The Singing Cowboy was a 40’s-50’s trope. Gene Autry and Roy Rodgers the most famous, but there were others. They couldn’t play off of those guys because they needed the young kid for the story. And he was terrific playing what he played.
I think everyone wants too much from a fuck-it-let’s-have-fun movie like this. But then I loved Spielberg’s “1941”. Everybody wanted it to be something else. Of course I saw it at the Cinerama Dome, full-size. It was hilarious, even if it didn’t make since. Sometimes a comedy is just a comedy.
Oh yeah, “Hail Caesar”. I have to watch it again, on DVD, because when he’s walking down the hall of the studio, I didn’t catch the parade of fake movie posters (one-sheets) until the last one. That was my business at one time. They looked wonderful, and I need to slow frame through it to see some of them.
> Tilda Swinton as both Thora Thacker and Thessaly Thacker, twin rival Hedda
> Hopper-type gossip columnists
Although they weren’t gossip columnists but rather advice columnists, an even closer parallel was Dear Abby (Abigail Van Buren) and Ann Landers, who were, as bizarre as it sounds, both the two most famous American advice columnists of the 1950’s through the 1990’s and identical twin sisters:
Yes, I couldn’t help but think of Ann Landers and Abigail van Buren, although they were advice columnists, as you observe, not gossip columnists. And they began their columns in 1955 and 1956, which pushes us up to the later fifties, again.
The Lovely and Talented Mrs. Shodan and I saw it over the weekend, also as a Valentine’s date. I didn’t see any of the trailers for it - we just went to see it because we love the Coen brothers.
Liked it very much. I agree with the idea that it is about faith. But we both loved the dance numbers, especially “No Dames” one and the Esther Williams rip off. Coen brothers’ movies are always visually interesting, and this one was no exception.
I loved George Clooney’s clueless conversion from venal actor to dumb Communist back to venal actor, because he was driven to it by those around him who really have faith, while he does not. I thought that was the idea behind Clooney’s last speech at the Cross - he forgets the punchline, because he has no faith.
I agree that it will probably grow on me even more on further watching.
I’ve always enjoyed the Coen movies. Having said that, this movie sucked. There was no point to it and very little humor. Not the movie I saw advertised. Would have walked out if I didn’t need to stick around and pay for food order.
This movie is already in the dollar theaters here in SA, alongside the Hunger Games movie and Joy, so it must have done worse than expected. Or perhaps just as expected - it was kind of dumped in a down month for films
My wife and I just saw it and enjoyed it very much. Lots of laughs, lots of good acting. Overall, I tend to agree with MovieMogul’s interpretation of the film.
The divide between folks who went in with preconceived notions of what the film would be and those who didn’t is interesting. Case in point: a guy sitting in front of us at the theater stood up to walk out during the credits, turned around to us and said sarcastically, “Well, did you get it?” Then he laughed, shrugged and walked out. He was pretty clearly unhappy with it. Seems like a number of folks in here are, as well.
I rented it last night. I pretty much echo Qadgop in post #18 and Bienville in #24. One thing I enjoyed that hasn’t been mentioned is Hobie’s divan scene in the final cut we see. He nailed it!
I thought I was totally prepared to understand the aim of this movie before we finally saw it.
Nope.
What did I watch?
Those long movie-making scenes, esp. the sailors dancing one, just destroyed whatever else the movie was trying to do.
So Eddie has a warped ethical dilemma thing going on. Lying to his wife about smoking was bad, but covering up all sorts of scandals was okay. And the latter drove his decision about the other job. What?
The Clooney/commies subplot also just fell flat.
And there were too many “Oh, look. It’s Frances McDormand or Fisher Stevens or Jonah Hill or …” moments. I.e., too many secondary characters as well as being played by overly notable people.
It comes down to the scene near the end when Eddie reams out Baird. (Strangely, shown quite a bit for talk show clips.) I think this scene spells out why the Cohen brothers wanted to do this movie and why critics gave them too much of a pass on it. Making movies is a great thing! It justifies a lot of evil. Aren’t movies just swell?