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Digested watch | Transformers 2: Prime goes before the Fallen
2 December 2009 7:38 AM, PST
| The Guardian - Film News
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But not before loads of massive robot attacks. And at 150 minutes long, that's an awful lot of metal bashing. So, as the film hits the DVD shelves, save your eardrums and try our condensed screenplay instead
Transformers: Revenge of the FallenBy Paul MacInnes, with apologies to Ehren Kruger, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman
Scene 1
Ext: The great Pyramid. Cradle of civilisation. Symbol of humanity's grandest ambitions. A Wonder of the world. At least, it was until a CGI Robot modelled on a particularly ugly Langoustine started smashing it up, the better to reveal the Massive Gun he stashed there millennia ago in the hope of sucking all the energy from the Sun. This robot, for reasons too complicated and tenuous to explain, is called The Fallen.
The Fallen
Raaararrararararararrrr!
Beneath the Pyramid stand Shia Labeouf and Megan Fox. Shia Labeouf is dressed like a lawyer on a night out.
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- Paul MacInnes
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Halfway House: Oh Suzanne-ah
3 November 2009 9:00 AM, PST
| FilmExperience
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Halfway through the day we freeze a movie halfway through. What do we see?
Doris Mann: Have you known Suzanne long?
Jack Faulkner: Ah, lets see. we've known each other about a month. It seems like longer, though.
Doris: Oh, I know what you mean. I'm her mother and it seems like longer.Fifty minutes into Postcards From the Edge (1990), Jack (Dennis Quaid) has dropped by to pick up Suzanne Vale (Meryl Streep) for a date. Her mother (Shirley Maclaine) intercepts the man with the bedroom eyes ('and the living room nose and the kitchen forehead'). The performers are deliciously insynch with Carrie Fisher's rapid fire witticisms.
One of the reasons people get so invested in the Oscars is the joy that comes from arguing about whether or not the octogenarian institution got it right in any given year / category. When it comes to Postcards From the Edge, they got it very very wrong.
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- NATHANIEL R
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A Serious Man Review
15 October 2009 8:57 PM, PDT
| Collider.com
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Combined with “No Country for Old Men” and “Burn After Reading”, The Coen Brothers’ latest movie, “A Serious Man” could complete an unofficial “Existentialist Trilogy”. “No Country” says that the world is an uncertain and unforgiving place. “Burn After Reading” says the same thing but the idea is played for laughs instead of drama. “A Serious Man” takes a different approach and wonders if uncertainty is so bad when certainty can be far worse. Furthermore, what good is reason if the world is an irrational place?
The film is perplexing right from its peculiar opening scene. While the film is set in the 1960s in a Midwestern Jewish community, the first scene takes place in the 1800s somewhere in Eastern Europe in a Jewish village. The scene begins as a Jewish man happily comes in from the cold to tell his unsmiling wife that he has just helped an old
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- Matt Goldberg
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A Serious Man | Review
14 October 2009 9:05 PM, PDT
| SmellsLikeScreenSpirit
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Director: Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
Writer(s): Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Starring: Michael Stuhlbarg, Richard Kind, Sari Wagner Lennick, Fred Melamed, Aaron Wolff
Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) is a serious man, a physics professor at a sleepy Midwestern university, not to mention a seemingly morally just man; some will even see Larry as the Coen Brothers’ reincarnation of Job (you know, from the Book of Job) in the year 1967. Nothing is going right for Larry. Larry’s wife Judith (Sari Lennick) is leaving him for Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed), a man who is overflowing with self-confidence (unlike Larry). Arthur (Richard Kind), Larry’s unemployable and burdensome brother, is sleeping on Judith and Larry’s sofa; that is until Larry and Arthur get booted out to the curb by Judith, then they share a motel room. Larry’s son Danny (Aaron Wolf) is a pothead who prefers to listen to
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- Don Simpson
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/Filmcast Ep. 71 - Trick ‘r Treat (Guest: Rian Johnson, Director of Brick and The Brothers Bloom)
13 October 2009 10:40 PM, PDT
| Slash Film
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Note: An earlier version of this podcast contained one spoiler for Zombieland. This has since been removed. We apologize for the error. If you haven't seen the movie yet, you're probably best off skipping our discussion of the Zombieland sequel.
In this week's /Filmcast, Dave Chen, Devindra Hardawar and Adam Quigley discuss the merits (or lack thereof) of 3D conversion, compare A Serious Man to Barton Fink, and confirm or deny whether or not Couples Retreat is, in fact, a complete trainwreck. Special guest writer/director Rian Johnson joins us for this episode. Rian's latest film, The Brothers Bloom, is currently available for rental in iTunes, Blockbuster, Netflix, and plenty of other places right now.
You can always e-mail us at slashfilmcast(At)gmail(Dot)com, or call and leave a voicemail at 781-583-1993. Join us next Monday at 9 Pm Est / 6 Pm Pst at Slashfilm's live page as we
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- David Chen
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A Serious Man
6 October 2009 9:54 AM, PDT
| Huffington Post
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The Jew Who Wasn't There...
Big questions about faith, God, and mortality surround small people and the even smaller vagaries of fate and circumstance in the work of the Coen Brothers. However, all those big questions are posed not as religious or philosophical queries but more as punchlines in the great cosmic joke of life. Old Testament references are sown throughout their work, be it the Song of Solomon in Miller's Crossing, Genesis and The Book of Daniel in Barton Fink, and probably the whole thing somewhere in The Big Lebowski. Yet, if there is a common denominator to the Coens' entire body of work it is the utter absence of any controlling order, morality or meaning in the universe, so why then would God figure so largely in their films? I think the answer lies in
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- Will Menaker
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What I Watched, What You Watched: Installment #11
4 October 2009 4:04 AM, PDT
| Rope of Silicon
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This week, after reading over Laremy's list of Top Ten Coen Bros. Films I figured it was about time to watch the four remaining films of theirs I had not yet seen. On top of that I continued my viewing of the new 13 film Paul Newman DVD Collection with a film I loved that ultimately ended up inspiring me to watch another 1958 Newman film. It was a relatively slow week for me, but there's enough to make for a conversation.
As always, remember you can keep tabs on my personal Netflix queue right here. I now have 50 friends on the movie rental site and would love to have a few more if those of you out there with accounts are interested. Now, here's the recap of my week in movies...
The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)
Quick Thoughts: The Hudsucker Proxy was the first of two Coen films I caught this past week,
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- Brad Brevet
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A Serious Man Movie Review
2 October 2009 5:02 AM, PDT
| Atomic Popcorn
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There are two things present in every Coen Bros film – crime and fools. Usually the fools are the ones committing the crimes and trying (failing) to get away with them. However, it never feels like the brothers have any sympathy towards the “heroes.” On the contrary, it often feels like they enjoy making up idiots so they can point and laugh at them. In this film, though, they seem to finally flip that and reach out a helping hand to Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), obscure as that help may be. The Coens are among the smartest writer/directors working today. Heck, they translated Homer’s Odyssey into a Depression-era Midwestern road trip. Their worldview finds humor in oddities and discomfort – a handshake that lasts a few seconds too long, an unwanted hug, an awkward silence after a bit of stupidity has been uttered. It is in the mundane that the
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- Marco Duran
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Joel And Ethan Coen Say George Clooney Plays A 'Great Idiot'
2 October 2009 3:52 AM, PDT
| MTV Movie News
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'A Serious Man' directors also discuss their put-upon leading men, a possible 'Big Lebowski' spin-off.
By Josh Horowitz
Ethan and Joel Coen
Photo: Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images
Over the course of the past 25 years, Joel and Ethan Coen have unleashed scores of beleaguered and bedeviled men on an adoring group of fans. No filmmaker can torture a man quite the way these two can. From the Dude (just how many times did his head get pushed into that toilet?) to Llewelyn Moss' bloody end, angst is never so much fun as it is in a Coen brothers film.
And now we can add Larry Gopnick, the protagonist of "A Serious Man," to the mix. Michael Stuhlbarg stars in the new release as a professor vexed by his wife (leaving him for one of the great names in film this year, Sy Abelman), his son (nagging and "F Troop
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Oscar Watch: George Clooney, The Coen Brothers And More
2 October 2009 3:03 AM, PDT
| MTV Movie News
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What movies will be taking home little gold statuettes this awards season? We give you some of our predictions.
By Larry Carroll
George Clooney in "Up in the Air"
Photo: Dale Robinette/ Paramount
As the calendar page turns to October and the last of the summer blockbusters fade into the distance, it is time to cleanse our palate. That's right, folks, awards season is here once again, and this weekend's release of "A Serious Man" indicates that it's time to put away remakes, roman numerals and TV adaptations and instead expect movies that are — gasp! — smart.
Naturally, we here at MTV will be all over the 2009 awards season, right up to our annual coverage backstage at the Oscars. But who will be the next "Slumdog," "Brokeback" or "Little Miss Sunshine"? Below you'll find a list of 10 films we'll be watching closely between now and Oscar night.
"Up in the Air"
Over the last few years,
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Interview: Joel And Ethan Coen On A Serious Man
1 October 2009 10:07 PM, PDT
| cinemablend.com
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Joel and Ethan Coen aren't known for talking a whole lot about the meaning of their movies. Good luck getting them to explain the hotel fire at the end of Barton Fink, or what the deeper meaning might be in the Dude's White Russians. So it surprised me first of all that they did roundtable interviews at all for their new film A Serious Man, and I knew better than to try and get them to explain some of the odder elements of their newest, perhaps most inscrutable film.
Instead we talked about bar mitzvahs, Jefferson Airplane and religious scholars, given that A Serious Man focuses heavily on Judaism and the surrounding culture, as it affects a 1967 Minneapolis suburb that strongly resembles the one in which the Coens grew up. Sure, it's probably not the answers you will come out of the movie wanting to hear, but it's the Coens--
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The Coen Brothers Man Up
1 October 2009 5:09 AM, PDT
| ifc.com
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"A Serious Man" marks Ethan and Joel Coen's return not only to the Midwest for the first time since "Fargo," but to an era they know well from growing up in Minnesota's St. Louis Park during the 1960s. As a New Yorker profile of local son Senator Al Franken recently noted, the heavily Jewish suburb has given birth to a generation of such acute thinkers as the Coens and Thomas Friedman. Yet when we meet Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), a harried physics professor at the local college, he is a man utterly bereft of answers.
As he faces a decision on his tenure at work, Gopnik is plagued by troubles on all fronts -- his wife (Sari Lennick) wants a divorce, his children Danny and Sarah are selfish brats, and his brother's (Richard Kind) prolonged stay on the family couch exacerbates matters. Even Gopnik's rare escape from his problems
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- Stephen Saito
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On The Eve Of 'A Serious Man,' The Strange Appeal Of The Brothers Coen
30 September 2009 12:00 PM, PDT
| MTV Movies Blog
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By rights, Ethan and Joel Coen should not be the massively successful filmmakers they are. I’m not impugning their talent, skill or artistry with that statement; it's more that their movies are very, very strange. Weird by any standard, which makes it occasionally shocking to sit back and look at their success in popular culture.
Their movies, especially those made in the past ten years, are sold as mainstream motion pictures when they their tone and content should really sentence them to a boutique indie theater existence. When people gravitate towards entertainment that is easy to understand and comfortable to watch, how is it that guys who make something as densely surreal as “Barton Fink” or as willfully grim and ambiguous as “No Country For Old Men” are two of America’s favorite moviemakers?
Were movies like “Raising Arizona” and “O Brother, Where Art Thou” the brothers’ only output,
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- John Constantine
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Drifting Out of Focus
30 September 2009 7:08 AM, PDT
| ifc.com
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Joel and Ethan Coen have an almost chronic aversion to being taken seriously. Their darkest movies are nevertheless laced with black humor, and in interviews, they tend to rebuff the idea that their work is about anything other than what appears on the surface. Even to the actors who have worked with them, their intentions are frequently opaque. One need only glance at "Barton Fink"'s withering portrait of an Odets-ian playwright nattering on about his designs for proletarian theater to see what the Coens think of artists who advertise their themes.
The title of "A Serious Man," then, can only be ironic -- and indeed, the Coens make it nearly impossible to take anyone in the film seriously. Their unlucky protagonist, physics professor Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), is an affable bumbler on whom misfortunes rain like in an unceasing torrent. In short order, he's asked for a divorce, threatened
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- Sam Adams
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In My Opinion: The Top Ten Coen Bros. Films
30 September 2009 1:49 AM, PDT
| Rope of Silicon
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Ethan and Joel Coen circa 1990 while promoting Miller's Crossing
Top Ten Coen Bros. Films
With the upcoming release of A Serious Man, the brand new film from the Coen brothers, I decided to put together my personal top ten list of their films. A task that proved much harder than I would have originally imagined.
I agonized over this list. Why? Because love isn't a strong enough word for how I feel about the Coen films. No, something more akin to reverence mixed with a healthy bit of obsessive adoration would be much closer to my relationship with their work. They are the kind are filmmakers who make us think, as we sit in the theater, they are unspooling the yarn just for us. Sure, the Coens weave tales of great violence and isolation, but somewhere in there a quiet grace is achieved too.
Places 11, 12 and 13
Photo: Universal Pictures / Touchstone
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- Laremy Legel
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Coens Consider Barton Fink Sequel
28 September 2009 6:41 PM, PDT
| WENN
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Filmmaking duo The Coen Brothers are considering making a sequel to their 1991 movie Barton Fink.
John Turturro played a frustrated 1940s playwright suffering writer's block in the dark comedy, one of the brothers' first box office hits, and now, 18 years later, the Coens admit they've been fantasising about catching up with the character.
Ethan Coen tells GQ magazine, "We have thoughts about doing a sequel to Barton Fink. Barton is now a middle-aged professor at Berkeley (university) with long grey sideburns and big medallions."
Joel adds, "It would be called Old Fink and set in San Francisco during the Summer of Love (1967)."
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Coens Not Interested In Big Lebowski Spin-Off But Maybe Barton Fink Sequel?
23 September 2009 1:31 PM, PDT
| FilmJunk
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To those who have been craving a second helping of The Big Lebowski or the proposed spin-off about John Turturro's character, the pedophile bowler Jesus Quintana, all hope is lost. The Coen Brothers have been doing the press rounds for their latest flick A Serious Man, and when talking to MTV [1] they were asked about the possibilities of a sequel, to which they replied: "We don't see it. That movie [The Big Lebowski] has more of an enduring fascination for other people than it does for us." So not only are they not interested in a sequel, but they aren't really into The Big Lebowski as much as their fans are. Ouch, two blows in one go.
While this is indeed sad news for Lebowski and John Turturro fans, it isn't all bad for Turturro-ites, as The Coens aren't against doing sequels per se, but they just aren't into doing one for The Big Lebowski.
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- Kasper
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Coen Brothers on Big Lebowski and Barton Fink Sequels
22 September 2009 11:00 AM, PDT
| WorstPreviews.com
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We recently had the chance to sit down with the Coen brothers (No Country for Old Men), who were promoting "A Serious Man" at the Toronto Film Festival. Unfortunately, talking to them was like talking to someone who doesn't speak English and has serious Attention Deficit Disorder. Needless to say, I couldn't get even one logical answer to my questions, but it seems that MTV News had better luck. We already heard from John Turturro that he would love to see a "Big Lebowski" spin-off, which would focus on his Jesus Quintana character, a pedophile/master bowler from the original film. Unfortunately, the Coens have no interest in this spin-off or a sequel. "We don't see it," they said. "That movie has more of an enduring fascination for other people than it does for us." The Coens, however, have revealed that they would like to pursue a sequel to their 1991 film "Barton Fink,
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Barton Fink 2?
22 September 2009
| Cineman.ch/en
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The Coen Brothers are considering a sequel to one of their best movies "Barton Fink".
Currently busy promoting their new movie "A Serious Man" at the Toronto Film Festival, the Coen Brothers revealed in an interview the exciting news that they are considering making a sequel to one of their best movies, the unforgettable "Barton Fink" - as long as John Turturro can return to play the lead and looks old enough.
The sequel moves to 1967, when the former screenwriter and New York intellectual, having failed to make it in Hollywood in the 50's, works as a professor at Berkeley after selling out his leftist friends to the House Un-American Activities Commission, under the evil Senator McCarthy.
While we wait for that project to come about, click on the link to view the hilarious trailer for "A Serious Ma
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- Constantin Xenakis (Cineman)
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Coens to 'Fink' on Sequel
21 September 2009 9:15 PM, PDT
| CinemaSpy
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Barton Fink is about a playwright who takes a job in Hollywood, suffers writer’s block, and possibly meets the Devil. No, it’s not an easy film to describe. But it is considered a cult classic, and now it appears that Joel and Ethan Coen, who wrote and directed Fink, want to make a sequel reuniting them with actor John Turturro.
Speaking to MTV at the Toronto International Film Festival, where they were promoting A Serious Man, Joel Coen said the movie would be called Old Fink and take place during the highly-polarized 1960s. Barton would now be a college professor.
"It's the summer of love and [Fink is] teaching at Berkeley," Joel said. "He ratted on a lot of his friends to the House Un-American Activities committee."
Although Barton Fink was not a financial success, it did well with critics, and its following has grown as Coen Brothers' careers have flourished.
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