I tweeted last night that when it plays before a crowd, Inside Llewyn Davis is a pellet dropped into water. The depth and the delight is in the vegetable dye that spreads out and sinks in, and though obviously emanating from the pellet, da coolness is in the mixture. The Coen Brothers period film, inspired … Read more
Michael Cieply‘s 1.28 N.Y. Times piece about Joel and Ethan Coen‘s Inside Llewyn Davis, based on a recent interview with Joel, states the following: Oscar Isaac in Joel and Ethan Coen’s Inside Llewyn Davis. (a) The film will privately screen next week in Los Angeles for “some music industry insiders and perhaps a few potential … Read more
Never say that IndieWire’s David Ehrlich doesn’t go bold when so inspired. From another angle, he’s basically saying that Paul Thomas Anderson‘s One Battle After Another, which I haven’t seen and which may in fact be everything that Ehrlich says it is, is better, grander, deeper and more super-charged than the following 2010-and-later films…. Roman … Read more
N.Y. Times staffers are in the process of posting their roster of the 100 finest films of the 21st Century. For comparison’s sake, HE is hereby re-posting its own grand list of the 163 best films of the century. Yes, that’s right…one-six-three. HE’s list is all broken up into sections. It over-emphasizes certain years and … Read more
James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown would be wise to open later this year as 2024’s award season is looking a bit anemic…compared to ‘23 it’s a weak, mewing little kitten…hobbled by last year’s WGA and SAG strikes. A boilerplate principle photography period is three months, so James Mangold’s film having begun filming a couple of … Read more
Forgive the lateness but five months ago (4.6.23) six Hollywood Reporter critics — Jon Frosch, David Rooney, Sheri Linden, Livia Guyarkye, Leslie Felperin and Jordan Mintzer — posted their choices for the 50 Best Films of the 21st Century. Nobody is an absolute authority and we all have our special passions and allegiances, but boy, … Read more
Here I am on a Sunday morning, sipping coffee and feeling glum as hell about the films of Joel and Ethan Coen no longer being part of our world. They haven’t been, really, since Inside Llewyn Davis, the last bona fide Coen Bros. flick (low key, early ’60s folkie vibes, slurping cereal milk, Schrodinger’s cat). … Read more
Three days ago (4.6.23) the Hollywood Reporter ran one of those “taking stock and honing it all down” laundry-list articles that happen every so often. It’s called “Hollywood Reporter Critics Pick the 50 Best Films of the 21st Century.” Co-authored by the highly esteemed Jon Frosch, David Rooney, Sheri Linden, Lovia Gyarkye, Leslie Felperin and … Read more
The closest competitors are Charlie Meadows (aka “Madman Mundt”) in Barton Fink (’91) and, of course, Walter Sobchak in The Big Lebowski (’98). But the heroin-addicted Roland Turner in Inside Llewyn Davis (’13) is nastier and snarlier, and therefore funnier. Goodman: “Well, if you make a livin’ at it, more power to ya. (beat) Solo … Read more
Joseph McBride‘s “The Whole Durn Human Comedy” (Anthem, 3.1) is half-nutrition and half-dessert — a warm, wise, non-linear take on the careers of the great Joel and Ethan Coen. But around the halfway mark it hit me that McBride and Anthem may have published the first Coen brothers eulogy on dead tree materials. For all … Read more
Sometimes I hate comedy that you’re expected to “laugh” at. Almost as much as I hate people who hideously shriek and guffaw in cafes and bars after their second glass of wine. For most of my life I’ve been an LQTM type of guy. I worship at the altar of no-laugh funny. This is where … Read more