The Coen Brothers: Now Disc. Their new folk-music flick

Walter Sobchak, Neocon

 

OVER THE LINE!!!

 

"It's a league game, Smoke."

 

BLOOD SIMPLE. (1984)

"The Coens first hit the screen with a spattery, crimson splash. With this low-budget, sun-baked noir about an adulterous wife and a double-crossing detective, the brothers astonished critics right out of the box with their shocking use of violence, their instant mastery of the genre, and their playful but commanding use of the tools in their arsenal (gotta love that skittery camerawork). Their leading lady was an unknown actress named Frances McDormand, who would go on to marry Joel around the time of the film's release."


I've seen this, and though it's good, it's not (IMO) outstanding. The male lead, John Getz, is too bland for the style. They never used him again, and I presume, had no choice.

 

Haven't seen this one, is very hard to track down. Isn't even on Netflix! Looks to be in a similar vein to "No Country For Old Men".

 

Blood Simple attracted a lot of attention and got them on the road to success. I remember being impressed when I first saw it. For first-time indie filmmakers it was quite a debut.

 

It's an extremely good little thriller; even more exciting when you realize its a debut. You're right about Getz; he doesn't quite have it. But McDormand is good as always and M. Emmett Walsh is a fantastic heavy.

I remember the reviews when No Country came out and everyone was hailing it as the Coens' darkest film; I thought to myself (I thought), "It'll have to go a long way to be darker than Blood Simple." The 'burial' scene is quite disturbing and the final ten minutes are . . . just excruciatingly painful. And there's one humorous scene; one.

It's a great little thriller; unpretentious, but things are definitely in play that they'll never quite grow out of.

 

RAISING ARIZONA (1987)

"The first of the Coens' wild and wooly comedies, and the first major movie role for Frances McDormand's onetime roommate, Holly Hunter. The film stars Hunter as a cop and Nicolas Cage as her dim-but-sweet ex-con husband who, when he learns that the couple can neither bear nor adopt a child, kidnaps an infant quintuplet son of a local tycoon. High jinks ensue, as do some hair-raising chase scenes."


Absolutely hilarious, with a great cast, and a sort of desert American Gothic look.

"Not unless round is funny."

 

I still have not seen "Raising Arizona". I do own a copy, and it's one of the last Coen brothers flicks that i have to watch (along with BLOOD SIMPLE), but...I expect it to be pretty darned good.

Incidentally (Since i can't find anyplace else to really discuss this), I saw "Burn After Reading" yesterday and it was brilliant. At points hilarious, and others absolutely shocking. If ye be a fan of the brothers Coen, check it out yesterday!

Brad Pitt steals the show with one of the goofiest characters to come along in a while...

 

I'm sure a lot of people our going to disagree with this, but I find this to be the Coen's best. The funniest movie to come out of the last 30 years, its just great film. The diaper stealing scene gets funnier every time you watch it. Just an Amazing film.

 

I hate to advance the view that Nicolas Cage's career has been in decline for 20 years, but Raising Arizona and Moonstruck were the high water marks in my opinion. He was never better than in those two movies.

 

Easily one of my favorite movies of all time.

Okay then.

 

"Naw, just circ-yee-ler."

One of my all-time faves as well. Funny that the first time I saw the film, in the theater in 1987, I thought it was the dumbest thing I'd ever seen, and I just. Didn't. Like it. WTH was I thinking? (I was 17.) I must have blinked and missed how brilliant this movie is: Hilariously funny, stylishly shot and edited, with starmaking performances from all three leads (Cage, Hunter and Goodman). Offbeat American comedies-with-heart just don't get better than this.

"Everybody freeze. Everybody down on the floor...."

 

I had precisely that experience with "Intolerable Cruelty"; I hated it the first time I saw it, rather liked it the second, and loved it the third. So go figure. But I loved "Arizona" the first time I saw it; it's just brilliantly done, and I agree the diaper heist is a high point. Cage *can* do comedy and proves it here. And Hunter, who's not my thing usually, matches him.

"Well, okay, then!"

Considering that this is only their second movie, it's incredibly assured. And I like the yodelling.

Diaper Robbery

"Son, you got a panty on your head!"

 

MILLER'S CROSSING (1990)

"A handsome, autumnal homage to 1930s gangster movies and crime fiction (particularly Dashiell Hammett's The Glass Key), the film is also a crackling-good crime epic about warring ethnic organized crime syndicates. Caught in the middle is Tom (Gabriel Byrne), right-hand man of boss Leo (Albert Finney, in a majestic performance) and also secret lover of Leo's mistress, Verna (Marcia Gay Harden, in her first big movie role). The movie was the first hint that the Coens weren't just film-school tricksters, that they might be capable of something grander."


This one I haven't seen.

 

Blood Simple was a very effective debut. Raising Arizona actually didn't do much for me -- this may be because I can't stand Nic Cage, but I'll probably give it another shot someday as the Coen Brothers are among my favorite filmmakers. Miller's Crossing finally really put them on the map. A very fine movie. Not as well known as Barton Fink, Fargo, Lebowski, etc, but it more than holds its own among them.

 

Miller's Crossing is pure cinematic artistry, among the finest of the gangster genre (in which I would also include the Godfather films, Scarface, and Pulp Fiction). The assault on Leo's house alone marks it as a bona fide masterpiece, Gabriel Byrne's gangster-with-a-heart is a vastly underrated performance, and John Turturro's now-sympathetic, now-sinister performance keeps you guessing till the end. A rare five-star film, IMO.

 

Miller's Crossing is one of my favourite films. I watch it again every year or so, and it's always great. I love the characters - Gabriel Byrne's Tom Reagan is a thinking man's anti-hero, a manipulator who would rather not get his own hands dirty, and it's great to watch a character who is so shrewd, and yet so horribly self-destructive; John Turturro's wonderfully slimy Bernie Bernbaum is the catalyst for the drama, a man without any redeeming features at all - you hear about this guy right from the start, but the movie takes its time before actually bringing him in, and it's a great move; Albert Finney's Leo is the main power in the town, but is little more a child at heart, dependent on his right-hand man, Tom, to do his thinking for him; and Jon Polito's Johnny Caspar is the up-and-coming mobster, simple and thuggish, but ambitious for all that.

There is a certain blackly-comic quality to the film (there is a great scene where Tom is supposed to get a beating which is just wonderfully done), and parts where reality is suspended (your jaw will drop when you see just how many rounds Albert Finney can get out of his machine gun - no reloading necessary!), but it also works as a drama, and a superb one at that.

The writing is brilliant, the directing has flair, and the cast are all great. The more I see this film, the more I admire it.

Anyone who has yet to watch this movie really should do so as soon as possible.

 

I absolutely love this movie. Soitscometothis has it exactly right.

 

BARTON FINK (1991)

"In this very bleak Hollywood satire, Coens regular John Turturro stars as the title character, a Clifford Odets-like playwright-turned-screenwriter who's afflicted with the creepiest case of writer's block this side of The Shining. John Goodman, usually a comic/demonic presence in the Coens' movies, turns up here as a salesman with a horrible secret who exposes Barton to the messy, real world beyond his sheltered "life of the mind." The film earned the top prizes at Cannes, including the Palme d'Or (Best Picture), Best Director for Joel, and Best Actor for Turturro."


I confess that I gave up in the middle of this one.

 

Perhaps you'd give it a second chance if you knew that BF began as a writing exercise for the Coens during the lengthy writing of Miller's Crossing? Apparently they had reached an impasse in the script for MC, which is something of a tightly-wound piece of clockwork; and to loosen themselves up they wrote BF, which is more loose and imaginative. Consider it a counterpoint, if you will. The climax will floor ya.

 

I thought it was pretty effective until the John Goodman character appears; then it seems to go to hell; but I admit, I didn't see it to the end.

 

THE HUDSUCKER PROXY (1994)

"The Coens' first foray into big-budget filmmaking was a disastrous flop (it cost a reported $40 million to make and earned back just $2.8 mil), but it's a sunny spoof of 1950s boardroom movies that remains a cult favorite. Corporate villain Paul Newman elevates naïf Tim Robbins in the hope of driving his company into the ground, only to be foiled by Robbins' marketing of a fad toy: the hula hoop. Jennifer Jason Leigh channels Katharine Hepburn as the smart-talking dame who falls for Robbins."


Haven't seen it. I was put off by the title and the cast; while I might be able to tolerate Tim Robbins, I most certainly would be unable to tolerate Tim Robbins and Jennifer Jason Leigh at one time.

 

Never seen it. The title ran me off. One of the worst. titles. EVAH.

 

Title aside, I thought it was pretty good.