This is certainly a movie I would not have seen, based on the violence in trailer, if it had not won the Oscar for Best Picture in 2008.  I do try to see all the Best Picture movies, so, despite my initial thoughts from the trailer, I watched it.  Now, The Departed, which is also very violent and which won in 2007, was, at least to me, a much better movie.  This one had a ton of gratuitous violence.  The Departed was similar, but for some reason, the violence there seemed more warranted, and I can’t quite put my finger on why.  Maybe organized crime vs. something so random as depicted in No Country for Old Men?  That’s my only guess at this point.  Also, the storyline didn’t catch me as much as The Departed…

(Now, I do agree that Javier Bardem was probably deserving of Best Actor in a Supporting Role (though I have not seen all of the nominee’s).)

The movie did have some good lines, or some thought provoking views/philosophies here and there, but overall, I was not that impressed with it.

I do have a few quotes…

• paraphrase:  “after kids stop saying sir and m’am, the rest falls quickly”  [on the violence and sensless behavior of the day — and this was in the 70’s! ]
• maybe not quite exact:  “even in the conflict between man and steer, the issue is not certain…”
• “Whatcha got ain’t nothin new. This country’s hard on people, you can’t stop what’s coming, it ain’t all waiting on you. That’s vanity.”
• at the end of the movie, on dreams Josh Brolin had:

Alright then.  Two of ’em. Both had my father in ’em . It’s peculiar. I’m older now then he ever was by twenty years. So in a sense he’s the younger man. Anyway, first one I don’t remember to well but it was about meeting him in town somewhere, he’s gonna give me some money. I think I lost it. The second one, it was like we was both back in older times and I was on horseback goin’ through the mountains of a night. Goin’ through this pass in the mountains. It was cold and there was snow on the ground and he rode past me and kept on goin’. Never said nothin’ goin’ by. He just rode on past… and he had his blanket wrapped around him and his head down and when he rode past I seen he was carryin’ fire in a horn the way people used to do and I could see the horn from the light inside of it. ‘Bout the color of the moon. And in the dream I knew that he was goin’ on ahead and he was fixin’ to make a fire somewhere out there in all that dark and all that cold, and I knew that whenever I got there he would be there. And then I woke up.

• “I’m looking for what’s coming…”   Response was “no one ever sees that!”