Okay, I can barely contain my excitement. It is literally like trying to stuff a sleeping bag back into its carrying case (or an umbrella, your choice). I have been quietly freaking out for several months now at the prospect of the adaptaion of "No Country for Old Men", the newest Coeh brothers movie. I knew it was comng, but I had no idea it was coming NEXT WEEKEND!!!!! While I am embarassed to admit that I have neither read this nor any other Cormac McCarthy novel (which I plan to do immediately - I want to read this before the movie comes out), I have seen every single Coen brothers film at least once. Yes, even The Ladykillers, god help me (I think I have written before about how a major fuck-up only further endears those I love to me because it makes me feel better about myself - e.g. I could kiss Martin Amis for writing Night Train). I would estimate that I have seen Raising Arizona well over 100 times. I often get that Barton Fink feeling. My entire vocabulary is littered with Coen-isms. I will never "be right back" - no, I will always "be back directly." Nine times out of ten, when Orangello meows to me, I say "Ju said it mah, don fuck wid da jesus." I have not called a white russian a white russian for some time now. I often implore Bunches to look into his heart. Food is not good, but "pretty darn good." And so on.
The fact that Javier Bardem is starring in this new film only quintuples my excitment. I love, love, love him and think he is not only one of the handsomest men to ever draw breath, but also one of the greatest actors to ever grace the screen. I find it difficult to think of "Before Night Falls" without sobbing uncontrollably.
The sense that he conveys of a free spirit embarking on life with wild-eyed enthusiasm, drinking up experience and just truly living, and the sense of that free spirit being crushed by the man, the way the life and color and expression and joie de vivre drains from his face by the end of the film... it is so fucking heartbreaking that I actually think it made me cry harder than Jack Twist in Brokeback (am I alone in thinking Jake Gyllenhaal really nailed that shit? God he was just so sweet and optimistic and then so horribly, horribly crushed, and the fact that you don't see it, and it's kind of vague..oh man...). Javier made me forgive Julian Schnabel for both Basquiat (Julian, you WISH you looked like Gary Oldman, and, hate to say it, David Bowie's Warhol is a distant third to Crispin Glover's [#2] and Jared Harris's [#1], and please somebody fold Claire Forlani into a paper airplane and throw her into the caves at Tora Bora, post haste!! I can't believe John Favreau called her skanky irritating ass that many times and was actually bummed that she dissed him. Score, I say!) and those fucking broken dishes paintings. Javier was straight-up ROBBED of the Oscar for that role. ROBBED, I tell you! Yeah, Gladiator whupped major ass and made me actually want to sit on Russell Crowe's short obnoxious Australian wanker lap for a minute, but Oscar-worthy? Over BARDEM? NO! His NOSE deserves a fucking Oscar, for god's sake. Best Performance by a Nose in a Real Life Role.
I am not a violent person, but Javier's rugby nose has made me contemplate on more than one occasion hitting Bunches in the face with a shovel in an attempt to recreate it (and he has a nice broken nose already). Growing up, my parents had this really cool black horse's head sculpture that looked really fancy and heavy but was in fact really light like those fake rocks they would stack up all around Adam Curry/Ricky Rachtman on the Headbanger's Ball set. I was always fascinated by the beautiful lines of that horse's face - it didn't look like a real horse, but more like a horse as painted on a Greek vase (a krater or an amphora or whatever - yeah I took Art History 101, so what?). Javier Bardem looks exactly like that horse. I used to sit and run my hand along its smooth flat black nose, sometimes with my eyes closed. If I ever meet Javier, I will ask him if I can do the same thing to him. And I will now resist the urge to talk about running my hand aong other parts of him with my eyes closed. Fuck, I mentioned it!!! Sorry, but me gusta, Me really, really gusta.
In closing, here's hoping that a) No Country for Old Men is the return to form for the Coen brothers that people are saying it is, b) Javier wins an Oscar this time, like people are saying he will, and c) I make it to next weekend without spontaneously combusting out of sheer excitement as I am thinking I might.
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