HomeLISA'S BESTS
2. No Country for Old Men
Cormac McCarthy's throat-gripping bestselling
novel, about empty men who chase one
another across a parched 1980 Texas landscape
of drug trafficking and dead-eyed murder, provides a
clear blueprint for any filmmaker up for the challenge
of adapting distinctive literature. Something in
McCarthy's tersely powerful prose has certainly reinvigorated
brothers Joel and Ethan Coen, who temper
their own taste for genre with a new maturity and allow
the mute landscape to speak for itself. And what we
hear is the hush of sorrow. Trusted to make the most
of that silence, Josh Brolin, Tommy Lee Jones, and
Javier Bardem devise memorable variations on a theme
of masculine emptiness — the two-bit corner cutter,
the disillusioned lawman, and the twisted killer.
The Best & Worst of 2007
The year that was: Our choices -- and yours -- for the highs and lows in pop culture
Richard Foreman
