A Serious Man

  On 7/31/2009 at 7:09 AM, Awepittance said:

  On 7/31/2009 at 7:04 AM, takeshi said:

  On 7/31/2009 at 5:52 AM, zaphod said:

burn after reading was pointless nihilistic garbage

 

What's your favorite Coen brothers film, Zaphod? I don't think Burn After Reading is their best but I don't see anything drastically different, in theme, from any of their other comedies. Just seems like lazy criticism.

 

i think it's pretty different from their other comedies, but i don't agree with zaphod. Pointless, yes, nihilistic, yes, but garbage? no. I though if anything it was just a little too star studded, and frances mcdormand was not great in it. She does not have strong acting chops to be a leading role imo, Blood Simple and Fargo being exceptions. I absolutely loved how they turned the 2 generically sexiest men in hollywood into dolty total idiotic fuckups, Cloony especially with his gold chain and tan skin and overly tucked in shirt. Its definitely what i would describe as 'diet' coen bros, to use a term someone else used here. The artistic cinematography is notably missing from Burn, and you can tell with Serious Man they are focusing more on camera angels and lighting and aesthetical look this time around (which i prefer out of a coen film).

 

I think the only thing different from their other comedies is, like you said, their artistic style is a bit dialed down. But I still say thematically their films have been nihilistic and could be interpreted as not having a point. Like, I love the fact that the greediest, most self-centered person in the film is the one that comes out on top at the end and the nicest character in the film dies a horrible death. The Coen brothers films have never been films where the good guy always won out in the end, or they made you feel good about everything that happened in the film. That was always one of reasons their films appealed to me. I guess it always made me feel like they don't have contempt for the audience, or at least not enough to bullshit us in that way.

fuck the coens they can't do nothin for me but put on a tape of the big lebowski and gtfo

REAL TALK

  On 7/30/2009 at 11:58 PM, Awepittance said:

although i really did love No Country i can't compare it since it wasn't written by them

And so begins Robert on another quest to try and pigeonhole every book, film, piece of music that was ever born into creation....

Using words he will define them. Then stack them all neatly on the shelf in relevance of genre and quality (good/bad points), all stacked neatly there, in the multi-field database that is his brain.

Along the way, theessence is lost, too busy trying to analyse and explain rather than use the medium for the purpose it was intended... entertainment.

No heart, no soul.

  On 7/31/2009 at 7:34 AM, zaphod said:

i'm not a big coen fan. they've basically just been remaking the same movie over and over again. in fargo the characters were at least sort of human beings. in burn after reading they're just cartoon characters. it didn't work as an espionage film or a parody of one, and it didn't elicit any kind of response from me as entertainment. the characters were all self interested one dimensional scumbags, there was no tension because i didn't give a shit about what was happening on screen. it was just the usual coen zaniness. set up a house of cards full of unlikeable characters and watch it collapse violently. that's all they do. as much as i didn't like no country it was at least extremely well made and faithful to the source, the problem in that case was the source. burn after reading wasn't a comment on anything, so it was completely nihilistic, it was violent for absolutely no reason except the apparent spite the film makers have toward people, and so it was garbage. one of the few movies i genuinely wanted my money back after watching.

 

the trailer for this one looks like it's going to be along the same lines as burn, so i'll just skip it and back out of the thread while i'm at it.

Nothing invalid about this criticism. I was one of the many who echoed, "Burn after watching!" when the credits rolled.

When the Coens make, as Zaphod perfectly describes, "house of cards full of unlikeable characters" films, they're being lazy. That being said, they do tend to center their misanthropic stories around a protagonist we can identify with or even admire. I'm thinking Barton Fink (Barton Fink himself), Fargo (Marge Gunderson), The Big Lebowski (Dude) or The Man Who Wasn't There (Ed Crane). Their most "nihilist" films, I reckon, would include Blood Simple, No Country for Old Men, and Burn After Reading.

For whatever reason, maybe the utterly dour and humorless nature of it or the fact that it was so incredibly beautiful aesthetically, I enjoyed No Country as much as anything they've done. Still, they've yet to make something even close to Miller's Crossing. Why? Because it was perfect.

This new trailer looks far too self-conscious for my tastes. I realize the Coens have been making self-conscious films for nearly as long as most Wes Anderson fans have been alive, but I get really sick of the zany quirky shit these days. I made it like ten seconds into Brad Pitt's Napoleon Dynamite-inspired performance in Burn After Reading before rolling my eyes. "Oh, he's like a vain 40-something idiot who can't escape the 80's!"

that's a scary avatar

  On 7/31/2009 at 12:40 PM, Dr Clitterhaus said:

  On 7/30/2009 at 11:58 PM, Awepittance said:

although i really did love No Country i can't compare it since it wasn't written by them

And so begins Robert on another quest to try and pigeonhole every book, film, piece of music that was ever born into creation....

Using words he will define them. Then stack them all neatly on the shelf in relevance of genre and quality (good/bad points), all stacked neatly there, in the multi-field database that is his brain.

Along the way, theessence is lost, too busy trying to analyse and explain rather than use the medium for the purpose it was intended... entertainment.

No heart, no soul.

the fact that you spend so much time analyzing my behavior on here is very flattering. you have become a little bit of an awepittance mini stalker, i haven't decided what to make of it yet but it's kind of strange!

no country for old men is one of the best films i've ever seen, and everyone in this thread can blow me even if you liked it

I think half the people liked No Country because they were supposed to like it.

Just watched the trailer. Looks like it will be a much more serious affair than Burn After Reading (which was entertaining). Ooh see what i did there? serious affair. fuck I'm good.

Seriously though, I am stoked for this one, looks like a dark Charlie Kaufman film, only more jewish. Or something like that.

  On 7/31/2009 at 11:59 PM, chenGOD said:

looks like a dark Charlie Kaufman film, only more jewish.

Thought that trailer was sweet. Thank fuck another Coen Bros. film is coming out, 99 percent of films that have come out this year have been shite. In fact the only film that came out this year that I actually enjoyed was Moon.

i've been having an insane time finding a bootleg of Moon, can anybody help? pm me

  On 8/1/2009 at 12:26 AM, The Overlook said:

  On 7/31/2009 at 11:59 PM, chenGOD said:

looks like a dark Charlie Kaufman film, only more jewish.

 

keyword: more.

  On 8/1/2009 at 2:26 AM, chenGOD said:

  On 8/1/2009 at 12:26 AM, The Overlook said:

  On 7/31/2009 at 11:59 PM, chenGOD said:

looks like a dark Charlie Kaufman film, only more jewish.

 

 

keyword: more.

I cannot think of a worse description for any prospective film coming out in the next 100 years than "...a dark Charlie Kaufman film, only more jewish."

I liked No country cause it looks like it was filmed with a rolliflex camera. It is such a wonderfully stylized film.

mirezzi...from the trailer it looks like it will be darker than anything Kaufman's done, and it's got a rabbi in it, so it's pretty much outjewed (is that a word? i dunno...)anything kaufman's done.

ps: i might be being facetious with the jewish comment.

didn't like the trailer

i think Big Lebowski still holds the record for most "fucks" in a movie ever.

  On 8/2/2009 at 6:24 AM, Rubin Farr said:

i think Big Lebowski still holds the record for most "fucks" in a movie ever.

that or pulp ficiton

  On 7/31/2009 at 11:50 PM, beatfanatic said:

I think half the people liked No Country because they were supposed to like it.

I liked it because I thought it was well directed, and because it was very accurate to the setting. I was born basically a few months before the setting of this film and about 6 hours away from where it takes place. Very few films have captured rural Texas so well.

  On 8/4/2009 at 7:42 PM, patternoverlap said:

  On 7/31/2009 at 11:50 PM, beatfanatic said:

I think half the people liked No Country because they were supposed to like it.

 

I liked it because I thought it was well directed, and because it was very accurate to the setting. I was born basically a few months before the setting of this film and about 6 hours away from where it takes place. Very few films have captured rural Texas so well.

i'm gonna watch it right now

  On 8/1/2009 at 12:57 AM, Awepittance said:

i've been having an insane time finding a bootleg of Moon, can anybody help? pm me

its playing double feature at the balboa theatre. 9 bucks or something.