Burn after Reading: Any chance it is good?

Cafe Society
61

I have a feeling the Coens were victims of their own success. THis was their first movie after winning an ACadamy Award for “No Country For Old Men” and this movie was much more lightweight and goofy. But it is a good entertaining movie and I was surprised by the bad reviews.

Are there any more diverse filmakers than the Coen Brothers?

No Country For Old Men
Miller’s Crossing
Blood Simple
The Big Lebowski
Rasing Arizona
Fargo
O Brother Where Art Thou?
Hudsucker Proxy
The Man Who Wasn’t There
Burn After Reading
Intolerable Cruelty
Ladykillers

62

I was disappointed with this one. The CIA satire was excellent, on the one hand. The scenes with J. K. Simmons were great and I thought George Clooney was very good, but nothing tied the room together, if you see what I mean. Ladykillers had the same problem. The Coens are great with oddball characters and dialogue, but in their best movies it adds up, and in the lesser ones it’s kind of like they just put a group of weirdos and some bizarre quotes in a blender.

That’s not to say it was all bad. But it left kind of a bad taste in my mouth.

63

I thought is was a good film overall, but the rather horrific deaths put a pit of a damper on it, I think.

64

Don’t forget Barton Fink.
They do tend to follow a “dark” film with a goofier one.
Their next one, A Serious Man, comes out later this year and centers around a dysfunctional Jewish family in Minnesota in the 1960s. There are several unknowns in the cast, but also Adam Arkin and Fyvush Finkel, I believe.

65

What would the Coen brothers know about being part of a Jewish family in Minnesota during the 60’s? I bet they’ll get it all wrong.

66

As long as we are zombifying this, I thought that Chad (the Brad Pitt character) accidentally blew his own brains out when Clooney opened the closet door. Did Clooney shoot him?

67

What would they know about escaped cons, crooked politicians & hell-bound bluesmen–in Depression-era Mississippi?

68

I was joking. The Coen brothers are Jewish and grew up in Minnesota during the 60’s.

69

Clooney shot him; remember the earlier scene where Clooney’s talking about his training? It’s all muscle memory, conscious thought not required.

70

You saw it? Clooney says he fired the shot? I didn’t see it and saw that Chad was holding his gun barrel high and hands shaking. I interpreted it as deliberately ambiguous, but more likely that Chad shot himself, which really spooked Clooney because he had no idea why the guy would do that except to frame him.

71

I saw the movie twice, and watched quite carefully the 2nd time. Clooney shot him.

72

Sent that within the first 20 minutes of the movie. It was pretty steeply downhill after that; before another 20 minutes had passed, I was like WTF? and by the time it was over I was like W? T? F?

73

Agreed, Clooney shot him. The wife and I saw that, too.

74

Thank you. Not quite as banal as I had interpreted it, but I was under the impression it was difficult to see this.

75

Clooney shot Pitt. I don’t think there was even supposed to be any ambiguity about.