Very close to perfection of the craft.

Rating: 10/10 (21 January 2008)

Deserves an Oscar for the vignette around Brooks Hatlen alone. When film students begin the path of learning about the art of motion pictures, they would be well served to study this as an example of what can be accomplished by a master craftsman.
Using a simple plot as a foundation around which all the necessary detail and thoughtful insight of human conditions can be layered, this is the closest you can come to telling a story flawlessly on film.
Screw all that. How good is it? Every single time I'm flipping through the channels and I see it's on, it doesn't matter where it is in the plot or time-line, I stop and watch.
Every time.