I had heard that this film was put into limited release on Dec 26th 2007 so it could qualify for the 2008 Academy Awards - which it will apparently do very well at because the critics just love this movie.

Is this true? Does anybody know anything about this?

Yes, but this belongs in Best of 2007.

(spoilers)

Wow. And I thought No Country For Old Men was depressing. This film easily ranks as my favorite for 08 so far. There were a couple of things that confused me though, so I was wondering what somebody else that has seen the movie thinks...
Mainly, why did HW set the house on fire?? Did it have something to do with the picture he saw in the diary?
I may be wrong about this, but I am assuming that HW's real father was the person that died at the very beginning of the film. So does HW realize he's adopted when he sees the picture and set the place on fire? Or does he realize that the brother is a fraud?

Thanks to anyone who can clarify what confused me in an otherwise near perfect (and well executed) story.

Ok I'm way late on this, but I have a couple of theories. SPOILERS!

HW looked in the diary at some pictures and realized that it wasn't really Daniel's brother OR he was jealous of his Dad's relationship with his new found brother, because HW's relationship with Daniel had deteriorated because Daniel no longer had any use for HW. In a jealous rage, HW attempted to kill them both in a fire.

Anybody else got any insight into this?

And this movie is superior to No Country For Old Men in every way IMO.

quote:

Originally posted by mymindsblank:
Ok I'm way late on this, but I have a couple of theories. SPOILERS!

HW looked in the diary at some pictures and realized that it wasn't really Daniel's brother OR he was jealous of his Dad's relationship with his new found brother, because HW's relationship with Daniel had deteriorated because Daniel no longer had any use for HW. In a jealous rage, HW attempted to kill them both in a fire.

Anybody else got any insight into this?

And this movie is superior to No Country For Old Men in every way IMO.

again *SPOILERS, LOOK AWAY INNOCENTS* That scene appeared to be intentionally vague, but it seems like since HG made the gas/oil trail right to the diary (after he had been looking through it), and the following scene shows the brother recovering the diary, that he set he fire to draw attention to the 'brothers' fraud in the diary. Of course he could've just brought the diary to Daniel and pointed to where he wanted to show him, so there was probably something else going on.

Also, I saw this in another thread about this movie, but I didn't realize that HG was actually an orphan - I thought Daniel made that story up at the end out of frustration. Is this something that was really made clear in the beginning, because in the scene introducing baby HG I didn't think it was apparent which man was the father?

You guys have seen the movie more than once? It doesn't really matter, just wondering.

Yeah I watched it at the theater and bought it on dvd this week. So I watched it twice so far. I had forgotten how long it was, two and a half hours, so I probably won't watch it again for a while.

quote:

Originally posted by La La Love Pixies:
Also, I saw this in another thread about this movie, but I didn't realize that HG was actually an orphan - I thought Daniel made that story up at the end out of frustration. Is this something that was really made clear in the beginning, because in the scene introducing baby HG I didn't think it was apparent which man was the father?

yeah i thought the same the first time i watched it, but on the second viewing it does show that the baby belonged a guy who died down the well. but again, knowing that he was using this orphan throughout the movie completely changes the dynamic of the character, so i think it should have been made more clear.

quote:

knowing that he was using this orphan throughout the movie completely changes the dynamic of the character, so i think it should have been made more clear.

I don't necessarily think that he was using him. That I think is the part he was making up out of frustration. I think the scene following the argument (showing HW, Mary and Daniel playing) is meant to show that this was not the case. Otherwise, why would he bother playing with him at all?