Burn After Reading

[BillBrasky]

Reviews on this seem to be mixed, with Variety complaining that the film's characters are too cartoonish and that the movie overall is rather silly and lightweight, while the Hollywood Reporter agrees with these sentiments but still gives the movie a positive review overall. From reading these two reviews, it sounds like the movie this is most similar to, style-wise, is "The Big Lebowski", which is fine by me. I've always liked the Coen Bros.' comedies more than their dramas anyway.

I'm seeing it Thursday, so I'll let you all know what I thought of it then.

[Cameron]

I had passes to see it tonight, but it would have conflicted with my one night a week I'm able to get on stage, so I gave them away.

Can't wait to see it though.

[BuildingonFire]

The characters in Raising Arizona are pretty cartoonish too, but I still dig the hell out of that movie. Fingers crossed it's more Arizona/Lebowski than Intolerable Cruelty.

Even if it isn't great...let's just take a moment and consider how impressive it is to be able to be able to turn out movies as different as Lebowski, The Man Who Wasn't There and No Country For Old Men. I'll pretend like Ladykillers never happened.

[drieux]

I can't wait to see this. It's awesome to have a new Coen Brothers flick to look forward to soon. Yay!

[BillBrasky]

This movie was pretty slight, but enjoyable. It was a nice return to form for the Coens, comedy-wise, after "Intolerable Cruelty" and "Ladykillers". It was much more like their older movies.

It was more similar to "Fargo" than "Big Lebowski"; it's never quite as wacky and over-the-top (or as funny) as "Lebowski". It also has some surprising dramatic moments, like "Fargo", which are kind of an odd fit in what is otherwise a comedy.

The movie returns to some of the same themes as some of the Coen's other movies (blackmail; a missing, presumably kidnapped person), which is why ultimately it wasn't anything very memorable or special. It's certainly not going to be an enduring film like "No Country For Old Men" that people are going to be talking about for a long time. But for what it was, it was all right.

The fact that this was probably one of the most mainstream, easy to understand movies they've ever done still didn't stop people at the screening I attended from saying "What WAS that?" and "That was terrible" when the movie was over. I guess any movie that's a little more offbeat than "Iron Man" is a little too over their heads.

[BillBrasky]

It looks like the Coens are already at work on their next movie:

NEW YORK - September 8, 2008 - Production begins today on location in Minnesota on "A Serious Man," for Focus Features and Working Title Films. Joel and Ethan Coen, Academy Award winners for No Country for Old Men and Fargo, are writing, producing, and directing the film. Working Title co-chairs Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner are executive-producing the film with Robert Graf, who has worked on the Coens' last six features in various producing capacities.

The director of photography on A Serious Man is seven-time Academy Award nominee Roger Deakins, who is marking his tenth feature collaboration with the Coens. Mary Zophres is the film's costume designer, marking her ninth feature collaboration with the Coens. Jess Gonchor is the production designer, marking his third feature collaboration with the Coens.

A Serious Man is the story of an ordinary man's search for clarity in a universe where Jefferson Airplane is on the radio and F-Troop is on TV. It is 1967, and Larry Gopnik, a physics professor at a quiet midwestern university, has just been informed by his wife Judith that she is leaving him. She has fallen in love with one of his more pompous colleagues, Sy Ableman, who seems to her a more substantial person than the feckless Larry. Larry's unemployable brother Arthur is sleeping on the couch, his son Danny is a discipline problem and a shirker at Hebrew school, and his daughter Sarah is filching money from his wallet in order to save up for a nose job. While his wife and Sy Ableman blithely make new domestic arrangements, and his brother becomes more and more of a burden, an anonymous hostile letter-writer is trying to sabotage Larry's chances for tenure at the university. Also, a graduate student seems to be trying to bribe him for a passing grade while at the same time threatening to sue him for defamation. Plus, the beautiful woman next door torments him by sunbathing nude. Struggling for equilibrium, Larry seeks advice from three different rabbis. Can anyone help him cope with his afflictions and become a righteous person – a mensch – a serious man?

Tony Award nominee Michael Stuhlbarg (whose films include The Grey Zone) stars as Larry; Fred Melamed (Suspect) plays Sy; Richard Kind (The Visitor) portrays Arthur; and Minnesota actors Aaron Wolf, Sari Wagner, and Jessica McManus are cast as Danny, Judith, and Sarah, respectively.

[Popinjay-Z]

RE: An earlier AST debate as to whether or not the Coens embraced their "Jewishness" (not a real world) in their art... it would appear that their next film's got that covered. Also, from what I know of their childhood in MN (college professor parents, etc.), "A Serious Man" might be their most autobiographical film yet, which is of course not saying much.

Can't wait for "Burn." The sillier and slighter the better.

[metal2000]

I'm seeing it Wednesday and I can't wait! I enjoy the Coen's dramatic films (for the most part), but I much prefer their comic sensibilities. I mean, I even liked The Ladykillers!

[TomHicks]

Here's an interesting story for Coens nerds.

http://www.slate.com/id/2199811/

It's about how the John Goodman character in Big Lebowski is a neocon, and people really didn't register it as such at the time because neocons had yet to stake out any real political turf. (It's not trying to extrapolate the Coens' politics or anything like that.)

[Cameron]

Loved this.

Probably my favorite film of the year.

[James Morris]

It was a pretty funny movie, but as I was watching it I found myself wishing it took itself more seriously because the story was actually pretty interesting. I guess maybe I felt that because it wasn't hysterical like The Big Lebowski, even though Brad Pitt was pretty fucking hysterical in it.

I liked the whole "agent" on the phone thing, it reminded me of that Todd Glass joke.

Overall, it was good but it's definitely no Fargo or Lebowski.

[Aaron1933]

As I've said before, I'm a sucker for movies that kind of say "Fuck you" to the idea of being a movie, and as far as that genre goes, this is about as well-structured as they get. I guess you couldn't expect anything less from the Coen brothers.

I thought Burn After Reading was fantastic. I was laughing the whole time and really enjoyed myself. Everything was so well set-up that all the payoffs in this movie hit hard, especially by the end. And I'm going to have to disagree with the mainstream comment; some of the weirdest stuff the Coens have ever done is in this movie.

One of my favorite movies of 2008.

[metal2000]

Loved the movie. Couldn't believe when I heard that they were working on this script at the same time as "No Country".

Brad Pitt and George Clooney were both absolutely delightful in their roles, and I think that John Malkovich should've been in a Coen Bros. movie years ago -- he just fits their sensibilities to a T.

[BillBrasky]

Well, I just meant "mainstream" in terms of the storyline.....I mean, compared to "Raising Arizona" or "Lebowski" or "Hudsucker Proxy" or most of their other movies- this was a pretty straightforward story, following some of the standard tropes of spy movies which we're all familiar with. Yeah, obviously they're never going to make a movie that's completely "normal", but this is about as close as they've come so far.

The ending was great though- like a funny version of the ending of "No Country".
J.K. Simmons was hilarious.

[metal2000]

Their first #1 movie -- made almost $20-million over the weekend.

[conundrum]

I loved this movie and will probably see it again, I'm glad it was #1 this weekend

[CapnMonterayJack]

A handful of my friends saw this during the first week of release and they helped to dash my astronomically high expectations with their reviews of "meh," and "it was PRETTY good," and also "i THINK i liked it." I saw this last night (in a roughly 90% full house) and loved it. Clooney and Pitt seem to be having so much fun, it's hard not to join in with them. JK Simmons was hilarious in his 2 brief (but pivotal) scenes. It's not the perfection i'm used to as a Coen brothers geek, but it's totally enjoyable and definitely worth seeing. I might even see it again.

[Lil G]

I liked the film, but felt that it wandered too much. Malkovich, Clooney, and Pitt were terrific, as was JK Simmons. I've never been a fan of Frances McDormand and this film didn't change that.

Pitt had my favorite line by far -- "Ha! You think that's a fuckin' Schwinn!"

[Keith Whitener]

I think this is a film that may reward repeat viewings. It certainly kept with the Coens' theme of money as a panacea. Their characters are so often chasing after money, hoping it will get them what characters like The Dude and Chad already have, but it won't. Chad, like The Dude, just seemed content with his life. It's interesting that everyone is trying to get ahead in someway, while Chad and The Dude just are. This was like No Country for Old Men in that there was hardly a plot and it was just all these people's lives unraveling. There were a few really surprising parts!

Also, Sledgehammer is in it.

[the_psychologist]

I think "slight" is a good way to describe the film, but that's not really a bash. I was laughing for most of the running time. The cast is great, and I love any film where I get to watch Malkovich being a huge a-hole. There's a lot of subtlety here that people may or may not be ready for, given that British TV has proliferated a bit in the States of late. I'm also a huge fan of classic animation, so I loved how the Coens use timing, odd background details, and bizarre sounds to provide some of the laughs. There were a few moments that had me (as well as a couple other people) laughing, but I didn't feel like I could effectively explain why. Parts were almost subliminal.