No Country For Old Men

No Country for Old Men is a 2007 American neo-Western thriller film directed, written, and edited by Joel and Ethan Coen, based on the Cormac McCarthy novel of the same name. Starring Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem and Josh Brolin, it tells the story of a Texas welder and Vietnam veteran to whom chance and greed deliver a fate that is neither wanted nor denied; a cat-and-mouse drama set in the desert landscape of 1980 West Texas. It won four awards at the 80th Academy Awards –Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (Bardem) and Best Adapted Screenplay, allowing the Coen brothers to join four previous directors honored three times for a single film. In addition, the film won three British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA) including Best Director, and two Golden Globes.

The setting is in Terrell County, Texas in the desert like location of a desolate and large landscape. We heard Ed Tom Bell, the sheriff of the count, talking about he increasing violence in a region where he, like his father and grandfather before him, has risen to the office of sheriff. In a neighbouring county, assassin / hitman Anton Chigurgh, using the handcuffs, strangles to death the deputy who arrested him to escape custody and steals a car by using a captive bolt pistol to kill the driver. We then move to the desert where Llewelyn Moss is hunting deer and comes across the aftermath of a drug deal gone wrong. He finds dead bodies and a briefcase containing 2 million dollars and also finds the lone Mexican survivor, badly wounded and who begs him for water. Moss takes the briefcase and hides it at his small home but goes back to the scene late at night with some water.

He is ambushed by two men in a truck and they release a dog to hunt him. He shoots the dog dead and rushes home he sends his wife, Carla Jean, to stay with her mother, then drives to a motel in Del Rio, where he hides the case in the air vent of his room. Chigurgh hired to recover the money, abruptly kills his employers after obtaining a clue to Moss’s identity. Arriving to search Moss’s home, he uses his bolt pistol to blow the lock out of the door. Investigating the break in, Sheriff Bell notices the blown-out locktracks. Chigurgh tracks Moss using a chip embedded in the briefcase and kills a group of Mexican who were planning to ambush Moss and had rented the room next to him. Moss is able to escape before Chigurgh can get to him but is found in another hotel in Eagle Pass and a shootout ensues. Both are wounded and Moss makes his way across the border into Mexico and collapses and is taken to a hospital.

Carson Wells, another hired operative, fails to persuade him to accept protection in return for the money. Chigurh cleans and stitches his own wounds with stolen supplies and kills Wells at his hotel. Moss telephones the room and Chigurh answers. Lifting his boots to avoid Wells’s blood, Chigurh tells Moss that he will kill Carla Jean unless Moss gives up the money; he remarks that he will kill Moss regardless of whether he receives the money. Moss calls Carla and tells her to meet him at a motel where he will give her the money and she should fly away with her mother to be safe. nstead, she reluctantly accepts protection for her husband from Sheriff Bell. Carla Jean’s mother unwittingly reveals Moss’s location to a group of Mexicans who had been tailing them. Bell reaches the rendezvous in time to hear gunshots and see a pickup truck speeding from the motel where Moss lies dead. Carla arrives as night approaches and sobs sadly. Later Bell comes back to the crime scene where Chigurgh is also hiding and sees that the vent cover has been removed and the duct is empty.

Later, Bell visits his uncle Ellis, an ex-lawman, and tells him he plans to retire because he feels “over-matched”. Ellis points out that the region has always been violent. Carla’s mother dies soon after and after the funeral she walks into the house to find Chigurgh waiting for her. He tosses a coin and asks her to call it but she refuses stating that the choice is his own. Chigurgh leaves the house (unsure if he killed her or not but probably did) and as he leaves the neighbourhood he is hurt badly in a car crash. Bribing two youngsters who witness the crash, he quietly makes his way out. As the movie ends, a now retured Bell tells his wife of two dreams he had the previous night about his father.

Amazing cinematography during the desert scenes and well acted and shot. The ambiguous ending left made people baffled and also killing Moss offscreen didn’t make much sense to us. Anyway you look at it the movie is really good and despite the initial 25 mins or so when it drags a bit, it’s a movie worth watching. 8 outta 10!

A Closer Look At The USS Prometheus

Alrighty then, let’s look a sleek and fabulous design for a class of starship. This one is a fan favourite and in my top 10 of ship designs and I absolutely loved it when I first saw it on the tv screen. I am taking about the awesome, the spectacular – USS Prometheus!

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The USS Prometheus (NX-59650/NX-74913) was a 24th century Federation Prometheus-class starship operated by Starfleet. Prometheus was an experimental prototype designed for deep space tactical assignments and equipped with regenerative shields, ablative hull armor, and multi-vector assault mode. She was the fastest ship in Starfleet with a warp factor of 9.99 when she was launched from the Beta Antares Ship Yards on stardate 50749.5 in late 2373. The vessel was also equipped with holographic projectors on every deck, allowing its EMH Mark II free range of movement throughout the ship. The Prometheus was, at least, the second starship to bear the name.

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Some time shortly after stardate 51462 in 2374, the Prometheus was hijacked by Romulans. During their escape aboard the ship, the Prometheus easily disabled the USS Bonchune when the Romulans decided to enable the multi-vector assault mode, for the first time, proving her potency as a combat vessel. Coincidentally, during the hijacking the Prometheus received a subspace transmission from the USS Voyager, which was stranded in the Delta Quadrant over 60,000 light years away. This transmission contained Voyager’s Emergency Medical Hologram, who initially escaped detection by claiming to be the Prometheus’ EMH, and also claiming that, as a doctor, he was neutral. Assisted by the Prometheus’ EMH, The Doctor was able to regain control of the ship by knocking the Romulans out using neurozine gas (that, naturally, didn’t affect the two holograms) and stop her from entering Romulan space. Despite their initial lack of understanding of the controls of the Prometheus, the two EMHs subsequently managed to destroy an opposing Romulan ship before the Prometheus was recovered by Starfleet. Following this, The Doctor spoke directly to Starfleet Headquarters about the fate of Voyager, before returning to his ship to assure them that they were no longer alone. (VOY: “Message in a Bottle”)

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The warp drive of the Prometheus-class made the ships of this class faster than any other starship in the fleet at the time in the mid 2370s. The warp drive was capable of maintaining speeds exceeding warp 9.9. The Prometheus-class was designed with an unprecedented level of automation, and, combined with its advanced tactical systems, was one of the most powerful combat ships in the Alpha Quadrant. The primary battle systems on board the Prometheus included regenerative shielding, ablative hull armor, phasers, and photon torpedoes. A unique feature included in the Prometheus design was the multi-vector assault mode, which allowed the ship to split into three semi-independent sections that could each deliver massive force against an enemy target. All three sections were warp-capable. In this mode, the Prometheus could easily disable a Nebula-class at warp, or a D’deridex-class on the field of battle. (VOY: “Message in a Bottle”) While other starship classes had similar capabilities, such as the Galaxy-class with its saucer separation feature, generally the saucer section of such classes had no warp drive and limited weaponry. (TNG: “Encounter at Farpoint”, “The Arsenal of Freedom”, “The Best of Both Worlds, Part II”)

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In addition to standard automation systems, the Prometheus-class design also featured holoemitters on every deck, which allowed the ship’s Emergency Medical Hologram (Mark II) to access all areas of the ship (most EMHs were confined to sickbay only). Primary controls for the ventilation system were located in Jefferies tube 17, which was located five decks up from sickbay.

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So I hope you like the photos that I put up of the gorgeous beast. I lost the unboxing video of the Prometheus so here is the closer look video of the model. Enjoy!