Now that it’s all said and done, 2007 ranks as one of the most remarkable years of cinema in a good long while. But every year it’s easy to bitch bout the academy. In my lifetime there’s been a number of doozies, from Driving Miss Daisy (a fine middlebrow film, but really?) to A Beautiful Mind, to American Beauty, and a number in between. But now that it’s over, you cannot lay claim that the academy did wrong in 2007. Sure, a case could be made for There Will Be Blood (lord knows I love it) and The Assassination of Jesse James (which is my personal fave), but No Country for Old Men is pretty much an undeniably great film. That is, if you’re paying attention

Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) is a Texas sheriff who serves as a host to the film. He finds himself in the middle of a strange situation. Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) is a hunter who stumbles across a drug deal gone bad. He’s got no use for the drugs, but he does find two million in a briefcase. He also corsses paths with a dying man asking for water. He goes home to his wife (Kelly MacDonald) and stashes the money, but can’t get the man out of his mind and so he does a very stupid thing. Such puts him on the radars of both Mexican gangsters and Anton Chigurth (Oscar winner Javier Bardem). Carson Wells (Woody Harelson), another hired gun, describes Anton as a force of nature. While Ed Tom tries to get closer to the killer, and protect Llewelyn, Anton is on the hunt, and little can stand in his way. But Moss is a formidable opponent all things considered.

To start with, in praise of this excellent film, it should be noted that every scene has at least one hilarious bit of dialogue. The Coens are notable for their instant quotability, but there are a number of corkers in here, though many of which come from the Cormac McCarthy novel, which they’ve rather faithfully adapted.

The film is also one of those films that is rife with technical things that would seem lame in someone else’s hands: the three males never share a frame, there’s an abrupt cut that makes the audience piece things together. The ending is ambiguous to a certain extent. But the Coens never wear these things on their sleeves while also littering the film with signifiers (the shadowed reflections of characters), while also creating some interesting parallels (specifically between Moss and Chigurth, as their actions are often in great parallel). In the newly included supplements they talk about Robert Bresson’s A Man Escaped, and how that film is about watching someone put the pieces together to get out of prison. Similarly here, the film is about the minutia, from Moss buying a tent to build his way to hide the money, to how Chigurth practices entering a room to prepare himself for killing a bunch of Mexican gangsters.

But the film lives up to its title. Jones visits a character played by Barry Corbin, and it’s the core of the film. Corbin tells a tale of violence that dates to 1909. There may be three choices, none of which lead anywhere good, and the film essays that the world is constantly changing, upgrading, and every new generation seems to find the younger’s ways a bit horrific and too much. In that the film’s period setting amplifies how the world has changed, and how it hasn’t.

My god, the performances. Everyone is note perfect. Josh Brolin is insanely good, but there’s no denying the flamboyance of Bardem’s bemused killer. And Jones is right there with them, even if he often feels to the side. But that’s to the point. The Academy was right this time. They picked a great horse.

Disney released this Miramax film, so you get bonus trailers for Doubt, and a Blu-ray and Miramax films promo that hints at a Pulp Fiction Blu in the future, and the film in anamorphic widescreen (2.35:1) and in 5.1 surround, with no other audio options. The transfer is excellent, and it’s fair to say that Roger Deakins shot the two most beautiful films of the year. Extras from the previous edition have been included: a standard making of (24 min.) which talks to the cast and crew, “Working with the Coens (8 min.), which is more actor-centric, and “Diary of a Country Sheriff” (7 min.) which has more stray observations.

New to this set are “Josh Brolin’s Unauthorized Behind-the-Scenes” (9 min.) which is a goof, and has the cast talking poorly of its makers, but the jokes are not all that funny. The other new addition is a Press timeline. I thought this was nothing, but it’s actually pretty awesome. It includes sixteen interviews from October 26, 2007 up to February 9, 2008. Brolin and Bardem have “Lunch with David Poland” (27 min.), then there’s a WGAW panel hosted by Noah Baumbauch with the Coens, Kelly MacDonald, Brolin, Bardem and (eventually) Tommy Lee Jones (24 min.). Then there’s a Variety Q&A (3 min.) with Brolin, MacDonald and Bardem, and a EW.Com interview with Bardem (13 min.), then the Creative Screenwriter podcast with Joel and Ethan Coen (21 min.), an NPR interview with Brolin (5 min.), Peter Travers with (15 min.) with Brolin, MacDonald and Bardem, an “In-store Appearance” with Bardem and Brolin (41 min.), and then Charlie Rose with the Coens, Brolin and Bardem (23 min.). Then there’s “Reel Talk with Lyons and Bailes” (10 min.) with Brolin, Channel 4 News (4 min.) with the Coens, “The Treatmen” with the Coens (29 min.), NPR’s Day to Day with Bardem (7 min.), A Spike Jonze hosted Q&A with the Coens and a number of the tech crew (61 min.), including Roger Deakins, Skip Livesey, NPR’s All Things Considered (8 min.) with Scott Rudin, and NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday with the Coens (6 min.). This is nearly five hours of interviews, and one of the great things about it is how much is repeated. The actors get on their talking points, and you see how the actors keep up their energy for the Oscar hustle. It’s fascinating.