There aren’t many films more personal to me than Joel and Ethan Coen’s No Country for Old Men (2007). I grew up at the foot of the Wichita Mountains in Oklahoma, so I am intimately familiar with this scrub brush landscape and these hard-bitten, laconic plainsfolk. They are my people. That land and that mindset are never far away, as I carry that red dirt in my heart however far I may roam. My father is the thing that ties this film to me the most, though. I know that one of these days he’ll go out there ahead of me and make a fire in all that dark and all that cold and he’ll be waiting for me. It will be a privilege and a reward to sit with my old man by that fire, not having to say a thing. Until then, we carry on.

What you’ll find in this episode: fate versus self-determination, Cormac McCarthy book recommendations, how spoilers are for sissies, fathers and sons (and uncles), and how to steal two million dollars.

– Cole

Links and Recommendations:

Check out No Country for Old Men on IMDB.

Ericca’s further viewing pick of Point Blank.

Cole’s further viewing pick of Lone Star.

The official website of the Cormac McCarthy Society.

Our favorite place in west Texas, the Davis Mountains State Park.