We’ll see if he goes back to his earlier superfluous silliness, but for now, go see Inglourious Basterds in the cinema. It may well be your only chance to see the filmmaker present a film this good. Who knows if he can do it again?

Photo sources:

http://www.imdb.com/media/rm3073148928/tt0361748

http://www.imdb.com/media/rm4106389760/tt0361748

http://www.imdb.com/media/rm3250751744/tt0361748

http://www.imdb.com/media/rm2989262848/tt0361748

http://www.imdb.com/media/rm2596440320/tt0361748

http://www.imdb.com/media/rm3267528960/tt0361748

I must admit that as a movie, I didn’t care much for No Country For Old Men. I got what the movie was about: a new kind of criminal pops up, one that bewilders and terrifies a soon-to-be-retired police sheriff played by Tommy Lee Jones. He has no idea how to deal with this kind of criminal, hence the title of the movie.

Javier Bardem won the Best Actor Oscar for his role as Anton Chigurh, and it was very fitting. He’s a psychopath, but yet oddly-principled murderer who’s after a mountain of cash left over by a drug deal gone bad. His weapon of choice is that device they use to kill cows in the slaughter house. His low, gravelly voice suggests he speaks very seldom. In one scene, he encounters a convenience store clerk who asks a couple of wrong questions. Chigurh gets defensive—but in a way as to not arouse suspicion—and then flips a quarter and tells the man to call it. If the man calls it right, he wins. If he doesn’t, he dies.

He does, and Chigurh tells him to keep his “lucky quarter” in a safe place.

This movie is based on a book, and I think sometime I’ll have to read it. I wonder how the author came up with the idea for Anton Chigurh.

A friend told me that sometimes the creepiest characters in stories like this become even creepier when they do odd things, whether it’s playing “Lucky Quarter” with somebody or having a very pleasant conversation with somebody before engaging in a 100% nothing-personal-it’s-just-business murder of them. Maybe it’s because they’re obsessive compulsive. Or maybe they think that’s the way to intimidate people.

Heath Ledger as The Joker

Total Film’s Top 50 of villains
1 The Joker (Batman: The Movie)
2 Darth Vader (Star Wars)
3 Hannibal Lecter (Silence of the Lambs)
4 Leatherface (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre)
5 Freddy Krueger (A Nightmare on Elm Street)
6 Nurse Ratched (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest)
7 Anton Chigurh (No Country for Old Men)
8 Michael Myers (The Halloween series)
9 Frank Booth (Blue Velvet)
10 Norman Bates (Psycho)
11 Bridget Gregory/Wendy Kroy (The Last Seduction)
12 Jason Vorhees (Friday the 13th series)
13 Saruman the White (The Lord of the Rings)
14 John Doe (Se7en)
15 Baby Jane Hudson (Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?)
16 Peyton Flanders (The Hand That Rocks the Cradle)
17 Gordon Gekko (Wall Street)
18 Alex Forrest (Fatal Attraction)
19 The White Witch (The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the witch and the
wardrobe)
20 Captain Videl (Pan’s Labyrinth)
21 Annie Wilkes (Misery)
22 Tony Montana (Scarface)
23 Catherine Tramell (Basic Instinct)
24 Michael Corleone (The Godfather)
25 Dr Christian Sezell (Marathon Man)
26 Reverend Harry Powell (The Night of the Hunter)
27 Ray (Nil by Mouth)
28 The Wicked Witch of the West (The Wizard of Oz)
29 John Ryder (The Hitcher)
30 Suzanna Stone Maretto (To Die For)
31 Combo (This is England)
32 General Zod (Superman)
33 Hans Gruber (Die Hard)
34 Patrick Bateman (American Psycho)
35 Ivan Drago (Rocky IV)
36 Daniel Cleaver (Bridget Jones’ Diary)
37 Verbal Klint/Keyser Soze (The Usual Suspects)
38 Lex Luthor (Superman)
39 Don (Sexy Beast)
40 Begbie (Trainspotting)
41 Phyllis Dietrichsonn (Double Indemnity)
42 Mr Blonde (Reservoir Dogs)
43 Dr Elsa Schneider (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade)
44 Frank (Once Upon a Time in the West)
45 Max Cady (Cape Fear)
46 The Child Catcher (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang)
47 The Truck (Duel)
48 Hans Beckert (M)
49 Mrs John Iselin (The Manchurian Candidate)
50 Mr Potter (It’s a Wonderful Life)

Amazon Specials!

No Country For Old Men gave me the biggest case of blue balls in cinematic history.  I will get to my reasoning in a second, but first I want to mention that this movie is one of the greatest ever made.  I strongly believe in waiting a few years before attempting to rank a movie in a historic sense, but this movie is one of the few exceptions.  I love this movie for the same reasons that it let down and angered its mainstream audience.  Just as Casey At The Bat is a great poem for its expectations countered with the ending, so is this movie.

When I first saw this movie I knew I had just watched something amazing, but I still couldn’t help feeling a little let down and confused.  When I started to discuss this movie with others who were also let down I started to conclude some of the problems that came to me.  Then it hit me, this movie was meant to be figured out afterwards.  The movie actually bookends itself in a remarkable way that has made me watch it many times since.

No Country For Old Men starts off by by showing a hard barren west Texas landscape with a story narrated by Sheriff Bell (Tommy Lee Jones).  It is important to say that this movie is about him, not Llewelyn (Josh Brolin).  Although Tommy Lee Jones is in this movie sparingly, it is his point of view that puts the entire movie into perspective.  His narration sets up the entire movie which is followed by Llewelyn happening across a drug deal gone bad.  He knows amongst all of the dead bodies that there is some money to be had.  Once he finds it the story begins to take off.  I do not want to dwell on the main storyline, but what I would like to do is focus on the confusing parts of the story that are very important to grasping how great this movie is.

There are two really big complaints that this movie always gets from the average viewer.  The first complaint is that they were extremely let down by the fact that there was no big showdown in the end when it was set up to do so.  Although I was always aware that this movie went far deeper than that, I had the exact same feeling at the end of the movie.  This movie is a deep philosophical dissertation about trying to make sense of our fate in what can at sometimes be a cold and cruel world.  The best question to ask is why would the Coen Brothers deliberately let down its audience by never having the expected showdown between any of the three main characters? I will attempt to answer this later.

The second complaint is more complex because it has to do with how the movie ended.  People hate that there is no real ending and that it does not explain itself.  I would counter that it in fact does both, but it requires the viewer to figure it out after the movie with the information that has been given.  Lets start off with Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem).  This is one of the greatest evil characters in the history of cinema.  I can’t believe how intimidating he is the entire time he is on screen.  His conversation with the guy behind the counter at the gas station show the viewer that somewhere inside his head there is a method to his madness.  Anton sees the world in a completely different way but he does have his own set of principles.  He is evil incarnate and anyone in his path has a chance of dying.  Cormac McCarthy, who is the writer of this story, presents a world where the bad guys sometimes win and the good guys sometimes lose.  Then there is Sheriff Bell trying to make sense of it all.  Although it is a cold harsh world, McCarthy does present a sort of Karmic philosophy even though it is not as pure as the audience would like.  People who choose to steal or disregard natural laws tend to get paid back.  Llewelyn’s choice to take the money got him involved into something bigger than he knew was coming.  When Sheriff Bell said that the Mexicans who were gunned down had died of natural causes he was referring to this same idea. Being gunned down was natural for people who chose to get involved in that line of work That being said, the coin flip scene is referring to a larger idea.  We are all faced with coin flips in our lives but we do make choices that have a small effect on their result.  This thought can be daunting and it catches up to Sheriff Bell.  He is someone who always thought he could change the world and would be rewarded by the life he lived but he feels that is no longer the case. He feels over matched by the evil and he feels that it is getting worse.  Ellis counters his argument in a profound way by stating that the world has always had such evil in it, but to believe that our very presence can change it to our advantage is vanity.  The world does not revolve around us and we are incredibly small pieces in an enormous world.  It is truly humbling to know how little effect we have in the world, but our choices still do have one. This is all wrapped up in the end by Bell’s dream which I will get to later.

So why would the Coen brothers let down the audience by not having a showdown in the end after creating one of the most intense buildups I can ever recall.  Their point is that the winner of the showdown did not matter, it was the choice to take a short cut that mattered.  When you play with fire you get burned.  The Coens know that most movies stick to a formula that the audience subconsciously expects and they chose to use that formula to make a bigger point. If this were art it would be no different than an Andy Warhol silk screened soup can.  The Coens used a traditional chase suspense story to make commentary on the genre itself and a much larger point.  We are so used to a genre in which the winners are winners and the losers are losers, that we forget why they are winners and losers.  The Coens commentary on this isn’t much different than Warhol’s commentary on pop culture with his soup cans.   This artistic choice easily counters the blue balls that I had because I kept waiting for a showdown.

Before I end this by talking about Bell’s dream I want to mention the technical achievements in this movie.  The cinematography is incredible as is the underrated set design.  If you watch this movie a second time pay attention to how impressive the night scenes are shot and how well they make uses of light and shadows to add to the suspense of the situation.  Even those opening landscape shots say so much about the story that is about to take place.  It might seem like the 1980’s are close enough to mimic, but I can’t think of a movie that has been made in the last ten years that has remotely made small town life that realistic in that era.  Lastly and most importantly the sound in this movie is the most impressive I can remember since Saving Private Ryan.  The choice to go largely without a score was noticeable but in a way that largely enhanced the tension.  I still believe that a score is one of the most underrated ways to keep an audience’s attention in a two hour long movie.  Most of the time that a score is lacking movies tend to drag, but somehow No Country For Old Men did the opposite. Even though he has very little to do in this movie I truly do believe that Carter Burwell is the most underrated composer in movies today.  His work goes largely unnoticed because it is not very bombastic or overbearing, but it really is amazing and effective.  The choice to go largely without a score made every gunshot and foot step that much more intense.

Another confusing but defining moment is when Bell visits the scene of Llewelyn’s death at night.  He notices that the doorknob is popped open by Anton who he has not seen.  The Coen’s once again mess with the audience by showing Anton waiting behind the door.  Sheriff Bell knows that this is a dangerous situation but chooses to enter. When he enters he is left staring at his shadow on a wall and then he checks the bathroom to make sure the place is empty.  This scene is done in an ambiguous way that is left for interpretation.  The best conclusion I can come up with is this is an example of Bell flipping a coin to decide his fate.  He chooses because of his duty to open the door.  He sits on the bed and puts his hands through his hair as if to say to himself that he can’t do this anymore.  I feel this scene best exemplifies the title of the movie.  He is beaten down by a world that he feels he no longer belongs in.  Bell probably feels like saying a quote from Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon which is  “I’m too old for this shit”.

The ending of this movie is wrapped up by a retired Sheriff Bell telling his wife the two dreams he could not shake from his thoughts. The interpretation that I get from Bell’s two dreams have to deal with how to deal with the world that we were just presented in the movie.  His first dream seems to me to be a commentary about the fallibility and vanity of youth and how easy it is to take life for granted.  We are given life but we seem to forget that fact in a world that can at times be scary and rough.  The second dream is about needing to be a guide for ourselves and others in a dark cold world.  We need to humbly persevere no matter how hard it can get.  Although the ending is far from what the average viewer wanted, it offers commentary that is taken for granted and does it in an original entertaining way.  I love movies that reward the viewer who choose to think and discuss it afterwards.  Putting the final pieces of the puzzle together are always the most rewarding.

“The only morality in a cruel world is chance. Unbiased. Unprejudiced. Fair.”

—Harvey Dent, The Dark Knight

Carla Jean: The coin don’t have no say. It’s just you.

Anton Chigurh: Well, I got here the same way the coin did.

—No Country For Old Men

There has been a rash of coin-flipping killers in the movies recently—well, only two, but they are from two of the most important and memorable movies of the last decade.

Both titles are in IMDb’s ranking of the top 50 titles of this decade, with The Dark Knight in the top spot—granted the list is severely flawed (Up is No. 2 and Gran Torino is actually on the list), but it is a clear indication that these films had resonance.

The cultural importance of DK and NC is heightened even more when we consider the vacuum in culturally important movies over the last five years. On IMDb, which tends to be incredibly present-biased, most of this decade’s top films come from its first half. Even among the more recent ones, three are Pixar and six are foreign (not that these facts make the films bad or insignificant, just not the types of pictures that resonate with the culture at large), and I don’t think Star Trek or The Hangover will last long on the list.

Basically, DK and NC are on a very short list of recent films that A) most people saw and B) most people liked. So what does it say that these two very successful films came out within eight months of each other and each featured pretty heavy metaphors about chance and morality with regard to leaving a person’s life up to a coin-toss?

Now, granted, it doesn’t have to say anything at all. It could just be a coincidence. It does happen every once in a while that two films with similar plots come out right in a row.

But DK and NC were not really all that similar in design: The latter was a respectable, Oscar-timed release, from one of the most respected directing teams around, adapted from one of the most respected novelists of his generation; the former was another comic book movie, released as a summer blockbuster with a budget over seven times that of NC.

It doesn’t seem like an accident that these two films, very different in conception, actually ended up so thematically similar and (also not by coincidence) so resoundingly successful. No, if movies still say anything about us culturally (and I, obviously, believe they do), then it seems very important indeed.

ALERT: This post contains spoilers pretty much left and right. If you haven’t seen either of these films (shame on you) and you plan to, you probably shouldn’t read ahead.

I. What the Coin Says

 Harvey Dent and Anton Chigurh are two very different characters, but they each use the same basic shtick: Confront a target and flip a coin. If the coin lands one way, you let the target go. If it lands the other way, you, well, don’t.

How they each get there, though, is where they differ.

Harvey Dent is, at heart, a moral character. The Dark Knight really tries to hammer that point home: Dent is the “white knight,” the “best of us,” and “heroic,” before The Joker gets involved. As the D.A. of Gotham, he stands up to the forces of crime and corruption.

Early in the movie a witness in his courtroom tries to assassinate him on behalf of the mob. Dent takes the gun, punches the witness and continues with the trial LATER THAT DAY. The message, in case you really weren’t paying attention, is that Dent does not back down to the bad guys. Even Batman sees him as the ultimate, non-vigilante, unmasked, pure conqueror of the evil forces of Gotham that he himself can never be.

All it takes, however, is one little unfortunate incident like his girlfriend dying in an explosion to turn Harvey around. The Joker arranges for Dent and his girlfriend Rachel Dawes (who happens to be Batman’s former squeeze) to be kidnapped and tied up in buildings with explosives (in one of the many abandoned warehouses that the populate cities where superheroes tend to live). Part of the game the Joker is playing, however, is that these buildings are on opposite sides of the city, and Batman has to choose whom he is going to rescue. Yet another twist is in store, however, when Batman arrives to save Rachel, only to find Dent. As a result, Rachel dies, whereas Dent half-avoids harm, with half of his body unscathed, the other half hideously burnt  from the explosion.

With the loss of his girlfriend (who accepts his marriage proposal seconds before she dies) comes the loss of Dent’s belief in righteousness. Instead of believing in moral order and dignity and all the things Batman and the city of Gotham invested in him, Dent succumbs to the moral vices of vengeance and apathy after the explosion. He embraces the nickname “Two-Face” and embarks on his coin-flipping rampage.

The coin, which was originally a double-sided coin until one side was burnt in the same explosion that took half of Dent’s face (in case you haven’t caught on, subtlety is not a primary concern of DK), becomes a symbol of random cruelty and destruction, where it used to be a symbol of moral fortitude and certainty.

Of course, Dent himself doesn’t really change. Unlike the Joker, who relishes anarchy and destruction, Dent is a whiner. His “embrace” of destruction and random cruelty really consists of a lot of lamenting those things: “How come I was the only one who lost everything?” “You wouldn’t dare try to justify yourself if you knew what I’d lost!” “You thought we could be decent men, in an indecent time….The world is cruel and the only morality in a cruel world is chance.”

In other words, Dent is still looking for some kind of morality, even if it is completely random. He flips a coin because it’s the only “right” thing to do.

Chigurh, on the other hand, is not worried about morality; his only concern is efficiency. Chigurh is a hired gun, a blunt instrument, a weapon. But he’s a very good weapon and very proud of it. When Chigurh finds out that his boss has hired another group of outlaws for the same job he was hired to do (and, of course, all they’ve managed to do was screw it up) he says: “That’s foolish. You pick the one right tool.”

Violence is not fun for Chigurh like it is for the Joker and it is certainly not a way to achieve some moral righteousness, like it is for Dent and Batman. Violence is simply effective. It is disturbing how simple, effective and downright polite his brutality can seem:

He kills people because he has a job to do, and killing someone is the most effective way to do it. It’s not a matter of right or wrong; it’s just what has to happen. The coin tossing is not how he imposes morality—it’s not a trademark like it is with Dent; he only saves it for special occasions—it’s just a matter of determinism. For Chigurh, every murder is simply a matter of fact, as opposed to one of will. He tells a gas-station attendant—whom he has otherwise NO reason to kill—to call a coin without telling him what it’s for: “Do you know what date is on this coin? 1958. It’s been traveling 22 years to get here and now it’s here. And it’s either heads or tails…call it.”

This philosophy is just some sick version of determinism. Either it’s heads or it’s tails. Either I will kill you or you will live. Choice has nothing to do with it. Dealing with another victim (this one does not get the benefit of a coin toss), he tells him: “You should admit your situation. There would be more dignity in it.” In other words, “Everything that will happen to you has already happened. There is no sense in trying to change it.”

II. Visions of the Future

What connects NC and DK, beyond a mere reliance on coin imagery, is that both films present moral nihilism as the inevitable, ultimate victor in the modern context. In No Country for Old Men, the “good guys” of Llewelyn Moss and Sheriff Bell end up dead and defeated, respectively. Chigurh, however, emerges even from his own clash with random violence; in a car crash near the end of the film, he fashions a sling out of a kid’s shirt and walks away, despite having a bone coming through his skin. Chigurh not only perseveres, he takes a principled pride in his victory. When one of his victims calls him crazy, Chigurh asks, “If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?”

Dent, on the other hand, does die. But not before his morality is completely inverted. The tone of the film’s end is decidedly pessimistic, with Batman on the run and Lt. Gordon declaring that, “The Joker won.”

Which brings us to the Joker himself, the most memorable character in both of these films. It seems pointless to reiterate all the positive things said about Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker, but suffice to say: It was really good. I could watch pretty much all of his scenes on loop and be happy. What makes the performance so mesmerizing is the way Ledger taps into the psyche of profound nihilism. Unlike Dent and Chigurh, the Joker represents violence and destruction for the sake of themselves. There is no higher cause, not morality or fate. It’s just fun.

The Joker doesn’t offer anything in the place of what he tears down, he just wants to destroy things. He even says as much to Harvey in the hospital.

This is the starting point of DK, the essence of the world the Joker inhabits. Again, in DK’s nonsubtle style, the Joker is asked in the very first scene, by a banker who is himself a criminal, “What do you believe in?” The answer, of course, is nothing. Nothing besides anarchy and violence.

This profound nihilism resonated with audience members so well because it has been bubbling under the surface of film and culture for years. It was present in Chigurh, it was present in The Departed’s comically violent ending, it was present in Fight Club’s glorification of punching someone in the face because he is your friend, it’s been present in Tarantino movies for over a decade, particularly in the literally hundreds of dead bodies in Kill Bill.

Compare the violence in these films to violence in films of the past. Murder and violence are now done as some kind of hip rejection of something’s authority, either traditional morality, consumerism or Jack Nicholson. Killing is presented as eminently “cool” and “badass” because it is not beholden to any system of value. Compare that to violence in The Godfather, which is a matter of defending your family, or in Apocalypse Now, where Kurtz’s murder is basically a moral judgment, or in Taxi Driver where it is downright naïve in its attempt to liberate a young girl. The violence in those films is anything but morally nihilist.

This is not limited to violent movies. Think of how even recent comedies and nonviolent dramas turn apathy and laziness into heroism (Office Space, Lost in Translation, Sideways). Look at modern television, where the antiheroes (Tony Soprano, Don Draper, Vic Mackey, Dexter Morgan) now greatly outnumber good, old-fashioned heroes.

Just look at regular, day-to-day, mundane life. It’s not violence, but hipster nihilism, the knee-jerk rejection of any popular or established sentiment that permeates everyday interactions. Criticism and rejection are the default response to pretty much everything: the iPhone, print media, The Hills, the blogosphere, Barack Obama, Juno, Fox News. When such contrarianism becomes so pervasive and automatic, when it applies to basically everything, it is, essentially, nihilism. When every fixture of established authority, from George Bush to Sheriff Bell*, is basically seen as hollow and illegitimate, and there is no viable alternative, what is left standing? 

*There is a scene in No Country in which Bell declares that, “Once you stop hearing ‘sir’ and ‘ma’am’, the rest is soon to follow.” How in the world are we supposed to relate to a “good guy” that views bad manners and mass-murder as two of a kind? What kind of outdated moral authority is this? 

The Joker and Chigurh represent the culmination of a trend away from moral assertiveness that goes as far back as Martin Luther (if you can’t tell, I’m aiming for gravity here). Both of them end up surviving because A) they represent such forces of destruction that they, themselves, cannot be destroyed and B) they are really good at what they do. Chigurh is almost appealing in his efficiency and the Joker is just charming. They are the amoral, nihilistic faces of our culture.

III. What’s Left?

Now, obviously not all criticism is nihilistic and amoral. There is always a place for criticism (this is, after all, a BLOG) and the link between criticizing Fox News and blowing up hospitals is, admittedly, tenuous. Some things deserved to be criticized from a moral or practical perspective. The problem, however, is with our obsession with destruction—not physical destruction (because it’s always been enjoyable to watch stuff blow up), but the destruction of established values. Figures like Chigurh and the Joker represent the moral vacuum that results when we rely excessively on criticism and repudiation; they don’t glamorize violence any more than other villains, but they do glamorize the unprincipled and inhuman aspects of it more.

When the default status becomes negation, we’re not seriously engaging the heavy questions. Take this scene from the end of No Country, between Chigurh and Carla Jean Moss, the wife of the man he has just hunted down: 

Of course, Carla Jean is right. He doesn’t “have to” do this. Even if he leaves it to a coin toss, he’s still the one making the choice: “The coin don’t have no say. It’s just you.”

Chigurh’s defense—that he is no different from the coin—ultimately fails. Of course he is different. He is the one coming back based on promises. He is the one choosing which “rule to follow.” No matter how Chigurh acts, he is choosing.

Ultimately, everyone endorses something. Every action, even inaction, is a choice, and therefore an endorsement. You can pretend that you are not committed to anything, that you are aloof and relativist and unfazed, but even that is a choice. The logic of destruction ultimately destroys itself. But not before blowing up a few buildings.

The fact is, evil is just more interesting. And at ‘A Very Expensive Death’ we tend to gravitate to anything worth really talking about. And ‘greatest movie villains’ has always been a great discussion. But not any more, because here is the definitive list. Our Top Ten Greatest Movie Villains of All Time. Which is word…

10. Alex DeLarge, played by Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange 

Like any true villain, Alex’s interests are Beethoven, violence, and rape. In one scene he beats an old man for singing and being drunk in public. In another, he’s brutally raping a wife in front her husband, while singing and dancing to Gene Kelly’s “Singin’ in the Rain”. And this all happens in the first fifteen minutes of the movie. The worst part is, it’s his idea of a fun night out.

9. John Doe, played by Kevin Spacey in Se7en

Although his character is only on film for about twenty minutes, his ‘work’ is displayed throughout. His crimes are inspired by the seven deadly sins and each is more gruesome then the last. And even though he only shows himself in the end, he makes sure it’s just in time for his final and most horrendous act.

8. Jack Torrance, played by Jack Nicholson in The Shining

When Jack Torrance wound up at the Overlook Hotel, he was nothing  more than a bad father, known to slap his kid around when he drank a little too much. But a few weeks at an isolated hotel in Colorado, and he turned into one of the most memorable characters ever put on film. Jack went from a loving dad taking his family on a trip to an attempted murderer, hunting his wife and son with an axe through a frozen maze.

7. Bill The Butcher, played by Daniel Day-Lewis in Gangs of New York

There’s a scene in Gangs of New York where Bill has thwarted an assassination attempt by the movie’s protagonist, Amsterdam. Rather than kill him off and be done with him, he proceeds to repeatedly head butt him in the nose. More unsettling than Bill’s increasingly bloody face, though, is his obvious lack of restraint. It is clear he enjoys the mayhem, and relishes the fact that he’s causing somebody else pain. Unlike most movie villains, Bill is in no way psychotic or delusional. He just loves violence.

6. Frank Booth, played by Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet

Absolutely demented and sadistic just begin to describe Frank Booth. Probably the most unpredictable movie character I have ever seen. So unpredictable in fact, he’s almost frightening. He holds a woman’s son for ransom, and uses the son as leverage to make her perform his sexual fetishes. If that’s not enough, well, there is plenty more. Truly one of the most disturbing characters I’ve seen in a film.

5. Michael Corleone, played by Al Pacino in The Godfather I, II, and III

The most notorious villain in a movie full of them, Michael Corleone is simply ruthless. He may not be your prototypical shoot ‘em, dice ‘em, or even eat ‘em bad guy, but theres no denying his evil. It takes evil to be the head of something so big that’s run on greed and power. Ordering hit after hit. Killing your own brother just because that’s business. You never go against the family, and when you know what happens when you do, why would you even challenge him?

4. Anton Chigurh, played by Javier Bardem in No Country For Old Men

Chigurh is a working man’s villain. He’s just doing his job. But there is more to him than just business, something much more profound. Anton Chigurh is fate, chance, whatever you want to call it. In the same way that time itself is indifferent to pleas of forgiveness and understanding, Chigurh’s justice knows no code and follows no logic. Your only hope is to stay out of his way.

3. Darth Vader, played by David Prowse, voiced by James Earl Jones in the Star Wars trilogy

 Easily the most recognizable and iconic villainess character to ever be put on the screen, Darth Vader is the symbol for all things “dark side”. Able to kill with his mind and summon the ‘force’ for his bidding, his evil potential is just about limitless. In Darth Vader, George Lucas was able to embody everything we might think evil would look and sound like and in a way that is still as popular and relevant today as it was thirty years ago.

2. The Joker, played by Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight 

Heath Ledger’s Oscar-winning performance as a psychopathic clown was one of the most celebrated performances of all time. By virtually disappearing behind the Joker’s trademark grin, Ledger helped push the genre as a whole into a new direction. Comic book villains can be more than just somebody the good guy has to fight, they can carry the whole movie. You want to be with him while he wrecks havoc and destroys the city’s concept of good an evil. You never root for the Joker, and you never sympathize with him. But despite that, you never want him to leave the screen.

1. Dr. Hannibal Lecter, played by Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, and The Red Dragon

If you’re like me, you like your mass murderers to be charismatic, suave, and sophisticated and no one is more so then Dr. Hannibal Lecter. He not only knows which part of the brain to take out to keep you alive but immobile, he also knows which part is the tastiest. This character is simply iconic and is among the most quoted villains on this list. He’s also probably the smartest, which is scary in itself.  

CW, JB

As is customary and considered as good form for blogs, web sites and books this post can be seen as an introduction. Convention also dictates that the author should explain what the purpose of this site is and thus allow the reader to decide whether they should stay and scrutinize the contents or as I suspect will be the case here, move rapidly onwards. Well, I don’t have any great plan for this site. It will be simply a repository for things that have occupied my mind and which I felt should be committed to binary. The value of the subject matter will, I imagine, be of limited value short of my reading what I written – several years down the line – and muttering about the poor grammar and general inanity.

As an example of the varied nature of this enterprise, I have attached a picture of Anton Chigurh for no reason other than he is my current favourite bad guy. Played with laconic iciness by Javier Bardem in the film No Country For Old Men (itself an adaptation of the Cormac McCarthy book), Mr Chigurh is an assassin whose psychopathic single-mindedness is a wonder to behold. If you haven’t seen the film then please go and do so now (it is worth getting the book as well, as McCarthy is arguably the finest contemporary American author. Curiously though, this is one of the very few instances when I am unable to work out which is better, film or book).

Anyhow, the arbitrary nature of The Oubliette will soon become readily apparent. I am currently preparing my thoughts on stinging nettles and also have written an essay on the Synod of Whitby both of which (and much else beside) will be uploaded to the servers of those fine people at WordPress.

All comments are welcome.

Atrás quedará la estrategia de Beatriz Paredes de no responder a las “provocaciones” de Germán Martínez. En el otrora partidazo nos adelantan que, al margen de la dirigente nacional del PRI —y aun contra sus recomendaciones—, los duros de ese partido iniciarán este lunes una agresiva “contracampaña” en la que utilizarán todos los instrumentos legales a su alcance para exhibir las carencias y la incompetencia del “PAN-gobierno”.

El contenido de la contracampaña nada tiene que ver con los criticados spots del tricolor, que hemos visto en los medios electrónicos. Éstos nos muestran a los candidatos con un mensaje más propio de la madre Teresa —“Si nos golpean y descalifican, respondemos con propuestas”—, que de hombres y mujeres en campaña electoral.

La pasividad mostrada hasta ahora por el PRI se transformará en una estrategia de ojo por ojo. No le dejarán pasar “ni una más” al jefe panista, quien fue el protagonista estrella de la campaña por internet, que asociaba al partidazo con los narcos, Germancito.com logró acortar la desventaja del PAN en la intención de voto, según todas las encuestas.

Los halcones del PRI van con todo. Ya contrataron un consultor, al que bautizaron con el misterioso “nombre de guerra” de Antón Chigurh. Nos aseguran que este estratega va a hacer que el famoso consultor español del PAN, Antonio Solá, aparezca como un “perrito inofensivo”.

La decisión, que traduce el hartazgo interno con la estrategia peace and love de Beatriz, se tomó en un cónclave nocturno, al que asistieron notables del PRI, según un documento que nos envió una fuente identificada. “Ciertas decisiones son necesarias”, exponen los halcones en su texto.

Añaden: “Hay que responder de manera contundente a la campaña negra del PAN, la cual ha estado inspirada y dirigida por el consultor español Antonio Solá, a quien el gobierno panista se ha apresurado a darle la nacionalidad.

“Este hombre instrumentó la campaña contra López Obrador acerca de que ‘era un peligro para México’; el no responderle adecuadamente es una de las causas de la derrota de Andrés Manuel. No vamos a cometer el mismo error, de hecho, la decisión, ya pública, es responder con contundencia la guerra sucia del PAN que se encamina no sólo contra Fidel Herrera, Enrique Peña o Manlio Fabio Beltrones, sino contra el PRI, al cual quieren exterminar.”

La primera decisión que tomaron fue buscar al estratega adecuado. Ya lo tienen. Es el misterioso Antón Chigurh. Ya se entrevistaron con él. Así lo describen: “Es demoledor, lo que vimos ahí para enfrentar la guerra sucia del PAN es una contraestrategia implacable. Va a hacer ver a Solá como un perrito inofensivo”, presumen.

La radicalización no la respalda todo el PRI. La gente de Beatriz pide mesura. “Nosotros somos la contra, por lo de contracampaña. Lo único que queremos es darle su merecido al PAN. Jugaron con fuego: ellos son los que, con eso, trajeron a Chigurh. Nosotros sólo lo contratamos. Lo van a soñar los panistas, va ser su pesadilla”, advierte.

• La guerra sin cuartel que libran en Zacatecas Amalia García y Ricardo Monreal, tiene muy preocupados a los perredistas. Saben que los agravios entre la gobernadora y su predecesor —ambos se acusan de narcos— llegaron a un punto de no retorno. La izquierda permanecerá dividida y eso tendrá un costo para el partido del sol azteca.

“Lo que ocurre me duele como zacatecano”, confiesa el senador Tomás Torres, uno de los precandidatos del PRD a gobernador. El legislador lamenta que ambos se hayan olvidado que 2009 (elecciones intermedias) es antes que 2010 (elecciones de gobernador).

¿Los riesgos? Que el PRI o el PAN avancen en las urnas. “Vas a ver cómo Luis Enrique Mercado —el periodista convertido en candidato a diputado del PAN— se va a montar en esto para perfilarse como candidato a gobernador”, vaticina Torres.

- Moraleja de la semana: La impunidad es la madre de todos los delitos.

http://panchogarfias.blogspot.com

The Dude \ Den of  Geek

Get your affairs in order before getting into a spat with one of these fellas…

Published on May 7, 2009

10: Tony Montana – Scarface

Perhaps Mr. Montana should be higher on this list but there is just such a plethora of bad-asses to choose from I had to make room for others. The thing about Tony Montana is that he spends the entire movie being bad-ass, so there really isn’t any argument as to whether or not he should be on this list.  Of course if I were forced to pick one single moment that deems him worthy it would be that great final scene. Tony must know his world is about to come to an end so what does he do? He snorts some cocaine, and lots of it. Then he grabs his, uhh, “little friend” and says hello to his unwelcome guests. Tony then proceeds to blow a few of those guests to smithereens. Unfortunately for our Mr. Montana he runs out of bullets and, well, let’s just say he gets shot. But our hero is not done yet… Tony Montana gets back up and blows some more of his guests to smithereens. But really the thing that makes him so bad-ass is how he dies. It takes a double barreled shotgun from about five feet away to finally bring this guy down, and how does he fall? Into a freaking pool. Very dramatic, very beautiful, and well, very bad-ass.

9: Walter Sobchak – The Big Lebowski

Have you ever been bowling, saw another player’s toes cross the line and decided “Hey. I am going to pull a gun on that guy unless he marks it zero”. Not many people can say they have done that, but Walter Sobchak can say he has done that. Can you get a toe by 3 o’clock this afternoon? Walter Sobchak can. We all remember the scene where they interrogate the little kid and Walter walks outside the house, grabs a crowbar, and after smashing in the windows of a very nice car Walter yells out to the kid “This is what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass!”. When I am sad and lonely I think of that moment and a smile will always stretch across my face. Thank you Walter Sobchak for just being so dang bad-ass.

8: Frank Lucas – American Gangster

Frank Lucas may not spend the entire movie being a bad-ass gangster but he has one defining moment that earns him the number eight spot on this list. Frank Lucas, drug lord and crime boss, is eating breakfast with his brothers and he just decides it is time to show everyone who is boss. He politely excuses himself from the table, leaving his brothers to watch what he is about to do. Frank walks casually up to a man who has disrespected him and, right in the middle of a sidewalk crawling with people, Frank Lucas shoots the man and walks casually back to the restaurant to finish his meal with his brothers. The guys got class. What a scene, what a bad-ass.

7: Sgt. Dignam – The Departed

You see this guy for maybe fifteen minutes during the whole movie, but as you walk away from the movie he is the one you are talking about. He grabs you right from the start and he never lets you go, you find yourself wishing they would have given him more screen time. He throws punches left and right, doesn’t give you a moment to think. I remember driving home from the movie theater after seeing The Departed and thinking to myself “huh”, because honestly I didn’t know what else to think. Dignam found a way to be bad-ass with the way he looked, talked, and even the way he moved. And then, right in the end, after everything that has happened, Dignam makes his presence in the movie unforgettable by showing up in the bad guy’s apartment and taking care of business. He even gives Matt Damon a moment to think before he ends his life. Dignam is a bad-ass with quality.

6: Al Capone – The Untouchables

This dude is just a bad-ass. Robert DeNiro couldn’t have done a better job portraying the most-respected man to come out of the 20s and 30s. Throw this movie in the DVD player next time you get the chance and just wait for that one scene. Capone walks cordially around the table talking about being a team and working together, only he is wielding a bat so something is bound to happen right? You can see it on all the bosses faces, they know its coming, but to whom? Well, then we find out, its that guy. That guy who gets his head smashed in about half a dozen times by Al Capone himself. Can you think of anything that sends shivers down your spine quicker? At least we know Mr. Capone got his point across.

5: Tommy DeVito – Goodfellas

I know I know, another gangster movie. I mean heck, another Scorsese movie, but what can I say, he knows how to create a bad-ass. Doesn’t it just eat you up inside whenever you think about Tommy? I know I get the chills if I sit down and watch this guy at work. Tommy is the kind of bad-ass who always means business. You don’t mess with him. You don’t even mess with messing with Tommy. You have to control yourself, a dirty word or look will get you six feet under even if you’ve been ‘Made’. No one wants to be Tommy, he isn’t that kind of bad-ass. He is the kind of bad-ass that we actually want to stay away from, simply because he is so bad-ass.

4: Walt Kowalski – Gran Torino

Walt Kowalski is a classic All-American Bad-Ass. Walt gets right in your face and says “Don’t fuck with me”. And the thing is, if you do mess with the old dude, something is going to happen. You’re not going to be happy with what happens. Walt makes you pay for your disrespect. Walt is the bad-ass that you respect, and if you don’t, well, you’ll see what happens. He knows the difference between right and wrong, honor and disrespect. He knows how to be a man. He will protect his family and his friends because that is the right thing to do. He just goes about it all very bad-ass. Walt’s just an old time, old fashioned, no-bullshit kinda guy.

3: Tyler Durden – Fight Club

What can be said about Tyler Durden? Expertly portrayed by Brad Pitt, Tyler climbs his way into our souls the moment we first lay eyes on him. Tyler becomes something that words cannot describe. Its just one of those things that you have to see. There is an unspoken bond between everyone who has seen him that no other character has ever created again. We all find ourselves looking in the mirror thinking what it would be like to be Tyler Durden. Tyler Durden is a force that we all know could be out there somewhere just doing whatever it is Tyler Durden does. 

2: T101 – The Terminator

Okay, this guy came from the future to kill a chick. Come on? Can Hollywood ask for anything more than that? If your front door crashes open tonight and The Terminator is standing there, what are you supposed to do? Run? Fight? Pray? I have no clue what I would do but I know it wouldn’t run or fight. The thing that makes Terminator so dangerously bad-ass is that NOTHING MATTTERS. He would never accept a bribe. Give him the information he wants or he will kill you, and even if you give it to him, he will probably kill you anyways. I just need to make sure there is something in my garage that can crush him, or a large vat or molten metal that I could ask him to lower himself into. But we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

1: Anton Chigurh – No Country for Old Men

What would you compare Anton Chigurh to? The Bubonic Plague? What is this guy? The Ultimate Bad-Ass? Who knows where this guy came from? Who knows where this guy disappears to? Anton Chigurh is so bad-ass that even the guy who wrote the book that the movie is based on didn’t tell us anything about him. He just cannot be described, explained, studied, nothing. Anton Chigurh IS the Ultimate Bad-Ass. Anton Chigurh just IS. I would pick a fight with The Terminator before I picked a fight with Anton Chigurh, only because there is no such thing as a fight with Anton Chigurh. Thank you so much Coen brothers for this bad of a bad-ass, and you too Mr. Bardem. Thank you.

denofgeek.com

neil mccauley and chris shiherlis, heat.
one of the best scenes is when neil comes home to his ocean-front home after being out all night and finds chris sleeping on his floor. over a couple cups of coffee they discuss their daily criminal agenda in neil’s unfurnished living room, a couple chairs, hardwood floors, a giant floor to cieling view of the ocean behind them. if it’s your first time seeing the film you have no idea what they are talking about. this scene always gives you dillusions of running a crew and taking scores in l.a.

sorter, revolver
sorter needs his own film. there are only a few scenes in revolver where sorter is the main focus, but he owns them completely and with minimal dialogue. i’d say sorter is one of the best ideas for a pro-killer ever developed. the stutter, the baldness, the glasses. the scene to look for, when sorter walks into this back room where these gangsters are playing poker. he’s wearing blue cover-alls so it looks like he’s a janitor or maintenance personell. he slowly shuts the door behind him, looks around the room very nonchalantly, then calmly reaches into a duffel-bag to pull out a silenced mac 10 and spray every cool dude at the table.

dignan, bottle rocket
dignan is one of my all time favorite characters. i don’t know why, but this guy is cool. he could probably be a great thief if only he had the right crew. throughout the film, dignan remains positive during even the most hopeless of situations. my favorite scene is near the end, when dignan’s crew visits him in jail. as he’s leaving in the line-up and saying goodbye and everything, he starts telling them he’s figured a way to break out and, on his signal, to take out the guard in the tower and then shield him with their bodies because the guards won’t shoot civilians. just when they almost actually do it, he gets this grin on his face because he’s only kidding. the crazy thing was that he almost got them to start commiting felonys in the span of maybe five seconds. plus, dignan wears a yellow jumpsuit for no reason, which is cool.

patrick bateman, american psycho
i guess you couldn’t really label bateman an antihero. he’s more of a jealous, bitter, sadistic, psycho-delusional, cannibalistic music enthusiast, and bale plays his character all too well. the hip to be square axe-murder part is probably my favorite, but as a graphic designer, i also tend to lol at the business card scene.

henri “papillon” charriere and louis dega, papillon
even after numerous failed prison breaks, and even after having been incarcerated for so many years that being a prisoner on devil’s island has become a way of life to everyone else, papillon continues to fight his way out. escape is his constant objective. his mind is relentless, much like the above dignan imo. also, not only does mcqueen make being a prisoner seem cool, but hoffman is phenomenal as dega. some pappillon trivia, supposedly there is a re-make in the works involving r. downey jr. as charriere and p. seymour hoffman as dega.

jake green, revolver
jake green tells you, one thing he’s learned in the last seven years: in every game and con there’s always an opponent, and there’s always a victim. the trick is to know when you’re the latter, so you can become the former.

anton chigurh, no country for old men
chigurh is not exactly an antihero. he’s the primary villian in ncfom, but there are so many good scenes with this guy, and javier bardem is such a good actor, you almost root for him. the lucky quarter, the silenced shotgun hotel slaughter and the pharmacy robbery scenes are the few that spring to mind. also, anton kills people with a pneumatic rod cattle gun, which is probably the most original weapon i’ve seen in a film.

leon, the professional
in his baritone french accent, leon says, the rifle is the first weapon you learn how to use, because it lets you keep your distance from the client. the closer you get to being a pro, the closer you can get to the client. the knife, for example, is the last thing you learn.

jeffrey goines, 12 monkeys
jeffrey is insane. any part of this movie with jeffrey in it is excellent. he flips you off for no reason and if you listen to him long enough he makes sense.

tyler durden, fight club
arguably the most famous of modern antiheroes and alternate personalities. you can’t have an antihero thread and not mention durden, period. a guy who believes that in order to free the world, you must first destroy it.

in the world i see, tyler says, you are stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of rockefeller center. you’ll wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life. you’ll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the sears tower. and when you look down, you’ll see tiny figures pounding corn, laying strips of venison on the empty car pool lane of some abandoned superhighway.

Javier Bardem, ou antes Anton Chigurh, personagem de “Este País não é para velhos” que valeu o Óscar ao actor, vai entrar na melhor série do mundo – que é como quem diz “Os Simpsons”. A personagem vai encarnar o papel de inspector na escola de Springlfield. Parece que já o estou a ver a perseguir os putos com aquela espécie de extintor e a tornar-se o ídolo do Bart, enquanto a Lisa analisa a psicologia do estranho visitante com o pior penteado do mundo. Wicked.

I februari i år misstänks en 45-årig man ha mördat en 38-årig man genom att hålla en slaktmask mot dennes panna och trycka av. 45-åringen ska sedan ha gått därifrån och lämnat 38-åringen, som alltså inte avled direkt, ensam. 38-åringen levde tydligen i 10-12 timmar innan han slutligen somnade in.

Ett bestialiskt och avskyvärt mord och enligt uppgifter ska tydligen mördaren ha en mörk bakgrund. Han har t ex en släkting som redan sitter inne för mord.

Det jag genast tänkte var – “Åh nej! Nu får vi moraldebatt om filmvåld!”

Men ingen tidning överhuvudtaget, vad jag har sett, har tagit upp det faktum att det är med en slaktmask eller bultpistol, som alltså fungerar som så att man kör en kolv in i pannan på sitt offer, som Anton Chigurh avlivar sina offer i No Country for Old Men.

Åtminstonde Aftonbladet hade väl kunnat hitta på en story om att 45-åringen sett No Country och bestämt sig för att göra något liknande. Det brukar de vara duktiga på.

Jag klagar då inte. Lägg hellre debatten på sjuka och psykiskt störda människor som inte tvekar att begå bestialiska handlingar än oskyldiga filmer.

Läs mer:
TTELA
GP
Aftonbladet
Metro

No Country for Old Men de Ethan et Joel Coen