July 30, 2008 Bonus Blog Post
I saw an obit last week that cracked me up. Just now got around to writing this up:

Where Does Evil Personified Retire?
Last December I posted an item about Cormac McCarthy’s Academy-Award winning film No Country For Old Men. A blogger, K. Bowen, wrote a juicy post claiming that there is an amazing coincidence between the evil, bad guy in the film, Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) and a real drug dealer in El Paso in the eighties named Jimmy Chagra. Bowen noted that Cormac lived in El Paso in the eighties and the suspicion is he corrupted the name of a real bad guy and came up with Evil Personified—Anton Chigurh.

In the climax to the movie, Chigurh survives a nasty T-bone crunching auto accident and limps off down the street, presumably to reek havoc in the future. But, where did he end up?

Wonder no more. Living under the name James Madrid (widely believed to have been placed there by the Federal Witness Protection Program), Jimmy Chagra died of cancer at 63. He was living in a trailer camp in Mesa, Arizona.

Where does Evil Personified go to retire? Why, Mesa, Arizona of course.

And yes, Mesa Chamber, you can use that in your future promotions and I won't charge you a dime.

If you missed it, the film will show on Encore in August:

No Country for Old Men Early Premiere
Academy Award®- winning film premieres on Starz On Demand 33 days before its linear premiere on Starz.

"In the aftermath of a desert shootout, a man finds $2 million in cash - and is pursued by the local sheriff and a psycho-killer hit man. Winner of four Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Bardem) and Best Director."

"Misfortunes one can endure. But to suffer for one's own faults? Ah! There is the sting of life."
—Oscar Wilde