The Coen Brothers discussion

[arnold layne]

Here is a thread to discuss Coen Brothers projects. For those of you who are unfamiliar with their work, they wrote O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Fargo, and The Big Lebowski.

They just released Inside Llewyn Davis and currently in the works with George Clooney for another film too.

[Estranged Reality]

I love how the 'Director's Cut' DVD of Blood Simple is basically a parody of directors' cuts. They literally just deleted scenes from it, effectively screwing people over who bought it (myself included). Then they included a fake commentary by a fake film historian who just makes shit up all during the movie. It's that kind of awesome subversiveness that the Coens are great at, and which you miss out on with instant streaming, etc.

But yeah, on the topic of their actual work? Top five in some kind of order: Fargo (the grip it has on viewer from beginning-to-end can only be compared to masterworks of directors like Scorsese and Hitchcock with their finest works), Blood Simple, Big Lebowski, Barton Fink, Miller's Crossing. I loved their last couple films - True Grit got all the attention but A Serious Man was a great piece of filmmaking. I even love Burn After Reading -- used to have the pic of Brad Pitt as my avatar years ago.

[Angelica]

Raising Arizona, Fargo, Miller's Crossing, The Big Lebowski, A Serious Man and the bizarrely underrated Hudsucker Proxy are my favorites. Love everything besides Ladykillers and Intolerable Cruelty, though.

[Carne_asaDA]

I can't stand them.

[Estranged Reality]

I can't stand them.

Do you hate films?

[Black Sabbath]

Burn After Reading, The Big Lebowski, O Brother Where Art Thou?, Raising Arizona

[Carne_asaDA]

I can't stand them.

Do you hate films?

C'mon ER.

[Estranged Reality]

I can't stand them.

Do you hate films?

C'mon ER.

[Lithium]

Fargo is fucking amazing. Probably my favourite film of the 90s.

[Nobodys_Fault]

Love them. Top 5 would be:

1. The Big Lebowski

2. Fargo

3. Raising Arizona

4. No Country for Old Men

5. Barton Fink

I've heard their making a Fargo TV series. Will be interesting to see how that's going to work.

[wasted]

I love Fargo. Ive seen it so many times. Its just perfect. Maybe as much as my own private idaho.

[Randy Lahey]

I can't stand them.

Do you hate films?

Look at his avatar.

[Estranged Reality]

I've got no problem with My Own Private Idaho but Fargo is just on another level.

I can't stand them.

Do you hate films?

Look at his avatar.

I know; I was joking. Well, not joking, really. I don't know what I was doing. It was more of a hypothetical comment.

[Randy Lahey]

They are pretty consistent. Nobody else has made as many great movies over the past twenty years.

[machinegunner]

The Big Lebowski, Fargo, Barton Fink... yeah, they're good.

[Gia]

This story from Bill Murray about Garfield is pretty funny:

I thought it would be kind of fun, because doing a voice is challenging, and I'd never done that. Plus, I looked at the script, and it said, "So-and-so and Joel Coen." And I thought: Christ, well, I love those Coens! They're funny. So I sorta read a few pages of it and thought, Yeah, I'd like to do that...So they went off and shot the movie, and I forgot all about it. Finally, I went out to L.A. to record my lines. And usually when you're looping a movie, if it takes two days, that's a lot. I don't know if I should even tell this story, because it's kind of mean. [beat] What the hell? It's interesting. So I worked all day and kept going, "That's the line? Well, I can't say that." And you sit there and go, What can I say that will make this funny? And make it make sense? And I worked. I was exhausted, soaked with sweat, and the lines got worse and worse. And I said, "Okay, you better show me the whole rest of the movie, so we can see what we're dealing with." So I sat down and watched the whole thing, and I kept saying, "Who the hell cut this thing? Who did this? What the *bleep* was Coen thinking?" And then they explained it to me: It wasn't written by that Joel Coen.

[Estranged Reality]

This story from Bill Murray about Garfield is pretty funny:

I thought it would be kind of fun, because doing a voice is challenging, and I'd never done that. Plus, I looked at the script, and it said, "So-and-so and Joel Coen." And I thought: Christ, well, I love those Coens! They're funny. So I sorta read a few pages of it and thought, Yeah, I'd like to do that...So they went off and shot the movie, and I forgot all about it. Finally, I went out to L.A. to record my lines. And usually when you're looping a movie, if it takes two days, that's a lot. I don't know if I should even tell this story, because it's kind of mean. [beat] What the hell? It's interesting. So I worked all day and kept going, "That's the line? Well, I can't say that." And you sit there and go, What can I say that will make this funny? And make it make sense? And I worked. I was exhausted, soaked with sweat, and the lines got worse and worse. And I said, "Okay, you better show me the whole rest of the movie, so we can see what we're dealing with." So I sat down and watched the whole thing, and I kept saying, "Who the hell cut this thing? Who did this? What the *bleep* was Coen thinking?" And then they explained it to me: It wasn't written by that Joel Coen.

And yet despite all his self-righteousness about it, he also did the sequel. Just sayin'.

I love Bill Murray but it was an easy paycheck and I think he likes to exaggerate that story to take some of the blame off himself.

[dalsh327]

This story from Bill Murray about Garfield is pretty funny:

I thought it would be kind of fun, because doing a voice is challenging, and I'd never done that. Plus, I looked at the script, and it said, "So-and-so and Joel Coen." And I thought: Christ, well, I love those Coens! They're funny. So I sorta read a few pages of it and thought, Yeah, I'd like to do that...So they went off and shot the movie, and I forgot all about it. Finally, I went out to L.A. to record my lines. And usually when you're looping a movie, if it takes two days, that's a lot. I don't know if I should even tell this story, because it's kind of mean. [beat] What the hell? It's interesting. So I worked all day and kept going, "That's the line? Well, I can't say that." And you sit there and go, What can I say that will make this funny? And make it make sense? And I worked. I was exhausted, soaked with sweat, and the lines got worse and worse. And I said, "Okay, you better show me the whole rest of the movie, so we can see what we're dealing with." So I sat down and watched the whole thing, and I kept saying, "Who the hell cut this thing? Who did this? What the *bleep* was Coen thinking?" And then they explained it to me: It wasn't written by that Joel Coen.

And yet despite all his self-righteousness about it, he also did the sequel. Just sayin'.

I love Bill Murray but it was an easy paycheck and I think he likes to exaggerate that story to take some of the blame off himself.

It's the art of the movie pitch where actors get roped into questionable movies, and don't realize what they got themselves into until they committed to it.

I think he showed up for the filming of Garfield 2 because he wanted to hook up with the actresses and make the rounds in London's pubs. It's kind of funny that he was more involved with the second film, the worse of the two.