The Coen Brothers

[captainofbeef]

Discuss these masters here.

[captainofbeef]

My favorite Coens.
1. Miller's Crossing
2. Blood Simple
3. Fargo
4. Raising Arizona
5. The Big Lebowski
6. Barton Fink
7. O Brother Where Art Thou?
8. The Man Who Wasn't There
9. The Hudsucker Proxy
10. The Ladykillers
11. Intolerable Cruelty

[criterionmaster]

Blood Simple. is thier best!

[dontdigonswine]

Come on. The Dude! Anyone?

The Man Who Wasn't There is great as well. Not to mention the awesomeness that is Fargo.

[criterionmaster]

I find Big Lebowski slightly overrated. I mean I laugh and everything, and it is one of the best comedies, but it is not a film to be worshipped like some do. It is good though.



Blood Simple. is my favorite from them. Everything is setup so perfectly, it all builds to perfection.



Fargo is a perfect film as well. It took me some getting used to but it is definitely a masterpiece. The performances are some of the best ever.



Miller's Crossing is a very good film, with yet again, great performances.



O Brother Where Art Thou? is fantastic! I could watch this so much. The soundtrack is killer, performances, direction, the comedy, it's all perfect.



The Man Who Wasn't There is a very good film, but I don't remember much from it. I loved the cinematography and the black and white. It really needs a re-watch.

[kiddo]

Oh yeah, the cinematography in The Man Who Wasn't There is incredibly beautiful. That film is just one of those wonderful tributes to film noir.

[Nomansvally]

My favourite ones:

1. Blood Simple ;D
2. Barton Fink
3. Miller's Crossing
4. The Big Lebowski
5. The Hudsucker Proxy
6. Raising Arizona
7. Fargo
8. O Brother Where Art Thou?
9. The Man Who Wasn't There
10. The Ladykillers
11. Intolerable Cruelty

[captainofbeef]

No Country for Old Men was superb, easily one of their best films to date. And that is saying something.

[ie]

captainofbeef said:

No Country for Old Men was superb, easily one of their best films to date. And that is saying something.

That's what everyone says. It even got "Five minutes in, the damn thing already feels like a classic" from the Stranger; I don't exactly take theirs as The Word, but they're much more accurate than the Seattle Weekly, that just gave idle praise to the new Dylan biopic, for example.

[captainofbeef]

Yea, it has gotten deservedly strong praise from almost every critic.

[ie]

Saw No Country For Old Men last week on the big screen. I thought it was decent for the most part, but...

SPOILER: Click to show

What the hell happened during the last half hour? For the most part, we had a realistic western going, although it wasn't a very logical one. Example: I can kind of believe a character going THAT out of his way to give a dehydrated person a container of water, as seen in the movie, but there were just so many moments like that, one after another... it's functional, but not entirely realistic.

Then, bam, last half hour, everyone dies. But it's implied. The main character dies at the hotel, I think. They had a shot of the officer mourning over what could have been his dead body at the morgue, but that's just it! Up until this point, we'd been seeing gore and violence, then it gets all metaphysical and shit. Didn't make any sense.

You don't have to reply at length to this. Just had to get that out there, and also this: I 9/10'd it. Rare for a western for me, eh?

Also, theory on the main bad guy, since his character's name was kind of lame:

SPOILER: Click to show

When do you think he died in the movie? The final scene where he gets into the crash and meets the kids aside, I think he died during the gun fight at the hotel with the main character, where he's shot in the leg. Since the movie, at that point, went to bat hell past logic, it works, since how else could he have so thoroughly understood how to fix his own leg? And since the officer didn't notice him at all when he was hiding behind the door, this got me going on maybe he wasn't really there, which got me thinking to maybe he wasn't really there for a while.

So yeah, there's some thoughts for you. I didn't bother reading up on it at all, besides the plot walkthrough on Wikipedia just to see that what I thought happened actually did, but we'll probably be seeing theories and stuff about what happened in a short while here, after this movie's become the most epicist thing since Jaws.

[captainofbeef]

SPOILER: Click to show

The last half hour is meant literally. The main character does die in the hotel, he is killed by the Mexican hitmen. They know he is there because of his mother in-law. Chigurgh then came afterwards and took the money from the vent. Chigurgh does not die at all. He survives everything in my opinion, even the car crash.

[ie]

SPOILER: Click to show

Yes, but then the ending was really shoddy because it didn't follow the same style as the rest of the movie. For example, let's say you're going along, watching a pretty decent western movie, then all of a sudden, they're all in space. No reason for it, nothing in the plot or script mentioned anything about it. All the characters act like they were always in space. There are aliens around, and hell, they don't even have pistols and revolvers anymore. They'd have light sabors, and have blue skin. It'd be like that, only not as obvious.

What I mean is that, sure, the last half hour was probably originally planned to be literal, but didn't you notice a shift in what was going on? We had a really bloody as hell western going on, then toward the end, the main character has a mostly implied death, same with the mother-in-law and eventually wife. There was more going on under the surface than it all just being literal, especially since the officer never caught onto Chigurgh (Chigga-urgh ) being in the room at the end.

Also, thanks for your clarification, though that's what was said in the Wikipedia plot description.

[captainofbeef]

Yea, I can see how the shift in style might bother you. But I enjoyed it. It was totally unexpected and very well done in my opinion.

[dontdigonswine]

I completely went a diff way with this one than you, ie. After seeing it a couple times and talking about it occasionally on IMDB, I've come to a solid conclusion about the ending.

SPOILER: Click to show

I think everything is definitely meant literally. I think the main character you refer to (Josh Brolin) is revealed to be only a side character by the events of the last half hour. The audience discovers to solid main characters: Ed Tom Bell and Anton Chigurh. This is the story of two opposing forces on reverse ends of a spectrum. The spectrum is those who act with strict morality and those who act following their own set of principles. But, these two forces happen to share the same inner struggle: being inable to decipher whether life is controlled by fate or chance. I think the end events (car crash and spiritual dream) force the characters to think strongly about this idea, and maybe an extreme character change occurs for both of them. If anything, they have changed because instead of being stuck in their same solidified shells of stubbornness and unacceptance of fate, they are at least considering it.

And I think the complexity of the name of the "villain" further establishes his incomprehensible morals.

I think that it is awesome that this film always stirs up conversation, no matter who you talk to about it.

[ie]

Unfortunately, my end of the conversation for No Country For Old Men died up. I have my theory on the movie, but I don't really care about elaborating on it much more. For me, not wanting to bother talking about a movie means that I didn't really care for it. I mean, there are certain exceptions, but if I'm not interested in telling you how I feel about something, then how do I feel about that something?

Either that, or more westerns than not probably just bore me. Sorry, but I guess my avatar is convincing me to be crankier.

[Clark Nova]

SPOILER: Click to show

the way I saw it, Anton Chigurh was pretty much a pure embodiment of evil, and the fact that he lives at the end (and gets the money no less), suggests that evil will always live on, and Sheriff Bell can find spirituality in his dreams all he wants, but Anton Chigurh will always be waiting in the shadows.

[captainofbeef]

^I could agree with that description, I guess.

[ie]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_tg8fMcpTc
Tarantino vs Coen Brothers, I only watched about 30 seconds of it but it looks clever.

[criterionmaster]

That's really well done.