The last two movies that I have seen in the theaters have been very dark, violent and included characters who personify the purest forms of evil. I have not seen characters who made me so uneasy just by their presence on the screen. When my good friend Drew Kreeger made a visit to Seattle from Germany two weeks ago, we decided to go see There Will Be Blood with Daniel Day Lewis and that kid from Little Miss Sunshine. Not the cute little girl but the kid who goes ape-shit in the car after finding out he can’t see colors. The movie is basically about the expansion of the United States and the discovery of oil in the early part of the twentieth century. More specifically, the movie is about a certain enterpreneur named Daniel Plainview who is shrewd, determined, and purely evil (although this does not make the character simple, his evil is most certainly complex). He is able to manipulated and take advantage of entire communities, co-workers, friends, even his own adopted son who he only raises so to have a cute face around for possible buyers. Lewis does an incredible job and even though the story itself can be slow, the movie is worth the price of admission just to see him perform and completely capture your attention for three straight hours. I found out later it was three hours long and found that hard to believe because I was so into the entire experience. Sidenote: Johnny Greenwood scored the soundtrack. And, as we know, whatever Johnny Greenwood touches turns to gold. The other sunflowery film I attended was No Country For Old Men, adapted from the book by Cormac McCarthy. The plot of this movie involves a average-Texan dude who runs across a drug deal gone wrong and ends up with about 200,000 dollars in a black bag. The only problem is that there is a psycho killer on his trail trying to get that money back. The movie was very well done is many respects, but the best and most intriguing part of the movie was Antoine Chugar: the hit man hired to find the money and kill the unlucky man who has it. More than any other psycho killer character (Kevin Spacey in Seven, Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs, you name it) that I have seen, Chugar had me genuinely nervous any time he was on screen. If he (Javier Bardem) does not win Best Supporting Actor, well, I don’t what, but it won’t be good. Both of these movies address how evil can enter people and how possible (if at all) it is for it to ever escape. Is it choice? Is it fate? Does it have to be this way, and how does one make it different? The most interesting scene in No Country took place near the end in a dialogue with Chugar and a woman he has come to kill and it addresses some of these issues. It goes a little something like: Woman: You know, you don’t have to do this. Chugar: They all say that. Woman: Say what? Chugar: You don’t have to do this? Woman: Well, you don’t Chugar offers to flip for it. Chugar: This is the best I can do. Call it. Woman: No. I ain’t gonna call it. That coin has nothing to do with you doing this. Chugar: This coin got here the same way I did. If you don’t mind violence (especially in No Country) want something a little outside of the box, and want to see the personification of evil, I would definitely recommend going to see these two movies. Definitely two of the best movies I’ve seen all year.
