(500) Films of Empire - Day 215

380 - Rain Man - 4 stars
Yet another example of me creating a scene in my mind that doesn't exist in the actual film. I had imagined a scene where Dustin Hoffman is at the casino table, hitting his head repeatedly and shouting "gotta leave the table, definitely gotta leave the table". Does this exist somewhere? Was it a spoof? An impressionist? Anyone remember this or did I invent it? Answers of a postcard please...
The film I did see was an incredibly moving road trip with the definitive performance of someone with a disability from Dustin Hoffman as the autistic Raymond Babbit. It really opened the floodgates to this type of role that would end up being spoofed in Tropic Thunder, "Never go full retard".
What surprised me in the film was how good Tom Cruise was. He starts off as an arrogant prick but goes through a genuine change over the course of the road trip. People need to give him more credit as an actor and stop focusing on the crazy Scientology.

228 - No Country For Old Men - 4 stars
The greatest skill of the Coen Brothers in this film is the way that they make the characters and dialogue written by Cormac McCarthy sound like Coen characters.
A lot of people I know were really annoyed by the ending. I won't spoil it but there were many an audible "Is that it?", but that is the same as the book and typical of the Coen's (see also A Serious Man).
The three leads of Brolin, Bardem and Jones are all terrific (even when they don't actually share any screen time together) but the movie belongs to Bardem in the same way that Christoph Waltz walked away with Inglourious Basterds.

Bardem's hideously coiffured assassin is an unstoppable killing machine, if somewhat slightly eccentric in his methods. At one point Woody Harrelson pops up to tell Brolin what he faces in the form of Chigurh;
"What's this guy supposed to be? The ultimate bad-ass?", "No, you don't understand"... I half expected him to say "Chigurh is out there. He can't be bargained with. He can't be reasoned with. He doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And he absolutely will not stop until you are dead."

Days remaining - 150 Films remaining - 190