No Country For Old Men

Ethan and Joel Coen, 2007 (9.0*)
Best Picture (AA)
Many consider this riveting crime drama to be the best film yet from the Coen Brothers, Ethan and Joel. It certainly won the most awards, most going to the supporting performance of Javier Bardem, who created the 'bounty hunter from hell' in this, who leaves a trail of bodies in his wake. He is such a callous character, often making victims call a coin toss for their lives, that he became an immediate cult icon.

The film begins with Josh Brolin out hunting, and stumbling onto a group of trucks, bodies, and an apparent drug deal gone horribly wrong. This sets a chain of events in motion that baffles veteran sheriff Tommy Lee Jones, a worthy Oscar®-nominee for this himself.

It's almost as if an ill wind is blowing out of the prairie that no one can control; they can only follow it around but they can't stop it from blowing on everyone in its path. A hard film to pigeon-hole, it seems to be the perfect Texas crime story, and neo-noir for the new millenium.

Winner of Oscars® for picture, director, adapted screenplay (taken from the novel by Cormac McCarthy) as well as Bardem's (photo rt) supporting Oscar®. Accepting the award, Bardem said "worst haircut ever on film". Overall it won 94 awards, 20 of those for Bardem, out of 140 nominations, making it perhaps the most critically successful film of the decade.

Currently #119 on the IMDB Top 250

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Burn After Reading

Coen Brothers, 2007 (6.5*)
This is an odd sort of Coen Brothers film, marketed as a comedy but a lot more serious, and it has a low energy level. Health club trainer Brad Pitt is given a CD by a janitor who found it on the floor, and its filled with some CIA information. He and fellow employee Frances McDormand both need money and decide to get a reward from the owner.

This turns out to be CIA analyst John Malkovich, who is extremely upset and feels that a 50k reward is extortion. Meanwhile George Clooney is sleeping with Malkovich’s wife, while his own wife, Tilda Swinton, is perhaps being unfaithful as well. Things turn worse after they make personal contact with Malkovich, and eventually everyone gets tangled up together in this thickly plotted excursion into general mayhem. Great actors here, including three Oscar winners (Clooney, McDormand, Swinton), but they unfortunately don’t have much acting to do in this, its mostly plot, and an incisive satire on the intelligence community, one that starts out funny but turns serious.

Listen to the incredible closing credit song, CIA Man by the Fugs – its got terrific lyrics, still relevant today.

“Who can kill a general in his bed, even a dictator if he’s red,
F-g A man, C-I-A man…
Who has got the secretest service, that makes the other service nervous,
F-g A man, C-I-A man…”

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Raising Arizona

Joel Coen, 1987 (10*)
This is one the funniest and fastest-paced comedies ever made, and my favorite film of the Coen Brothers. The story starts at breakneck speed, as we get robberies and chases involving lead character Nicholas Cage before the opening titles even roll, about 15 minutes into the film.

During his prison photo shoots he meets a weepy guard played by Holly Hunter, who informs him that "my fi-ants done left me"; what ensues is a whirlwind romance, marriage, then another weepy Hunter disclosure "I'm barn" (meaning barren or infertile). Cage then gets the line of the film: "The doc said her insides were a rocky place where my seed could find no purchase". Roger Ebert said that "people just don't talk this way", but here in Georgia they sure do, and remember the Coen Brothers are from Texas.

The couple reads about quintuplets born to local unpainted furniture tycoon Nathan Arizona, brilliantly played by scene stealing Trey Wilson (who died shortly after filming, causing the film to be dedicated to him), and Hunter convinces Cage to "go get me a toddler! they got too many, we ain't got any".

The rest of the film is a riotous post-crime spree involving a bounty-hunting biker played by ex-boxer Randall "Tex" Cobb, two escaped former inmates of Cages who drop by (John Goodman is surprisingly unfunny in his part), several chases with baby in tow, and everyone else chasing the baby stealers. The dialogue is ripe with great lines, the visual style is as exciting as any action adventure, even the baby is funny, and the result is perhaps the funniest comedy of all time.

Quote: Down at my store we got one motto: "Do it my way or watch your butt!" (-Nathan Arizona, talking to the FBI)
Quote2: Boy, did you know you got a panty on yer head? (a local pickup driver who picks up Nick Cage hitchin a ride just after an armed robbery)

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Fargo

Dir: Joel Coen, 1996 (8.8*)
Another of the best Coen Brothers films, this one is decidedly a crime drama, with some humor but serious nonetheless. The film starts with a "true story" prologue, which the brothers later said was bogus, but it sure seems like an almost-believable crime story, beginning with a highway accident that leads to the death of a state trooper, and Coen wife Frances McDormand (Oscar winner for best actress) is the local (and pregnant) sheriff, who seems to be the only real detective within the jurisdiction. The comedy comes from idiotic criminals, led by kidnapper Steve Buscemi, and involved with novices, car dealership owner William H. Macy (Oscar nominated). Full of Coen craziness and oddballs and idiots, on both sides of the law, this remains a tight, involving crime story from beginning to end, and the screenplay also won an Oscar. 2 Oscars

Quote: He was like, weird looking... that's all, just weird.

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