Catch you up on movies: I've seen two recently, at home.

Just last night, we watched Across the Universe; Jeff, for the second time. Was it just me, or were the featured songs Lennon-heavy? To compensate for casting a McCartney look-alike? Those early pop numbers are so innocent, why did they have to gussy 'em all up with lusty glances?

I do like "Flying." And "Blue Jay Way". "Shoot me".

Some of the scenes were cool. Some weren't. Some of the songs were used creatively. I saw the use of the title "She Came In Through the Bathroom Window" coming a mile away.

I like that Jeff has been singing "I've Just Seen a Face" to Ella ... because that's my favorite to sing to her too. I liked the first part of "I Want You" but the second part ("She's So Heavy") was D-U-M-B. During the military physical, I felt as if I was watching Tommy and/or The Wall. Very creepy. The bleeding strawberries reminded me of both films as well.

I enjoyed Bono's cameo. I didn't recognize his face but couldn't miss his voice.

The closing scene, as Lucy stands on the rooftop across the way, made me say aloud, a moment too soon, "See, they did all that without singing Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" ... then the closing credits ran.

The second movie I liked much better, of course, No Country For Old Men.

It was more consistent. And it gave me nightmares.

I was terrified for the first twenty minutes or so. After Llewelyn got killed, I didn't know whom to root for. I like how, at least, the top cop is portrayed as very smart in their movies (Fargo being the only other, I guess). But I couldn't root for him because I knew he was done.

I thought of Bates Motel but Jeff said, rightly, "Wrong state." If I was familiar with the Southwest, I'd know there's nothing defining. I can lose patience during those procedural scenes

Woody Harrelson's character was interesting but unnecessary. When Carla Jean was talking to the sheriff on a pay telephone, the absence of cell phones hit me. Then I calculated how much two million dollars was for the time. Until I did the math, I was thinking that it wasn't worth dying for.

And how primitive ... yet effective ... the transponder was. The case is convenient for carrying the money but my inclination would be to divvy up the cash and stash it in different places. How about a safe-deposit box? And, maybe in going through the cash, I would have found the transponder.

I was disappointed to see him check his boots after leaving Carla Jean's mother's house but not surprised. The make-up job on his post-car-crash face is pretty amazing. No airbags, notice? I'd like to think that he's out of business for good. How many bad people are killed in car crashes?

"'No Country' is the Coens’ most accomplished achievement in craft, with many stunning sequences, but there are absences in it that hollow out the movie’s attempt at greatness. If you consider how little the sheriff bestirs himself, his philosophical resignation, however beautifully spoken by Tommy Lee Jones, feels self-pitying, even fake. And the Coens, however faithful to the book, cannot be forgiven for disposing of Llewelyn so casually. After watching this foolhardy but physically gifted and decent guy escape so many traps, we have a great deal invested in him emotionally, and yet he’s eliminated, off-camera, by some unknown Mexicans. He doesn’t get the dignity of a death scene. The Coens have suppressed their natural jauntiness. They have become orderly, disciplined masters of chaos, but one still has the feeling that, out there on the road from nowhere to nowhere, they are rooting for it rather than against it."

Review in The New Yorker