No Country for Old Men [Collector's Edition] – Blu-ray Disc Review

April 8, 2009 – 4:19 PM - Posted by: Justin Sluss

Tags: Coen Brothers, Digital Copy, Disney, Ethan Coen, Garret Dillahunt, Javier Bardem, Joel Coen, Josh Brolin, Kelly Macdonald, Miramax, Tommy Lee Jones, Woody Harrelson

has an average rating of 8.3 on IMDb
1080p in AVC MPEG-4 on a 50gb disc
DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio
are worth the “Double Dip” for fans
–
– 2007
– 122 minutes
– Miramax (Disney)
–
This uses 24.9GB for the movie out of 37.6GB total.

Overall Verdict – Worth a “Double Dip” for Fans

Buy it for $24.49 @ Amazon.com

— Review written by: Justin Sluss —

The Movie Itself is Written for the screen , Produced and Directed by (brothers) Joel and Ethan Coen. The film’s Screenplay is based on the Novel by Cormac McCarthy of the same title, “No Country For Old Men.” In the past The Coen Brothers have brought us such classic films as 1987′s “Raising Arizona” , 1996′s “Fargo” and even 1998′s “The Big Lebowski“. I’ll start things off before describing the plot to the film by saying this does have a dark nature to it and even The Coen Brothers themselves said it’s the closest thing you’ll ever see to them doing a “Horror” film. Now the story takes place in West Texas during 1980, we’re started out with opening narration from “Sheriff Tom Bell” (played by Tommy Lee Jones) describing the current state of crime in his town. In that very same town a man named “Llewelyn Moss” (played by Josh Brolin) is out having some recreational time hunting when he just happens to stumble upon the scene of a drug deal gone incredibly wrong. In the massive amount of blood and chaos he manages to find a truckload of heroin and a suitcase that contains 2 MILLION DOLLARS in cash. He flees home with his money and thinks he’ll lay low and get away with 2 million bucks, he’s wrong.

He can’t stop himself from returning to the scene of the crime and in that process he encounters his first threat, some of the guys involved in the drug deal that went bad, obviously wanting their money back. Moss manages to escape them but what’s about to be his next threat is a man that is virtually unstoppable by the name of “Anton Chigurh” (played by Javier Bardem) who’s been hired to return the missing money (that Moss has). Chigurh (pretty much pronounced “Sugar“) likes to shoot first and take names… well never really. He is rather fond of sometimes having a weak spot and letting someone decide their fate (life or death) in a coin toss but usually he’s more likely to use his air gun (similar to the bolt guns used to kill cattle) or his vast array of many different silenced guns. While all this is going on our local County Sheriff that I mentioned earlier, Bell is investigating the scene of the crime and left a little bit confused by this and the times he’s living in as well (hence the name “No Country For Old Men” and the opening narration by his character).

This all sets us up for our three main characters in a not-so-classic game of “cat and mouse” that at times feels like it’s never ending. Our “bad guy” in this film is relentless like a “Terminator” almost. This easily makes him one of the baddest motherf!@#ers in a movie in quite some time. He’ll definitely leave you just a tad be frightened I’m sure. Speaking of which, Javaier Bardem (who plays that character) does an amazing job here along with fellow actors Tommy Lee Jones and Josh Brolin. All three actors really give their most to this picture and really make it all blend together in an awesome way.

This film is Nominated for 8 Academy Awards including Best Picture (Drama), Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor (Javier Bardem), Best Cinematography, Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing and Best Film Editing. Film Critic Roger Ebert called it “FLAWLESS” and it was also named Best Picture of the Year by the Washington, D.C. Film Critics, Boston Film Critics and Chicago Film Critics to just name a few. This is a serious contender for walking away with the most “Oscars” this weekend and it’s for a very good reason. The reason is that this film is very solid, intense with a good screenplay that will keep you interested all the way through and is also some of the most intriguing work The Coen Brothers have done yet. This is a definite MUST SEE film, do yourself a favor and give it a watch, see what all the talk really is about.

Video Quality on this release is 1080p in AVC MPEG-4 on a BD-50 (50 gigabyte Dual-Layered Blu-ray Disc). First thing I’ll start off with saying is this film has amazing cinematography as it is, it’s transferred (translates) nicely into Hi-Def here. We get a very solid black level to the picture, at times some film grain and noise but never any real problems with compression issues like artifacts or pixilation. There’s a somewhat vibrant color palette which shows off the beautiful backgrounds as the cinematography was clearly aiming to do and flesh tones are perfect. There’s a great amount of detail to be found here in the Hi-Def video presentation, it has a very pristine clear picture quality to it just as the studio claims their Blu-ray titles do in advertisements (usually that start up at the beginning of all Disney Blu-ray titles).

It’s safe to say this has some really nice (yet disturbing at times) visuals to go along with the awesome (Oscar nominated) film. Honestly, it’s no surprise to me that I’m giving this a “4.5 Star Rating” for video quality. It didn’t totally “blow me away” but it certainly came pretty damn close, I’ll say that much! Great job on this transfer from Disney (Miramax).

Audio Quality on this release, the second time around is in DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio as opposed to the previous PCM 5.1 @4.6Mbps and Dolby Digital 5.1 @640kbps found on the original Blu-ray Disc release. The most important thing to start off noting here is that this is totally a dialogue driven film in the sense that it has absolutely no Score or Soundtrack (music) at all. It’s obviously very important that it be delivered clearly. Safe to report, this has no problems what-so-ever with delivering the dialogue, it comes across PERFECTLY.

Sound effects times come across really well in the rear channel surround presence but aren’t really present that often throughout the film. You’ll usually only hear something come out of the rear channels in the more climatic scenes of the film. The sound effects (along with the film’s plot) are sure to leave you on the edge of your seat throughout the film and maybe even jumping out of your seat as well. The sound of gunshots (even when a silencer is being used) come across very intense and grab your attention in a very lifelike manner. My favorite sound effect in the film has to be the air canister that the “Anton Chigurh” character (played by Javier Bardem) uses throughout his rampage. Explosions, occasional gunfire and other sound effects all sound EXTREMELY lifelike here. The change from uncompressed PCM to the lossless DTS-HD MA codec seems to been worth it and makes for a perfect sound presentation easily worthy of a “5 Star Rating“. Way to go Disney on improving an already amazing sounding film.

Bonus Materials are sadly only presented in Standard Definition MPEG-2 video quality and Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo sound.

• Digital Copy is included of the film which is compatible with both iTunes and Windows Media (Mac and PC). This is a really nice addition to see which serves as the cherry on top, hence I placed it here.
• “Working with the Coens: Reflections of Cast and Crew” (8:07) starts out with Javier Bardem discussing how he wanted to work with them and how excited he was to do this film. We get more interviews with the cast and crew obviously as well as the two guys themselves, Joel and Ethan Coen.
• “The Making of No Country For Old Men” (24:29) includes obvious interviews with Joel and Ethan Coen discussing what inspired them to make this into a movie and the stuff that happened to make it a reality. This includes interviews with the main cast Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem and Josh Brolin.
• “Diary of a County Sheriff” (6:44) obviously focuses on our main character in the film played by Tommy Lee Jones (“Sheriff Bell“) and shows some comparisons between him and our criminal “Anton Chigurh” played by Javier Bardem.
• “Josh Brolin’s Unauthorized Behind-The-Scenes” (9:19) gives the viewer a inside look hosted by the star of the film. Brolin discusses making the film, the perspective of his character and of course himself.
• “Press Timeline” is a multimedia feature that includes videos, audio recordings and so forth in effort to timeline the film’s creation and promotional tour. Because of the variety of video and audio material, I’ll note “Audio Only” beside the runtimes for radio programming, etc. This feature proves to be rather extraordinary and is split up into the following sections below or you can just pick a random one by selecting “Call it, Friend-o” option.
- 10.26.07 – “Lunch with David Poland” (26:30) is an episode of the British show with stars Josh Brolin and Javier Bardem as guests, discussing the film.
- 11.06.07 – “L.A. WGAW Q&A Panel” (24:13) includes Director’s Joel & Ethan Coen, stars Kelly Macdonald, Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem and last, late, but far from least Tommy Lee Jones. This is a definite MUST-WATCH for fans of the Coen‘s and/or the film itself.
- 11.06.07 – “Variety Q&A (3:08) is rather short for a Q&A session but is still worth the watch. This includes interviews with stars Kelly Macdonald, Josh Brolin and Javier Bardem.
- 11.08.07 – “EW.com Just A Minute (12:55) is from magazine Entertainment Weekly‘s website and as you can tell runs well over a minute. This includes an interview with star Javier Bardem discussing the film.
- 11.09.07 – “Creative Screenwriting Magazine” (21:25 – Audio Only) is from the radio broadcast hosted by Jeff Goldsmith and includes Director’s Joel and Ethan Coen as guests, discussing the film.
- 11.09.07 – “NPR’s All Things Considered” (4:44 – Audio Only) gives an excerpt of the episode of the popular radio show which was originally broadcast on November 9th, 2007. NPR‘s Michele Norris interviews Josh Brolin who discusses the film.
- 11.14.07 – “ABC Popcorn with Peter Travers” (14:51) gives us a look at the film with popular film critic Peter Travers who is joined by stars Kelly Macdonald, Josh Brolin and Javier Bardem. I will say the video and audio quality here are a tad bit sketchy at times but the interview itself makes this worth the watch.
- 11.20.07 – “In-Store Appearance” (40:31) includes stars Javier Bardem and Josh Brolin. This “in-store appearance” seems to have been for retailer likely of some sort. Either way this is worth watching, especially for fans of the two actors.
- 11.21.07 – “Charlie Rose” (22:33) gives us a full episode of the popular show on which Director’s Joel and Ethan Coen sit down with Rose to discuss the film. A definite MUST-WATCH bonus material.
- 12.01.07 – “WNBC Reel Talk with Lyons & Bailes” (10:02) has a very decent interview, one-on-one with star Josh Brolin discussing his career and the film.
- 12.16.07 – “Channel 4 News” (3:45) is a news story done on the film by an English news channel. Directors Joel and Ethan Coen sits down for a brief interview here discussing the film a bit more truthful than they did with American press.
- 12.19.07 – “KCRW The Treatment” (28:30 – Audio Only) is an episode of a radio show on a Santa Monica, California station. The show is hosted by Elvis Mitchell and features interviews with Joel and Ethan Coen.
- 1.17.08 – “NPR’s Day to Day” (6:37 – Audio Only) is a excert from the NPR radio show’s feature on the film. NPR‘s Alex Cohen gets to interview star Javier Bardem, who had just won an “Oscar” (Academy Award) for the role. This proves to be very much worth a listen.
- 1.27.08 – “Spike Jonze Q&A” (1 hour) has another filmmaker, Spike Jonze hosting/moderating a “Q&A” session with the Coen Brothers. This is very in-depth and includes interviews also with Roger Deacons, the sound and production crews that worked on the film.
- 2.07.08 – “NPR’s All Things Considered” (7:49 – Audio Only) is yet another excerpt from the popular radio show discussing the film. This time around we get an interview with Executive Producer Scott Rudin who also worked on “There Will Be Blood” along with this film. The NPR report was originally broadcast on February 7th, 2008.
- 2.09.08 – “NPR’s Weekend Edition” (5:32 – Audio Only) has an excerpt from the radio show and features an interview with Director’s Joel and Ethan Coen hosted by NPR‘s Scott Simon.

Overall the package of supplemental materials we get here is a definite improvement over those included in the original Blu-ray release. The timeline feature is very impressive and should inspire more filmmakers and/or studios to go this far on future “Collector’s Edition” re-releases on Blu-ray Disc.

Blu-ray Disc packaging:

Screenshots:

NOTE: The full-sized 1920×1080 files are in a .PNG file format and uncompressed. Bare with the slow loading times, keep in mind these files are at least 1MB (1 megabyte) in size each.

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