HAIL, CAESAR! A '50s Hollywood comedy from Joel and Ethan Coen

here it is, with ScarJo goofing on Esther Williams

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMqeoW3XRa0

Trailer I've seen looks great, so help me

Gets its UK premiere at the Glasgow Film Festival next month, looks like a gd choice for the opening movie

feb 5 us release apparently

Where are you getting that date from JC? According to this story, it only gets its world premiere on the 11th Feb at the Berlin Film Festival:

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/coen-brothers-new-film-hail-caesar-will-receive-uk-premiere-at-glasgow-film-festival-a6798941.html

google/wiki

it surprised me def

Gonna say, based on the number of commercials I've seen lately, I'd be very surprised if it weren't opening within the next month.

No Clooney? I can deal w that

oh my bad

haha

it looks like Stupid Clooney, which is usu a good thing

yeah Stupid Clooney was one of my favorite things about Burn After Reading

his slightly-too-slow reactions are the funniest bits in the trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMUUKtF_BF0

I assume there's some subtle jest in regifting Clooney his '90s haircut.

when he was the Augustus of Hollywood

guarantee it will not be as terrible as Barton Fink

guarantee it will not be as terrible as Barton Fink

barton fink was not terrible; this looks to be so

barton fink had a lot of great scenes and characters but the story arc imposed a rather weak ending

btw Clooney is going to be directing a Coens script shortly

https://www.thewrap.com/george-clooney-reveals-plot-details-for-his-matt-damon-julianne-moore-movie-suburbicon/

Coens been giving away a lot of scripts lately.

Gonna watch this crap tomorrow.

no one's farcing you are they?

Why all so negative? Looks funny enough to me, at least as far as trailers go.

Got free promo tix for tomorrow. Let's see how it does.

am minorly worried w how much theyve amped up the adverts

to match the performances, it looks like

looks great to me, but I'm a stan

I'm pretty sure it won't be another Ladykillers. Middling Coens is still moderately entertaining.

This was pleasant but pointless. If the preview audience is any hint, this will bomb. You have to spot the Esther Williams, Gene Autry, Dalton Trumbo, and Josh Brolin-as-Thalberg references. A couple of polished, expert turns, notably by Ralph Fiennes. One terrific scene: Channing Tatum as a Gene Kelly pastiche doing an "Anchors Aweigh" routine (first offhand fictional reference to his homosexuality too).

ScarJo and Jonah Hill get cameos thank god

? Gene Kelly was gay? That seems like a stretch.

No, no, I meant Tatum finally plays a character with a gay past (no spoilers)

There are plenty gay refs in Mad Mike no?

Magic, rather.

You might be right; I haven't seen it in a while.

he really seems like a splendid fellow.

He did a hilarious soft shoe

Magic Mike: Banana Hammock Avenue

You have to spot the Esther Williams, Gene Autry, Dalton Trumbo, and Josh Brolin-as-Thalberg references. A couple of polished, expert turns, notably by Ralph Fiennes. One terrific scene: Channing Tatum as a Gene Kelly pastiche doing an "Anchors Aweigh" routine (first offhand fictional reference to his homosexuality too).

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, February 2, 2016 10:13 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

so coen bros fan will love this then

looking forward to seeing channing dance

looks great. also I totally forgot ladykillers existed.

^ the coens thank you for your faulty memory

This was fun. I don't know how well it holds together as a movie, but the scene by scene bits are great.

Very much a pastiche of Classic Hollywood, and they look like they really enjoyed making it.

Still, Clancy Brown! Robert Picardo as a rabbi! Frances McDormand! Tilda Swinton! Mid-Atlantic accents! Sound effects reels from seven decades ago! Jews & Christians making a movie about Jews & Christians making a movie about Jews & Christians! Carter Burwell! Roger Deakins!

Also, it didn't hit me til later that like every other Coen Brothers movie is a period piece and every third movie involves a bungled kidnapping.

Our preview screening had two horrible trailers for loud comedies that were tuned for audiences very different than one for a Coen Bros movie. They looked like fake movies that get inserted when a film wants to comment on or parody current Hollywood trends.

carter burwell + deakins is a big sell for me, no question

i think the only contemporaneous Coen films are Burn After Reading, Intolerable Cruelty, The Ladykillers, Raising Arizona, and Blood Simple, maybe. even Fargo takes place in the late '80s.

Intolerable Cruelty I kind of split in half, as it seems they're trying to do a 50s screwball romantic comedy only in contemporary times

uh, '30s screwball.

Most of the Coens' audience knows nothing about old movies.

Skipping this. Nothing less interesting than Hollywood blowing itself. (See also: Trumbo.)

! it seems this might be more jaded, whether fruitfully or not

It is not!

their usual play-it-both-ways scramble: ironic and sincere.

i'm afraid i'm gonna go see this for Fiennes, Tatum, and the Danny Kaye anecdote, and hate the rest of it.

anyway, roundup:

https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/daily-joel-and-ethan-coens-hail-caesar

Fiennes is second to Tatum in laffs but he's got only one scene.

Nick Pinkerton finds it "delirious"!

http://artforum.com/film/id=57967

I've never had a crush on Tatum OR the Navy, but my God he is such a piece of trade in that photo everyone's using.

imagine this in Navy whites for three minutes:

http://i.perezhilton.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/channing-tatum-vogue-dance.gif

Add butt 'n' grind.

nah see that's a lil too Drunk Chelsea Queen

he seems too clean to be trade!

doesn't stop him from sleeping with one of the men in HC!

!!

(or in real life, I've heard)

thread's made me read the movie title as a hello sailor joke

when i'm with homosexuals, i become a little homosexual, to make them feel at home, you know

ugh god that channing gif makes me feel a certain way not gonna lie

you ain't kiddin

<3

this is cool, the matte painting gag early in the movie really sold me. one of the best usages of Clancy Brown ever, and also the Coens are the first people to figure out the optimal way to deploy Fat Krumholtz

Walter Chaw loves it. I'm even more pumped for this now than I was before.

Walter Chaw seems a bit over-excitable in that review., In his bubbly enthusiasm, he seems like a man who has been handed a Rorschach inkblot, in which he sees all manner of wonderous, marvelous, amazing things!

maybe i missed something, but this felt extremely slight. the padding was fun,but it was still padding, and the main narrative thrust was barely enough for a long TV episode. each subplot was given perhaps two scenes, and a couple of narrative threads were just kind of dropped.

slightness isn't actually that bad of a thing, so i might like it more a 2nd time out with diminished expectations.

there is one comic bit, between alden ehrenreich's singing cowboy star and ralph fienne's george cukor-like director, that made me laugh so hard my temples hurt.

channing tatum is great, but he basically gets two scenes, and a dozen lines at most. almost the same with scarlett johansson.

tatum has one wildly entertaining bit of graceful physical comedy in the 2nd of his major scenes. the man has quite a skill set.

"would that it were so simple"

mirthless chuckle

would that it were so simple the best scene for sure. the kid who played hobie was so great!

otm that scene was the only(?) redeemable thing? ugh this was a chore. felt v pasted together under like a day in the life of the brolin studio exec auspices

I liked this quite a bit, but it seemed severely edited - Jonah Hill and Frances McDormand each had one scene; Scarlett Johansson, Channing Tatum, Ralph Fiennes, and Tilda Swinton all only had a couple. What was the matte painting gag in the beginning?

yeah it felt a bit like a digest version of a more generous story.

yeah sorta mysteriously perfunctory in its construction; it felt especially strange when it would kind of linger & let a movie scene play out, like the mode the film was operating in wasn't really narrative, more collage. fiennes was such a delight though. it really did feel absent of the kind of investment that can be so rich in their work, like either in making vivid & real the excerpts - which happened a few times with the clooney/caesar scenes, but felt kind of generic in some others - or sort of drilling the characters into your head. brolin's muscular exec is so limp & unconcentrated next to say-the-admittedly-high-water-mark of the harried serious man protagonist.

i really don't get the tepid critical reception, i thought this was WONDERFUL

you're tepid

my, ran out of All About Eve lines at last?

not until the last ILX poster has stopped being a pill

i think the only contemporaneous Coen films are Burn After Reading, Intolerable Cruelty, The Ladykillers, Raising Arizona, and Blood Simple, maybe. even Fargo takes place in the late '80s.

add their most popular movie to that list

deepest examination of the desires and ideas that drive people since, idk, miller's crossing

also the only movie i've ever seen where communists talk like communists

H4A otm, the dude who played hobie was terrific. and i never thought i'd see michael lambert turn up anywhere.

the communist plot doesn't make a whole lot of sense really; who knows what indoctrinating clooney was supposed to get them. i suppose the implication is that even with dr. marcuse advising them (lol) they haven't shaken off the ideology of the hierarchy of stardom?

also the only movie i've ever seen where communists talk like communists

an easy task when you're quoting Das Kapital

i think the only contemporaneous Coen films are Burn After Reading, Intolerable Cruelty, The Ladykillers, Raising Arizona, and Blood Simple, maybe. even Fargo takes place in the late '80s.

add their most popular movie to that list

― 0 / 0 (lukas), Wednesday, February 10, 2016 1:06 PM (34 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the big lebowski takes place in 1991

i thought he meant No County For Old Men, which takes place in 1980

True Grit was by far their most popular movie in terms of box office

strangely forgotten about now

its p boring

'forgotten' in the sense that stoners never talk it to death?

A Coen version of The Dog of the South coulda been a stoner classic. What might have been

The Coens' True Grit was lovingly adapted from great material, had excellent casting, top notch performances, marvelous cinematography, set design, costumes - the whole package - and if it isn't a top ten western of all time (which is where I'd place it), then it is only barely outside the top ten.

True Grit >>> Big Lebowski

ain't gonna watch it again to confirm

this was just delightful. i can see how some of the narrative beats feel cursory or condensed, but it didn't really bother me.

true grit was an excellent movie!

to be clear, i enjoyed "hail , caesar," it was just a little graceless by their standards, a little cobbled-together.

Enjoyed this, but I think I might have liked it better if it was strictly about Brolin running around putting out fires without the Clooney arc to provide a 'narrative'.

I would've enjoyed 95 mins of Tatum dancing and five minutes of sodomy b/w him and Fiennes.

only 5 minutes?

*mirthless chuckle*

Huh, crazy, I also enjoy watching people have sex.... Anyone else?

only if i'm one of em

the "reveal" of what happened off the set of on wings as eagles was such a predictable letdown! i guess that seems typical of the slight half-assedness of this film. just nothing terribly surprising.

the big lebowski takes place in 1991

damn

I liked this, but found it a bit too busy. More than any other recent film, it reminded me of Inherent Vice, in that it gives us almost too much good stuff, to the point where the whole ends up feeling less impressive than the pieces. I wish it had found a way to mostly stick with Brolin's perspective throughout--where the chaos of the film would at least have been consistent with the character's experience--rather than to keep finding ways of shoehorning movie parodies and new characters into the narrative. I get why some were saying that it felt rushed and unfinished--a consequence, I think, of the Coens trying to fill it with so many different set pieces and cameos.

Not up to speed on the thread, but here's a thing:

Religion often fills the frame in the Coen Brothers' latest, Hail, Caesar!. Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin), the film's long-suffering and almost comically decent Catholic protagonist, spends quite a bit of time haunting the confessional, desperately seeking penance for the cigarettes he's snuck. And fatuously awful as it might appear, the production of the titular Biblical epic can't help but foreground the difference between true faith and its shallow performance.

So, is this a Christian tale? Is goody-good Mannix meant to represent Jesus (as a few have suggested) or at least to stand in for his virtuous followers?

Probably not. Robert Picardo's Rabbi is one of the best and most morally authentic characters onscreen. More crucially, of the influential religious leaders attending a Capitol Pictures focus group meeting in a key early scene, he's the only not completely full of sh!t.

That said, we're obviously meant to see the actors employed by the fictional Capitol Studios as haplessly wayward sheep. Their foolish, selfish lives would tend inevitably toward ruin were not Brolin's fixer keeping constant watch over them, working invisibly to nudge them toward "the right thing". Mannix shields his dimbulb charges from exploitative pornographers & ideologues, steers their slutty mermaid asses toward traditional marriage & childbirth, and ensures that evil yet distressingly handsome dance-gays return to the Godless lands from whence they came.

Tilda Swinton's "two faced" twin gossip columnists, meanwhile, stand in for the media's self-righteous naivete. They're not necessarily evil, but only Mannix's paternal manipulation can ensure that they print constructive untruths. The Lockheed Martin headhunter who insidiously courts Eddie with smokes and craters, meanwhile, is clearly the military-industrial devil.

Even so, it's hard to ignore the staggeringly conservative message that emerges from the whole, especially given the Cold War setting and correspondingly dated sexual politics. If the film's Hollywood is a microcosm of midcentury America, then Eddie Mannix represents not Jesus but Herbert friggin' Hoover, sleepless watchman of the liberty we're apparently too damn stupid to deserve.

Picardo's character not full of shit, but he's cynical (his reaction to the film-within-a-film: "meh.") Basically, he's the Coen Brothers.

J. EDGAR HOOVER for chrissake

gah

wth, brain?

i never bothered with the new true grit cuz i like the old one so much i really need to see it?

I enjoyed Picardo and liked the entire scene for multiple reason, not the least of which was the Greek Orthodox, when asked about religious suitably, just starts giving notes about the plausibility of the chariot bit.

Greek Orthodox leader, that is

I like the original but the new one's better.

frankly the coen bros films are the last things we should be searching for hidden or submerged meanings in (a really dull pasttime to begin with)

The interesting thing about looking for hidden or submerged meanings is that, if you want to find them badly enough, they will appear. Although no one else may see them as you do.

Tilda Swinton was my favorite part of this very weird movie

wasn't sure how i felt about this immediately after seeing it but then on the bus ride home i ran into a former friend who i haven't seen in forever and who described his new life pursuit as 'community building through puppetry and object theatre' and his review of the movie as 'red-baiting neoliberal propaganda', which on the whole made me like it more i think.

i don't know about any hidden or submerged meanings but they seemed to be building up a nice meditation on idealism, hypocrisy, naiveté, power and corruption that felt underserved by the apotheosis of josh brolin slapping clooney in the face (however great that scene was)

i thought the film would be better but it was still really good? 'would that it were so simple', brolin consulting the religious leaders, the channing tatum tapdance and everything with the communists it were the best scenes

a really dull pasttime to begin with

beg to defer! it is the best.

guh the channing dance sequence was a chore. like if someone remade singin' in the rain starring half a cow.

it was fantastic

would watch an 100-minute cut of the dance sequence.

guh

my faorite part was the love triangle btwn singin' ropin' hobie, miss carlotta valdez and sir laurence laurentz. want a sequel w/ just them.

^v

mirthless chuckle

the channing dance sequence had some really leaden editing--looked more like "dancer in the dark" than "american in paris"! but the dancing/choreography itself was fine!

hobie was very sweet -- wish he had more screen time.

Dance sequence was the best part of the film.

(Tatum dance sequence also the best part of 22 Jump St, and that only went for 1.5 seconds)

movie begins and ends with mannix slapping someone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOFwpLIBM8c

some impressive set-pieces but this really feels inconsequential.

Feel like Brolin was the weak link in this, he just wasn't a strong enough presence to hold it all together, and as a result it ended up being a string of fun setpieces for their favourite actors to have a bit of fun with. Clooney/Tatum/Johannson/Fiennes all terrific but it would have been nice to see them onscreen together at some point, or get a sense that any of their storylines really mattered in relation to the others.

This article (from Buzzfeed of all places) has an interesting take on the film

http://www.buzzfeed.com/annehelenpetersen/how-the-coens-tricked-you#.iqMjkwvAv5

i liked this a lot. it seems to already be slightly underrated. also wrongly marketed as a comedy, when its not really packed with laughs. nor is it just a gentle affectionate tribute to hollywood. seems more of a kind of existential character study, which i think was done really well, but just not really explored with enough depth, or given enough time to really take shape. i enjoyed all the sub plots, and 'fixing', but they didnt go back to mannix enough, or spend enough time on him. i dont really know their political beliefs, but the radio 4 programme on this made it seem like they were mocking communists, and i think they do a bit, with the tiny sandwiches, etc, but theyre not really dismissed like antonia quirke seemed to think. id say the coens gave the communists a fair shot, esp the end speech here clooney goes into what he learned, and also kind of challenging the whole premise of mass entertainment, and the workforce heirarchy (and also just cos the studio is called capitol). if they had done more with this, this might have been brilliant, it only really skimmed over mannix's doubts about hollywood as a career/worthwhile job/existence. a little too much time spent on the actor playing the cowboy, but i would LOVE to see a whole film based around what he can do :) i def want to see this a second time. wondering why brolin didnt get any oscar love.

also, i raised an eyebrow when clooney did his somewhat derisive speech about palestine being nothing but desert or whatever. that was... interesting.

i def want to see this a second time. wondering why brolin didnt get any oscar love.

The movie wasn't released during award season.

strange that it wasnt though. youd think it would be a shoo in for the academy.

not remotely

Yeah, would that it were so simple

Playfully skewering Hollywood? how does that stack up against targeting pedophile priests, or taking shelter inside your horse?

if grand budapest hotel could get nominated in 2015....

Channing Tatum can't dance. He should stick to Magic Mike movies where that isn't a problem.

Wasn't he a dancer before he was an actor? I've not seen this yet, but I've never noticed him dancing badly before.

This article (from Buzzfeed of all places) has an interesting take on the film
http://www.buzzfeed.com/annehelenpetersen/how-the-coens-tricked-you#.iqMjkwvAv5
― i;m thinking about thos Beans (Michael B), Tuesday, March 8, 2016 7:19 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

anne helen petersen is a very smart media/film scholar who decamped for online journalism when she didn’t get tenure. her stuff for buzzfeed is pretty consistently decent, which i can’t say about… anything else on buzzfeed, basically.

Tatum learned to do tap *to do* the Hail Caesar routine

You learn tap in 3 months & do better

the shade, ffs

lol @ channing tatum can't dance

he was in step up!!

he and his wife are both excellent dancers

yeah his wife is awesome

i thought the sailors scene was perfectly fine.

this slate piece talks about queers/communists/both.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2016/02/15/hail_caesar_shows_hollywood_s_queer_communist_hidden_history.html

i think the film does deserve some criticism for doing what anne helen peterson says ("You could argue that, in sublimating their critique so deeply in the inner workings of genre, they’ve negated it") but it does enough to warrant a better appraisal than it seems to have gotten. its def more than just a gentle we-love-you-hollywood! pastiche. i was going to say its funny that so many critics have focused purely on it as a tribute, but then, a lot of film critics love to talk about film itself, more than what films are ever about, so thats prob not such a surprise. prob doesnt help that the coens are kind of aloof about the meaning of anything they do and are willing to humour interviewers on pretty much anything thats posited.

i actually think this film is really about the meaning of work, and employment. that last scene between clooney and brolin in the office, where those themes suddenly become really explicitly debated, is like the film in precis. seriously brilliant.

this washington post interview is interesting -

I was asking if you related to someone like the film’s Laurence Laurentz, the auteur who chafes under the constraints of the studio system.

Ethan: Well sure, we’re Laurence Laurentz, yes.

Joel: The answer is yes, we do relate.

How about the communist screenwriters?

Ethan: Sure. Yeah, we do.

Joel: We relate to them. We also relate to Eddie Mannix.

In what way?

Joel: In the way that you can feel like you’re the only sane person in an insane universe in Hollywood. You have to do your job and manage a lot of personalities.

Ethan: It’s not important that he’s a movie executive. What’s important is that he’s somebody that takes pride in his work, and wants to do his job well.

Reminds me of my exchange with a student last Thursday who wondered why she'd gotten a C+ on a paper.

She: But I wrote about [an impressive topic].

Me: Great. Go back and write that paper."

communism, homosexuality, religion. BIG THINGS that get hinted at throughout the movie but they just seem like mere window-dressing really

definitely. i think they were trying to work all those things into the film, without losing the main thread of being a film about/that recreates golden age hollywood (can you only get movie magic these days by recreating old hollywood?), in the fashion of old US movies that managed to juggle those things without losing their sense of pure pleasure, but maybe held back on going further a little too much. but i still think mannix is the thing holding it together, and his internal angst/conflicts do come through, in a few key scenes that interrupt the other, more obviously fun, cinephiliac stuff.

Saw it last night and suspect there was more to the religious/political threads than just window dressing but I'd have to watch it probably a couple of times again to figure it out. As a series of comedy skits it worked just fine, though some segments were obviously more successful than others.

its hard to make a film about anyone going to confession in 2016 without audiences going 'LOL!' but it was obvious that this was quite genuine about faith, as soon as you see mannix's reaction when he hears the first objection to the big epic's script was a filmic, rather than religious one. im going to see it again. be interesting to see if it reveals more or less a second time.

This was sporadically very entertaining, though it didn't quite hang together for me. It reminded me faintly of Monty Python's The Meaning of Life in that it had something to say in its lampooning of the old Hollywood system; the struggle between art and commerce, how faith got used as grist for the movie industry mill and so on, but its messages got lost in scattering them across a rough patchwork of pastiches.

The parodies were all good fun, but most of them just narrowly missed the target in look and feel, I thought. The Technicolor Biblical epic looked like an episode of Rome, and the Gene Kelly musical - with a Strictly Come Dancing-like performance from Tatum - brought to mind Morcambe and Wise's own "There is Nothing Like a Dame" skit.
Standouts for me were Alden Ehrenreich as the singing cowboy matinee idol, and Frances McDormand as the chain-smoking film editor

Standouts for me were Alden Ehrenreich as the singing cowboy matinee idol

Yeah he was great, don't think I've seen this guy before.

im not even sure you can call them 'parodies'. they were mostly played a bit too sincerely (even when the sailors bump bums to crotches during the tatum routine) for that, even if they were usually interrupted (like at the end of the busby berkley swimming routine) with something to pull you out of reverie.

StillAdvance OTM about this being a film about work. There's a great essay by Sianne Ngai called "The Zany Science" (about the relationship between labour and "zaniness") that I thought about constantly while watching the film, and while that is obviously a consequence of my having read that essay recently and it still being on my mind, it suits the film remarkably.

also, wasnt the studio in barton fink called capitol?

i wonder if it says more about modern hollywood, or rather, film culture/criticism, that reviewers have been so overwhelmingly keen to see this pretty much purely as a frothy comedy/valentine to the good old days of hollywood.

Easier than actually thinking about the film.

this video short barely delineates the commonalities of this with The Errand Boy, but anything to expose you ppl to something Lewis-related that isn't speculation about the fucking deathcamp movie...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZbpYq2TA0U

Thinking back upon it now, I didn't realize that the scene where Mannix consults with religious leaders he operates from both sincere and business considerations. When I saw it, I just took it from the modern stance of "oh, dude is just trying to clear it with tribal gatekeepers so he can sell the film." I didn't connect it at the time(probably b/c the scene happens so early in the flick) that he's also doing this out of sincere desire to present an acceptable and accurate adaptation. Dude is hitting confession like clockwork and as mercenary as his studio can be, seems to want to do it right.

feel like so many ironies are getting missed with this movie

the 'hollywood tribute' scenes are all supposedly on-set -- mannix/we see these things being staged; many of them shot with crew hanging around the edges -- but they happen as continuous, composed scenes, nothing like the boredom of the shooting process. it's impossible to know what the dream is.

mannix is devout on one level, but he confesses to the wrong things. he missed dinner. he still smokes. he doesn't tell the priest about rigging marriages, beating his stars, the lying and intimidating that are his trade. it's hinted (barely, but i think it's there) that he doesn't want to take the easy job with boeing because he doesn't want to build a-bombs -- "armageddon" he says -- but he doesn't tell the priest this either. he says the hard job feels right. does he like stress and coercion more than anything else? is that good? how does the movie get us to feel like he made the right choice?

his one scene at home was the most artificial 'hollywood domestic' scene in the movie!

He does confess to the priest that he slapped George Clooney around

but not the actress...

this was great btw

still think this is about hoover's fbi saving america from its own vice and apathy

I wasn't really sure what to make of this, really enjoyed it moment to moment but I'm doubtful that it hung together on the surface, let alone below. Two things in particular, what was the point of the communists' plot? Just to get paid? What was Tatum's role in it other than providing a house? I expect flippancy from the Coens but normally there's some substance there, this was not just flippant but flimsy. And then the ARMAGEDDON motif, blatantly introduced and just as blatantly snatched away and never referred to again, even at the end Brolin says it's 'not a bad' or 'a good' job (can't remember which). So his crisis of conscience doesn't seem to be moral - nor does he seem bothered when he chooses the option that means never spending time with his children. Seemed totally deliberate and yet... utterly pointless. If there's any grand scheme at all here I'd have to say it's the one also strongly apparent in their last two films - comic or tragic, life is utterly devoid of meaning.

yeah the communists' scheme is pretty flimsy i guess:

the communist plot doesn't make a whole lot of sense really; who knows what indoctrinating clooney was supposed to get them. i suppose the implication is that even with dr. marcuse advising them (lol) they haven't shaken off the ideology of the hierarchy of stardom?

― goole, Wednesday, February 10, 2016 12:12 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

like maybe the whole pt of the movie is that even with communism and catholicism and freedom and truth and work and all of these huge things bearing down on people and driving them, nobody can see outside of hollywood

not just flippant but flimsy

it is a farce

If a farce isn't well constructed it ain't a good farce.

Lebowski was a farce, had nothing at its core maybe, but had a solid foundation, sturdy walls, robust roof.

As I noted very far upthread, before the release, good farce is extremely difficult to pull off.

I got it wrong. My comment about the difficulty of farce was on the threadBest Coen Bros Movie, when this (prospective) movie came up in the discussion.

I think someone needs to cast Alden Ehrenreich as the lead in THE BILLY MACKENZIE STORY pronto.

Wow, the Coen Bros beat these guys to the punch. Just in time for Easter:

http://www.patheos.com/Entertainment/Movie-Club/Risen/RISEN-About-the-Movie-01-27-2016

RISEN is the epic Biblical story of the Resurrection, as told through the eyes of a non-believer. Clavius (Joseph Fiennes), a powerful Roman military tribune, and his aide, Lucius (Tom Felton), are tasked with solving the mystery of what happened to Jesus (referred to by the Hebrew name Yeshua in the film) in the weeks following the crucifixion, in order to disprove the rumors of a risen Messiah and prevent an uprising in Jerusalem.

RISEN stars Joseph Fiennes (Shakespeare in Love), Tom Felton (Harry Potter), Peter Firth (The Hunt for Red October; MI-5), and Cliff Curtis (Fear the Walking Dead).

Columbia Pictures and LD Entertainment present in association with AFFIRM Films, a Liddell Entertainment and Patrick Aiello production, RISEN, directed by Kevin Reynolds. Screenplay by Kevin Reynolds and Paul Aiello, and story by Paul Aiello. Mickey Liddell, Patrick Aiello, and Pete Shilaimon produced. Executive producers are Robert Huberman and Scott Holroyd. Director of Photography is Lorenzo Senatore. Production designer is Stefano Maria Ortolani. Steven Mirkovich, ACE is the editor. Costume designer is Maurizio Millenotti. Rafa Solórzano is the visual effects supervisor. Music is composed by Roque Baños. John Hubbard and Ros Hubbard did casting.

RISEN is rated PG-13 by the MPAA for the following reasons: biblical violence including some disturbing images

The running time is 1 hour and 48 minutes.

Tom Felton playing a character sharing the name of the elder Malfoy, in a film with another Fiennes brother.

Oh wait, this already came out.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=risen.htm

Made a little money, I'm guessing

Still playing in Tupelo. (They've settled in to having 2-3 xtian movies playing on the 18 screens there at all times.)

I guess if it keeps the punters packing in?

Sure, the market and the marketers know each other intimately.

speaking of which, is that "miracles from heaven" movie being advertised on TV an example of a studio making a crypto-xian movie?

nothing crypto about it

Joseph Fiennes does some weird shit these days.

This was great. No criticism in this thread is valid. Gits.

"great" is a point of view

Agreed!

I liked the message, such as it were (usually I'm with Bob Dylan circa 1965 when it comes to messages)--belongs with Sullivan's Travels and Bill Forsyth's Comfort and Joy and I don't know what else. "Would that it were so simple" was great. I thought the casual dinner-time flirtation between the singing cowboy and "Carlotta Valdez" was sweet.

After that, not much else. Don't know that I've ever liked George Clooney or Josh Brolin less.

Reading back over the thread, I somehow missed that that was Frances McDormand. I did enjoy picking out a couple of Mad Men guys: Allan Havey (Lou Avery) and the always strange Patrick Fischler (Jimmy Barrett).

I like that McDormand's scene served as a PSA about the dangers of wearing scarves around film machinery and not, say, smoking in a room full of film stock.

http://brightlightsfilm.com/camping-out-in-hollywood-the-coen-brothers-hail-caesar/#.VvmT3GM4nq0

Saw it again.

Better again.

Very rare in that it could and should be thirty mins longer maybe.

I saw this on a long-haul flight. diverting, enjoyable, but just very, very slight.

(psued-alert) made me think of jameson:

Pastiche is, like parody, the imitation of a peculiar or unique, idiosyncratic style, the wearing of a linguistic mask, speech in a dead language. But it is a neutral practice of such mimicry, without any of parody's ulterior motives, amputated of the satiric impulse, devoid of laughter

Their worst since *at least* The Ladykillers.

Did you at least like Channing Tatum's homoerotic song-and-dance bit?

meh

Alden Ehrenreich much funnier

but gen too much "lol Old Hollywood so STUPID"

no wonder darraghmac shared in the contempt

I wasnt a fan of it but "lol Old Hollywood so STUPID" wasnt what they were aiming for imo

often seemed so

Totally missing where you're getting that morbs

And most of my fave movies are old hollywood. More than a few recommended by you

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVQ0JFzXMgY

anyway ledge otm on the whole dull, pointless kidnapping plot

just join the Navy, Alfred

I watched it for the second time recently, it isn't peak Coen but it made me laugh a lot and feel happy even on the second viewing, which is more than I can say for most movies.

also the only movie i've ever seen where communists talk like communists

― goole, Wednesday, February 10, 2016 6:07 PM (6 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is very otm

what about Reds?

we must know different communists

"why don't you look around and see how agitated you get?"

a Strictly Come Dancing-like performance from Tatum

This seems a little harsh.

Overall I thought this was a trifle, but entertaining enough not to feel slim - unlike, say, Intolerable Cruelty. Every scene has gems. Ehrenreich's scenes with the Carmen Miranda-type were really charming. Overall it's very broad but not as forced as anything in their awkward phase (O Brother through The Ladykillers).

The reason for the kidnapping seems pretty clear - aren't they looking for a famous figurehead?

I kind of agree with David Edelstein's review - the movie might have been more interesting with Clooney and Brolin swapping roles.

I'm looking for the point of the Coens doing the kidnapping plot.

Intolerable Cruelty is a weirdly maligned near-gem.

Agreed!

Clooney doing "screwball" makes my stomach turn

otm

I can't remember a single thing about Intolerable Cruelty, except that everything seemed to fall flat, Catherine Zeta-Jones can't do comedy, and coming out of the cinema with a "what did I just watch?" feeling. Maybe worth rewatching though?

Clooney's good in Burn After Reading.

Intolerable Cruelty is very funny, with romcom lighting and cinematography rather than a "Coen-y" visual style. Not inappropriately, as it was them taking over a commercial project, but I think the look goes a long way towards distracting people that it was a step up out of their post-maternal-passing malaise.

Clooney doing "earnest" makes my stomach turn

eg the Murrow CBS movie

only thing i remember from intolerable cruelty is "what god hath joined let n.o.m.a.n. put asunder"

i really enjoyed intolerable cruelty when i "rescreened" it recently, would definitely rank it the best of their films in the early 2000s. though o brother where art though, the man who wasn't there, and the lady killers aren't particularly hard to top.

thou, damn autocorrect

where art though

zing

TMWWT is underrated based on my recent rescreen

ScarJo's honking NY accent was pretty good.

One of the better things about the Audie Murphy cowboy character was that he's not stupid (he seems to know what a mirthless chuckle is, as bad as the execution is).

toothless yokel knows his mirthless chuckle

loved that shot of grotesquerie btw

the sitdown with the religious panel near the start really bothered me. even giving leeway for laughs, those characters (esp rabbi) saying some of those blunt things in 1950 didnt make any sense, esp if they are regularly providing notes on scripts. comedy from character is funnier.

also Clooney spouting Marxist boilerplate to Brolin at the end was funnier when Josh Mostel did same to his family in Radio Days

i enjoyed projecting this, and timing the fade-up of the house lights at the end, because i took the final shot, swinging up and around to be swallowed by the light, to be a shot of me

i never developed a theory of its flitting parts, traces of themes, coy references, etc, so i never posted itt after seeing it cuz i didn't feel able to defend my faith that something was coherently going on in it and didn't want alfred to clown me

lots of stuff about labor, obv

looking forward to seeing it again sometime

i didn't feel able to defend my faith that something was coherently going on in it and didn't want alfred to clown me

but you listen to me talk about Reagan

talking better electrically

some echoes btw of sag-president RR in brolin's char's theological affinity for the bosses and their ideal frictionless system

this was okay but did feel a little flimsy. my interpretation is that it's a fantasy of the studio system, from the point of view of the studio system; ie commies behind every bush, disposable/irresponsible/troublesome prima dona actors as constant annoyance, loyal studio fixer as hero, gossip columnists as parasitic harpies, etc. Feel like that was the general focus, which served as a convenient pretext for the various setpieces.

loved the identical twin gossip columnists in this so much

one of the ushers at work made me laugh: asked if i'd liked anything we'd shown recently, i mentioned this, and she made a face and said "i wanted to be like, just SAY what you MEAN"

After watching this I felt very much like "This was pleasant but pointless" and many similar things said in this thread. I like Outic's version a couple posts up, just wish it were more of a complete movie in the process of hitting those notes. Everybody is skin deep and so many things go undeveloped or just forgotten. The really laughable thing is the poster, which gives framed faces to Tatum, Clooney, Brolin, Johansson, and Hill, two of whom are two-scene characters and one of whom is literally on screen for maybe forty-five seconds, versus the banished singing cowboy Ehrenreich who is all over this thing. Obviously this reflects a hierarchy of stars and maybe that's another reflection of the studio system or something. I'd be pissed, though unless there really was a fully fleshed-out Jonah Hill subplot in some lost, four-hour road show cut of the film.

Fiennes was the funniest - perfect delivery. Johansson's story really was pointless, like they were like "what could be another crisis Brolin would have to deal with" and someone came up with a star being pregnant out of wedlock, and they just sort of threw that in without writing anything else around it. I did appreciate the "no dames!" song-and-dance number even if the "gay sailors" aspect of it seemed really lame. Just nice to see a long stretch of singing and dancing in the middle of a movie.

pointless

is a bear pointless if it is a pleasant bear

a pleasant sandwich you would never call pointless

a pleasant person, that is a fine rarity indeed

why must your diversions be so pointy

http://www.cornel1801.com/1/t/THE-POINT-OBLIO/film4.jpg

rewatched this last night and stand by my initial assessment of it: a fantasy of the studio system, from the point of view of the studio system; ie commies behind every bush, disposable/irresponsible/troublesome prima dona actors as constant annoyance, loyal studio fixer as hero, gossip columnists as parasitic harpies, etc.

but overall it's very slight/flimsy and it def feels padded w cameos and setpiece scenes - but then is that also intentional satire cuz of course a studio propaganda movie would be all surface and no depth and jammed w distracting baubles arggghhh

As time passes all I really remember is the ''would that it were so simple'' scene, and so consequently my opinion of the film keeps improving. Was surprised to reread my comments a couple posts up and find them so negative! But then if I imagine actually sitting through the Clooney-with-Marxists scenes again, or the Swinton twin reporter stuff, that's not so appealing.

I've been catching up on all the Coen Bros films that I haven't seen and watched this last night. It's like a rose-scented fart, pleasant enough but ephemeral and pointless. Maybe (probably) I'm missing something but it just seems like a lot of effort for very little on the screen. Best things were the Communist writers congratulating themselves for deftly inserting propaganda into their scripts (historical LOL) and everything L'il Han Solo did.

But I also watched Miller's Crossing, which I somehow had never seen before, and want to watch it like 15 more times.

well you are otm about millers crossing for sure anyway

i dunno i love that coens arent above a random, messy, showpiece of love like hail caesar. not all of it worked but most of it was done with plenty of mischief and style and panache and if it was only brolin, sailors dancing and fiennes/solo its a seven out of ten just on that

I would've liked that version a lot better!

I'll be watching The Hudsucker Proxy tonight btw

can't remember if thats underrated or not but imo its perfect

Totally underrated. Took a critical beating at the time, along with an all around feeling of a flop; I think the studio (Warner?) was hoping it'd be the Coens mainstream breakthrough, but then Ace Ventura came out like a month before and, well, that was where American comedy was at now.

I always have room for silly Tim Robbins, so I'm looking forward to it. Maybe I should just re-watch all of them, since I've only seen most of them once. I've seen Fargo, Raising Arizona and No Country twice each.

Hudsucker is great. only wrong step is the "magical negro" bit imo

lol this was buried in the Inside Llewyn Davis thread

https://kottke.org/13/12/coen-brothers-next-film-set-in-ancient-rome

Right now, the brothers are plainly excited about what they’re writing, which they proudly explain, is set in ancient Rome. It’s the allure of the unexpected, all over again.

“It’s like: Would you ever do a sandal movie?” laughs Joel. “It’s big,” says Ethan, grinning. “We’re interested in the big questions. And we don’t (expletive) around with subtext. This one especially.”

Though their movies usually revel in the absurdity of life’s predicaments, Ethan promises this film has answers: “It’s not like our piddly ‘A Serious Man.’” Chimes Joel: “That was a cop-out. We just totally chickened out on that one.”

loool

This movie is awesome.

It really is. I don’t know why people don’t like it

it's a series of set pieces with no character development and very little plot, so you either enjoy the comic bits and the callbacks to old movies or you find the whole apparatus too weak to be very satisfying.

i fear that i fall into the latter, i didnt really get it

Good pastiches but the whole is less than the sum of its parts.

Which would be fine too! But the parts lose their charm right quick. Except whenever Channing Tatum dances.

it's a series of set pieces with no character development and very little plot

these are firstly subjective statements and secondly subjectively relevant to if a movie is good

i liked this movie and completely forgot it existed until now

huh?

xpost

You're saying he should've added "imo"?

Imos pizza sux IMO

nah mlud alf the imo is as always implicit

im saying that even iyo declaring that there are such tests that a movie must oerleap else fail is adding elements to appraisal that dont always (and need never) apply

I really like this one and think theres a lot going on in it, its current rep as a a piece of lightweight pastiche hugely underrates it imo. I think about it a lot as a companion piece to A Serious Man

yeah

and elements that are def of a piece with hudsucker, barton fink, inside lleywn davies, etc etc

the pastiche pieces are happening around a vv compelling central character/performance in brolin

tbh i think the level the coens are working on now, I dont think they could do a "just" pastiche movie at this point even if they tried

and elements that are def of a piece with hudsucker, barton fink, inside lleywn davies, etc etc

these are all lesser coens to me, especially the latter

brolin is good but there's not really a journey for the character

not every story is the odyssey

some are the iliad.

lol

heh

I'd find it interesting to read what in particular you find compelling about Brolin's character and the rest of the movie, deems. I could write more of my own opinions for you to hoot at, but that seems like a hollow exercise unless you are willing to expose yourself a bit further. I will take it as all in good fun, regardless. The Coens have to fine a body of work to be smirched by a few quibbles about this film or that.

I'm fine with a hollow exercise when every scene is uniquely memorable & enjoyable.

i think hes an excellent brooder, aimless

good brooding

portentous

adds a lot that mightn't even be there

#casting

anyways i wasnt hooting at all but i think a criticism of something for what it isnt should have to work hard enough to demonstrate that it had to be that thing, tbh

a certain finn was terrible for doing this, iirc

The fantasy version of Mannix is the most sharp and capable character in the film, who has no particular expertise but still outthinks or outmanouevres every other figure in their own area of interest. The headhunters can see this, and know that he's not being valued with direct appreciation, money or a work-life balance.

Eddie knows this too. The tragedy of the film's character is that despite operating outside of, and manipulating, Hollywood glamour at every step, he is just as seduced by it as everyone else. He probably thinks Catholicism is bullshit and an exploitative front, but he carries on in "belief" of it. He knows that Hollywood is fake - he's the main agent of the fakery off-screen - and yet he can't give up his faith, though it does not and will not reward his belief. He chooses to believe, and chooses to believe that he will be happy by choosing this.

Nearly every character is shown as a massive doofus both to contrast with Mannix' capability, and to provide entertaining, funny setpieces to the audience. Every other character that is capable in some way is also choosing to believe in something false, but they're not conflicted by it. Mannix is given opportunity after opportunity throughout the film to behave as rationally as he is shown to think, and a viewer may invest in his tension and conflict, or disregard it (whether because they expect he will stick with the studio, find the character repugnant, are in it for the gags, are put out of it by the gags, w/e). It's the emotional spine of the movie for those who want one, though.

He goes on a journey, it just ends up back at home in his hobbit-hole. The journey doesn't change him - this is the point of faith - but it brings him to accept things about himself.

(The real-life Mannix probably would have turned down a better-compensated job in aeroplane manufacturing because of the lesser opportunities to control & abuse women, or to have people murdered for convenience or spite.)

I agree about the quality brooding by Brolin.

criticism of something for what it isnt should have to work hard enough to demonstrate that it had to be that thing

Ah! I merely said that, given what it was not, what was left would either suffice for the viewer to extract enjoyment or it would not, with the clear implication that for me it did not. It struck me as a series of pleasant trifles, which is not a bad thing in itself. Scene by scene, most of the film was amusing and engaging. Not the commies, though; they were a mustard stain on the film's floral cravat.

Where it most failed for me was its insistence on imposing a plot and a resolution on the story, while employing such a weak plot and incoherent resolution that they detracted from the whole and made it, as Jim In Vancouver put it, a whole that was less than the sum of its parts. Also, for my tastes, Clooney's and Johansson's characters were rather simplistic cartoons that fell well below the high standards set by Warner Bros.

otoh, Brolin and Swinton were very fine and held the movie together as best they could.

sic otm. its a story about how people keep faith vs a serious man being about how people lose faith.

i agree about the commies, certainly, that needed deepening or dropping

mannix's faith in the system is held up by the idea that everyone has an important role to play to serve the system, and in return the system provides them all with a sense of meaning. His faith gives him self-worth because he plays his part to help keep the system running, as we all should. The setpieces give us a cross section of the system and show us what mannix finds beautiful about it, the way each person fits and how their role is important, from the execs to the craftspeople to the crooked notary public. The film shows him literally travelling around tending his flock, and when one of them has doubts he tells them that faith must be a choice, a conscious act of will, and if you interrogate it with rationality too much it can all disappear in a puff of smoke.

Great post, sic

xp - that deeper thematic underpinning might have been better served if it had been depicted as happening to human beings instead of to crayon drawings of human beings

well yeah, its a broad allegory, done with self-conscious silliness. Not sure if it would have worked better if it was more realistic, but i get why the movie as it is doesnt do it for everybody. And while its still not the deepest fare theres at least slightly more there to chew on than "they wanted to re-create old movies" imo

mannix has learned to be happy with the idea of faith being its own reward. gopnik in a serious man is unhappy because he expects rewards for his faith. (or at least tornado protection, at the bare minimum)

gopnik struggles with faith and doesn't do anything

mannix commits to faith-as-tactic and acts

that deeper thematic underpinning might have been better served if it had been depicted as happening to human beings instead of to crayon drawings of human beings

― A is for (Aimless), Saturday, May 16, 2020 7:09 AM (twenty-four minutes ago)

https://i.imgur.com/nlenMLq.jpg

I watched this over the pandemic and fell into the easy trap of tritely dismissing it as a minor Coen brothers. It didn't really stay with me and I hadn't reconsidered it until I noticed that their last three movies (if indeed the Coens stay out): Inside Llewyn Davis, Hail, Caesar!, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs form an ersatz trilogy of dark music(al) movies about identity, Americanism, and the culture industry. Maybe not a perfect match-up, but I think it's interesting to take all three of these movies together.

Wasn't excited for this at all, very wary of the pastiche/tribute element but I really loved it. I think the old man trying to fight the moon is supposed to be comedy for dumbasses but it's still hilarious.

Trying to think of similar films to what Fiennes was directing or similar directors but coming up totally blank. Maybe that kind of film is mostly left in the past? Same for the cowboy film?

saw The Man Who Wasn't there the other night and that was more amazing