No Country for Old Men, directed by Ethan and Joel Coen won 4 Oscars out of the 8 it was nominated for. No Country was no doubt the big winner of 2008 at the Academy Awards. The movie won, Best Pircture, Best Adapted Screenplay (as the movie is based on the book written by Cormac McCarthy), Best Achievement in directing (Coen brothers), and Best Actor in a supporting role (Javier Bardem).

This movie was also nominated for Best achievement in cinematography, Best achievement in editing, Best achievement in sound, Best achievement in sound editing. It did not win any of those.

Although the Coen brothers were the big winners last night, they seemed less humble than Martin Scorsese was last year when he won best director. Thats just what I took from their acceptance.

Some think this film is very unrealistic, and does not reflect how things really are in this type of country. I disagree, I think it is excellent especially given that it was taken from McCarthy’s book. According to IMDB this movie follows the book to a T. The last scene in the movie can be found on the last page of the book, and much of the dialogue is taken from the book word for word.

In my opinion two people get the award for giving this movie the winning edge:

1) Javier Bardem, he’s not a clown or a ghost, but he scares the shit out of you when you watch this movie.

2) Cormac McCarthy, for his great imagination in writing the book that inspired the Coen brothers. As I said before, the book is so good, the Coen’s followed it exactly.

If you have not yet seen “No Country for Old Men” I urge you to see it, it’s an excellent film deserving of the four Oscars it won last night.