ongoing

Yes, we know it came out DVD on March 11, Still, it won the Oscar and it's still on limited big screens around Boston. So let's say: Hooray for bad guys who use unconventional murder weapons and endings that leave you going "huh?" And let's hear it for the Coen brothers, and what they said after winning about being happy to left playing in their own corner of the sandbox.  Here's what we wrote when it came out last year: If the movies have taught me one thing it's this: Whenever there's a bag of money and a truckload full of drugs there for the taking - especially when both are surrounded by dead bodies - get the hell out of there. No good can come of this. And no good does come of this in the new Coen brothers movie, "No Country For Old Men," based on a novel by Cormac McCarthy, set in 1980.  Javier Bardem (in photo) plays Anton, the cinematic psychopath of the year. He is a man possessed, because the millions due him for a drug deal gone bad - so we assume as the movie begins in the desert with shot-up trucks, corpses, loot and dope - and he is like the Terminator when it comes to persistence, mission and cold-blooded dedication to duty. He also has a peculiar weapon we won't explain here, as you'll want to marvel at this device without input from JSink. And, actually, we're not going to reveal much about what goes on here, because, like most Coen brothers films, the fun - if we may call it that - is in the discovery, the juxtaposition of the darkly comic and the bloody awful, the randomness of death and destruction. Fear not, fans of bloodshed you will not walk away disappointed, just as many of the people in this movie do not walk away period.

One who does is Tommy Lee Jones, as Ed Tom Bell, the aging Texas sheriff who gamely pursues Anton and Josh Brolin's character, Llweleyn, the lucky welder who first stumbles upon the massacre in the desert and quickly figures the satchel of cash is his ticket out of the trailer park for him and his wife, Carla, played by Kelly Macdonald. Now, Woody Harrelson (as Carson Wells, high paid bounty hunter) is in this, too, and although he'd have fared better if he'd played it less cool and channeled his "Natural Born Killer" character. He's just a little too sly for Anton, who doesn't do sly. Or humor. Or irony. Or anything. You wonder why he would even give a rat's ass about the money, because he doesn't seem to want anything but to kill. Although that doesn't really excite him either. He's like a shark. It's what he does. Kill, move on, kill move on. This being a Joel and Ethan Coen movie we expect unresolved subplots and an ending that leaves a lot to ponder. (Which is to say, the screen goes black not quite when you'd expect it to. The movie's over and you're going, "But, what about ...?" Sorry, folks. No cut-and-dried resolutions here. There may be an epiphany of sorts for Jones' Bell - that this is no country for old men - but it's not really Jones' realization that sticks with you. It's the violence and amorality, the simple twists of fate that lead to dead ends. "No Country for Old Men" is at the AMC Loews Boston Common 19, the Kendall Square Cinemas in Cambridge and the 'burbs. Actually, the screenings at both art house cinemas and mainstream movie houses suggests the crossover appeal this movie (and the Coens) have. It's dark and disturbing, and not for the faint of heart. But it's got star power and killer reviews behind it too. Tickets: Around $10. Check the website below for specific times and places.

www.boston.mrmovietimes.com