The Counselor = Cormac McCarthy + Ridley Scott + (Fassbender + Pitt + Cruz + Bardem et al)

movie set in el paso = sold.

Wasn't terrible, nor particularly good. It depends how you react to the way Cameron Diaz takes over the movie...

Cormac McCarthy sure writes some unfortunate sex talk tho. And I looked at a few pages of the published screenplay, it's longer and more embarrassing there.

Pitt doing cocksure lowlifes p well these days. Also Bardem looks like John Cassavetes in a fright wig.

I thought No Country For Old Men was weak and obvious, lacking fire

you can put this guy in the fire

i don't think he quite "gets" mccarthy (though maybe this film is terrible). and the novel NCFOM is a tight, excellent thriller w/some interesting themes made into a greater movie.

McC gets "gotten" a little too clearly in this film; Cruz:Diaz is very madonna:whore.

(although a madonna who enjoys cunnilingus)

Analogy in my head is how De Palma did great with a Mamet screenplay (The Untouchables) vs. Mamet directing his own material. In this case, it's McCarthy putting his material front and center vs. handing it off to the Coens.

No Country for Old Domino, All The Pretty U-Turn?

There are some crisp lines, and Rosie Perez has a real good scene, but this material isn't anywhere near NCfOM level.

Bilge has it just about right (dammit, i shoulda come up with Brian Grazer, if Hollywood freaks were ever much in my head):

http://www.vulture.com/2013/10/movie-review-the-counselor.html

so yeah, ppl expecting a Tony Scottish movie will be kicked to the curb by this one. GOOD.

i don't think he quite "gets" mccarthy (though maybe this film is terrible). and the novel NCFOM is a tight, excellent thriller w/some interesting themes made into a greater movie.

Pah. I haven't seen The Counselor, but I'll take any opportunity to try to puncture NCFOM's balloon. The novel is neither tight nor excellent, it's hamhanded and uncommitted to its genre. (The Road is much better as a genre piece, because it does commit.) The Coens' movie has most of the same problems as the book, imo. But it takes less time to watch than read, so an improvement on that count at least.

I love McCarthy when he's good, recoil from him when he's overblown, and the problem is that he's usually both within the space a few pages or paragraphs. That said, Blood Meridian is an amazing piece of sustained writing. Barely a false note in it.

(Also, No Country is the one where McCarthy's assorted prejudices are most naked and unredeemable.)

The novel is neither tight nor excellent, it's hamhanded and uncommitted to its genre.

seemed like average Stuart Woods airport potboiler

film was a def improvement

this one's pretty nakedly 'reactionary' too, but as BE says evrything's so symbolic it's not as directly offensive.

Always amusing to me when serious novelists finally dip their toes into films and realize, jeebus, there's a lot more money for a lot less work! See: Richard Russo, Michael Chabon ...

xpost Agree on Blood Meridian. Fuck a film adaptation, that book is a marathon of literary violence.

Pah. I haven't seen The Counselor, but I'll take any opportunity to try to puncture NCFOM's balloon.

http://i.imgur.com/gowD7A0.gif

Agree on Blood Meridian. Fuck a film adaptation, that book is a marathon of literary violence.

yeah he'll never top it

good god such a great book

ncfom is such a good book. God damn what a classic.

lol: http://www.miami.com/039the-counselor039-r-article

Every movie's like, cheetahs on a gold leash.

DICKDICKDICKTORINO

HEY WRONG THREAD

critical roundup of alleged thread topic

http://www.fandor.com/blog/daily-ridley-scotts-the-counselor

i was kinda trepidatious going in but i really dug this! if someone had told me in advance that there was a scene-stealing john leguizamo cameo, i wouldn't have been worried. it's very mccarthy, so much so that im not sure ridley knew what to do with it at times. but it's good.

i guess the "insanely verbose" dialogue doesn't annoy as much if you accept that all the characters (cept those drips Fassy and Cruz) all sound like CM, the way Woody Allen characters sound like him.

also ppl couldn't follow the plot, wtf?

ncfom is flawless and p much without a view on morality imo

$8 million weekend, even worse than expected

Even with Brad Pitt, does the multiplex crowd really want to see a movie that gives the impression of being another No Country For Old Men?

now with pretty movie stars dying horribly

on my way out this really country white chick was saying to her bf "... i wouldnt have even wanted to see it if brad pitt wasnt in it!"

A friend/colleague just told me that its more fun to analyze than it is to watch.

Andrew O'Hehir, not at all prone to hyperbole

http://www.salon.com/2013/10/26/meet_the_worst_movie_ever_made/

(you shdn't read that if u intend to see. also he just gets some of the narrative WRONG i bleeve)

Heh. The same friend I was just talking to referenced that review.

so this is basically breaking bad except with the actual human beings replaced with blinged-out thriller caricatures?

i cant tell if your asking b/c uve seen it or bc u havent

i've seen the trailer

that may be enough

I liked the sort of stillboen quality it had

Don't get me wrong, it will not be in my top 40 films of this year

I shouldn't have been STOKED

A solid B. but yeah: almost more fun to think about than watch.

Reviewing tonight, will post when it runs.

the cheetahs look cool, might see it just for the cheetahs

On my way to a 9:50 show.

Loved it, basically.

"Redemption" is the most overused word and concept in Hollywood today, and here's a story with no opportunity for it. Plus, the movie is all consequences to decisions that we barely see--we're just seeing the aftermath.

Would be very interested in hearing how the movie goes over in the Southwest and in Mexico.

Also found the most moving scene (vague here, not spoiling) was a moment late in the movie when he's most alone and most in danger and discovers that he's actually not alone and has something in common with a huge chunk of society, at least south of the border.

"Don't even think i'm making this up. You can't make this up," Bardem's character says about the car-fucking, but the same thing holds true time and time again in the stories in the 'drugs, murder, and mexico' thread.

This review basically spoils everything but makes the case for it being better than 12 Years A Slave as stories of unstoppable cruelty.

oh hey I just figured out what was on that DVD

lol

what'd you think he was crying about? Bunheads being cancelled?

psyched

http://www.uproxx.com/filmdrunk/2014/01/cormac-mccarthys-ex-arrested-brandishing-gun-pulled-vagina-dispute-aliens/

Yeah I'll be checking out the longer cut. Hopefully there's not more of *that* scene.

this was terrible imo. everyone in it is miscast, save maybe penelope cruz. the dialogue is the major problem, a brisk no thank you sir to the extended cut

More like michael miscastbender and javier boredom and brad shit in this one, thanks for nothing boremac mcsharty

so who has watched the expanded version, and...?

Eszterhas scripts are better.

Four-hour commentary track.

HBO Max has the extended version (20 minutes longer), though you have to search under extras to the page to find it. Much better than the original cut.

Reminds me structurally of Gomorrah as far as a collage of how many people have jobs to make a smuggling operation happen.

Yes, that was the most canny thing about the movie: the way that the scenes of abstract philosophical speech were interspersed with scenes of people going about the operation with minimal or functional dialogue, a really striking contrast.
One of my least favourite things in this is the trope of the powerful evil guy who says, "I know you don't want me to do this evil thing, but fate makes it inevitable". There's a lot of interesting stuff in this movie, but I'm not convinced its moral compass is any more evolved than Mötley Crüe's "Dr. Feelgood".

I love this movie. I own the director's cut Blu-Ray. I don't need an evolved moral compass from a movie whose entire message is "fuck around and find out."

I should rewatch this.

I watched the 138 minute cut. Somehow I had completely blanked on both the movie and McCarthy's connection -- total "wait, what?!" when his name appeared.

Cormack McCarthy filmed as a big, expensive capital-G Giallo sure sounds like a great idea, but every director eventually misses threading that needle of misunderstood masterpiece or camp classic. It's manic and feeds off of its own energy now and then, but I think I like the writing about this more than I do the actual film.

"Bardem looks like John Cassavetes in a fright wig." -- I miss Morbs.