Saw it with hubby the weekend it was released here in a packed theater.
I loved it, hubby was bored.
RE Fargo: Hubby loved it, I was bored.
YMMV
I can’t figure out why some of the critics disliked this movie, either. Entertainment Weekly gave it an F (!), and Roger Ebert gave it only 2 and a half stars. Give me a break! I thought it was a great movie. I just went to see it a second time last week, and am hoping to get in a third viewing before it’s out of the theaters. The music, the casting, the settings, the story – all first rate. That guy at Entertainment Weekly needs a boot to the head.
Further proof that Roger Ebert is going insane is the fact that he liked Sugar & Spice. I swear I didn’t even smile during that movie.
O Brother: The Coen Brothers say that they have never read The Odyssey. Do you believe them?
evilbeth: Thanks for not being offended by my question.
Actually, I can easily believe this, as I got the majority of the Odyssey references, and I haven’t read it either. I’m familiar with it for various reasons, but I’ve never actually sat down and read the whole thing. Makes sense that the Coens needn’t have, either.
Well this movie did get pretty bad reviews but I loved it. I think George Clooney and the Coen brothers did a great job in it. I laughed my ass of in that movie. It was hilarious. Frankly, I agree with MsWhatsIt in saying that the Entertainment Weekly guy needs a boot to the head…
…and one for Jenny & the wimp.
I, too loved the movie. I don’t normally hear music like that, so it was eye-opening. Makes me want to get the soundtrack.
I went and got the soundtrack to O Brother. It is really great. Since the best scenes in the movie IMO (the baptists going to the river, the siren/washerwomen) are set to amazing music you really get a lot of the movie through listening to the songs again.
Yes apparently the Coen brothers have never read the Odyssey. Lord knows why, you’d think master storytellers like these guys would like to see how it was all done at first by the best. (OK, Shakespeare and Tolstoy and some others are really good too…)
Part of the reason that they put up the “Based upon Homer’s Odyssey” card at the beggining was to trick the audience like with the “Based upon a true story” title card in Fargo. Both are false. O Brother borrows a lot of images and structure from the Odyssey, but is mostly about different stuff – mainly the music.
Spoiler (gives away one of the best jokes)
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I think the main reason they put up the title card is to make all of us Homer buffs get really antsy waiting for Ulysses Everett to blind the Cyclops, which is a major element of Homer’s work. So when the big flaming cross goes flying at John Goodman you squirm in your seat since you “know where this is going” and then it misses! Only to fall on him and bonk him in the head (but not blind him).
Saw it for the second time last night and laughed just as hard. I love some of the jokes and dialog. (“Don’t give me FOP, Goddammit! I’m A Dapper Dan man!” and “It’s just a well-run campaign: broom, midget and what-not.”) And love the scene where the valley is flooded. And when the Soggy Bottom boys sing before the crowd. Aw hell, I loved most of it. (Could’ve done without Babyface slaughtering those cows, though.)
And for those of you who might not know already, the soundtrack CD is interactive. If you plunk it in your computer drive it has a screensaver and other goodies on it.
Not sure how it will fare at the Oscars. Aside from Castaway it also has to compete with Traffic, which is also amazing, for completely different reasons. Very pleased with Clooney getting the GG, though. I bet he never forsaw that 15 years ago when he was making Revenge of the Killer Tomatoes, heh-heh. (I think that was the one, like there’s a difference?)
voguevixen wrote:
As my wife pointed out, we’ve become desensitized to violence against humans, but somehow violence against cows and toads still makes us flinch. Personally, I thought it was hillarious that he shot the cows. I’ve never seen anything like it before.
('nuther spoiler)
The cow that gets hit by the car was a digital creation. Pretty good one, too; I cringed when I saw it (before knowing it was an effect).
Seen it twice. Fixin’ to go see it again. And maybe again after that.
I think that the Coens did in fact read Homer. The references are often very subtle and quite clever. However, borrowing from a technique that Joyce used in Ulysses, references are conflated. One situation might have multiple meanings once you take the time to unravel them.
Examples:
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The washer women doing laundry. Refers to: the Sirens, Circe (“turning” Pete into a horny toad, which dies; one of Ulysses’ men dies, a few others are turned into swine), and Nausicaa, whom Ulysses meets while she is doing laundry with her ladies.
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The hit they score as the Soggy Bottom Boys. Refers to: the bag of winds Ulysses is given by Aeolus to ensure his safe return to Ithaca. U’s men open the bag and the winds whip them around, sending them further off course. Here: the song they record into a “can” is a essentially trapped wind, which sends them onto a course they never planned, or as the seer says, the fortune they did not seek. The recording studio is called WEZY, “wheezy” or someone who has wind in thier breath.
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BabyFace Nelson. He is the Telemachus figure. He’s clearly a man-boy, someone who is uncomfortable with being a man and yet being regarded as a child. This translates in the movie as a manic-depressive personality. Like in Joyce’s Ulysses, Everett and Nelson recognize themselves as kin but don’t establish any lasting bond. Babyface is a lessor criminal that lacks Everett’s smarts and so he gets caught; he’s also a bank robber who wildly collects treasure/money. Everett lures Pete & Dalmer with the promise of treasure. There is the subtle hint that Everett is a wiser, older version of the impetuous Nelson.
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Penny. Like Molly Bloom, she has suitors. U’s Penelope, while loyal, was, by the end of the Odyssey, resigning herself to Antinous, one of the suitors. So claims of adultery are not without some merit. The ring Penny sends him to find at the bottom of the lake refers to Nausicaa, who asks a similar deed of Ulysses.
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Other references I won’t get into: the Hades episode, Lestrogonians, Lotus-Eaters, the Return to Ithaca, the Sheriff as Posiedon.
While you’re at it, you might want to pick up a compilation of old Carter Family songs. Their musical style permeates the film. There is a cover of a Carter Family tune (“Keep on the Sunny Side”) on the soundtrack. And unless my memory fails me, an ersatz “Carter Family” made a brief appearance in the film.
Another good collection of covers of “old-time” music is Will the Circle Be Unbroken.
You might also want to pick up some bluegrass by the Stanley Brothers.Their gospel numbers mirror some of the gospel you heard in the film. (Did the Stanley Brothers contribute to the soundtrack?)
Try some Doc Watson, too.
Also, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs did an excellent album (available on CD, too) of Carter Family covers, called Songs of the Famous Carter Family.
I’ve got more recommendations if you like this type of music.
It’s also frequently featured on National Public Radio’s A Prairie Home Companion, which also includes Garrison Keillor’s “News from Lake Woebegon” monologue as icing on the cake.
Owing to various reviews I read preceding my viewing of the movie, I was expecting a reasonably accurate parody [okay, that may be an oxymoron] of the Odyssey. Therefore, I was in the wrong frame of mind when I eventualy saw the movie.
The strength of the movie lies in its selection of highly enjoyably scenes and characters. It’s not a film to be taken seriously: it’s just FUN. It’s a huge mistake expecting to see Homer in the 1930s.
My only real complaint is of the plot which binds the film together. Ulysses Everet McGill does not share the conviction or motivation of Odysseus on his return home. I know this is supposed to reflect his laid-back southern attitude, but I felt that the collection of great scenes did not have a strong enough binding force. Despite this, it is very difficult not to enjoy this film and its wonderful soundtrack.
One thing that really cracked me up, and what made the Soggy Bottom Boys recording so damn cool, was Ulysses Everett McGill’s facial expressions as he sung it! Like he was as surprised and confused by their ability to sing such a great song as we were to hear it in the middle of this movie.
Also the excellent use of digital effects, and the extraction of most of the colour blue from the entire film.
And as my sig used to say:
Damn! We’re in a tight spot!
Yeah, he’s definately my current favorite actor. He’s so good in Barton Fink, and of course as Jesus in The Big Lebowski, my personal fave Coen Bros flick. I mean, Fargo was good, but TBL is like crap-your-pants funny! In a good way.
When they find out that there’s no treasure, Pete says: “I had two weeks left on my sentence. Cuz of the breakout they added 50 years to my sentence. I won’t get out until 1987.”
This sets the film in 1937.
Loved the film also. Delmar is one of they funniest character’s I’ve seen in a while. His witless optimism was wonderful. I loved how happy he was when he realized that the extra 50 years would keep Pete in jail until he was 84. “I’ll only be 82!” he says with a big smile on his face as if he got away with something.
The cinematography was interesting. A lot of yellow.
Saw the movie yesterday and loved it. I thought it was better than “Fargo” but not quite as good as “Raising Arizona”- Hubby thought “Fargo” was better, but then he is a big fan of Steve Buschemi (I’m sure I misspelled that).
A very good, funny movie. I haven’t laughed like that in a theater in some time.
The movie was almost a musical. I wonder if this parallel to it being almost a retelling of The Odyssey was intentional. 
He was great. His facial expressions (esp. while singing) were priceless.
The movie IS fun, with just enough deepness to make you think you might have missed something. The Coen brothers rock.
I also liked the slight “Wizard of Oz” reference–or maybe a Busby Berkeley thirties musical>–to the well-choreograped marchin’ Klansmen. Evil bastards but well-drilled, hmmm?
I really really liked this movie even though, as Homer (Simpson) might say, “A lot of guys ran around and nothing much happened.” As for the Coens, I think they read the Cliff Notes of the Odyssey at least.