Miller’s Crossing

There was only a handful of movies to choose from for this final entry. Most were not interesting to me. Raising Arizona, The Hudsucker Proxy, and Intolerable Cruelty were all works I briefly considered. But mostly (as you might have been able to infer from reading that list), I regretted not leaving one of their better films for last.

Of course, all the while I knew that I hadn’t touched on my favorite film of theirs. It was always a deliberate choice. Miller’s Crossing is certainly a good movie, but it’s rather flawed. How is it my favorite film from a creative tandem that gave us Fargo, The Big Lebowski, and No Country for Old Men? This film goes completely flat in the third act and the gratuitous amount of plot twists get really cumbersome – I’ve watched Miller’s Crossing front to back about five times, and it wasn’t until the last viewing that I could fully understand what’s going on in the plot. Watching the story, um, “unravel”, it feels like Ethan and Joel created a narrative maze that was just too intricate; so much so that even they couldn’t find a way out. The brothers suffered from writer’s block in the process of scripting the movie, and also wrote one of their greatest triumphs, Barton Fink, in a three week break from working on this film. Neither fact surprises me.

"Take your flunky and dangle!"

Good thing for the brothers that movies don’t necessarily live and die on story alone. Good thing that they were able to get two of the greatest contemporary European actors (that’d be Albert Finney and Gabriel Byrne, respectfully) for the lead roles. Good thing that Barry Sonnenfeld’s photography is pitch-perfect, rife with rich palettes that vividly evoke the film’s Prohibition Era-setting and an endless array of gorgeous outdoor shots – particularly those of the densely forested titular location. Good thing that Jon Polito and John Turturro came through and provided their good friends with two of the best performances ever seen in a Coen movie. And, though this only speaks to my own biases, good thing that this movie simultaneously manages to be a sleek and violent Irish mobster movie and not The Boondock Saints. Real good thing, that one.

"Look into your heart."

So why is this my favorite? That’s not a rhetorical question, by the way – I’m asking myself those words out loud as I type. I guess the answer is that I just like the movie’s style. All the Coen movies have a distinct one, and I guess this is the one that speaks to me. This movie’s style – and my enjoyment of it – is derived primarily from Byrne’s irresistable portrayal of the slick-talking Tom Regan. For all intents and purposes, Regan is the movie: everything revolves around his insights, decisions, and deceits. Byrne plays him as a coy and caustic chessmaster; a man who controls everything from his boss’s sides with little more than the slightest gestures and subtlest expressions. He is quietly confident and commanding, and endlessly charismatic. The rogue-with-a-heart is one of the best anti-heroes ever, and certainly one of the most underrated. Byrne was put in the somewhat uncomfortable position of having to carry the movie, but does so with a sleek and effortless grace. He succeeds, and therefore the movie does as well. Watch it once for Byrne’s performance alone (as well as Finney’s, Turturro’s, and Polito’s). But if you want to understand it at all, you’ll probably have to watch it a couple more times.

Tomatometer – 90%
Metacritic – 66/100

Cast:

Tom Regan – Gabriel Byrne
Verna Bernbaum – Marcia Gay Harden
Leo O’Bannon – Albert Finney
Bernie Bernbaum – John Turturro
Johnny Caspar – Jon Polito
Eddie Dane – J.E. Freeman
Mink Larouie – Steve Buscemi

Released 10/6/90. 115 minutes. Rated R.

A Serious Man

A Serious Man is an important Coen Brothers movie because it shows that after all these years Ethan and Joel are still, well, Ethan and Joel, I guess. Moreso than ever, in fact. I’m fairly certain that in my writeup of Barton Fink I called that film the most Coen Brothers movie that the Coen Brothers ever made, but that was before I had seen this. Now I’m reconsidering.

To say that the movie defies convention would be like saying that it has a vague Hebrew presence. Run down the line: there are virtually no known actors in the film, not even any of the trusted character actors that the brothers love to call on. The plot is aggressively idiosyncratic, and its enormously insular details shift between whimsy and gloom at a moment’s notice. For those who must have a category, I suppose that on the surface level you could call this a black comedy. However, the relentless specter of tragedy throughout the film certainly makes laughs hard to come by. In other words, what’s the darkest shade of black?

"We'll make it through this, Larry."

To summarize the plot in the most inadequate kind of brevity, physics professor Larry Gopnik’s life falls completely apart over the course of this movie. The setting is suburban Minneosta in 1967, and you definitely get a lot of nonverbal commentary on the facade of the American Dream (especially as it pertains to the Jewish community). The plot is moved forward through Larry seeking out the help of three local rabbis. He is encouraged by everyone he knows to seek their counsel, and reassured that they will help in some way. What he ultimately finds is that faith is a rather limited thing when your fate is to unequivocally suffer. Like I said, dark black comedy.

The performances are very strong, which is only surprising in the sense that none of these performers are well known. Score another casting victory for Team Coen. Michael Stuhlberg plays Larry to a Woody Allen-esque perfection; he is ever the kindhearted, neurotic Jew who we simultaneously love to laugh at and sympathize with. Sari Lennick is his wife Judith, embodying a stone-faced, emotionally vacant ballbreaker quite well. Fred Melamed’s Sy Abelman might just be the best of show – he is unrelenting in his need to steal Larry’s wife in the politest way possible.

This movie was a critical darling, but I thought it was merely good. It isn’t the best movie the Coen tandem ever made, or the most profound. It is ultimately “just” another quality production in a career full of them, and shows us that even in the wake of some of their greatest successes (No Country for Old Men) and misfires (Burn After Reading), they’re still willing to experiment with their craft and throw a middle finger to convention. While the movie itself is wrought with depressing overtones, we can at least be happy knowing that.

Two completely unrelated footnotes – this movie is both the most Jewish film I’ve ever seen and also has the most realistic depictions of adolescent marijuana use. Again, I’m pretty sure those two things are unrelated.

Tomatometer – 89%
Metacritic – 79/100

Cast:

Larry Gopnik – Michael Stuhlberg
Uncle Arthur – Richard Kind
Sy Abelman – Fred Melamed
Judith Gopnik – Sari Lennick
Danny Gopnik – Aaron Wolff
Sarah Gopnik – Jessica McManus

Released 10/9/2009. 105 minutes. Rated R.

Blood Simple

This movie revolves around four principle characters. Each are reprehensible human beings, and virtually all of their actions and inmpulses are motivated by some combination of greed, lust, and malice. There’s no redemption for anyone here, nothing to feel good about when it’s over. Blood Simple is diabolically good, and probably the most cynical movie the brothers ever made. That is particularly interesting to note given that it’s both the first movie they ever made, and their following project would be the screwball comedy Raising Arizona. Before they released No Country for Old Men, Blood Simple seemed to be a completely anachronistic entry into their catalogue.

Speaking of which, given the gritty content of the movie and the rural Texas setting, I suppose that nowadays this film necessarily invites a comparison with No Country. But the similarities are mostly superficial. The action – and tragedy – of No Country revolved around characters acting largely out of personal codes of honor, while Blood Simple presents a straightforward depiction of avarice, malice, and other forms of bad behavior. John Getz’s Ray might have spent some time in the service, but suffice it to say that he is not Llewelyn Moss. And the nebbish, promiscuous tendencies of Frances McDormand’s Abby make her a far cry from Carla-Jean.

"If you point a gun at someone, you'd better make sure you shoot him, and if you shoot him you'd better make sure he's dead, because if he isn't then he's gonna get up and try to kill you."

That said, the Lone Star State is used in a vaguely similar way: there is an emphasis on the state’s empty rural expanses, as well as a few of its hokier indoor settings. Barry Sonnenfeld did the cinematography of the first three Coen movies, and in each of them he showed a talent for creating a richly-colored, thoroughly authentic kind of aesthetic. The movie has a distinct, organic kind of bleakness.

The writing is certainly some of the brothers’ best. The plot is intricate but accessible, and it is driven forward by characters whose despicable behavior is compeltely plausible. The story just works, and I think that’s mostly because it all works together: each escalating terror is informed by the one before it, and we know that it will cause something worse to follow. My lone reservation is that the movie drags in a few scenes that were probably extended to hit the standard issue 90 minute mark. It would be even better if about 15 minutes were trimmed off.

And then there’s the climatic final scene. Honestly, it’s a lot like Halloween’s… except scarier. And gorier.

"Looks like you stuck your finger in the wrong asshole!"

The final word has to go M. Emmet Walsh, who plays the slimy private investigator Loren Visser. The respected character actor steals every scene he’s in, and comes to be the complete embodyment of sleaze and deceit. He was easily the brothers’ best rogue for about two decades, until a certain mop-topped, cattle gun-wielding psychopath came into the fold (hey, another No Country comparison!). And yet, strangely, he might be the most honest person we see. He makes no attempt to hide his true nature, and certainly makes no apologies for it. Whereas the other characters at least try to delude themselves into simplistic rationalizations, Marty is ever aware of – and impressed by – his villainy. He tells us in the opening monologue that “down here… you’re on your own.” The bastard makes it sound like advice.

Tomatometer: 95%
Metacritic: 81/100

Cast:

Ray – John Getz
Abby – Frances McDormand
Julian Marty – Dan Hedaya
Loren Visser – M. Emmet Walsh
Samm-Art Williams – Meurice

Released 1/18/85. 96 minutes. Rated R.

Barton Fink

Barton Fink is one of the most jarring, alienating and downright strange comedies ever to be put on screen. It resists simple classification, defies typical film structure and often seems like it isn’t making any sense at all.

It’s wonderful. Probably not my favorite work from Ethan and Joel (that would be Miller’s Crossing, which is overwhelmingly ironic given that the Coen Brothers wrote Barton Fink in directly response to the struggles they had with that film), but it’s up there. Many others do rate it as their best and, unlike the movie itself, it’s understandable.

Leave it to the Brothers to take an unbelievably cliché topic – a story about a writer struggling with, among other things, writer’s block – and completely turn it on its head. They do so here in a fundamentally simple way: they focus the critique primarily on the writer, not the world that surrounds him. No one in this movie is more naive, dimwitted or just generally clueless than its protagonist.

"I create for a living! I'm a creator! I am a creator!"

Barton Fink is a Broadway playwright who has finally started gaining a bit of recognition. He wears his self-endowed “Man of the People” title on his sleeve: he forcefully projects a veneer of humility, won’t read his own reviews, wants to create a new kind of theatre, and, more than anything, believes that he is the one who can tell the story of the common man.

But he also has to pay the bills, so he takes a job writing pictures for a Hollywood studio to earn a bit of money. How surprised he is to find that he cant even cobble together a “B-picture” script (a formulaic wrestling tale) that should supposedly write itself. He shacks up at the ominously vacant Hotel Earle, strikes up a reluctant friendship with neighboring occupant Charlie Meadows, and seeks counsel from the acclaimed alcoholic novelist W.P. Mayhew. None of it helps, and most of Barton’s time is spent brooding in his room. He anxiously stares at his typewriter and a generic painting as the walls decay around him.

The movie spends most of its time attacking Fink’s pathetically narrow worldview, but it saves plenty of vitriol for Hollywood on the whole. The city is shown to be a meat grinder for writers, a soulless expanse of artifice, and a place run by illiterate buffoons with no real understanding of movies whatsoever. It brilliantly conveys how arbitrary the creative process can be, as well as the ways we rationalize the compromises we make between art and commerce. It’s funny above all else, but in a style that is subversive – not slapstick. As the movie develops, the only person who seems to be a decent, likable human being is Meadows. The only problem with that is… well, let’s just say it’s a big one. No pun intended. Honest.

"I could tell you some stories."

The Coen brothers casted a lot of now-frequent co-collaborators for the film, and it proved to be a good call. Fink is played by John Turturro, who last week I called a “genius of character acting”. We see it all here: he creates a throughly spineless character who is helpless to stop the corrosion of his innocence and idealism, and even less equipped to respond to that awakening. For a lesser talent, Fink would just be a bland composite of a lot of writer clichés, but Turturro plays him with such blind earnestness (or, if you prefer, such an utter lack of self-awareness) that the audience cant help but sympathize and care for his plight… even if it’s entirely rooted in pity. Turturro is probably best suited to play quirkly oddball supporting characters, but his work as the lead man here does his reputation no harm.

Meadows is a perfect foil, someone who seems to be a blabbermouth simpleton but certainly proves to be something else altogether. He is brilliantly portrayed by John Goodman, who exudes a certain kind of affability and everyman charm that, well, that proves to be a rather interesting set of traits when everything comes full circle. John Mahoney, an unbelievably talented actor who will unfortunately be best remembered for playing Frasier Crane’s dad, is riotously funny as the William Faulkner pastiche W.P. Mayhew. I imagine that Mayhew, an infantile, misogynistic boozehound, is what most Wes Anderson characters would be like… if Wes Anderson wrote funny or interesting characters, that is.

Barton Fink is one of the best movies about writing ever made, as well as one of the best movies about making movies. It’s a triumph of a sort of understated surrealism, managing to be constantly evocative and seldom contrived. We know now that it was an indulgent undertaking, but it remains a strange and substantial piece of work on its own merit. And for all the great performances, at the heart of the movie’s success is the confidence Joel and Ethan placed in their script, even with all of its nuanced oddity. It’s a masterpiece on every level.

Tomatometer: 90%
Metacritic: 69/100

Cast:

Barton Fink – John Tuturro
Charlie Meadows – John Goodman
Audrey Taylor – Judy Davis
Jack Lipnick – Michael Lerner
W.P. Mayhew – John Mahoney
Ben Geisler – Tony Shalhoub
Lou Breeze – Jon Polito
Chet – Steve Buscemi

Released 8/21/1990. 116 min. Rated R.

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

I don’t like this movie. At all. By and large I was destined not to, seeing as the film prominently features bluegrass, country, and gospel music – a trio of genres that you might say I don’t really care for. If you’re gonna make a period piece musical, I suppose that’s the risk you take. But really, like most of the Coen movies that I don’t’ care for, it’s a decidedly style-over-substance affair. To me, it does little more than make a mockery of the Odyssey, one of my favorite pieces of literature. It didn’t have to be that way, either.

Our tale here centers around three vagabond criminals who are more or less forced to wander the Deep South of the 1930’s, encountering a series of mishaps that mirrors Homer’s time-honored epic. The leader and brains of the operation is George Clooney’s Everett Ulysses (get it? Odyssey? Ulysses? Ha, ha, ha.) McGrill, perpetually flanked on either side by loyal dimwits Delmar (Tim Blake Nelson) and Pete (John Turturro). Clooney brings his readymade charisma to the screen and his comic timing is more or less on point, while Nelson is adequate in a forgettable sort of way. But Turturro – a genius of character acting, mind you – is given a potentially interesting role… and botches it. Badly. Simply put, the man hams it up far past the point of no return, even for a comedy. That would be forgivable in a cameo, but a cameo it is not.

The Soggy Bottom Boys

Yet, the most glaring shortcomings lie with the story itself. The premise of staging Homer’s epic in the 1930’s South is admittedly interesting and does lead to some intriguing scenarios, but seldom is the potential fully realized. The brothers contrive a number imaginative scenarios for the characters, but squander them for the sake of novelty and cheap humor. It works to an extent, but eventually feels forced. Scenes toward the end of the movie like their encounter with the Ku Klux Klan (save for a certain surprise guest appearance) just felt plain awkward.

I will include two caveats, however: John Goodman as a Cycloptic, motor-mouthed bible salesman is always a good time, and the rendition of the Sirenes is absolutely mesmerizing.

Speaking of style, you definitely have to admire the cinematography here. The Earthy composition of the eternally brilliant Roger Deakins’s photography is enrapturing. Every scene is drenched in sepia tones, and it’s impossible not to be overwhelmed by the aesthetics of each environment. The Coen/Deakins team would go on to experiment further with a reduced color palette in their next film, The Man Who Wasn’t There, but it was largely a misstep. Their work here, on the other hand, was anything but.

"The treasure you seek shall not be the treasure you find..."

Really, it’s not a bad movie, it’s just… not that good, either. I suppose it could be considered a noble experiment. Considering the widespread sales of the soundtrack alone, it was a successful one, too. And in truth, I don’t if I could say this movie fails or falls short of its aims. It simply is what it is, which is a goofy take on a time-honored classic. And, in those terms, you might say that’s good enough (for everyone but me, I guess).

And obviously that goes double if you’re a fan of bluegrass, country, and/or gospel music. But if that’s the case, then God help you.

Tomatometer: 76%
Metacritic: 69/100

Cast:

Everett Ulysses McGrill – George Clooney
Pete – John Tuturro
Delmar – Tim Blake Nelson
Big Dan Teague – John Goodman
Penny – Holly Hunter
Tommy Johnson – Chris Thomas King
Charles Durning – Pappy O’Daniel
Michael Badalucco – George Nelson

Released 12/22/2000. 106 min. Rated PG-13.

No Country for Old Men.

This one won’t take too long. Partly because this film is a recent one, and one that I assume most have probably seen. But primarily because I don’t want to subject anyone to an awe-struck tangent where I extensively detail how perfect this perfect movie’s perfect perfection is.

But make no mistake – it is perfect. Quite simply, No Country for Old Men was the best movie of the past decade. Every aspect of this film works: the harshness of its barren rural Texas setting of the 1980’s (beautifully captured, as ever, by that genius Roger Deakins), the Brothers’ adaptation improving upon one of Cormac McCarthy’s “lesser” – and that is in an extremely relative sense – works, the unbelievably strong ensemble acting (and, of course, the spellbinding performance of Javier Bardem as Anton Chigurh)… see? I promised not to long-windedly go on about it, but it seems rather inevitable. Moving on…

"You stand to win everything."

But what I really would like to emphasize, and what makes this movie a decidedly “Coen” success, is that No Country is easily the most efficient movie I’ve ever seen in the sense of storytelling. I earlier touched on how, in films like Fargo and The Big Lebowski, Ethan and Joel’s best work comes from their ability to squeeze everything they can out of every second of screentime. This movie is probably the best example of their work embodying that concept. It’s no hyperbole to say that this film wastes nothing: virtually everything we see happening is working to drive the film forward. It’s told in a sparse and straightforward way that gives us exactly, and only, everything we need. There was some discontent over the ending, but that was a controversy driven exclusively by people blinded by some asinine need generic cinematic conventions. That’s about as mean as I get in this blog, but believe me when I say that I do not resent those people. I pity them.

No Country marked the end of almost a decade-long slump for the Coen brothers, and at the time of its release it easily became both their greatest critical and commercial success (Burn After Reading would immediately surpass No Country’s box office take). In other words, they finally made a film that everyone had to acknowledge. Speaking of which, you’ve probably seen this movie so, whether or not you agree with what I’m saying, I’m probably not telling you anything new. But if you haven’t, you should go ahead and fix that. You stand to win everything.

Tomatometer – 95%
Metacritic – 91/100

Cast:

Ed Tom Bell – Tommy Lee Jones
Anton Chigurh – Javier Bardem
Llewelyn Moss – Josh Brolin
Carla Jean Moss – Kelly MacDonald
Carson Wells – Woody Harrelson
Tess Harper – Loretta Bell

Released 11/21/2007. 122 min. Rated R.

Fargo.

Opening shot

Turns out that statement wasn’t really true. Maybe the Coen Brothers lied about the accuracy of its origin to frame its believability. Maybe they were just screwing around. Maybe they had deep-rooted artistic motivations. Whatever their reasons, a lot of people fell for that, including myself – and I first saw this movie years after its “authenticity” had been disproved.

Really though, what difference does it make? Fargo is a film that looks and feels completely unique and tells its story in a way that gives it a bizarre plausibility, with or without the introductory text. And anyway, it’s an amazing film – it landed seven Academy Award noms, and won two. Joel and Ethan took home Best Original Screenplay, and Frances McDormand’s portrayal of the very plucky, and very pregnant, Marge Gunderson landed her a statue for Best Actress. It’s probably one of the great American movies in recent memory, and certainly in the upper echelon of the Coen Brothers’ filmography.

Cinema's least likely icon?

It is probably the most “Coen Brothers” movie that the Coen Brothers ever made. It has comedy, drama, whimsy, and existentialism… sometimes all in the same scene. It revolves around a botched kidnapping plot that turns into an even worse cover-up, all of which is orchestrated by idiots getting in way over their heads. More simply, I’m certain that only Joel and Ethan could give us a film that has both “that” wood chipper scene AND Mike Yanagita.

The Brothers are on record saying they wanted the movie to have an exotic quality to it, and that’s absolutely true. Most of the movie’s quirkiness comes from the tension occurring between what we assume is familiar about the Northwest, and yet how unfamiliar most of us are with how it actually is. The love, as ever, is in the details, and it’s obvious that this was something of a passion project for Joel & Ethan (which figures, seeing as the two are Minnesota natives).

What really makes the setting exotic is how it is rendered with a slightly exaggerated fidelity. I-35 appears as a whitewashed, snow-drenched expanse stretching endlessly across the horizon. The modest-yet-urban Minneapolis takes the form of a laconic metropolis, and one that is composed solely of ice rinks, hotels and parking garages. The specter of Paul Bunyan’s kitschy monument looms over the movie like some kind of vengeful, flannel-clad overlord. And all of this is captured in a stark and pristine kind of bleakness by the indomitable photography of cinematographer Roger Deakins. The outdoor and daytime shots are bare and muted, causing the screen to almost drown at times in a vivid yet monotonous brightness. In no uncertain terms, the movie is relentlessly, unforgivingly white.

Of course, there’s also the dialogue. The forced pleasantries of the Minnesotan tongue (a dialect called “Minnesota Nice”) are captured perfectly with an endless barrage of “o ya’s” and “dontchaknows”. I could go on and on about it, but really it’s best seen (heard?) when Marge interrogates a pair of hookers (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRu6_mJiVAo&NR=1).

The cast is predictably great. Apart from McDormand’s Oscar-winning turn, this movie also solidified the arrivals of Steve Buscemi and William H. Macy, and also captures great work from Peter Stormare and Harve Presnell.

I’m stretching the limits of the word quota at this point, so let me just close by saying that Fargo is about as flawless of a modern film as you’ll ever find and arguably the pinnacle of the Coen Canon. And that’s all true, even if the story isn’t.

P.S. – I disgracefully wrote this up without paying any kind of tribute to Macy’s Jerry Lundegaard, one of the great dumbasses in all of fiction. He is great. GREAT. There.

Tomatometer: 94%
Metacritic:  85/100

Cast:

Marge Gunderson – Frances McDormand
Jerry Lundegaard – Willaim H. Macy
Carl Showalter – Steve Buscemi
Gaer Grimsrud – Peter Stormare
Wade Gustafson – Harve Presnell
Norm Gunderson – John Carroll Lynch
Mike Yanagita – Steve Park

Released  4/5/1996.  98 minutes. Rated R.

The Man Who Wasn’t There

It could just as well be titled “The Film That Wasn’t There.” The black comedy/noir satire was originally released in 2001 to a decent critical reception but an underwhelming run at the box office. It has since become one of the more obscure Coen films, presumably because, even relatively speaking, it’s just… so… weird. Frankly, it is one of the more disappointing entries into the Coen canon, and perhaps the most frustrating. Fair’s fair – if I praise their success, I must also acknowledge their failures. And, indeed, the blame for this one belongs completely to the brothers.

The most noticeable aspect of The Man Who Wasn’t There is the cinematography. After spending the late 90’s utilizing muted, minimalist color palettes in Fargo, The Big Lebowski, and O Brother Where Art Thou? the brothers and the legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins decided to experiment with removing color entirely. This is one of the movie’s quirks that actually works, and provides some vivid and compelling images of the movie’s northern California setting, as well as it’s characters. One scene in particular, a confrontation involving Billy Bob Thornton’s Ed Crane and James Gandolfini’s “Big” Dave Brewster, renders Gandolfini as a giant draped in darkness behind a desk, and it cuts a more menacing figure than Tony Soprano ever did.

"What kind of man are you?"

But the plot. Oh, the plot. Some critics have often attacked the Coens for their tendencies for crafting overly haughty and excessively insular stories. This movie is essentially a scene by scene vindication of that critique. On the surface, the premise seems like it could make for a decent black comedy – a disillusioned barber falls into a world of intrigue and despair in his attempts to break into the exciting new dry-cleaning industry – but the dully written characters, the nonsensical twists, and the plot points that get introduced and abandoned in the span of 15 minutes aren’t amusing, aren’t intriguing, and just completely fail to capture the imagination. Once the novelty of the black-and-white wears off, it becomes rather obvious that there isn’t anything interesting happening in the story. Sheisty lawyer Freddy Reidenschneider (played to perfection by Tony Shalhoub) tells Crane “The more you look, the less you really know.” He might as well be commenting on the film itself.

"I don't talk much... I just cut the hair."

Which is a pity, because it means that a few good performances go to waste. Thornton’s Crane is particularly worthy of praise. He is able to do something remarkable and bring a strange kind of charm to what is essentially a lifeless character. He chews up scenes without talking and often forces the story forward with the slightest glance or gesture. It might be the best performance of what has been a very solid career. Thornton receives adequate support from Gandolfini and Shalhoub, two men who were in the process of becoming iconic TV stars at the time of the film’s release. Gandolfini’s Brewster shows what Tony Soprano would have become if he eschewed the mob and became a department store owner. Shalhoub, a frequent collaborator with the brothers, takes the completely clichéd Riedenschneider character and talks his way into stealing every scene he’s in.

“The Man Who Wasn’t There” marked the end of the Coens’ string of successes and predictably fizzled due to a story that wasn’t much of a story at all. It’s like Joel and Ethan just decided to indulge themselves with a series of nebbish inside jokes, and then put it on film. The problem is, they never let the audience in on it. But really, if the general audience needs the humor of every reference, homage, and gag explained to it, then maybe it isn’t that funny in the first place.

Tomatometer: 80%
Metacritic: 73/100

Cast:

Ed Crane – Billy Bob Thornton
Doris Crane – Francis McDormand
“Big” Dave Brewster – James Gandolfini
Freddy Riedenschneider – Tony Shalhoub
Frank – Michael Badalucco
Creighton Tolliver – Jon Polito
Birdy Abundas – Scarlett Johansson

Released 10/26/01. 116 minutes. Rated R.

The Big Lebowski

The Big Lebowski’s popularity is so well-known that it hardly bears repeating. At this point, the 1998 cult classic is known almost as much for its devoted followers (cue the obligatory Lebowski Fest reference) as it is for its own merits as a film. Nothing wrong with that, but as ever it bears mentioning that Lebowski the movie is what enabled Lebowski the cultural phenomenon.

El Duderino (for those not into brevity)

Perhaps it’s the attention to detail. In practically every shot something funny is happening, and this is just as true for the brief glimpse of The Dude’s grocery store conduct as it is for Walter’s constant reproaching of Donny. The Coen brothers are known for the efficiency of their craft, and waste nothing in Lebowski. The end result is a film that rewards multiple viewings, and continues to inspire many of them.

Lebowski is endlessly quotable, and quoted often… perhaps excessively so. It’s certainly understandable. All the inane conversations, the half-baked scheming, and the crazed philosophical ramblings are perfectly phrased by the brothers and delivered equally well by the actors. So many of the Coen films – especially their comedies – live or die on the language, and Lebowski absolutely thrives on it. The film’s dialogue is so consistently and effortlessly good that it now seems almost an aberration when compared to the tedious contrivances of their later comedies like The Ladykillers and Burn After Reading.

"You said it, mang."

Finally, a nod must be given to one of the great ensemble casts in recent memory. Jeff Bridges’s Dude, John Goodman’s Sobchak, John Tuturro’s Jesus… there is hardly enough space to give them all their proper due. The film sports a mixture of Coen regulars (Tuturro, Steve Buscemi) and respected dramatic actors (Bridges, Julianne Moore), and everyone delivers the goods. The simplest way of putting it is this: even Tara Reid manages not to embarrass herself.

Tomatometer: 78%
Metacritic: 69/100

Cast:

The Dude – Jeff Bridges
Walter Sobchak – John Goodman
Theodore Donald “Donny” Kerabatsos – Steve Buscemi
Big Lebowski – David Huddleston
Maude Lebowski – Julianne Moore
The Jesus – John Tuturro
Bunny – Tara Reid
Karl Hungus – Peter Stormare
Brandt – Phillip Seymour Hoffman
Private Dick – Jon Polito

Released 3/6/98. 117 Minutes. Rated R.

Welcome. Would you please come back later?

“I gather that you are a freshman here, eager for an upperclassman’s counsel. However, just at the moment, I have drinking to do. Why don’t you stop by my bungalow, which is number fifteen, later on this afternoon, and we will discuss rasslin’ scenarios and other things lit’rary.” – W.P. Mayhew

That being said, nice to see you and please enjoy responsibly.