Karin Is a Little Irritated

And I’m going to tell you why.  J So after a lovely day with the family in celebration of Easter, after the brunch, the mimosas, and the wonderful nap, the family and I had leftovers for a lite dinner, and during the meal we were presented with a quandary: What to watch?  Hubby wanted to watch The Passion of the Christ.  And while I have seen the movie in pieces, (what can I say?  I’m a wuss) I was not prepared to watch the movie in its entirety.  I was not in the mood to feel depressed.  Watching those brutal scenes it too much for me.  I find myself very upset, and angry, and it stays with me long after the credits roll.  So The Passion was not an option.

So we jumped right from the frying pan into the fire, because hubby and kids wanted to watch No Country For Old Men.  Okay, so I was overruled. 

Having an inkling of the tone of this movie, I did what I always do with these types of movies: I come and go, and ask questions.  Finally about thirty minutes into the movie when I had come downstairs to watch some more of it, my husband says, “Babe, sit down and watch this.”

“Nah,” I said, “I haven’t decided if I’m emotionally committed to this movie or not.”

See, the last time I watched a movie like this,

Cold

Mountain

, where I emotionally committed? I was devastated by the ending. Be that as it may, wanting to be with my family and not squirreled away up in my office away from them all night, I scooted my daughter over on the sofa, and I watched it.  And as those types of movies are want to be, I, along with my family was completely pissed at the ending.

Spoiler alert.  Nothing, and I mean nothing was resolved.  No one gets the money, it’s anyone’s guess where it is, the bad guy once again walks off wounded, this time with a bone sticking out of his arm, the Brolin character is dead, and so is his wife, along with everyone else in the freakin’ movie. Except the sheriff.  He’s retired and having coffee with his wife at the end.  Oh, and he had a dream. Yeah, I get the dream and the symbolism and all of that, but when the credits began to roll I looked at my husband and said, “What the hell?  That’s’ it?”

I think it was a crummy movie.  It served no purpose.  There was no lesson learned, no redemption, no happy ending on any front for any of the characters.  It was brutal and ugly.  I’m glad I didn’t emotionally commit, because even when the Brolin character got it, I didn’t care.  When his sweet little wife got it?  I just told myself it was a movie.  I’m glad I didn’t pay to see this one.  Am I the only one who feels this way about this movie?

Now, I did happen to see a great moved earlier last week with my daughter.  I was fixing lunch and she was flipping through the channels and we came across nanny McPhee.  Loved it!

So, what is the last movie you watched and found the ending to be less then resolved?

Comments

[Kendra]

I can't think of another movie where I've been so disappointed. And I knew what was coming with NO COUNTRY. I read the book two months ago and loved it--until the end. I told my husband. "Only in literary fiction can they leave all the ends loose and kill the hero and heroine. I want every thing tied up in neat little bows!"

But it's a great literary read. A little frustrating because the author doesn't use apostrophes or quotation marks. But I was amazed how he created powerful characters with so few words. Very heavy on dialogue to reveal character. Truly an example of "less is more." Good book if you quit before the end.

[Sarah]

I threw a pencil at the TV when I watched Pirates of the Caribbean 3. I hated the ending of that movie. I refuse to watch Atonement for that very reason.

[Kalen Hughes]

I'm not a big fan of "downer" films (or books). I get depressed enough reading the news. This is my Netflix queue, but I think I'll pop over and remove it . . .

[B.E. Sanderson]

Ack. That doesn't sound like a movie I'd want to watch. I hate when things aren't resolved (or at least give you reason to imagine how the characters will resolve things). The last movie I watched like that, I think, was Leaving Las Vegas. Oh! Wait! Pay It Forward was the last one. OMG, the ending to that was horrible. My husband and I sat looking at each other thinking "WTF? Is that the end?"

[Brenda]

You're not the only one who hated it, Karin. I hated it, too, and was shocked that my 22-year-old daughter liked it. I mean, do kids really want to walk away with a sick feeling in their stomachs that there's no way to stop the terrible increase in evil, which will eventually win so why not give up and retire (like the sheriff did)?

Also, could you imagine a more black-and-white villain? The guy didn't have to do any of the normal human things, like eat and sleep and struggle in some way. He knew where the "good" guy was at all times, even when there was no homing beacon. There was no hint of humanity in him, but even pschopaths have weaknesses.

I hated it, too!

Brenda

[Barbara Freethy]

Karin - I didn't see it, but my son said exactly the same thing as you, good movie until the end where he thought it was totally unsatisfying.

But Nanny McPhee? seriously? LOL I can't agree with you on that one.

I saw INTO THE WILD this weekend and thought it was really good.

[Karin Tabke]

Yay! It wasn't just me!!! Kendra, I can see how it would make a powerful read--until the last chapter.

Sarah, I had heard it was lousy and as much as I love JD my time is too valuable to sit through a movie that is going to piss me off. :)

Kalen, my recommendation is that you do take it off.

[Karin Tabke]

Beth, the ending to Leaving Las Vegas was horrible! I forget how pay it Forward ended.

and Brenda, right on about the villain. Nothing was human about him. Nothing. How one dimensional is that?

Barbara, I was just telling hubby again what a horrible movie it was. he said, "It wasn't horrible, just the ending was bad." Grrr. So why invest when you get crap for your efforts?
I need a Nanny McPhee fix. I want to see Into the Wild.

[KateMoore]

Karin and all, I didn't see No Country, because I had already been to see There Will Be Blood. There is a resolution, and it's ugly and violent. It is a movie almost wholly without women. The one woman in the movie escapes from bad men who devalue her to the one man in the entire film who has any capacity for love. The hero's inability to love destroys him in the end. So the deal I made with my husband for sitting through that one was--three romantic comedies in exchange. Still counting. We watched Emma on PBS last night. It was wonderful but not untruthful about human flaws. Optimism may be necessary to sustain a society. More on that in Wednesday's blog.

[Karin Tabke]

Kate funny you should mention There Will Be Blood (and not a movie I had on my to be watched list, even more so now). Over the weekend someone said to me, "I had a life changing experience this week. I saw There Will Be Blood." After reading your comments, I'm now afraid of what his life changing experience was.

[Carol Grace]

Karin, good for you coming down on the side of Nanny McPhee instead of No Country. You should be a reviewer so the rest of us can avoid depressing movies. I have Into the Wild in my VCR, am I going to like it?

[MonicaMcCarty]

Karin,
I had to bleep over a bunch of comments and the end of your post because I have NCFOM in my Netflix queue. The last movie we watched that left me blah was Babel--seriously what was all the fuss about? It was compared often to Crash which we LOVED, but Babel was no where as good a movie as that. We recently watched Valley of Elah and Micheal Clayton--both of which we thought were WAY overrated. This years Oscar crop was strange.

[Tracy Grant]

I haven't seen "No Country for Old Men" or "There Will Be Blood" yet. I'm curious to see both of them, because there are some very talented people involved, but I'm expecting either one to put a smile on my face. Sometimes I liked unresolved/ambiguous endings. I love the ending of "Atonement" in both the book and the movie. And I liked the ending of "Pirates III"--I saw it with a friend (also a writer) who hated the ending; we had a long debate over coffee afterwards (and part of the reason I liked the ending was that it did provoke debate).

[Kalen Hughes]

Karin, DO NOT see Into the Wild. Abort! Abort! Disaffected youth wanders off into the woods and starves to death? WTF is that supposed to be worth? If NCFOM was not your kind of flick, I HIGHLY doubt that ITW will suit you.

[MonicaMcCarty]

Kalen,
Too funny. Into the Wild was my favorite movie of last year--I absolutely LOVED it. I even bought the DVD last week. :)

[Kalen Hughes]

Why? I'm honestly curious. The whole thing just seemed so pointless to me. Maybe I missed something? I'd love to know what those of you who liked it saw that I didn't.

[Karin Tabke]

Carol, I was going to watch Into the Wild but since Kalen just told me what it's about, I'm rethinking.

Monica, do tell what you loved about ITW. I know I saw Babel but for the life of me I cant remember it. Michael Clayton didn't look to appetizing to me.
I agree the Oscar crop was strange. Oh, I did watch Elizabeth the Golden Age. It bugged me that they took events which happened over a span of many years and made it look as if it happened in quick succession.

Tracy, you are a brave girl!

Kalen, I always knew you were a marshmallow at heart.

[Pam Rosenthal]

Kalen, I suggest you keep No Country on your queue. I thought it was a good movie.

No, it doesn't resolve anything -- the moral landscape is as bleak as the physical.

But since I write romance and have to be thinking so hard how to resolve things into a kind of dancelike, interwoven ending, I like getting deep into other forms of narrative. And in No Country, the scary tension of how the story progresses and the astonishing strange terseness of the dialog made it a really interesting journey.

I guess I'm the opposite of people who say stuff like "there's enough depressing stuff in real life." I always figure that in art (as opposed to real life), there's room for just about every kind of way to shape a vision.

I like variety -- I've been doing the Sunday night Jane Austen thing and loving it. But then I started ODing a little and wanting a hit, of, oh I dunno... Kafka or something?

[Tracy Grant]

That was supposed to be be "*not* expecting either one to put a smile on my face." Pam, your comments make me even more curious to see "No Country for Old Men."

[Mary]

My son LOVES No Country. He's 16 and he's seen it something like 5 times, and read the book twice. He made me watch it , and I didn't HATE it, but it did stay with me for a long time. I dreamed Javier Bardem's character talked to me about why he was the way he was - that part DID bother me.