# Who Found "Oh Brother Where Art Though?" Hilarious? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 31, 2001, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-found-oh-brother-where-art-though-hilarious/74348 "2001-07-31T16:09:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-found-oh-brother-where-art-though-hilarious/74348/41 "2001-08-01T07:06:00Z")
Another big thumbs-up from me. (Gadarene has already been kind enough to link my review. Makes me feel all fuzzy inside.) Oh, and **seriousart** , intelligent film criticism is to Owen Gleiberman as the finest Belgian chocolates are to a leaky diaper full of hippo dung. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-found-oh-brother-where-art-though-hilarious/74348/42 "2001-08-01T07:42:42Z")
Loved it. Thought Clooney was great. The acadamy wouldn’t know a great movie if it bit them on the… ---
**Author:** ![Fern\_Forest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/71c47a/32.png) [@Fern\_Forest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fern_Forest)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-found-oh-brother-where-art-though-hilarious/74348/43 "2001-08-01T08:21:32Z")
I loved it too. It just kind of struck the right cord with me. I especially loved how things took very interesting twists with several totally unexpected things. Like here come all these people in white singing and so forth. It’s one of those movies that never seem to gather a good following which is just mindboggling to me. Now I’m going to go to sleep and dream about the big rock candy mountain. ---
**Author:** ![cuauhtemoc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecb155/32.png) [@cuauhtemoc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cuauhtemoc)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-found-oh-brother-where-art-though-hilarious/74348/44 "2001-08-01T14:01:52Z")
You all make me want to see this movie again. “I never had you figured for a Pater Familius” ---
**Author:** ![Tars\_Tarkas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Tars\_Tarkas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tars_Tarkas)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-found-oh-brother-where-art-though-hilarious/74348/45 "2001-08-01T14:29:16Z")
> [@](#): > > Incidentally, did anyone else happen to read the review in Entertainment Weekly for this film? Owen Gleiberman gave it an “F” and called it the “worst movie of the year”. And went on to describe it as: “The latest misanthropic flimflam from the Coen brothers, is like an extended Three Stooges episode featuring an even stupider version of the cast of Hee Haw.” Well, thats what you get for reading _Entertainment Weekly_, the flash-in-the-pan magazine for zombies. They never get reviews right, and Jim Mullen’s hot sheet is always weeks old, or just plain wrong on what the country talks about. I should buy that magazine just to fire his unfunny butt… ---
**Author:** ![kingpengvin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9dc877/32.png) [@kingpengvin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kingpengvin)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-found-oh-brother-where-art-though-hilarious/74348/46 "2001-08-01T15:21:04Z")
Funniest George Clooney film since “Return of the Killer Tomatoes” I still think " The Big Labowski" was funnier, but of all the Coen Bros. films “Miller’s Crossing” is my favourite/ ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-found-oh-brother-where-art-though-hilarious/74348/47 "2001-08-01T21:12:40Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Nocturne \* > \*\* > Clooney: Well, ain’t it a small world, spiritually speaking. Pete and Delmar here have just been baptized and saved. I guess I’m the only one who remains unaffiliated. > \*\* IIRC, he included that the guitarist had sold his soul to the devil. The line I’m hearing over and over around casa Dinsdale is the littluns saying, “Damn, we’re in a tight spot.” Also enjoyed the “geographical oddity” line. We were on vacation last weekend and the kids caught a toad. Guess what they named it? ---
**Author:** ![Chanteuse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9de053/32.png) [@Chanteuse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chanteuse)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-found-oh-brother-where-art-though-hilarious/74348/48 "2001-08-01T22:13:59Z")
I don’t think there was anything at all that I didn’t love about this movie. It was hilarious! I thought I was going to strangle on my laughter when they found the empty clothes and the frog started jumping right about the place a man’s heart would be. And that sarcastic, insincere, sh\*\*-eating grin on Clooney’s face perfectly punctuated his remark about the geographical oddity. Every time I even think about that I crack up! The music was also fantastic–I can totally understand why the album is selling at #1! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![elelle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f0a364/32.png) [@elelle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elelle)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2001, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-found-oh-brother-where-art-though-hilarious/74348/49 "2001-08-02T01:57:19Z")
I love everything the Coen. Bros have done, and was really wowed by this one. Absolutely beautiful, \* except\* for George Clooney. I’m not trying to say that all the adulations are wrong; but that he was the one glaring error in my mind. His accent bothered me throughout, as opposed to Tuturro and Nelson, who were excellent. It seemed to me that Clooney was a bit lazy in his dialect. Perhaps that was in keeping with the character though; an overstuffed gentleman who was trying to finagle his way through the misery of others. Or maybe it was simply that I’ve lived in Mississippi for the past decade and it didn’t fly through that absolute radar. And, also, I know the musician who played the -Not Enough- Legba reference; Chris Thomas King, and was gleeful in seeing him onscreen and doing a nice job. For best scene; I’m still oddly haunted by the baptism. Well done. And the SIrEEn sequence as rapacious baptism; mighty fine, too. Holly Hunter, standing in as the steadfast guideline of Southern Womenhood; they didn’t give her near enough. ---
**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2001, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-found-oh-brother-where-art-though-hilarious/74348/50 "2001-08-02T06:53:41Z")
I also enjoyed it to no end. All of the people were so real (if surreal at the same time). I also really enjoyed the Odyssey links: the Cyclops, the Sirens, Calypso turning some of his crew into animals, etc. And the bits were great too…Let me add to the ones already mentioned the insistence by his family that Emmit had died in a train accident. And what about when they were voting on who the leader would be and there were two votes for “yours truly” and Delmar decided to “go along with you two boys.” “It’s good to see George right back up at the top again.” …and did you catch the woman’s shout from the crowd as they took George (Baby Face [but don’t tell him I said it]) Nelson away? It was… “Cow killer!!” ---
**Author:** ![Mofo\_Rising](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Mofo\_Rising](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mofo_Rising)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2001, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-found-oh-brother-where-art-though-hilarious/74348/51 "2001-08-02T07:12:18Z")
O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU has got to be one of the most pleasurable movie experiences I’ve seen in quite some time. Most movies I get bored after the first forty minutes and wait for them to end. (Even if I’m appreciating them!) BROTHER was just fun the entire way through. Not to mention the bluegrass soundtrack, which has enjoyed success in it’s own right. This is the kind of movie that I could imagine families viewing again and again just because it strikes such a chord. And damned if that last Soggy Bottom Boys performance makes you want to get up and dance. So what are the points where the movie coincides with THE ODDYSSEY? I got the lotus-eating baptists, which scene contains my favorite song in the film. And you’d have to be an idiot to miss the cyclops reference and the sirens. But where else? Was the Turturro theater scene a reference to dead comrades in the original? I haven’t read THE ODDYSSEY, so pointing them out would be interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2001, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-found-oh-brother-where-art-though-hilarious/74348/52 "2001-08-02T15:32:32Z")
So you weasels got to me and I watched it again last night. (From Mrs Chance: “Again? Christ, get a life, will you?”) Here’s one that leapt out at me: “I nicked the man from the census!” “Now that’s a good boy.” ---
**Author:** ![Sealemon88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c68b51/32.png) [@Sealemon88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sealemon88)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2001, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-found-oh-brother-where-art-though-hilarious/74348/53 "2001-08-02T15:44:31Z")
Too many good lines and scenes to list. Iloved the whole movie, front to back. The soundtrack was excellent! > [@](#): > > One thing I didn’t quite get was the whole scene with Big Dan (the Cyclops). Why did Ulysses just sit there eating corn while Big Dan beat the crap out of Delmar? And when Big Dan started moving towards Ulysses, all he did was stare at him w/that goofy expression on his face and say something like “What’s going on, Big Dan?” What did I miss here? Is it some refence to The Odyssey? I think this has something to do with the Coen Brother’s big joke: This movie has elements of The Odyssey in it, but it deliberatly gets some things wrong. Two things that immediatly come to mind: 1. The Cyclops does **not** get a burning stake through the eye. 2. Odysius (sp) is a pussy. Think about it: in both of the major fight scenes (With the Cyclops and in Wollworths) he gets beaten soundly. In The Odyssey, Odysius is a stud warrior without equal. JMHO. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2001, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-found-oh-brother-where-art-though-hilarious/74348/54 "2001-08-02T16:18:53Z")
Ya gotta remember, that while the movie was the Coen brothers’ homage (get it, homage?) to the Odyssey, they actually did admit afterward that they’d never read the Odyssey. ---
**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2001, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-found-oh-brother-where-art-though-hilarious/74348/55 "2001-08-02T16:20:30Z")
Yes, Cyclops did get the burning stake. Don’t you remember? The burning cross fell on him. ---
**Author:** ![Chum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3ab097/32.png) [@Chum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chum)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2001, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-found-oh-brother-where-art-though-hilarious/74348/56 "2001-08-02T18:11:19Z")
Well, what with all the glowing comments, I probably shouldn’t say this if I like living, but… I didn’t like it all that much. My parents saw it when it was in theatres and raved about it constantly. I didn’t get around to seeing it in theatres but was majorly anticipating it because the Coen brothers are up there in my list of favorite directors. **The Big Lebowski** is definitely in my top five favorite movies. So, I sit down and watch the movie. I was mildly amused by some things, especially the Dapper Dan obsession, but, overall, I just thought it was stupid. And usually I _like_ stupid movies. I guess my expectations were far too high. I’m still disappointed, but maybe I just need to give it another chance. Don’t kill me. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2001, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-found-oh-brother-where-art-though-hilarious/74348/57 "2001-08-02T20:54:33Z")
\ Ok, I’m still reading the rave reviews, and I’m still undecided if I should rent it or not. Help me out folks. Those of you who loved it, do you also find these funny too? Three Stooges The Austin Powers movies The Ace Ventura movies The Young Ones series Because if you do, I’m sure I’m not renting it. \ ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2001, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-found-oh-brother-where-art-though-hilarious/74348/58 "2001-08-02T21:17:27Z")
elfkin: Go back and read my full-length review, kindly linked by Gadarene on the previous page. _O Brother_ is a silly movie for smart people. And for the record, the Three Stooges and Ace Ventura bore me beyond description. ---
**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2001, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-found-oh-brother-where-art-though-hilarious/74348/59 "2001-08-02T21:23:48Z")
No, no, no and who? This is nothing like the Three Stooges or Ace Ventura. There is a charm here…and a warmth (I guess). It’s more like a Preston Sturgis film. It never makes fun “of” anyone as much as it takes you with these three men and funny things happen because of flaws in their own characters (consistent with the Greek drama concept in that way too-I guess). So if you like teen films-like Jim Carry’s “Ace Ventura” or “Dumb and Dumber”, you probably are not going to like this one. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2001, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-found-oh-brother-where-art-though-hilarious/74348/60 "2001-08-03T02:52:53Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by TV time \* > **It’s more like a Preston Sturgis film.** One would hope. Everybody talks about the Odyssey references, which are actually pretty minor. Yes, there are sirens, a suitor, and a nasty bloke with one eye, but this movie was actually inspired by Preston Sturges’s **Sullivan’s Travels**. I recommend watching _that_ movie to understand where **Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou?** came from. * * * “George! Not the livestock!” “I’m the _paterfamilias_!” “But you’re not _bona fide_!” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-found-oh-brother-where-art-though-hilarious/74348.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-found-oh-brother-where-art-though-hilarious/74348.md?page=4)