Rewatchables Reference

• The entire second hotel sequence – finding the tracking device, turning the lights off, the captive bolt shooting the lock, the shadow under the door, the escape through the window. One of the best five action scenes Bill has ever seen in a movie.
• Bardem and the gas station owner coin toss – 'you've been putting it up your whole life, you just didn't know it.' Two shots, two sizes, that's the whole scene. The guy behind the counter is fantastic.
• Brolin finding the cars in the desert – the way he's just meandering around, not afraid, shows he has military training without a word of exposition.
• Woody Harrelson one-on-one with Bardem – 12 minutes of screen time total and absolutely crushes it, especially playing scared.
• The Carla Jean scene – she refuses to call the coin, insisting 'it's just you,' and Bardem almost gets emotional. Then he walks out and checks the bottom of his shoes.
• Tommy Lee Jones's closing dream monologue – 'and then I woke up' cuts to black. Devastating.

• The title – perfectly ties into the movie's themes of futility and the end of the West.
• West Texas as a setting – feels like it could be set in 1880 or 1940 or 1980 or today. The film functions as a modern western contemplating the end of the frontier.
• The theme of the coin toss – fate and randomness woven throughout.
• No music at all – makes it riveting and had a huge influence on prestige TV (including Barry).
• Roger Deakins's cinematography – one of the most influential looking films of the last 20 years. Every prestige crime show looks like this now.
• Josh Brolin becoming an A-lister – he'd been around forever but never put it together until this role. Suddenly he's hosting SNL and starring in everything.
• The Tommy Lee Jones 'I feel overmatched' speech – every man's fear of hitting the point where things move too fast and you've peaked.

Nothing – they genuinely cannot think of anything to change about this movie.

• Javier Bardem nearly had to withdraw due to scheduling – Mark Strong was put on standby and briefly thought he was going to be Chigurh.
• Llewelyn Moss was originally offered to Heath Ledger, who turned it down to spend time with his new daughter. James Franco also read for it.
• Garret Dillahunt auditioned five times for Moss but instead became Ed Tom Bell's deputy.
• Brad Pitt would crush this part but you'd never stop seeing Brad Pitt – Brolin felt like the character in a way a bigger star couldn't.

• $25 million budget, $170 million worldwide – the third-lowest-grossing Best Picture winner behind Crash and Hurt Locker.
• Won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (Bardem – first Spanish actor to win), and Best Adapted Screenplay.
• Javier Bardem became the first Spanish actor to win an Oscar.
• The Coens told the Daily Telegraph they noticed the 'Fargo' parallels but insisted 'it's reminiscent of our own movies – that's by accident'.
• The title comes from the opening line of William Butler Yeats's poem 'Sailing to Byzantium'.
• Deakins shot only 250,000 feet of film – a fraction of what most productions use, thanks to the Coens' meticulous storyboarding.
• The pull-tab on a beer can is how you know it's 1980 – the Coens said that was their only indicator of the time period.

• Josh Brolin – this movie made him an A-lister overnight. Then Milk, W., 'American Gangster' all followed immediately.
• The Coen Brothers – probably their peak in terms of power and mainstream recognition, though they haven't really dipped.
• Javier Bardem – either this or 'Skyfall', but this is one of the most identifiable villain performances ever. He's great in everything though.

• The gas station owner – unreal performance in the coin toss scene, a perfect Coen Brothers face.
• The woman at the hotel who gets mad – 'what do you want?'
• The kid who says 'look at that fucking bone' after the car accident – played by an actor who's since been in a bunch of stuff.

• Carla Jean's mom feels like she's in another movie – a bit too broad for the tone.
• The CG deer that Brolin shoots at the beginning looks pretty fake.
• Did they really have suitcase tracking devices like that in 1980?
• The tracking device is hidden in a stack of one-dollar bills – why not put it in the hundreds?
• There's not a lot of tactical response to major crime scenes for Texas law enforcement – just Tommy Lee Jones showing up on a horse.

• Controversial pick: Tommy Lee Jones – he's the soul of the movie, and without his presence it would just be cat and mouse. His last few scenes are incredibly moving.
• The counterargument is Javier Bardem – he's the harbinger of destruction, the cynical force that the whole movie is about. He gets fucked up but keeps going.