I quite recently saw Millers Crossing for the first time and I think it might be my favorite now
Where’s Blood Simple, their first film? It’s my favourite
I liked blood simple a lot - it is 3rd on my list
Miller’s is my new fav. 8)
Barton Fink has always been my fave Coens film. My other top faves are: Fargo, Big Lebowski and Raising Arizona.
Big Lebowski. Fargo is second.
[quote=“PopeyePete”]
Barton Fink has always been my fave Coens film. My other top faves are: Fargo, Big Lebowski and Raising Arizona.
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Barton Fink is terrific.
“Are you a trans or a res?”
Yeah, I was really pleasantly surprised with Barton Fink. I know I shouldn’t be like this, but I owned it for like a year before I watched it because I always felt like I wouldn’t like it (which is weird because I liked all the other Coen brothers films). So I watched it because I was in the mood too, and it was brilliant. I loved the simplicity of it, which was completely turned on it’s head toward the end. As always, some great dialogue and characters.
The greatest film about writers block! The Coens won the Palm D’Or for that too btw. I just love it.
[quote=“PopeyePete”]
The greatest film about writers block! The Coens won the Palm D’Or for that too btw. I just love it.
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Yes, made at a time when they themselves struggled with writer’s block.
Its also about that whole struggle of keeping your artistic integrity. Lots of great things in there.
I loved the detectives
It’s amazing how every single one of their movies are completely unique and just so fucking…perfect. That’s what happens when you have two incredibly filmmakers/brothers collaborating on one movie!
Ma favorite Coen Bros. flick is Fargo - I love everything about it, especially the scene when Buscemi and his partner are stopped by a cop - that scene was brutal.
[quote=“Biohazard”]
It’s amazing how every single one of their movies are completely unique and just so fucking…perfect. That’s what happens when you have two incredibly filmmakers/brothers collaborating on one movie!
Ma favorite Coen Bros. flick is Fargo - I love everything about it, especially the scene when Buscemi and his partner are stopped by a cop - that scene was brutal.
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They probably get that (the notion of perfection and having completely different yet equally brilliant movies) from the filmmaker they love the most - Stanley Kubrick.
I just watched Miller’s Crossing last week for the first time - I really liked it, however The Big Lebowski is still my favorite.
I re-watched Miller’s Crossing at the theater, was so awesome. There’s a retrospective here for the release of No Country For Old Men, I’ll see some others Coen at the theater if I can.
Has to be Raising Arizona lol
Prison Counsellor: Why do you say you feel “trapped” in a man’s body?
“Trapped” Convict: Well, sometimes I get them menstrual cramps real hard.
Total classic pmsl!
Ok, I reset the poll and added No Country For Old Men. This comes after having watched it with my dad on Thursday. I decided to come home for the weekend to catch up with my sleep and get back to normal functioning after all the exam madness and stress of the past few weeks. I didn’t know I was going to be online this early but I am, and so I will give some of my thoughts…
I went into this with a lot of enthusiasm. It’s the latest in the long line of Revisionist/Neo Westerns I’ve watched (after The Proposition, Seraphim Falls and Jesse James, yet to see 3:10 to Yuma and There Will be Blood) and because I took my dad to watch it, I didn’t want this to fail. That is always a bad start, always the wrong mind-set to have before watching a film, as disappointment is only more likely. Well, I can honestly say, this was the best film I’ve seen after Death Proof in the past 4 years. It exceeded my expectations and then some. I was so over-awed and overwhelmed by so many aspects of it, it’s… it’s hard to describe. I will have more to say about this later on, probably but for now I’m still getting to grips with how amazing it was.
First of all, the Coen Brothers making a Western has always been one of my dreams. I’d dream of how they’d shoot it, how cool the dialogue would be, how violent it’d be. After a QT and Scorsese Western, I wanted to watch a Coen Western. To have so many of the aspects as I imagined was mind-blowing. The dialogue, the direction, the colour, the violence, El Paso, horses, boots and hats - it was basically my dream. Also, it reminded me a lot of the Western aspects in QT’s Kill Bill. The first 20 minutes - I’d have been holding my dick if it wasn’t for all the people that packed the cinema.
The dialogue. I mean sure they pretty much took a lot of the dialogue from the novel verbatim, but they had their own stuff in there too. The characters spoke like typical Coen characters. It was so fucking great. I mean the scene with Bardem and the store clerk, one of the greatest scenes I have seen in a long, long time. So much emotion there. The movie shifts in tone dramatically during that scene, something tells me it was 100% Coen, I may be wrong, regardless, it was one heck of a fucking dialogue scene.
After the dialogue, the acting really struck me. Bardem and Brolin in particular, absolute class. Bardem was something else. A sort of human Terminator (is he even human?), as lethal and cold as they come. His voice, his mannerisms, his haircut (haha), just fucking everything, he just wreaked of brilliance. Tommy Lee Jones too, as solid as ever. Flawless.
I haven’t read the novel, and so I didn’t know what the story would be. I thought the story and plot were genius. Let me just say, I got barely 2 hours sleep on Wednesday night. I had an exam on Thursday morning, and woke at 5:30am (I go to sleep at that time most days!!) had the exam at 9:30, went to my house, packed, travelled to my home which is an hour 15mins away in the train. I watched the film at 8pm so I don’t know how I managed to stay awake that long. It took me like 10mins to work out what I saw, but I think I got it. The meaning they were trying to convey, it worked 100%. Life goes on. Shit happens all the time. The West isn’t a place for the old and weak, nor do the psycho’s live to be old. We live in a cold, brutal world and it’s fast changing into something worse. It just ain’t how it used to be. The way the story unfolds, how they showed it and what they decided to show - genius. I mean I love how they shrink down the deaths of these larger than life, dominant characters of the film to something so insignificant. For example, I won’t mention the easier one’s (Llewelyn Moss), but the death of Carson Wells. The scene builds and builds towards his death. There is so much tension there, you just know it’s inevitable. The phone then rings for a while and just as Chigurh moves to answer it he kills Wells. I mean even though we expected it, we still think the scene will go on for a while more, but no, the kill still ends up being a surprise - surprisingly unaffective. I didn’t feel anything. It was nothing. I loved that. The Coen’s got rid of all these big characters however they say fit. No significance attached to it. Oh and the silenced shotgun? Awesome!!
Talking about tension, man did this film have it in spades. It reminded me a lot of Blood Simple (my least fav Coen film). I was constantly on the edge of my seat. De Palma would be jealous.
The violence was the most brutal yet in a Coen film. The sound played a major part, which was awesome. The way Chigurh kills people, his broken bone at the end, seriously hardcore stuff.
The cinematography was something else too. So many scenes struck me with awe. I have long been a fan of Roger Deakins, and this coupled with Jesse James, well he just has to win that Oscar, otherwise there is no justice.
Finally, the music. I was surprised by the lack of it. Normally I look forward to Carter Burwell’s score. His turn in Fargo still gives me chills. But in this, he was reduced to a bit part and it payed dividends. I mean the eerie howls marriaged with the eerie landscape, it was perfect. This was most definitely about people and nature. No time for music, no use for it. The silent end sequence was very powerful.
Which brings me to the end. When it finished, I heard some people say “Man was that fucking boring and shit” and some others talked about falling asleep. It’s people like that, that annoy the shit out of me. These were probably the same people that got bored of Death Proof and masterbated during Transformers. Patience just isn’t a characteristic many young people today have. With me, I absolutely love when there is a slow pace in films, when it is coupled by intrigue. Leone, Kubrick, Tarantino, Hawks, De Palma - they all have these long stretches of almost nothingness, with the exception that these very scenes are filled with an interesting and intiguing aura. I mean the first 15-20 mins of this film, I was in heaven. It took it’s sweet time, and it allowed me time to behold all that Western glory in all it’s forms. Why a need for rush? When I watch a film, I want to be engrossed in it. I want to be entertained, and I want them to try and get close to me. I want them to show me its beauty, and for me to gasp at it. No Country For Old Men did exactly this, and it is for this reason, along with all the others that it has overtaken Fargo as my favourite Coen Brothers film! Simply breathtaking and brilliant, and more than worthy of an Oscar. The Coen’s have done it again.
Oh look at that, I guess I did have the words to describe it. ;D
No Country For Old Men - 9.5/10
[quote=“Ify”]
Talking about tension, man did this film have it in spades. It reminded me a lot of Blood Simple (my least fav Coen film). I was constantly on the edge of my seat.
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it reminded me a lot of Blood Simple too, though I’m a big fan of Blood Simple. You have to watch it again, maybe you’ll love it now.
You also have to read the novel, Cormac McCarthy is so awesome too. It was the perfect meeting of three genius in their own way.
I agree with all you wrote and want to underline again particulary that Roger Deakins should win the oscar big time.