Raising Arizona

Barton Fink
$9.98
I originally saw BARTON FINK years ago and I just didn't get it. The Coen Brothers put out films at a fairly regular pace so it's easy to forgive them for missteps and move on. But I just watched BARTON FINK again to see if I missed anything, if there was more that I got this time.

No. Not really.

BARTON FINK never has the momentum or mastery of Billy Wilder's classic Hollywood masterpiece, SUNSET BOULEVARD. It never has the fun or focus of Woody Allen's BULLETS OVER BROADWAY, another film about a pompous East Coast playwright who learns about humility (instead of John Turturro staring--literally--at wallpaper peeling, Jon Cusack is forced to face the fact that he isn't as talented as the Mafia goon sent to keep an eye on a Mob boss's girlfriend acting in his play). The setting for this film isn't anything new, obviously, but that BARTON FINK chooses to remain so inaccessible makes it an ultimately frustrating experience.

Did John Goodman kill the girl? Why? What was in the box left in Turturro's room? What did the final shot mean? I thought this was movie about Hollywood in the 40s and then quite suddenly it's a serial murderer crime story.

The Coen Brothers can always be counted on to make visually interesting films and BARTON FINK is that. But it's also alienating and remote (and not in a good way).

And pretty slow in some sections.

The Hudsucker Proxy
$14.98
This was the third of a hat-trick of great Coen Brothers films and I think it is the best one. It is my favourite. The film is brightly funny but darkly satirical. It is uplifting as well. It absorbs the history of American cinema into a superb modern context, making the best of everything. It has many great set-pieces, wonderful sets and colour photography, great casting and acting. It is surely Paul Newman's best outing. Ravishing and wonderful. This is one of the best films ever made.

Raising Arizona
$14.98
A colleage from work said that this was one of the best movies he had seen unfortunately I cannot agree. I was very disappointed in this movie. ...though I am not much into Nicolas Cage either.

The Big Lebowski - 10th Anniversary Edition
$19.98
This movie is filled with memorable quote after quote. The characters are amazingly polished, each one on its own stands up and the whole is just genius. As with Raising Arizona, The Big Lebowski gives us a protagonist whose dopey innocence seems to be his only protection from the real world. The film was simply too disjointed, too weird and too Coenesque to cut it with mainstream viewers. Screw the mainstream this movie this great, once you "get it" that is, which could be some people's problem.

Maude Lebowski: What do you do for recreation?
The Dude: Oh, the usual. I bowl. Drive around. The occasional acid flashback.