rone | two movies

The Three Burials of Melquíades Estrada is a sad movie. The plot twist hurts, but the ending is insufficient. It leaves us hanging; there's no damn closure for Pete, the timing of Lou Ann's departure is puzzling, Mike succumbs to Stockholm Syndrome almost uselessly, and i have no idea why Belmont suddenly grew a conscience and fucked off. One thing that came to mind as i was going to sleep was the symbology of the coyote as Coyote the Trickster; the coyote at the beginning leads the men to Estrada's corpse, the (same?) coyote indirectly causes Estrada's death, and later the other coyote helps Pete get into Mexico. Tommy Lee Jones's Spanish is very good.

The Matador is entertaining, albeit gratuitously quirky in spots. One thing i don't understand is why Julian says Danny owes him, if he didn't actually carry out Danny's request. Danny owes him for the pep talk, so he's going to help him shoot some poor bastard? Weird. Are "assassin with a heart of gold" stories the counterpart to "hooker with a heart of gold" stories?