Get rich quick schemes used to be reserved for late night television preaching riches if you mailed a nominal sum for the packet containing instructions on how to master said system. Currently at all hours of the day can you find someone promoting a “system” or insider knowledge that has as much to do with chance as anything else.

Surprisingly this is a main theme of the Coen Brothers’ latest film No Country for Old Men. Llewelyn Moss (James Brolin), arguably the main character, stumbles on a drug deal gone the way most movie drug deals go – poorly. A number of poor moral decisions lead him to finding a large sum of money that belongs to another man Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) who is probably the most terrifying villain since Robert Mitchum in both the 1962 Cape Fear and Night of the Hunter. Llewelyn’s desire to hold on to the $2 million leads him running down a path for his own life and the life of others.

As always with a film by the Coens the dialogue is the strongest point of the film and technically this is probably their best work. The big gripe about the film is the ending. It doesn’t really have one but at the same time it does. Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) opens and closes the picture with a monologue. By paying attention to his scenes additional themes begin to develop and emerge from the story. The film isn’t so much plot driven - although it is for 80% of it - but revolves around the characters and their traits.

If you go in expecting everything to be tied up in a nice package like National Treasure then you will be disappointed. No Country for Old Men is closer to John Steinbeck’s East of Eden where the aforementioned Nicholas Cage project is closer to Where’s Waldo. The man in the striped red and white costume is there on the page, you just need to keep your eyes open. Steinbeck requires you to dig a bit deeper and examine the story and not just on the superficial Cain and Abel that they make reference to multiple times.

No Country for Old Men has layers of depth and meaning to it but it will require some work on the viewer’s part to dissect it. It is definitely worth seeing and might be one of the big winners come Oscar Night.

**** (4/4)

Guess who’s got a new name!?

Well, not a new name, per se, but a new address. Misc. Asst. is now located at www.MiscAsst.com!

Where we were once an extra phantom limb on the driscocity.com site, we’re now our own entity, no longer tied down to the driscocity domain and free to be you and me.

Nothing much more has changed, yet. The upcoming four day weekend could promise a new layout and some added search features. But until then, be happy with the new site.

Update your RSS feeds as well: Misc. Asst. RSS feed

Okay, I’m getting things figured out around here. Unfortunately, I haven’t been as welcoming as I had hoped.

So, first of all, let’s welcome the new guys.

Deane from Gadgetopia was the first non-site-running-guy to write a post on Misc. Asst. once it relaunched. (And by relaunch, I mean “not changing a thing but actually posting.”) He is a real blogger and he does web stuff too, and since Gadgetopia is pretty well known, actually, he can give Misc. Asst. some legitimacy.

Yeah right.

Randall - an old grade/middle/high school classmate - is blogging straight from Japan. His posts will be several hours behind. Or ahead? Dunno.

Tevin is some kid. Just kidding. He’s a well spoken kid, still in high school, who cracks me up every time he says something. He’s the resident LOLcat guy, I fear, but I think that’s okay. He’s learning to write the same way I did - a little bit, every day.

Finally, Tim is an old friend. He’s in DC, and he likes Hot Water Music, if you couldn’t tell. It seems as though he’s sporting an odd Kerouac-esque train-of-thought rambling style that I couldn’t replicate if I tried. Welcome, Tim. Next, write a post about The Boss, please.

So, with those out of the way, one more — we welcome Dave to the ranks. He’s fresh from the war, so hopefully he can use some of his skills in keeping this blog safe from terrorists and sleeper cells and all of those other buzzwords. He was my roommate, and we disagreed on nearly everything ideologically aside from the fact that Perfect Dark was a great game. Still, he’s one of the smartest guys I know, and since this site, so far, is a nepotistic (not a word) sinkhole, he’s coming on board.

Okay, back to the normal stuff.