It’s not particularly hard to see why The Big Lebowski didn’t do all that well at the box office: it is profoundly, completely, a stoner comedy. It’s moderately amusing if you have patience for the punishment the Coens force into every scene (including scatological humor, excessive profanity, and some bizarre gay subtext), but one imagines it’s much, much more funny if one is under the influence of various chemicals. This is appropriate enough, of course, as The Big Lebowski is concerned primarily with a character who is nothing if not a drunk and a stoner, but there aren’t all that many people willing to bother to sneak drugs and alcohol into a multiplex when they can just wait for the video release (which, by the way, explains why Fantasia did so well on VHS).
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Now this is a good week for DVD. From Academy Award winning (and nominated) comedies to brooding dramas, you have sweet sweet cinema to choose from. If you haven’t seen either Juno or Lars and the Real Girl, make them a priority.

Juno –
What’s left to say about the little teen-pregnancy movie that could? Jason Reitman brings Diablo Cody’s phenomenal first-time script to life with the eternally charming Ellen Page, and the results are witty, delicate, real, and poignant. While I don’t think it was Best Picture caliber, it certainly was one of the best films of last year. You cannot go wrong with this one.

Recommended for everyone, unless you’re a soulless cynic who enjoys kicking puppies and popping balloons.

Lars and the Real Girl –
This is the kind of concept that should have gone direct to DVD or had “American Pie Presents” attached to the front of the title. Ryan Gosling plays the introverted Lars, who purchases a sex doll and proceeds to pretend that ‘Bianca’ is a real person. The expected jokes never materialize, and instead you’re given a sweet romantic comedy that is surprising in all the right ways.

Recommended if you liked Juno or would enjoy less raunchy versions of Judd Apatow comedies (Knocked Up, The 40-Year Old Virgin)

Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
Sydney Lumet is 80 years old – 80 years! – and he’s still making films. Starring the always brilliant Phillip Seymour Hoffman (as well as Ethan Hawke, who holds his own), the story involves two brothers who decide to knock over their parents’ jewelry store. Needless to say, this is not a happy movie. The film is a buffet of great acting, but none of the characters are particularly fun to be around, kind of like that guy in your English Lit class who always had the most brilliant observations but possessed zero friends.

Recommended if you’re the soulless cynic who won’t be renting Juno this week, or if you liked A Simple Plan, Match Point, or Reservoir Dogs

Aliens Vs. Predator: Requiem
This is neither franchise’s proudest moment. Although I am an unabashed Aliens fan (I’ll have to tell you about the extent of my fanboyism sometime – it’s truly frightening), this one is virtually unredeemable. It is better than that neutered PG-13 attempt from a few years back, but that isn’t saying much. The script is 3rd grade level, the directors (another team of brothers) have little clue about either basic story structure or orchestrating decent scares, and the whole thing serves as an example of how little Fox values either of these properties and how stupid they think their audience is. There is another great Aliens film out there, but this one doesn’t even come close.

Recommended only if you liked the first Aliens Vs. Predator or if you absolutely must see any film with either Aliens or Predators in it (i.e., you’re a rabid fanboy)

Note: This reviews was originally published February 7, 2008

Call it a fertile year for Hollywood. Hee hee.
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Note: this review was originally published February 5, 2008

Explaining the concept of Craig Gillespie’s film Lars and the Real Girl to someone who has never heard about it is a difficult task. Telling them it is a film about a man who buys a sex doll which he thinks is completely real is bound to turn people off and perhaps worry about the permissive morality of the filmgoer. Happily, there’s no need to be apprehensive. With its heart in the right place and a perfectly assembled group of actors, Lars and the Real Girl is a film for nearly everyone.
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Note: this is the sixth in a series of chronological reviews of the Coen brothers filmography.

Throughout their careers, the Coen brothers have been consistently fascinated by film noir. This is apparent in their early work like Blood Simple, and it became particularly overt in 2001’s The Man Who Wasn’t There, but never has it been so enigmatic as with Fargo.
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This article is a contribution to Film at 11’s blogathon, updating Andrew Sarris’ The American Cinema with selections on post-1968 directors. Given the theme of the month here at MovieZeal, you can guess which director(s) we will be evaluating. For those unfamiliar with Sarris’ work or the canons within which he placed directors, see Film at 11’s initial post here.

LIGHTLY LIKEABLE

Joel and Ethan Coen (1954, ’57 – )
FILMS: (noteworthy entries in italics) 1984 – Blood Simple, 1987 – Raising Arizona, 1990 – Miller’s Crossing, 1991 – Barton Fink, 1994 – The Hudsucker Proxy, 1996 – Fargo, 1998 – The Big Lebowski, 2000 – O Brother, Where Art Thou?, 2001 – The Man Who Wasn’t There, 2003 – Intolerable Cruelty, 2004 – The Ladykillers, 2007 – No Country For Old Men

The most impressive accomplishment by Joel and Ethan Coen is how, in spite of working in wildly disparate genres (exploitation, noir, gangster, screwball, remake), they manage to not just make films, but to make Coen films. One would say of most directors, “Their first film was just practice, so we can forgive it if it bears little resemblance in content or quality to their later work,” but Blood Simple, the Coens’ debut, is so scarily assured and effortlessly confident that we can see unmistakable similarities between it and their Oscar lauded No Country For Old Men. How many other directors can claim a distinct style that has been preserved over the course of 12 films and 23 years?
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The Fall
I don’t know how long this trailer for The Fall has been around, but I just stumbled upon it over at Quicktime today. Apparently The Fall made its original debut in September 2006 at TIFF and has been released in various places around the world before starting its limited release here in the US of A on May 9. The first time I watched the trailer, some of the fantastical visuals turned me off … it reeked of artistry run a muck. But when I took the time to consider the possibilities I was a lot more hopeful. Seeing the trailer, I’m assuming the title references a fall from innocence and could be an intelligent tale about the power of the imagination and the importance of story. The visuals may serve their purpose well even though it is directed by Tarsem Singh, the man behind the 2000 J. Lo vehicle The Cell. It also stars Lee Pace who helped make television a brighter and better place last fall with Pushing Daisies, one of the most underrated TV series in recent memory.

Looks like a mixed bag. It could be a masterpiece, or it could be a load of crap. Download the HD trailer and decide for yourself (YouTube provided below but not recommended).

The Fall

In the early nineties, America briefly remembered the late director Frank Capra. The year 1993 brought us Ivan Reitman’s Dave, which was something of a re-imagining of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington; then a year later the Coen Brothers brought us The Hudsucker Proxy, which is more-or-less a re-imagining of Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. After those two, it pretty much ended, apparently because no one could think of another Capra film to rip off (except for maybe It’s a Wonderful Life, which, thanks to the TV royalties and the burgeoning VHS market, was still profitable, anyway).
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This week we have a veritable cornucopia. Not really, though. I just made that up.

Smart People
Dennis Quaid stars as a widowed college professor who finds true love with Sarah Jessica Parker. Clearly he’s never seen Sex and the City, or he would know better. Ellen Page stars as his “preppy” daughter. (For some odd reason, all the press for this movie seems to be making a big deal about how “preppy” Ellen Page is. Do people still even use the word “preppy”? Are we really that worried that everyone thinks of Page as a sarcastic teen mother? Did no one see X-men: The Last Stand? No, come to think of it, I guess no one did…)

Recommended if you enjoy “indie” comedies like Juno, Sideways, or Lars and the Real Girl

Street Kings
So…I guess the entertainment industry got sick of glorifying gang warfare in L.A. (see: gangsta rap) and decided to glorify police brutality in L.A. instead. So, instead of subtle, ambiguous racism, we get explicit, unapologetic racism. I guess that’s progress in sort of a sick, twisted way. This one stars Keanu Reeves in the role of The (Mostly) White Cop Who Shoots a Bunch of Black People. I’m sure he gets his comeuppance, but not until after the movie sets race relations back 20 years or so. This one does, however, win the Weekly Award for Movie with the Largest Number of Actors that Don’t Have Real Names (Common, The Game, and Cedric the Entertainer all make appearances).

Recommended if you like Cradle 2 the Grave, Boyz n the Hood, or jokes that begin with “I’m not racist, but…”

Prom Night
No, not a remake of the 1980 camp-horror classic starring Jamie Lee Curtis and (I swear) Leslie Nielsen…this is just the latest in the glut of bad horror movies we always get this time of year. If the lame, overused title isn’t enough to keep you away, take a look at its rating: PG-13 – which, with this genre, always means “Come if you’re in middle school and want to make out in the back row.”

Recommended if you’re in eighth grade and you’ve never seen a good horror movie in your life

Persepolis
Not “opening” per se, but finally getting the wide(r) release it deserves, this French film tells the story of a girl growing up during the Iranian revolution. This one almost took home this year’s Academy Award for Best Animated Feature – and probably would have if it weren’t for Pixar accidentally making the Best Movie Ever (known to the public as Ratatouille). Not necessarily for the kids (it contains some sexual and drug-related content), but definitely a very good animated film.

Recommended if you like animation, but want something with themes that run a little deeper than giant robots, singing princesses, and lame pop culture parodies

Note: this is the fourth in a series of chronological reviews of the Coen brothers filmmography. Luke Harrington will now be taking the reins from me and tackling the next four films in their ouveure.

Barton Fink was written during a 3 week hiatus from the screenplay for Miller’s Crossing. The brothers Coen had developed writer’s block on their gangster epic, and Fink was their release valve. However, in doing so they broke one of the unspoken rules of screenwriting: when you have writer’s block, don’t write about a writer who has writer’s block. Which is exactly what they did. The result is a boring, dull, and ultimately tedious motion picture (I enforce through repetition) that I would like to view as an experiment gone awry rather than a full-blown addition to the Coen filmmography. I have a sneaky suspicion, however, that it is probably one of their favorites.
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Quite the cornucopia of motion pictures for you to choose from this week, including one of the best pictures of 2007.

There Will Be Blood –
This would have secured Best Picture of the year if not for No Country For Old Men. Perhaps not so much a movie as it is a performance – Daniel Day Lewis controls every frame of this film. His riveting, insane portrait of Daniel Plainview, the megalomaniacal oil man who squares off against Paul Dano’s equally insane pre-television televangelist, earned every inch of that golden Oscar statuette. Grand American filmmaking.

Recommended if you liked Magnolia or Taxi Driver

Lions For Lambs
Perhaps the most spectacular of the recent Iraq war films to go down in flames at the box office, not even Robert Redford, Meryl Streep, or Tom Cruise could save it. On second thought, Tom Cruise was probably as much of a liability as the subject matter. Nothing says “Pay $10 to see me at the theater!” more than Iraq and Scientology. So, what’s it about? Um….uh….war stuff?

Recommended if you liked In the Valley of Elah, Rendition, Stop-loss, or any other self-consciously anti-Iraq film.

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
One of the many feathers in Judd Apatow’s cap, Walk Hard spoofs the recent glut of musical bio-pics. John C. Reilly is the it titular Cox, singing tantalizing tunes like “Let’s Duet” and “(I Hate You) Big Daddy.” Let’s duet. Heh heh. This one received rather favorable reviews, so if you’re digging This is Spinal Tap but wished it was about country music, Walk Hard might be right up your alley.

Recommended if you liked This is Spinal Tap, Ray, or Walk the Line

Hit the jump for the rest of this week’s releases.

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Note: This review was originally published February 4th, 2008

Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood is brilliant and brutal. Inspired by Upton Sinclair’s 1927 novel Oil!, it tells the story of Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis), one of the most successful oil men in California. Torn between his work and his adopted son, Plainview nurtures his business as the people he loves slip out of reach. This poignant story explores the prerequisites for success; the painful steps to systematic isolation; and ultimately, the dark underbelly of the human condition. Lies–to others and to oneself–plague Plainview and the minister of the Church of the Third Revelation, Eli Sunday (Paul Dano), alike. The film will leave you broken: I sensed a fraction of myself in the fallen protagonist.
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Here’s the rumpus. I don’t want to like Miller’s Crossing. Every frame smacks of condescension, the events are drained of emotion, and it feels as if the Coens are giving everyone – their characters and their audience – the high hat. They’ve created a clinical labyrinth of twists and turns that lacks any kind of human element, and what’s worse you can practically see them looking down their ventilators at you from behind the film. But despite the fact that I know I’m being grifted like a schnook and that the Coens are chiselling me every step of the way, I just can’t get Miller’s Crossing out of my head.
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Note: this is the second in a series of chronological reviews of the Coen brothers’ filmography

Raising Arizona is as confident a sophomore effort as you are likely to find, although it solidified the Coens as an acquired taste. Much like Monty Python and the Search For the Holy Grail, the biggest problem with the film is that you either get it or you don’t – there isn’t much of a middle ground. The eccentric humor on display here is of such a unique flavor that if you’re not on board within the first few minutes you might as well give up and walk out.
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Okay…so we still have almost a month before Hollywood starts releasing the movies anyone could possibly care about. Stay home this weekend and rent Sweeney Todd. I swear, it’s great. Definitely way better than any of this stuff could possibly be…

Leatherheads
George Clooney’s back in the director’s chair…this time directing a nostalgic sports comedy. He’s the manager for a professional football team, back before football was legit. This one looks like it could actually be pretty funny, but its release date suggests otherwise…

Recommended if you liked A League of Their Own, Hoosiers, or Seabiscuit

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Nim’s Island
Yet another fantasy-based children’s film from Walden Media…do we really need another one of these? Since they started out, Walden’s made exactly two good films–The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and Because of Winn-Dixie (which most people that weren’t me hated)–out of fifteen. So…whatever. If you’re not quite sick of would-be Harry Potters yet, this one might work for you.

Recommended if you have kids and no constructive ideas for “quality time”

The Ruins
Based on the novel by Scott Smith, this is a horror picture about some teens (who else?) who discover a scary thing of some kind at a Mayan temple. I’m not sure what it is, but I think it’s either some Mayans or some worms, depending on which part of the trailer you believe. This one is probably either surprisingly good or hilariously awful. Either way, I’m totally there.

Recommended if you liked Anaconda, National Treasure: Book of Secrets, or The Mummy (Is it obvious I know nothing about this movie?)

Shine a Light
Remember that AT&T commercial where Martin Scorsese interrupts the kid on the phone with his dad? Well, this is just like that except the kid is the Rolling Stones. And the phone conversation is a concert. And the whole thing is in IMAX. I’m pretty sure you know whether or not this flick is for you.

Recommended if you see a red door and you want it painted black, or if you can’t get no satisfaction

Well, I’m here to tell you that Hitman is an awesome contribution to the halls of cinema, and by ‘awesome’ I mean ‘not awesome’ and by ‘halls of cinema’ I mean ‘tradition of consistently pathetic video game adaptations.’ I guess I have to look on the bright side: this review will be an awful lot of fun to write.
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The first in a series of chronological reviews of Joel and Ethan Coen’s filmmography.

ETHAN COEN: It’s crude, there’s no getting around it.
JOEL COEN: On the other hand it’s all confused with the actual process of making the movie and finishing the movie which, by and large, was a positive experience. You never get entirely divorced from it that way. So, I don’t know. It’s a movie that I have a certain affection for.

The Coen brothers cannot view their first film, Blood Simple, outside the context of its creation. In the same way, it’s virtually impossible for us to view it outside the context of their extensive filmography. Without the pressure of Fargo, The Big Lebowski, and No Country For Old Men driving us to watch it, Blood Simple would have long ago been relegated to the dust bins of slightly-better-than-average independent film. There are, here, the seeds of their idiosyncrasies and influences that would grow into a fully realized cinematic style, and so it becomes much more productive to view it as the first of many, rather than asking it to stand on it’s own two feet.
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Ethan and Joel Coen

We’re trying something a bit different this month at MZ by devoting all of April to the Coen Brothers (as you can see, our nifty random banner up top is already cycling through classic frames from their films). We’ll be reviewing each of their films chronologically on every Monday, Wedensday, and Friday, beginning with Blood Simple later today. As well, we’ll be participating in Film at Eleven’s blog-a-thon later this month, updating Andrew Sarris’ seminal The American Cinema with an entry on the Coens. Also expect insightful articles and witty observations on their evolution as filmmakers, Top Ten Lists (that crack cocaine of the internets), and featured guest contributors.

Look for essays and features from (in no particular order) Craig Kennedy at Living in Cinema, Joseph Demme of Cinexcellence, Daniel Johnson from Film Babble Blog, Dylan Fields (aka Fletch) of Blog Cabins (and purveyor of LAMB), Nick Plowman at Fataculture, Daniel Getahun from Getafilm (I just made that connection, Daniel), Rick Olson of Coosa Creek Mambo, and hopefully a few others who haven’t confirmed yet. Take a second to visit some of their excellent sites.

Basically, we’ll be ingesting all things Coen until Joel and Ethan come shooting out of our eyeballs. Not to be missed!

Whoops. Sorry, this is a teensy bit late. Not that you were clamoring for my crystal wit and eloquence on this week’s stunning selection of bright & shiny movie platters, but it’s the principle of the matter. So, without further ado, here are your options.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street –
As Burtonesque as a film is like to get, Sweeney Todd mixes music and murder with delicious glee. The blood is of the Karo-syrup-mixed-with-glue variety, and it geysers out of people’s necks with the enthusiasm of Old Faithful. The music, lovingly adapted from the original Stephen Sondheim favorite, is sung with aplomb by Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, and Sacha Baron Cohen (who was, hands down, my favorite part of the film). If you can stomach the over-the-top gore, this the must see pick of the week.

Recommended if you liked Sleepy Hollow but wished they had, you know, sung more of their lines

Alvin and the Chipmunks
How little can I be persuaded to care about this? It’s too late and I’m too tired. Its the cartoon you knew and loved, except the chipmunks are CG and the dude is played by Earl (i.e., Jason Lee), blah de blah de blah. The most surprising thing about this is the amount of money it kept raking in at the box office.

Recommended if you have small children and no aesthetic integrity (sorry Alvin, I’m a bit grumpy at the moment)

At long last, the ivy clad champion of Hyrule is getting his debut on the silver screen. Is it up to snuff? Could this, finally, be the video game adaptation to legitimize the genre that Uwe Boll has singlehandedly destroyed? Looks epic, looks faithful to the source, looks to have a large enough budget. Chime in with your thoughts.

Here it is