After many troubled attempts, Maurice Sendak’s classic children’s book, Where the Wild Things Are, has finally made the leap to the big screen. The story is about Max (Max Records), a lonely kid with an overactive imagination, who runs away after a fight with his single mom. He travels by boat across the sea to an island, where he encounters the Wild Things. Max convinces them he is a king, so they won’t eat him, and he eventually bonds with …
A Serious Man
It’s nearly impossible to describe a Coen Brothers film. In the case of A Serious Man, it can’t be categorized into any particular film genre. Part drama, part comedy, the film opens with a seemingly unrelated prologue that takes place in 19th century Poland, involving a Jewish man, his wife, and a strange traveler. From there we meet Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), a Jewish professor who is raising his family in the suburbs of Minneapolis in the late 1960s. His wife …
Burn After Reading
The Coen Brothers have always made interesting films. Whether they are more character studies or just plain odd, they have ranged from the highly entertaining and absurd (Raising Arizona, The Big Lebowski), to serious and impactful (Blood Simple, Miller’s Crossing, Fargo). Their Oscar-winning film No Country for Old Men was excellent, and so it’s not surprising that they followed it up with a rather goofy adult comedy. Burn After Reading is like a cross between Fargo and The Big Lebowski, …
No Country for Old Men
The last Coen Brothers film, The Ladykillers, was a comedy that didn’t do very well at all. Thankfully, they’re back with a vengeance in the dramatic thriller adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men. The film takes place in 1980, and involves the events that occur after Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) stumbles on an apparent drug deal gone bad near the Texas-Mexico border, and discovers $2 million in cash as well as a lot of heroin, dead bodies, …
Intolerable Cruelty
I really wasn’t sure what to expect when I got the screening invitation for the Coen Brothers’ latest film, Intolerable Cruelty. It looked like a romantic comedy, and I just couldn’t see how or why the Coen Bros. would be involved with such a project. It didn’t seem “unique”. Then the film started. Geoffery Rush is singing in the car. It’s funny. Funnier than it really sounds. Within the first 4 minutes, the tone of the film was set. And …
Adaptation
Just got back from seeing Adaptation with Tony at The Bridge. Wow. If you haven’t seen Being John Malkovich, then I strongly recommend it. This film takes place during the filming of that film, and is an incredibly witty and humorous look at screenwriter Charlie Kaufman‘s attempt to adapt the novel The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean. It’s self-referential, non-linear, and does an excellent job making fun of the film industry. Nicholas Cage does an amazing job playing both Charlie …