Blood Simple - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086979/watch Blood Simple next (their first film).
You seriously think Burn After Reading>Blood Simple?!Blood Simple - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086979/
.. i know why this film was considered good at the time - there are a number of interesting shots. And there is a lot of lighting play. But, they are no Kubrik.
However, one must keep in mind that this was shot on a $1.5 million budget.
A miserable man, Marty (Dan Hedaya) is being cheated on by his wife, Abby (Frances McDormand) with his employee, Ray (John Getz). Marty at first hires a PI to get dirt on the couple, and then tries to act all tough, but being that he's just a miserable worm, both Abby and Ray walk all over him.
Then Marty pays the same PI, Visser (Emmet Walsh) to kill the couple.
Visser instead tricks Marty, making him believe that the couple are dead; when Marty pays the fee for the murder, Visser shoots Marty with a gun - a gun stolen from Abby.
Later, Ray finds Marty's dead body, and thinks Abby killed him; because of this he decides to hide the body. Marty isnt dead, and tries to fight back, but again, being that he's only half a man, he fails at that too. Ray buries him alive.
Visser finds that he's left incriminating evidence at the scene, and goes back to kill Ray and Abby. A shootout ensues, Ray dies, but Abby kills Visser .. thinking that she's killing Ray instead.
eeh .. it's ok. There's a number of interesting shots, which "art school" film fans would probably have raved about, but nothing like what's to come in the next years from the Coens.
And Miller's Crossing is a better crime story.
And The Hudsucker Proxy is a far, far better film in *everything*.
And Barton Fink sucks balls. Come on, you know it does.
Fargo, Big Lebowski, etc. Ladykillers.
All great films, and while this is .. interesting, it's not really "great". I think Walsh (Visser) was the best of the whole bunch; and i would have liked to see more of Deborah Neumann, but unfortunately she don' seem to have done much, after this film.
I would not really recommend this unless specifically to see what the Coens' first film was like. 6/10
The 2001 DVD release also includes an audio commentary by "Kenneth Loring", the fictional artistic director of the equally fictional "Forever Young Films". Loring offers several entirely spurious "facts"; for example, he claims the scene with Ray and Abby driving in the rain, talking about Marty, was acted out in reverse, as well as upside down, to synch the headlights of the passing car just as certain lines were said. (He claims filming the scene backwards and upside down was the logical choice to get the timing right, and the actors are wearing hair spray to keep their hair pointing "down".) Elsewhere in the commentary, he claims, in scenes with both dialogue and music, the actors simply mouth the words and record them in postproduction, so they do not interfere with the music; that Marty's dog is animatronic; that the sweat on various actors is "movie sweat", gathered from the flanks of Palomino horses; that Fred Astaire and Rosemary Clooney were at one time intended for the film; and that a fly buzzing about is not real, but the product of computer-generated imagery. "Loring" is voiced by actor Jim Piddock, using a script written by the Coen brothers.
| Blood Simple - meh. | ||
| 1987 | Raising Arizona - did not watch | |
| 1990 | Miller's Crossing - good, simple gangster film. Lead character is one of the meanest meek motherfuckers ever put to paper. | |
| 1991 | Barton Fink - everyone should watch it, because i had to suffer, they have to suffer too. | |
| 1994 | The Hudsucker Proxy - great film | |
| 1996 | Fargo - great film | |
| 1998 | The Big Lebowski - fun, but i dont love it as much as everyone else does | |
| 2000 | O Brother, Where Art Thou? - one of my fav films and everyone should watch this. | |
| 2001 | The Man Who Wasn't There - haven't watched it | |
| 2003 | Intolerable Cruelty - i had fun. Just beause it's a simpler plot doesn't make it a bad film. | |
| 2004 | The Ladykillers - fun little family comedy, almost the "Home Alone" of the Coens | |
| 2007 | No Country for Old Men - eehh .. the in-media-res of the plot really doesnt do it for me. Feels like both beginning and ending are missing. | |
| 2008 | Burn After Reading - as review above. | |
| 2009 | A Serious Man - have not watched this. | |
| 2010 | True Grit - loved the kid, matt damon was surprisingly good, hated Jeff Bridges | |
| 2013 | Inside Llewyn Davis - did not see | |
| 2016 | Hail, Caesar! - not good. Not horrible, but really not worth the time. | |
| 2018 | The Ballad of Buster Scruggs - visionary at times, but uneven, and incomplete. | |
Quite a coincidence. And if I'm not mistaken there is at least one egregious coincidence in Burn After Reading. The coincidence to which I refer is the fact that I started watching this yesterday and hit stop after 30 minutes and went to see the rest just now. I got to the scene where McDormand shoves Malkovich's CD in front of the Russian at the embassy. I was getting more and more disgusted with this so called comedy without (so far) a single funny moment. My favorite thing to happen in it so far was Malkovich punching Pitt in the nose. I realized this and hit EJECT! I then looked it up at Rotten Tomatoes and saw a few quickie reviews and came here to rag on it. First thing I see is DigDog's review of what? Burn After Reading! It's going back to the library. I mean, I thought to myself, the only character I have any feeling for at all, i.e. that I don't hate, is Malkovich. That first scene where he finds out he's lost his job was truly great. After that, absolutely nothing worth seeing, quite the contrary.Burn After Reading - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0887883/
Coen Bros film.
This was my first viewing and i wasn't terribly impressed. As i thought about writing this mini-review it came to me that it's not a terrible film, but it lacks substance.
Here is why;
1. most of the many notable actors are cast against type. Tilda swinton is a horrible antagonising woman with no empathy, brad pitt is a moron, john malkovic .. uh .. isn't john malkovic ..even clooney isn't his usual self, not as confident or resourceful. Only JK Simmons seems to play his usual part.
2. the dialogue is of a very high standard, as usual. however, there aren't any notable moments of confrontation.
3. the story is nice, but not really .. uh .. satisying.
Malkovic is an analyst with the CIA. He's taken out of his job for some office-politics issue and he decides to quit instead and "go find himself". He is not really the kind of person who can find himself, as wife tild swinton points out.
Meanwhile wife swinton has been cheating with clooney. She also goes to see a divorce attorney, because she doesn't value her husband at all, and now that he lost his job he's useless to her.
Absent-minded malkovic loses a CD with some "sensitive data" on it. This is found by meatheads Pitt and McDormand - McDormand in particular is driven by her obsession to get plastic surgery. They try to make money off of this, first blackmailing malkovic, which fails horribly, and then by selling the secrets to the russians.
*there is an in-between part of the plot here, but it's irrelevant*
The russians obviously turn the evidence back to the US, given that it's both worthless and coming from two people with no credibility. Both clooney and malkovic get destroyed by their own incompetence, Pitt is killed, and eventually the plot goes back to the director of the operation, JK simmons, who is perplexed at the incompetence of everyone involved but, unsure if there is something bigger he does not know about, agrees to pay for McDormand's plastic surgery.
See, there is a big, well written plot here, but, there are really no memorable actor against actor moments that give this film any .. uh .. replay value?
Sure, it's amusing to see talented actors play against type, but a charmin' george clooney in Oh Brother just works better than a scared-of-committment clooney in Burn After Reading. Typecasting exists because it works.
my vote, 7/10 on the first watch, probably 6/10 after that.
Dylan! You son of a bitch!watched predator with my nephew.Funny scene in it"the son of a bitch is stuck in like an alabama tick".haha
i gotta see Layer Cake then because i loved The Gentlemen.The Gentlemen 7/10 feels like a remake of Layer Cake.
Totally. I own the disk, have watched it 3 times and loved it every time. Such a great movie!The Pianist!! 10/10
I watched it in 2007. Here's my note:Raising Arizona is the greatest film ever made.
You have failed at life.
DC's Legends of Tomorrow - S4 7/10. Ok so this show is bad. The acting is terrible and each is episode is just a lame story. But it's quirky and for some reason I'm enjoying this season. Mostly because it gives me something to watch while I isolate myself from other staff in the basement during lunch and it's SFW with headphones, but I do find myself chuckling every once in awhile. It could be because this season is about magic monsters so they can just go nuts on the plot. Plus, the girl who plays Nora Dark is hot IMO.
Tarantino is a huge fan of Bruce Lee... and kung fu movies in general. It really comes out the characters he wrote for True Romance.
The Bruce Lee thing was just another fantasy. What fighting or martial arts fan wouldn't occasionally fantasize about being as good or better than Bruce Lee? ...or Muhammad Ali? That fantasy is why Bruce Lee had fans!
humor .. in BAR, or in BS ?
BAR has a bit of humor, but it's not a comedy. BS hasn't got any at all, it's a crime drama.
Anyway, here's the ones i've seen, in order of goodest to least good. Or not, because the forum is not cooperating with the formatting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Simple Blood Simple - meh. 1987 Raising Arizona - did not watch 1990 Miller's Crossing - good, simple gangster film. Lead character is one of the meanest meek motherfuckers ever put to paper. 1991 Barton Fink - everyone should watch it, because i had to suffer, they have to suffer too. 1994 The Hudsucker Proxy - great film 1996 Fargo - great film 1998 The Big Lebowski - fun, but i dont love it as much as everyone else does 2000 O Brother, Where Art Thou? - one of my fav films and everyone should watch this. 2001 The Man Who Wasn't There - haven't watched it 2003 Intolerable Cruelty - i had fun. Just beause it's a simpler plot doesn't make it a bad film. 2004 The Ladykillers - fun little family comedy, almost the "Home Alone" of the Coens 2007 No Country for Old Men - eehh .. the in-media-res of the plot really doesnt do it for me. Feels like both beginning and ending are missing. 2008 Burn After Reading - as review above. 2009 A Serious Man - have not watched this. 2010 True Grit - loved the kid, matt damon was surprisingly good, hated Jeff Bridges 2013 Inside Llewyn Davis - did not see 2016 Hail, Caesar! - not good. Not horrible, but really not worth the time. 2018 The Ballad of Buster Scruggs - visionary at times, but uneven, and incomplete.
Of these, to me the best is Oh Brother (i've said this plenty of times), which i watched again a few days ago. I just watch this film at least a few times a year, and if the ending didnt suck, it would be a 9/10.
Fargo, Hudsucker, Lebowski are all good films which i would recommend to everyone.
Miller's Crossing and True Grit, i would recommend if someone asked me for a film in their specific genre ("what western would you recommend"). Maybe Ladykillers too, and Cruelty if someone wants a romcom.
Everything else i can take it or leave it; i don't feel richer for having watched Blood Simple, when i actually felt more emotion watching Cruelty, and totally feel enriched for having watched Fargo and Hudsucker.
These movies that are being released on Netflix, Hulu, Apple+, etc, are they fully exclusive to those platforms? Or do they eventually end up on all of the platforms after a few months? Or even on bluray/dvd?
There is some stuff I'd like to see on some of those platforms but not enough to subscribe to them.