Movie Reviews
Miller’s Crossing
The gangster picture. I didn’t like this one much the first time through, but I must have been in a bad mood or not paying attention. This second viewing worked very well. In an unnamed city (it was shot in New Orleans) in the 1920s, two gangsters battle it out. They are Albert Finney and Jon Polito, both of them very good in their very different ways. Caught in the middle and with his ... Read more »
Barton Fink
This one pretty much baffled me when it was new, twenty years ago. Is it a spook story? A horror about a crazy multiple murderer? A sly Hollywood satire? I guess it’s all of those, and more. What I am sure is that it’s chock full of symbolism, and what I usually say to symbolism is, Nuts! Some things are obvious to anyone, but some things only matter in the way ... Read more »
The Hudsucker Proxy
Now the CBs tackle a “screwball” comedy, with results that are a little uneven, but successful. It’s a bit of a hybrid between His Girl Friday, complete with tough, wisecracking, fast-talking Jennifer Jason Leigh in the Roz Russell role, and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, with Tim Robbins in the overnight success role ... Read more »
Fargo
So many of the Coen films are so damned good that it’s a real challenge to pick a favorite, but if held to the wall with a lethal electrified clapboard at my chest, I’d have to say it’s this one. Close contenders are No Country For Old Men and True Grit, but both of those were adapted from novels. This one was wholly fabricated in their ... Read more »
The Big Lebowski
Here’s another one that I didn’t appreciate enough the first time around. I console myself by knowing I’m in good company. A fair number of critics either roasted it or dismissed it, then came back later with a reassessment. Here’s an example, from Wiki:
Peter Howell, in his review for the Toronto Star, wrote, “It’s hard to believe that this is the work of a team that ... Read more »
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
There are not many films that are as much fun as this one. It sparked a revival of “roots” music, which is really just old-timey country and folk and gospel. It’s music from before country got glitz, back when the Grand Old Opry was a lot of hicks standing on the stage a-pickin’ and a-fiddlin’ and a-pluckin’, people who really did grow up hardscrabble in the hills and the ... Read more »
The Man Who Wasn’t There
So here’s the Coen Brothers take on a ‘40s film noir. And what a sight it is to see. It’s in glorious black and white, of course, and in many shots it might as well have been filmed in 1949, when it is set. They go so far as to deliberately make the scenes in cars look phony, like they did back then, with the exterior obviously a back projection. The set design is perfect. Though I was ... Read more »
Intolerable Cruelty
Billy Bob Thornton returns in a supporting role here, as a Texas oil millionaire. It’s a role he is supremely comfortable playing, and he’s very good at it. Geoffrey Rush is also good in support. But the main players here are George Clooney and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Are there two more attractive people working in films today? I can’t think of any. These people could have been played by ... Read more »
The Ladykillers
When we set out to view all the Coen Brothers films in order, I had forgotten about The Ladykillers. For their first foray into re-make city, they chose a classic Ealing comedy from 1955, starring Alec Guinness. And they came a cropper. The wonderful old Ealing comedies relied on a peculiarly British sensibility, a sense of black humor with a light touch. ... Read more »
No Country For Old Men
I’m the farthest thing from a Cormac McCarthy fan you could ever find, except possibly for my friend Spider Robinson. I hated, hated, hated The Road. I don’t know how I finished it. That hatred was a pale thing compared to my reaction to Blood Meridian. I only managed about 70 pages before throwing it across the room. I would have ... Read more »