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I Watched Every Coen Brothers Movie - Here's what I learned.
Slate ^ | 08/10/2011 | David Haglund

Posted on 08/11/2011 10:50:44 AM PDT by Responsibility2nd

When I was 9 or 10, I watched Raising Arizona on VHS and thought it was one of the weirdest and funniest things I had ever seen. A frequently jailed stickup artist with surprisingly florid diction (Nicolas Cage) and his barren police officer wife (Holly Hunter) kidnap a loudmouth furniture magnate's quintuplet and run into trouble with two escaped convicts and the Lone Biker of the Apocalypse. I didn't get it, really, but I didn't care: It was hilarious and strange, with amusingly quotable dialogue ("I'll be taking these Huggies and, uh, whatever cash ya got") and hummable music (the "Ode to Joy" on a banjo, yodeling) throughout. During my high-school years, I caught up with the rest of the Coens' output and considered myself a fan; their best movie to that point, Fargo, came out just before I graduated and was the first I saw in a theater. I still remember a somewhat pretentious friend explaining before our behavioral science class that Fargo's opening, with a car driving into "nothing" (an utterly blank expanse of North Dakota snow), was a "standard absurdist trope" or something along those lines.

(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...


TOPICS: Music/Entertainment; Society; TV/Movies
KEYWORDS: coenbrothers; fargo; raisingarizona
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To: Responsibility2nd

I’ve unfortunately seen a few of their movies, including True Grit and Fargo.

Hated them all except for True Grit, which was the only one I wasn’t sorry I saw (but the original with John Wayne is still the best).

Anyway, I’ve seen enough, so no more Coen brothers movies for me.


21 posted on 08/11/2011 11:24:21 AM PDT by Age of Reason
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To: Snake65

Ed McDonnough: You mean you busted out of jail.
Evelle: No, ma’am. We released ourselves on our own recognizance.
Gale: What Evelle here is trying to say is that we felt that the institution no longer had anything to offer us.


22 posted on 08/11/2011 11:24:53 AM PDT by dfwgator
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To: Responsibility2nd

I’ve never seen a Coen movie I didn’t like.


23 posted on 08/11/2011 11:28:31 AM PDT by Cicero (Marcus Tullius.)
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To: Responsibility2nd

interesting...was just having some beers last week with a bunch of friends and we were quoting Coen movies....just sent this off to them.
Raising Arizona and Fargo are classics...The Big Lebowski a good one too.


24 posted on 08/11/2011 11:28:54 AM PDT by oust the louse (A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for doing well.)
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To: Old Teufel Hunden

Good movie, but it had the WORST ending of any film ever made.

It simply quit. Like they ran outta film or their time was up or something.


25 posted on 08/11/2011 11:29:27 AM PDT by Responsibility2nd (The views and opinions expressed in this post are true and correct. Deal with it)
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To: Responsibility2nd
Her womb was a barren place, where my seed could find no purchase...
26 posted on 08/11/2011 11:30:21 AM PDT by Slicksadick (Go out on a limb........Its where the fruit is.)
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To: Responsibility2nd

“Burn After Reading” should have been entitled “Burn Before Watching.” It was one of the worst movies I ever wasted a couple of hours watching!


27 posted on 08/11/2011 11:31:38 AM PDT by Ranger Warrior ("To stand in silence when they should be protesting makes cowards out of men." - Abraham Lincoln)
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To: Cicero

Seriously? Have you seen:

Millers Crossing. The Man Who Wasn’t There. The Hudsucker Proxy.

All stinkers.


28 posted on 08/11/2011 11:32:34 AM PDT by Responsibility2nd (The views and opinions expressed in this post are true and correct. Deal with it)
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To: Age of Reason

I’ve seen 3 and a half of their movies and was annoyed and bored. Overrated as far as I’m concerned


29 posted on 08/11/2011 11:33:40 AM PDT by CaptainK (...please make it stop. Shake a can of pennies at it.)
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To: dfwgator
Holly is my age (almost to the day) and I think she looks pretty darned good as well:

As to the films, Raising Arizona is one of my absolute favorites, owning largely to its superb cast, wonderfully quirky dialogue, and what is quite possibly the longest opening sequence in the history of film.

Miller's Crossing is also well-acted, and consumed with a menacing darkness that sometimes explodes into violence and still manages to shock you even when you expect what is coming.

Fargo is both funny and dark, and features (typically, for the Coen Brothers) off-beat performances from Frances McDormand and William Macy. Reflexively now, I keep my distance from wood chippers.

I saw True Grit about a month ago and liked it far better than the original, although in the end it is a terribly sad Western story about loss, survival, and loneliness.

30 posted on 08/11/2011 11:34:22 AM PDT by andy58-in-nh (America does not need to be organized: it needs to be liberated.)
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To: dfwgator
"I must admit Holly Hunter actually has gotten hotter as she’s gotten older."

If you want any kind of chance with Holly Hunter, you have to be bone a fied....


31 posted on 08/11/2011 11:35:29 AM PDT by Old Teufel Hunden
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To: trumandogz
My favorite is Miller's Crossing. Watched it more times than I can count. A genre busting romp. Gabriel Byrne's finest hour on film.

Also love Oh Brother, Hudsucker Proxy, Man Who Wasn't There, Fargo, and Barton Fink.

And by the way, the often maligned Intolerable Cruelty is very good imo. It's worth is just to look at Catherine Zeta Jones in all the different outfits. And Clooney may be a tool, but he's a modern day Cary Grant and was perfect for that role.

True Grit was OK. The others are also-rans.

Saw Blood Simple in the theater when it came out. Very 80s style noir. Not so great.

My hope is for the Coens to do a 70s style dystopian sci-fi.

32 posted on 08/11/2011 11:43:22 AM PDT by Huck
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To: CaptainK
I’ve seen 3 and a half of their movies and was annoyed and bored. Overrated as far as I’m concerned

That exactly describes my reaction to their movies, too.

33 posted on 08/11/2011 11:43:50 AM PDT by Age of Reason
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34 posted on 08/11/2011 11:44:08 AM PDT by TheOldLady (FReepmail me to get ON or OFF the ZOT LIGHTNING ping list.)
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To: tsomer

Oh man, you gotta see Fargo! William Macy’s best role!


35 posted on 08/11/2011 11:44:14 AM PDT by Huck
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To: Responsibility2nd
It simply quit. Like they ran outta film or their time was up or something.

Faithful to the book. The thing about the movie (and the book) is that it's not about Josh Brolin being chased by Javier Bardem. It's about Tommy Lee Jones realizing he doesn't understand the world anymore.

36 posted on 08/11/2011 11:44:14 AM PDT by Bubba Ho-Tep ("More weight!"--Giles Corey)
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To: Responsibility2nd
"Good movie, but it had the WORST ending of any film ever made."

I disagree. You see first off there's the unresolved question of whether he killed Carla Jean or not. For reasons I won't go into here, I have no doubt he killed her. However, what the ending showed was two things. It appears in the film that Chigurh is everywhere, all knowing, all seeing almost godlike. The car wreck shows he is indeed human. The second thing it shows is the total unpredictability of life. It's the last thing you would expect to happen to him. It's a theme that runs throughout the movie (an unpredictable coin flip determining whether someone lives or dies) and also runs throughout a lot of the Coehn brothers work. And then, life just goes on.

Incidentally I liked the ending to True Grit. It was very deep and revealing about her. The Coehn brothers endings are oftentimes unusual and they don't always resolve everything into a neat tidy little package as we come to expect from movies. It can be offputting.
37 posted on 08/11/2011 11:45:20 AM PDT by Old Teufel Hunden
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To: Anitius Severinus Boethius

I really did like Bridges’ take on Rooster. Much rougher, grittier (no pun intended). The first scene, when he’s testifying, speaking in that Sling Blade style. Very jarring.


38 posted on 08/11/2011 11:45:32 AM PDT by Huck
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To: Old Teufel Hunden

Good to see someone else LIKED Intolerable Cruelty. I watch it 6 or 7 times in a row when I rented it. I didn’t like No Country for Old Men at all. I don’t get what the fuss was about.


39 posted on 08/11/2011 11:46:55 AM PDT by Huck
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To: Huck

Forgot to mention Lebowski.


40 posted on 08/11/2011 11:48:12 AM PDT by Huck
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