Grade: A-
Synopsis: A philandering Treasury Agent (George Clooney) inadvertently winds up entangled in two fitness center employees’ (Frances McDormand and Brad Pitt) scheme to blackmail a former CIA analyst (John Malkovich).
Burn After Reading is a wickedly funny screwball black comedy from the Coen Brothers that’s essentially a satire of the overriding sense of entitlement that pervades American culture. All the characters are selfish to a fault, and there isn’t a single one you really like. MORE »
Posted 534 days ago in Movie Reviews and Coen Brothers. 4 responses
Grade: C+
Synopsis: Complications arise after a bar owner hires a private investigator (M. Emmet Walsh) to trail his wife and her lover (John Getz).
Blood Simple is a southern tinged noir that marked the Coen Brothers’ filmmaking debut.
While the film has lost some of its visceral edge since it’s 1984 debut, it doubtlessly influenced the very film’s that surpassed it, from Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs (1992) to the Coens’ own No Country for Old Men (2007). That said, Blood Simple is still a good story well told, highlighted by a great performance from M. Emmet Walsh. MORE »
Posted 761 days ago in Movie Reviews and Coen Brothers. No responses
Grade: C
Synopsis: After learning that they cannot have children, an ex-con (Nicholas Cage) and an ex-cop (Holly Hunter) abduct one of a local furniture magnate’s newborn quintuplets.
Raising Arizona is a sharp, albeit a bit too long, comedy from the Coen brothers.
At its core, the film is an excellent satire of the “greed is good” mentality of the 1980’s. Nicholas Cage and Holly Hunter play a couple of have-nots, who view the local magnate’s quintuplets as “more than they can handle” and help themselves. Their sense of entitlement overpowers any moral misgivings, a trend that continues when Cage’s character resorts to robbing convenience stores again in order to provide diapers for their abducted baby. MORE »
Posted 761 days ago in Movie Reviews and Coen Brothers. No responses
Grade: B+
Synopsis: During the Great Depression, three convicts (George Clooney, John Turturro, and Tim Blake Nelson) escape from a chain gang to search for a hidden treasure.
O Brother, Where Art Thou? Is the Coen brothers interpretation of Homer’s epic poem, The Odyssey, set in the American south, is really an homage to America’s rural cultural heritage. MORE »
Posted 838 days ago in Movie Reviews and Coen Brothers. No responses
Grade: A
Synopsis: After stumbling upon a drug deal gone bad in the desert, a man (Josh Brolin) takes a satchel full of money, unaware that a hit man (Javier Bardem) is on its trail.
No Country for Old Men may be the Coen brothers’ best movie so far.
I say “so far” because I think No Country for Old Men represents a kind of milestone for the Coens. They seem to have reached a point in their filmmaking where they’re confident enough in their style that they no longer need to emphasize it. Nor do they downplay it either. No Country for Old Men has the usual quirks you’d expect in a Coen brothers film; they’re just not front and center, instead they’re more matter-of-fact. MORE »
Posted 869 days ago in Movie Reviews and Coen Brothers. 17 responses
← older
