Man, the subject lines of my junkmail are just getting better and better. There’s a thousand monkeys out there, and they’re cranking out something, anyway. But, not what I’m here to say this time. What I’m here to say: Woody Harrelson makes movies better. NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, though he’s just in it for a bit, coudn’t have really happened without him either, I don’t think. To say nothing at all of the over-the-top just plain old coolness of having Stephen Root and Barry Corbin in the same movie. I mean, on-screen it was CHEERS and NEWSRADIO and NORTHERN EXPOSURE, all swirling around in some THREE BURIALS OF MELQUIADES ESTRADA-version of Tommy Lee Jones. Excellent. Loved it. More than the novel even. Too, just as an example of the Coen Brothers’ attention to detail this time around: when Chigurh’s studying Moss’s phone bill, the area code for Odessa is “915,” which is what it was in 1980 (and up until a few years ago). I don’t know — give the Coens a good, dry place, and they’ll cook you up a good movie, I think. RAISING ARIZONA, BLOOD SIMPLE. Maybe in the desert, whether the horse has a name or not, the only thing to really focus on is a craggly face and a sarcastic line or two, delivered perfectly then punctuated by a lot of nothing. Which the Coens can handle and handle well.
Anyway, I likely scribbled down a lot more to say about this (I saw it yesterday, and that page in my notebook’s already deep-buried under lots of surely-good ideas and irreplaceable lines), but I hate to work off notes, so I’ll leave it at this.
Oh, and too: new story up at Bare Root Review. The Fatherland is Rich and Varied. Up next: either “The Sons of Billy Clay,” from Doorways, or “Hell on the Homefront Too,” in Cemetery Dance. Both horror.
And, keep your eyes open and your credit cards handy for the DVD of THE GIRL NEXT DOOR. As disturbing an experience as it was reading Ketchum’s novel, I hear the movie’s maybe even more intense, indelible, all those scary words. Anyway, I know that this is the first movie in a long time that I’m actually a bit scared of just seeing. Really, I think the last one, for me, would have been THE OMEN, forever and a day ago. Seen a lot of other stuff that hit me hard, but it kind of snuck up on me too (THE RING, THE EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE, etc). This time, I guess, I have the pleasure of dreading the experience. Wish me luck.
is the NYT bestselling author of 35 or so books, +350 stories, some comic books, and all this stuff here. He lives in Boulder, Colorado, and has a few broken-down old trucks, one PhD, and way too many boots. More