Getafilm Gallimaufry: Marwencol, Black Swan, True Grit, & Exit Through the Gift Shop

[Note: This series includes scattered thoughts on various movie-related topics. I was looking for a word that started with the letter "g" that means collection or assortment, but lest you think I'm some elitist wordsmith, know that I'd never heard of "gallimaufry" and I don't even know how to say it, but it was the only other option the thesaurus provided aside from "goulash" (too foody) and "garbage" (no).]

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Marwencol (A) 

There's a fine line between a hobby and an obsession. Take my love of movies, for example - is this blog a healthy,  creative side project, or an unhealthy manifestation of a subconscious desire to escape reality through film? Or what about Mark Hogancamp, who, after being beaten within an inch of his life several years ago and his long-term memory, regained his personality and his imagination through a fantastical world he created with plastic figurines? I can live without movies (maybe?), but Hogancamp can't live without these dolls. They are not a hobby, and they are not even an obsession. They are like air and water, necessary for his daily life. 

Hogancamp's alternate reality, named Marwencol, is so detailed and lifelike that it appears to exists as a living, breathing place, filled with characters and backstories enough to fill a series of books. If I had the patience and artistic talent to create places like it, I might end up lost with the dolls as well. This is not to say that Hogancamp doesn't have a handle on reality, just that considering where he's coming from it makes perfect sense that Marwencol is his security blanket from the judgments of the world (he was beaten at a bar after admitting to a habit of cross-dressing). It's the place he can go to get away, and be his own person in his own mind, and in that sense Marwencol is an almost uncomfortably personal entry into his thoughts and emotions.

I'm sure it wasn't easy for Mark Hogancamp to agree to "expose" himself through this film, but his world, Marwencol, should be appreciated not only for what it means to him, but to everyone who seeks a place that offers that kind of solace.

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Black Swan (B)  

As Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan reached its climactic finale, I'd made peace with my opinion of the movie: it was a lesser Fight Club, without the humor and witty cultural references. Maybe that says something about my gender or my disinterest in ballet, but in my head it was just a reaction to the familiarity of the story. I realize the plots aren't in any way similar, but, despite not having seen a trailer or learned anything about the story, I felt I'd been led to believe Black Swan was going to be some kind of transcendent thriller that would twist my mind and leave me breathless. Instead, I had a headache from the avian sound effects and predictable fright scenes, and I grew impatient to see something I hadn't seen before.

In the weeks afterward I considered the praise for Black Swan's ambiguity (i.e., was the ending real?) and acting, but as it recedes in my mind I don't have any great desire to see it again. I'm optimistic there are any number of similar films about passion and drive that aren't as cold, dark, and disturbing, like, for instance, Aronofosky's The Wrestler, which is a light and cheery family film in comparison.

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True Grit (A-)  

At least for me, movies in 2010 were severely lacking memorable characters. I mean the kind of characters that you can recognize with one line of dialogue, or dress up for Halloween as, or spoof on "Saturday Night Live". Jeff Bridges as Rooster Cogburn is one of those characters, and although I haven't seen the original True Grit, I think I'd rather watch Bridges in the character if only because he's a lot more fun to imitate than John Wayne.

Sure, the Coen Brothers left their mark on True Grit, but I'd be lying if I didn't expect more from them. Not more in terms of quality, per se, but more in terms of Coen-ness. More scenes like the bartering scene with Mattie Ross or the courtroom scene, more bizarre characters popping in and out of nowhere, and a little more dry humor. But their intention was a straightforward adaptation, and in that they likely succeeded (I haven't read the novel). Just doesn't seem like they had much reason for taking this on if they weren't going to do something unique with it.

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Exit Through the Gift Shop (A-) 

I finally caught up to this raved-about documentary, and despite hearing much about its authenticity, the mysteries didn't appear where and when I expected. I've known of Banksy for several years, but I knew little about the rise of street art or the increasing number of public exhibitions by street artists. Essentially, I didn't realize their work had been accepted as legitimate in the eyes of collectors and auction houses. So, it didn't take much to convince me that Thierry Guetta could be a real person. As improbable as everything was, nothing really seemed outside of the realm of possibility (similar to My Kid Could Paint That), and there were fewer aspects of this film that made me think it wasn't real.

Conversely, everything about I'm Still Here seemed fake from the beginning (I saw it before it was officially announced as a hoax), so I could laugh along with Phoenix and Affleck as they punked everyone. Does its greater believability make Exit Through the Gift Shop a better documentary? Is it even a documentary, or an actual artistic statement by Banksy? Does it even matter? This is what I'm left wondering, but regardless of what I believe or discover about the truth, I now understand why this film has received so much attention. It's like one of Banksy's great works, subverting our expectations and telling us something we don't want to admit to ourselves about art, hype, and money.

Short Cuts: "Ya, You Know It's a Radisson So It's Pretty Good"

Fargo (1996). Directed by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen; written by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen; starring Frances McDormand, William H. Macy, Steve Buscemi, John Carroll Lynch, Peter Stormare, and Harve Presnell.

Joel & Ethan Coen: The Third Decade (2006-)

Though I didn't finish this project until the Walker Art Center's Coen Brothers retrospective, Joel & Ethan Coen: Raising Cain, reached its end, I'm still glad I took the opportunity to rewatch all 14 Coen brothers films (including A Serious Man, for the first time). Considering the lack of time I've been able to spend writing here, it was an ambitious goal, though it's given me (along with the Regis Dialogue I attended with them) a much more comprehensive understanding of their films.

Read:  A Conversation with the Coens & a Look at Their First Decade (1984-1994)
Read:  Joel & Ethan Coen: The Second Decade (1995-2005) 

(Title screens via the Walker blog.)

No Country for Old Men (2007)

As I mentioned in Part 1, I saw Blood Simple for the first time only recently, but it made an immediate impression on my understanding of the rest of the Coen's films, particularly No Country for Old Men. This was my favorite movie of 2007, a Best Picture winner, an instant classic, and one of the best movies of the decade. Repeated viewings have done nothing to diminish its stature in my mind, and I continue to gain appreciation for the acting from the supporting cast, notably Kelly MacDonald, who does wonders covering up her thick Scottish accent.

Joel & Ethan Coen: The Second Decade (1995-2005)

As the Walker Art Center's Coen Brothers retrospective, Joel & Ethan Coen: Raising Cain, finishes this weekend, I'm rushing to record some brief thoughts on the six films from their second decade of filmmaking. 

Read:  A Conversation with the Coens & a Look at Their First Decade (1984-1994)

(Title screens via the Walker blog.)

Fargo (1996)

I wasn't allowed to like Fargo the first time - as I recounted last year, nobody in Minnesota was. It was funny, sure, but at the expense of the local culture. Not a culture that I really identify with, but nonetheless one that I obviously recognized and one that was extremely offended by the film. Yes, people do talk like that and yes, the winters are that bad. Sometimes even worse. But in addition to an innately lower body temperature and a twisted sense of humor, most Minnesotans also have a keen awareness of when they're being mocked, and they weren't happy about Fargo until...well, until it started winning awards, and until the Coens became recognized as perhaps the best filmmaking duo of their generation. Then everybody looooved Fargo (read more about the local reaction here).

REVIEW: A Serious Man (A)

Consider some of the classic songs featured at pivotal moments of Coen Bros. movies: the operatic "Oh Danny Boy" in Miller's Crossing, the psychedelic "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)" in The Big Lebowski, and the bluegrassy "Man of Constant Sorrow" in O Brother, Where Art Thou?, just to name a few. The tone and lyrics of each of these songs are essential to evoking a particular atmosphere in key scenes. But that's about where the meaning ends - within those scenes.

Then consider the use of Jefferson Airplane's "Somebody to Love" in A Serious Man. The lyrics are not only key to the setting of the movie, but they are for the first time in a Coen film the backbone of the entire story. Recite the first two lines ("When the truth is found to be lies, and all the joy within you dies") and you have explained the philosophical underpinnings of Larry Gopnik's mid-life crisis. Which is to say you haven't explained anything at all. Let me try to explain.

A Conversation with the Coens & a Look at Their First Decade (1984-1994)

Last night I had the once-in-a-lifetime luck to score a ticket to the 50th Regis Dialogue at the Walker Art Center, a 2 and 1/2 hour discussion between Elvis Mitchell and Joel and Ethan Coen. The conversation kicked off the second week of the Walker's current Coen Brothers retrospective, Joel & Ethan Coen: Raising Cain, and the the good news for those who couldn't get in last night is that the films of the Coens will still be shown in 35mm in the comfy Walker Cinema through October 17th. Click here for the remaining schedule, and note that the Burn After Reading screening is free. 

The brothers also attended the reception following the dialogue, but even as I was literally brushing shoulders with them I couldn't work up the nerve to ask them: in No Country for Old Men, where is Anton Chigurh at the Desert Sands? I did ask Elvis Mitchell but I think we were talking past each other. My question was about the night scene at the hotel where Chigurh is looking through the keyhole, not the day scene when Tommy Lee Jones first arrives and finds Josh Brolin. Elvis was convinced that Chigurh wasn't there, that it was an out of sequence scene. Well obviously, but that's not the scene I'm talking about. By the time I realized the misunderstanding, both Joel and Ethan had wandered away from us left the reception, leaving it a mystery forevermore. Wasting an easy 10 minutes standing right next to the Coens and not asking them a question, let alone that question, is something I'm going to be regretting for a long time. 

What would you have asked the Coens, given the opportunity? Everybody knows that they are among the most private personalities in Hollywood, and Elvis Mitchell deserves props for his attempt at getting them to open up about their childhood and influences. But the Coens are the Coens, and their inherent reluctance to talk makes interviewing them akin to pulling teeth; indeed, it looked like they'd rather have been at the dentist than on the stage. Pregnant pauses were filled by countless "yeah"s and "uh-huh"s, to the point that I was waiting for Mitchell to throw up his hands in defeat (he almost appeared ready to a couple times).

Despite all of this he was still able to squeeze out some interesting insights about their influences and childhood. Although it would have been nice to have a Minnesotan ask them about Minnesota, the truth is that a.) by now the Coens have been New Yorkers longer than they've been Minnesotans, so despite A Serious Man they're probably not as nostalgic for this place as most people think, and b.) Mitchell proved to be a brilliant analyst of their films, surprising even Joel and Ethan with his insights into their literary style and story patterns. Overall I still think it was a really interesting discussion, and I'd be lying if I said it wasn't one of my most memorable film experiences. (Here's a longer recap by Tad Simons.)

Now while I still can't claim to be anything close to an expert on their films (I still need to see Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers, and several others I've only seen once or twice), I'd like to remain true to my goal of writing something on each of their films before this retrospective ends. So here I'm offering some thoughts on the five films the brothers made in the first decade of their career. I hope to follow this with a second decade (1995-2005) and present day overview as well. Obviously I owe some thoughts to A Serious Man once I see that next weekend, since I've been howling about how good it will be for so long.


(Title screens via the Walker blog.)

Blood Simple (1984) 

As I mentioned last week, I saw Blood Simple for the first time only recently, but it made an immediate impression on my understanding of the rest of the Coen films, particularly No Country for Old Men. The desperate characters, the mind games, the desolate Texas landscape - in just one film they had already established a wholly unique style of storytelling (Ethan claimed the story was inspired by crimes of passion that were prevalent in Texas in the mid-80's). Everything is weaved together so seamlessly that you can't believe they were only in that this was their first feature (interesting trivia: Blood Simple premiered before its theatrical release at the Walker in 1984).

It's not nearly as polished as their other films, but of course they were working with a tiny budget and mostly amateur cast. It actually took me a while to recognize Frances McDormand as Frances McDormand, and I thought Dan Hedaya was enjoyably smug as well. All in all Blood Simple is just a flat-out solid debut, and the stylish scene transitions (the finger pointing, the bed falling) are worth rewinding and rewatching a few times.

Coens Set to Begin Raising Cain This Friday

My anticipation for A Serious Man is going to reach a fever pitch over the next few weeks with the opening of the Walker Art Center's 50th Regis Dialogue & Retrospective: Joel & Ethan Coen: Raising Cain, a nearly monthlong celebration of every film the brothers have directed, including receptions and a conversation with the Coens themselves next Friday, Sept. 25 (Tickets: $45, or $100 including admission to the private reception). No official word yet on a local premiere of A Serious Man as part of this series, which would be a little surprising. The film just premiered in Toronto but there's no chance I'm checking the pulse of the reaction. It'll be all I can do to avoid the trailer over the next few weeks.

Anyway, as if the appetite was not already thoroughly whetted for this series (via the Walker blog):

In other news, I saw Blood Simple for the first time this weekend and feel like I all of a sudden have a new appreciation for their work, particularly the shadows and shivers of No Country for Old Men. In fact, I'm laying out an ambitious plan to write at least some capsule thoughts on every Coen movie before this series wraps up at the Walker. Wish me luck.

Coens "Raising Cain": Thank You, Walker Art Center

Less than a month after I passively challenged the PR strategy for Joel and Ethan Coen's upcoming A Serious Man, out comes a press release from the always ahead-of-the-curve Walker Art Center that they are planning to turn the volume on A Serious Man chatter up to "Deafening" when they bring the brothers to town as part of a career-spanning, 50th Anniversary Regis Dialogue & Retrospective this September. It will be a Coen-anza like no other for the hometown heroes, who were profiled in this space last year.

Joel and Ethan Coen: Raising Cain kicks off on September 18th with a Director's Cut, 25th-anniversary-commemorating, 35mm screening of Blood Simple, followed by a post-screening reception (at Wolfgang Puck's 20.21? I suspect so). The next Friday, September 25th, the brothers will sit down to discuss their career in the 50th Regis Dialogue. Tickets are $100 and include access to the post-show reception, where, if you're lucky, you can ask the brothers themselves about the mystery behind Anton Chigurh's whereabouts at the Desert Sands Motor Hotel.

Here are the details from the press release:

"Minneapolis, July 28, 2009 — The Walker Art Center celebrates its 50th Regis Dialogue and Retrospective with Minnesota’s own Joel and Ethan Coen in conjunction with the 25th-anniversary year of their stunning debut, Blood Simple, and upon the release of their 14th feature, the shot-in-Minnesota A Serious Man. The Coen Brothers Regis Dialogue and Film Retrospective, entitled “Raising Cain” and presented September 18-October 17, will showcase all 13 of the feature films they have written, directed, and edited leading up to this newest release: Blood Simple; Raising Arizona; Miller’s Crossing; Barton Fink; The Hudsucker Proxy; Fargo; The Big Lebowski; O Brother, Where Art Thou?; The Man Who Wasn’t There; The Ladykillers; Intolerable Cruelty; No Country for Old Men; and Burn After Reading. The Regis Dialogue, featuring Joel and Ethan Coen in conversation, will take place Friday, September 25, in the Walker Cinema. The retrospective kicks off on September 18 with the directors’ cut of Blood Simple, shown on a special archival 35mm print. The event includes a post-screening reception. Dates for individual programs in the series will be released by August 18.

The Coen brothers’ singular and elaborate worlds reveal a distinct vision that combines pastiche and homage, referencing everything from musicals and old movies to Faulkner to pulp novels and comic books, along with dazzling cinematography and intricate design. Their unique sense of place is flawlessly conceived, right down to the distinctive jargon of the characters, reflecting a stylized form of American vernacular to fit the time and place and genre. As the New York Times described it, the Coens create “a postmodern cinematic world . . . where everything seems vaguely unhinged.” While they’ve mined many genres throughout their career, it is noir which they have done every which way, filtering its absurdity, sense of disorientation, alienation, and cynicism through their unique sensibility. Yet the Coens also toss a funny bone into their movies, employing brazen slapstick, deliciously clever banter, gallows humor, and even sight gags with relish. The films seem to embody the pure joy of their creators.

Once called “the Hardy Boys from Hell” (Rolling Stone), the Coen brothers have confounded and at times divided critics and audiences alike. While these genre-bending, period-twisting shape-shifters can be difficult to pin down, it’s abundantly clear that they are filmmakers whose love for the movies is matched by the vastness of their imagination."

To be honest I'm just as scared as I am excited for this series because lives may be lost in the battle for tickets. The Walker, in a brilliant membership development strategy, is giving August 17th priority ticket access to its Contributing Members ($250+/year), followed by a release to all Walker members on September 10th. Get the rub? If you're not a Walker member you can forget about getting tickets to the Regis Dialogue on the 25th, but you have a couple weeks to join before those tickets go on sale.

Maybe the most bizarre detail about this retrospective, of course, is that it does not include a local premiere of A Serious Man, which opens right in the middle of the month-long series. Why this could not be arranged I don't know, but needless to say the Walker might lose some audience that weekend of October 2nd as locals flock to the Landmark Uptown Theater, where I expect it will open in limited engagement.

For more information about the Regis series schedule as it becomes available, visit the "Raising Cain" page (everytime I hear that I'm going to think of that intolerable "Raisin' McCain" song...) on the Walker's website. When tickets go on sale, the stand-alone Coens section on the Walker website should be up and running.

On the Horizon: A Serious Man

This is the first "On the Horizon" movie I haven't actually seen, but it's worthy of a preview if for no other reason than the fact that so far all anyone's heard has been crickets. As a Minnesota resident and amateur biographer of Joel and Ethan Coen, I therefore consider it my duty to get some buzz going, despite the negligible fact that a trailer, poster, and stills haven't been released (other than these on-location shots that I drummed up from www.coenbrothers.net).

The lack of excitement around A Serious Man, at least among the blogs and newswires I follow with any regularity, is baffling. Since Oscar night a few months back there's been about a million posts on "Movies to Watch" in 2009, and almost none of them mention A Serious Man. Even outside of the current marketing assaults for all of these summer blockbusters, it seems like most of the excitement for the end of the year is reserved for Cannes attention getters (The White Ribbon, Bright Star, Antichrist) or heavy hitters like Nine, 9, District 9, Inglourious Basterds, Taking Woodstock, Sherlock Holmes, The Lovely Bones, Invictus, The Hurt Locker, The Road, Shutter Island, Amelia, and so on.

I'm not saying A Serious Man should necessarily be considered Best Picture-worthy at this point, or even that it's going to be good. It could be categorically awful. I have no idea, but either way I'm shocked at the lack of curious anticipation for what amounts to an autobiographical film written and directed by arguably the best filmmaking team in Hollywood and filmed in their childhood home of St. Louis Park, MN (and costumed by Mary Zophres and designed by Jess Gonchor and, oh yeah, also shot by Roger Deakins and scored by Carter Burwell).

What am I missing? Are the Coens - just two years removed from a near Oscar sweep - not as highly respected as I thought? Did Burn After Reading ruin their reputation or something?

Maybe it's the lack of a big name star. The Coens dug deep into the local Jewish community here for supporting parts and extras, but even their leads - Richard Kind and Michael Stuhlbarg - are mostly recognizable by face alone. Or maybe it's the fact that nobody has seen even a rough cut of A Serious Man, and it's hard to get excited for a movie if you haven't seen a trailer (you know, similar to the lack of comments about a movie that's not even in pre-production yet).

Nah, neither of those reasons really explain it, especially when you consider the similarities with the other end-of-year movies I listed. Puzzling...

Closer to home, perhaps the reason nobody wants to talk about this movie is because the last time the brothers filmed in their home state the result arrived with a warning label. For many people the memories of Fargo still stings, and it stands to reason that the Coens will be applying their always-sharp analytical scalpel to the cultural quirks of Minnesota once again in A Serious Man, albeit Jewish-Minnesotan culture in 1967.

Whatever the reason for the blaring silence, only a fool could argue that A Serious Man will arrive so quietly in just 120 days. Opening weekend (Oct. 2) here in Uptown and St. Louis Park will be an absolute zoo, and away from home I'd comfortably bet on at least Best Original Screenplay consideration, if not also a shot at a Best Picture nom in a newly-expanded field.

But I haven't seen it and maybe I'm way off. Maybe it's an impossible movie to market and nobody is excited or cares about it because they think it sounds really boring, even if it hits closer to home - both literally and figuratively - than any film the Coens have made to this point. Maybe all those people who complained about No Country for Old Men winning Best Picture were right when they said that "nobody saw it", and thus the Coens, celebrating their 25th year making movies, actually have to prove their writing and directing talent again before anybody can get excited.

It just doesn't seem possible, but...could it be true?

(Movie) News You Need to Know: State of Brotherly Love

"St. Paul's Dowdle brothers adopt Coens' formula for success"

I know I'm like a week late on this article, but hey, I was away. Colin Covert had an interesting profile and interview with Drew and John Erick Dowdle, the family filmmaking team behind the recent smash thriller Quarantine. As Colin notes, it appears there may be a new pair of Minnesotan brothers on the scene in Hollywood, this time from St. Paul and not St. Louis Park.

I didn't actually see Quarantine because I'm allergic to gory horror flicks, but after reading Colin's piece I have to admit I'm pretty intrigued by the idea of it, if only because it sounds like these guys really know what they're doing. I had heard positive buzz about their last feature, The Poughkeepsie Tapes, but never realized it was the same people, and never realized the movie was actually never released.

Anyway, the more interesting thing to me is the Coen similarity, not just in the filmmaking background but in the physical resemblance between John Erick Dowdle and Ethan Coen - check this:

In other Coens news, I sadly never made good on my plan to crash the set of A Serious Man. Although I know a few people who were in it, I was just too busy to make it out there and check out the scene. Ah well, it will still be cool to see local landmarks on screen next year.

REVIEW: Burn After Reading (B+)

While my wish for a Coen Bros. sighting/introduction (they're here filming A Serious Man) at the promo screening of Burn After Reading last week went unfulfilled, my expectations for a distinctly Coenesque comedy were easily met: bizarre characters, dark humor, and a downward spiraling story.

The star power in Burn After Reading is in stark contrast to most of the Coens' films, including last year's Best Picture winner No Country for Old Men, and especially compared to A Serious Man, which will feature no one you've ever heard of. Indeed, the five actors listed on the marquee for Burn After Reading have all been nominated for acting Oscars, and three of them (George Clooney, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton) have won. Add in the Coens' own writing and directing Oscars and you have what might be the most impressive ensemble of any movie so far this year.

This is not a fact that can be easily overlooked, because the characters written by Joel and Ethan Coen could not be trusted in the hands of amateur actors. From McDormand's neurotic Linda Litzke to John Malkovich's nihilistic Osborne Cox to Brad Pitt's naive Chad Feldheimer, we have some of the most engaging (yet also some of the most one-dimensional) personalities of any of the Coens' thirteen movies. While these three characters left the most distinct impression on me as I look back on Burn After Reading (including my favorite line - Pitt's laugh about the Schwinn), the rest of the cast is most certainly deserving of high praise as well. Richard Jenkins revives and softens his Walter Vale persona from The Visitor, J.K. Simmons dials in one of the most hilarious C.I.A. chiefs in recent memory (even somewhat reminiscent of his indifferent Mac MacGuff in Juno), and Tilda Swinton and George Clooney face off again in an amusing "what if?" scenario that could have been tacked onto the end of Michael Clayton.

I'm zeroing in on the characters ahead of the story here because they're where the heart of Burn After Reading beats most loudly (that is, when it's not drowned out by Carter Burwell's driving score, which I can only assume he developed to make up for his muted tones in No Country for Old Men). Yes, the characters are where this movie lives, if only because the plot is, to be frank, kind of stupid. A U.S. agent and a couple of gym employees get caught up in the messy divorce of a disaffected ex-C.I.A. analyst? That's it?

Yeah, that's it alright, but if there's anything more idiotic than the story, it's the absurd manner in which these characters interact with each other, and while it's what provides consistent humor throughout the movie, it's ironically also the one place that criticism of the film can be directed. At times I felt the Coens were going for laughs a little too easily, relying only on the goofy mannerisms that the actors seemed to create on their own. Instead of the rapid-fire writing of the The Big Lebowski or the cultural wink-winks of Fargo, the Coens seemed to be content, for example, just filming Brad Pitt run wildly on a treadmill. In fact, I was almost expecting us to witness Pitt experience the stereotypical and completely unfunny bike accident that would send him flying over the handlebars onto the hood of a car. This didn't happen, of course, but my point (and it may be an unfair one) is that the spirit of some of the biggest laughs in Burn After Reading unfortunately reminded me of Step Brothers: idiots screaming obscenities at each other.

On the other hand, I would be selling the Coens short if I didn't also acknowledge the wry, almost subversive humor that pokes fun at U.S. intelligence agencies and, for that matter, generations of spy thrillers. While taking aim at a bureaucracy with the traditional "nobody knows that they're doing" ammo, the Coens still manage to dress up the comedy with timely references to internet dating and U.S.-Russian relations. Moreover, I do have to admit that the brothers have once again successfully "captured a culture": the Beltway, where everyone is suspicious and loyalties are traded like baseball cards. From what I know about living and working in Washington, D.C., Burn After Reading's portrayal of a cloaked, almost comically paranoid environment is not too far off the mark. For the sake of our national security, however, I sure hope the depictions of those internal C.I.A. meetings are.

The jocular tone, violent irony, and surehanded style of Burn After Reading will come as no surprise to those who have seen other comedies by the Coen brothers, but it will be interesting to see if the general moviegoing public, perhaps most familiar with No Country for Old Men, will give this one a chance (though the rabid Pitt and Clooney fans will surely help). It's not quite as immediately appealing as The Big Lebowski, but if nothing else it's proof that the brothers are still masters of their own uniquely distinctive form; the films of few other filmmakers these days are so immediately recognizable - or entertaining.

Grade:
Writing - 8
Acting - 10
Production - 9
Emotional Impact - 10
Music - 4
Social Significance - 3

Total: 44/50= 88% = B+

(Movie) News You Need to Know: Coens Continuation

*"In Twin Cities, Coen Brothers Shoot from the Heart"

(Well, life continues to call; this move is taking its time - and my time as well. As I mentioned in my self-congratulatory post last week, I have lots on the way but can't get it out just yet. Thanks for your patience.)

In the meantime, the Twin Cities are soon to be abuzz with Coen fever. You know, the native sons who aren't as "native" anymore as much as Minnesotans like to claim? As I mentioned in that post, A Serious Man is to be filmed here starting, in fact, today, and continuing through November. Colin Covert, who had a few words to say on the Coen Brothers at that time, did me the favor of continuing the article with an update on their current production. Lots of interesting tidbits in there for locals, including some shooting locations. Chances are I'm going to get about as close to the action as you are, but I suppose stranger things have happened.

The article also includes the necessary mention of Fargo, the success of which ironically sent the brothers out of state for good. Fear not, self-conscious Minnesotans: Bob Graf, who produced all of the Coens' recent movies, told Covert, "If there were some people who felt Fargo was caricature, I don't think they'd feel that about this."

See you on set.

Joel and Ethan Coen: Feeling (and Fooling?) Minnesota

[This article will appear as part of MovieZeal's month-long celebration of the films of the Coen brothers. Check out excellent reviews of their movies by Evan Derrick and Luke Harrington (The Zealots), in addition to guest reviews and some illuminating insights on the Coen brand from an impressive array of movie bloggers. Like me...?]

"Fargo's naht even in Minnesoda, ya know!"

So has begun many a contentious conversation with Minnesotans about the Oscar-winning film from native sons Joel and Ethan Coen. A word of advice: if you're visiting, don't bring it up. Ironically, we obsessively claim the brothers as our own, while at the same time distance ourselves as much as possible from their most famous portrayal of us. Over the course of their filmmaking careers, the relationship between the brothers and their home state has indeed been a delicate one.

Born and raised in the Minneapolis suburb of St. Louis Park by their professorial parents (dad at the University of Minnesota, mom at St. Cloud State University), the Coens were already making films on a Super 8 camera before they reached adolescence. The boys grew up at an interesting time in Minnesota, and not just the 1950's were smack dab in the middle of the Baby Boom. The state was notoriously anti-Semitic during and after World War II, and it would be hard for me to believe such sentiment was totally absent from their childhood, even in their (still) predominantly Jewish neighborhood. Bob Dylan was probably crossing paths with their father as he wandered the U of M campus in Dinkytown. Prince was picking up a guitar for the first time across town. Heck, Al Franken practically grew up with the Coens in St. Louis Park. Like their soon-to-be-famous contemporaries (and me, decades later...), Joel and Ethan headed elsewhere after high school, broadening their horizons at NYU (Ethan), Princeton (Joel), and Bard College at Simon's Rock (both). It was clear they would not be back to Minnesota anytime soon, and by 1984 they had their first film (Blood Simple) and their first addition to the Coen family (Joel's marriage to the actress Frances McDormand). We wouldn't see them again until, of course, Fargo in 1996.

You need to know that Minnesota, like many of the tragically named "flyover states," is a place that swells with pride. For the rural population in the state, moving to "the cities" (Minneapolis and St. Paul) is akin to disowning your family, your roots. To a lesser but still noticeable extent, this thinking also translates to those who move out of the state altogether. Who did the Coens think they were, leaving and never coming back? They're too good for Minnesota? They're better than us? Perhaps you can see why Fargo, with its exaggerated accents and pathetically provincial characters, wasn't selling out theaters around here. On the contrary, many Minnesotans (perhaps already hurt by the Coens departure) were infuriated with the film. The initial reaction was so dramatic, in fact, that the Minneapolis Star Tribune warned filmgoers that "many Minnesotans may be offended by parts of Fargo."

The Coens, for their part, were puzzled by the reaction in their home state. Said Joel Coen after its release, "We were born and grew up in Minnesota, which is one of the reasons why we were interested in the story...We feel very much sort of a part of it, having some from that culture. That's another thing that sort of surprises us about the attitude of the outsider condescending to the yokels from Minnesota." Nevertheless, one quote I found from a Fergus Falls resident summed up the general sentiment at the time: "I left that movie feeling violated and lied about. The Coens should be ashamed." It didn't help the situation when the film would go on to win two Academy Awards and be named as the one of the 100 greatest films of all time by the American Film Institute. Then, ten years after its release, the Library of Congress add Fargo to its prestigious National Film Registry, ensuring that this source of embarrassment for Minnesotans would be "preserved for future generations."

"I think Minnesotans will eventually come to like Fargo," said prescient Minneapolis storyteller Kevin Kling upon the film's release in 1996. Indeed, as the film rose to become an American classic, the local hostility towards it faded. By the time the Coens were back on the national stage in 2007 for their next American classic, No Country for Old Men, half of Minnesota practically claimed familial relations with the brothers (Mine? One of my best friends auditioned for the role of Scotty Lundegaard in Fargo). This tendency to unabashedly jump at the chance for national attention seems to happen a lot here, but not without notice. "I guess I would say it's fun, but it always strikes me as the sort of thing that a place that wants to be someplace else does, not a place that's secure in itself," said media analyst David Brauer in an MPR interview about Minnesota's obsession last year with the Coens (and also with Diablo Cody of Juno fame). True to form, the City of Brainerd, MN, has been using Fargo as an appeal to tourists for years. Turns out the fine citizens here don't really care if people think they're attention-starved, they just care if people think they talk funny.

While it seems too easy to relate the Coen brothers exclusively to Fargo when talking about their link to Minnesota, none of their other films (full disclosure: I haven't seen all 12 of them) so prominently feature the state and culture that influenced them, and none of their other films left such an impression here. And although it may still be considered their career-defining work, Fargo was not an anomaly or change of pace for the Coens, but an emblematic example of their unique style. But what sets them apart from other filmmakers? Or rather, what is uniquely "Minnesotan" about their films?

In order to bolster both my knowledge of film and my credibility in writing this, I spoke with Minneapolis Star Tribune film critic Colin Covert about Joel and Ethan's relationship to their home state. He identified two aspects of their films that could be considered "Minnesotan", and I agree with both. "I think they have a very down-to-earth, Midwestern and specifically Minnesotan quality to their films," notes Covert. "They're very observant of the details of everyday life," he added, citing Raising Arizona as an example. To be sure, this is an understatement. The brothers are well-known for their meticulous attention to the regional characteristics of their story settings, including accents, landscapes, music, religion, and cultural traditions. The Los Angeles of The Big Lebowski; the Deep South of O Brother, Where Art Thou?; the West Texas of No Country for Old Men. Minnesota, with its deep commitment to preserving Scandinavian traditions, served as a perfect model for the young Coens. Growing up Jewish, the Coens must have looked on with curiosity at the Lutherans around them eating lutefisk and telling Sven and Ole jokes with funny accents (those of you outside of Minnesota don't even know what I'm talking about, do you?) - exactly the kind of specific cultural details present in so many of their films. Had the Coens grown up in a more culturally diverse place, they may not have had the same fixation on the regional characteristics that help define their distinct style.

Secondly, Covert pointed out the "dry, dark, pessimistic humor that runs through their films." Those of you familiar with "Minnesota nice" might find this surprising, but Minnesotans can actually be a pretty perverse bunch of Scandinavians. I don't know how many times I've looked around half-shocked and half-disturbed by the hoots and guffaws around me in the theater during an unsettling or bloody scene, especially at the Uptown Theater in Minneapolis. Covert nailed it on the head with his description, and while it might not be a style exclusive to the Coens, neither is crass humor exclusive to witty New Yorkers or above-it-all Los Angelenos. While others were laughing at the funny accents in Fargo, Minnesotans (those who went) were cackling during the wood chipper scene. This subtle humor is palpable in many of the Coens' films, from the silly (The Hudsucker Proxy, Raising Arizona) to the suspenseful (the gas station scene in No Country for Old Men). There's one other observation that I have to make here, and that is the fact that many of the characters in their films just seem like typical Minnesotans. John Goodman (originally from Missouri), for example, could easily pass for a local in the Twin Cities.

And what about Fargo's eventual celebration here in Minnesota? "At first I thought it was extremely condescending," said Covert. "Minnesotans don't talk like that," he continued, referring to Frances McDormand's turn as Marge Gunderson (which incidentally earned her the Academy Award for Best Actress). So how did we come full circle? Laughing, Covert admitted that in the years following Fargo's success, he realized, "Minnesotans really do talk like that. On the first viewing you're terrified of the condescension, and that blinded us to the more affectionate aspects of it." But after multiple viewings, Covert observed (and I agree) that while the satire cannot be ignored, the Coens balance it out with subtle tributes to the special culture and character in which so many Minnesotans take pride.

So, twelve feature films into their career, where are we in the ever-interesting relationship between the Coen brothers and their place of birth? Soon after No Country for Old Men began its road to glory last year, the pair announced that their upcoming film, A Serious Man, would start filming in Minnesota in 2008. The story ( a "dark comedy") focuses on the life of a Jewish professor in the late 60's, and it will mark the first time they've filmed locally since Fargo. Because of its non-contemporary story and non-traditional main character, I personally don't expect A Serious Man will make as much of a splash here as Fargo, but the fact that the brothers wrote the screenplay (instead of adapting it, like No Country) increases the likelihood that an "authentic" Minnesota will be a prominent presence on the screen. Perhaps the moviegoing American public will see a new side of the state, if they see the state at all. I wondered about this aloud, and Covert agreed that the rest of the country "doesn't know Minnesota from Nebraska."

Well, we can't fault the Coen brothers for trying, even if Fargo wasn't the side we wanted to show. All we can do is hope that one day, the "Land of 10,000 Lakes" will receive its due credit for shaping the careers of two legendary American filmmakers.

REVIEW: No Country for Old Men (A)

Background: Writer/director brothers Joel and Ethan Coen are back on the scene with No Country for Old Men, their much-anticipated adaptation of Cormac McCarthey's 2005 novel by the same name. After achieving indie-darling status in the early 90's and then mainstream success with Fargo, The Big Lebowski, and O, Brother Where Are Thou?, the Coen brothers have made three flops in a row - most recently 2004's The Ladykillers. They return to their strongest genre with No Country for Old Men, which stars Spaniard Javier Bardem (Before Night Falls, The Sea Inside), Josh Brolin (recently in American Gangster), and Tommy Lee Jones (recently in In the Valley of Elah). You're not going to believe it, but Jones plays totally against type as a scraggly, suffering old sheriff with a drawl. No Country for Old Men was filmed in Texas and New Mexico and was very well received at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival.

Synopsis: Texas/Mexico border, 1980. Retired welder Llewelyn Moss (Brolin) is out on a desert hunt when he comes across a grisly body-strewn, bullet-riddled scene - the remnants of a drug deal gone sour. Ignoring the wounded lone survivor, and the stash of drugs, Moss soon finds the case full of payment money, which he casually takes back to his trailer park and nagging wife. Elsewhere, Anton Chigurh (Bardem) is escaping police custody and killing anyone in his way (with weapons that you've never seen before). And, as it turns out, the drug money is his. Moss returns to the crime scene to aid the wounded survivor - a foolish decision since he has to abandon his truck and barely escapes with his life. Now on the run with the money and some guns, Moss is alone and a target. Meanwhile, soon-to-retire Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Jones) is yawningly trying to track down both Moss (to save him) and Chigurh (to arrest him). The rest of the movie is a cat-and-mouse chase with some additional interesting characters (Woody Harrelson plays a private gumshoe) and a number of unexpected twists. Plenty of lives are lost along the way before the incomplete yet satisfying end.

I Loved:
+ The outstanding ensemble acting - across the board, perfect in every way.
+ The early scene at the gas station with the conversation between Bardem and the owner - wow, was I scared.
+ That not every murder was shown, but rather just inferred.

I Liked:
+ The dusty, haunting landscapes through which the characters traveled, and the excellent 1980's production design.

I Disliked:
- The obligatory self-surgery scenes where someone pulls up their shirt in the middle of the street to inspect a bubbling wound and then later extracts bullets or dresses the wound for the first and last time.

I Hated:
- The most predictable car accident in years.

Grade:
Writing - 10
Acting - 10
Production - 9
Emotional Impact - 10
Music - 5
Significance - 3

Total: 47/50= 94% = A

Last Word: There are few movies that require a lot of work in searching for weaknesses, but No Country for Old Men is one of them. It's a gripping, spellbinding, tightly wound production with characters that you can't stand, but also can't help watch. I was extremely impressed with this movie, though I should say I haven't read the book. Matt says the Coen brothers were very faithful to it. Javier Bardem is a menacing figure - one of the scariest movie characters in a long time. Josh Brolin and Tommy Lee Jones are simply excellent in their roles, with memorable scenes and nuanced performances. Even Woody Harrelson makes the most of his limited screen time. Speaking of which, I don't remember even a minute of the film that didn't add significance to the story. It was just a top-to-bottom well-made movie. Even the minor criticisms I listed above don't take anything away from No Country for Old Men. Count me in as back on the Coen brothers bandwagon.