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

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)