Best Coen Brothers Movie - 2017

hello is this thing on

Millers Crossing always and forever.

Desperately curious about the difference it would make if it was "vote for your 5 favourite" vs "you can only pick one"

I mean always and forever, in all polls, but in particular this one.

Hard to choose, but for me it has to be Fargo. Not uncoincidentally, it was also the first Coen brothers film I ever saw. Lebowski may have been killed by overexposure and people making it a "thing" but it's still one of my favourites.

Ignoring the pre-Ladykillers titles and going with Llewyn this time (Goodman's only Coens role where he doesn't deliver a beatdown)

Went with MC in the previous poll btw

I liked Ladykillers

No Country for Old Men (2007)
Burn After Reading (2008)
A Serious Man (2009)
True Grit (2010)
Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)

terrific sequence

so v otm. i've still never seen O Brother, Ladykillers or Caesar. i don't feel like i'm missing a whole lot?

2007-2010 is such a good run, and at such a fast clip

Shocked to realize how little of their work I've actually seen - only eight films - given that I've at least enjoyed every one of those - though O Brother came the closest to me feeling like I was watching charming but not-well-thought-through schtick on autopilot. Since I've already been badgered a million times for my negligence in not having seen Raising Arizona and Miller's Crossing, I'm most interested in the post-2000 results here. Have seen True Grit, No Country, and Caesar but the rest all got mushed together in my brain and I have no idea which are supposed to be the good ones.

o brother is of course a masterpiece

yeah c'mon

ehhhh i dunno, there are some great scenes and bits and moments, but it really didn't hang together for me. the late introduction of clooney's motivation re: his wife and family felt like a misstep - either weave that into the plot, or plant your flag firmly on it being an episodic, picaresque ramble where nothing has to add up to a real conclusion. i also felt like the racial politics were clumsily-handled, or at the least that they seemed a little too at-ease deploying the KKK as alternately a legit source of terror and a bunch of comic buffoons.

yeah, it's really uneven, as is the whole '90s for me

the best sorta-straightup comedy they made post-Arizona is Intolerable Cruelty.

(i don't consider ASM to be that, quite)

No Country, with Fargo a close second.
The only Coen Brothers films I didn't care for altogether were The Hudsucker Proxy and The Man Who Wasn’t There. Never saw The Ladykillers.

pretty much hate all the Clooney movies at this point

Voted for O Brother. I think all their films I've seen are uneven, but O Brother has the usual amount of great scenes + that amazing digital cinematography that still seemed really fresh in 2000, but felt tired and dull in Llewyn Davis for instance.

only seen three of those

no country was...not good

first half of inside llewyn davis was good, but i liked it more for personal reasons. as a whole, compared to other movies, i don't think it would do well

true grit was really good (haven't seen the original though)

Well that's one vote for True Grit then.

I'm pretty sure I voted Miller's Crossing in the previous poll. The last six are a great run, but I'll stick with my original vote.

i'm not voting because i haven't seen enough of their movies

i usually watch a movie more than once if i really like it

weirdly enough i never got around to watching true grit a second time

alfred otm, that's an incredible run, so focused and furious and funny all the way through, same themes of duty and desire and pointlessness chipped away from so many different directions (i still haven't seen the folk music one)

something in Burn After Reading pops into my head most weeks, easy vote, although tt keeps telling me ILD is the best one (not seen)

and I don't even like every one of those movies. I used to wince when friends in the '90s insisted on their genius, but lately they've relaxed (or I've learned to enjoy hem): in the last decade these films have been accomplished distallation of their obsessions.

i think this is miller's xing tho. the best example of their best and curiously under-commented-upon quality, intense focus on language and the frustrations of communicating.

BAR is the best movie about america at war under bush

so v otm. i've still never seen O Brother, Ladykillers or Caesar. i don't feel like i'm missing a whole lot?

O Brother has fans (not me) but Ladykillers and Intolerable Cruelty are the only ones with no redeeming qualities. Hail Caesar is not their best, but it's fun and has a few showstoppers; tonally it's Intolerable Cruelty done right (ie. deliberately frothy and star-powered). Also the jokes are better.

Voted Miller's Crossing - I don't think it puts a foot wrong, whereas Serious Man looses some oomph in the last half hour (although not the last five minutes). Watched Fargo recently and it felt duller and crueller than I remember.

Burn After Reading has the amazing cock bicycle.

i though intolerable cruelty was great

Should rewatch, I've seen it defended on here a few times!

Saw it on a date, no laughs, felt awkward.

man never go on a movie date

Rex Rexroth: Have you sat before her before?
Miles Massey: No. No, the judge sits first. Then we sit.
Rex Rexroth: Well, have you sat after her before?
Wrigley: Sat after her before? You mean, have we argued before her before?
Miles Massey: The judge sits in judgment. The counsel argues before the judge.
Rex Rexroth: So, have you argued before her before?
Wrigley: Before her before, or before she sat before?
Rex Rexroth: Before her before. I said, before her before.
Wrigley: No, you said before she sat before.
Rex Rexroth: I did at first, but...
Miles Massey: Look, don't argue.
Rex Rexroth: I'm not. I'm...
Wrigley: No, you don't argue. We argue.
Miles Massey: Counsel argues.
Wrigley: You appear.
Miles Massey: The judge sits.
Wrigley: Then you sit.
Miles Massey: Or you stand in contempt.
Wrigley: And then we argue.
Miles Massey: The counsel argues.
Rex Rexroth: Which you've done before.
Miles Massey: Which we've done before.
Rex Rexroth: Ah.
Wrigley: But not before her.

they produced and marketed this as a straightahead romcom. you have to admire to the troll.

otm, their best Sturges by far.

yeah Fargo was worth the watch but always felt strangely overrated. looking back I don't believe i saw IC, either. that whole post-Lebowski, pre-No Country is blind spot for me

certainly willing to give O Brother a shot. i think at the time i might have just put off by everybody and their great aunt obsessing over it and the soundtrack.

Hail Caesar worth it just for the gloss and color, and the Fiennes/Ehrenreich scene imho. Plenty of it doesn't land, but as a Kentucky Fried Movie style assemblage of strung-together sketches, it's got a decent hit/miss ratio.

https://s30.postimg.org/61cjao7v5/aseriousman298.jpg

It's a shame Stuhlbarg's first lead role will be the best he ever gets

lol @ that still

srs man, so good

its the equal of fargo + lebowski imo, difficult to choose among those 3

I'm torn between A Serious Man, Lebowski, Miller's Crossing and Inside Llewyn Davis

Only one of those films has Sy Ableman in it.

I missed A SERIOUS MAN when it came out, but I've seen lots of ppl cite that as the best of their 21st century work, if not their best ever. Still need to see it. Voted BLOOD SIMPLE in its place. Sweet, simple, small movie with so many of their tics already on display.

serious man and lebowski

I think the coens hit their peaks when they get to tell shaggy dog stories

Saw it on a date, no laughs, felt awkward.

yeah, women tend not to like ruthless comedy

(oh boy, now i'm in fer it)

Almost impossible to choose, good 6 or 7 which I could vote for. I hope there's some love for Hudsucker Proxy if only for the jobs board scene.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bfw1WfpYzJ4

no country is still my choice

wtf morbs?

I love Hudsucker Proxy but don't think it's their best

intolerable cruelty and o brother are both sturges efforts imo

o brother is classic simply as a lyrical effort, in the same way that tennyson doesnt need to mean anything greater than the sounds of the words fitting together the way they do

intolerable cruelty is tight, neat, spot on

immediately voted serious man

like everyone is saying their run from 2008 is just terrific. i don't like no country very much tho, despite brolin and jones both being v good. feels like a leaden fargo retread with a much less interesting approach to evil. i blame this on the reliably hokey mccarthy.

hail caesar is not so much underrated as underinterpreted -- it's not just a grab-bag. and i love the hollywood diptych it forms w barton fink. a miserable prewar leftist --> a fulfilled postwar authoritarian. at capital pictures of course. feel like the structuring absence in the middle of this trilogy is a movie about reagan with the first motion picture unit.

well yeah, I think the movie that literally takes its title from Sturges might be in some way indebted to him

Clooney is no Joel McCrea though

a serious man is one of only two movies that I have actually walked out of. tbf the projector broke twice and the second time about an hour into the film I decided I didn't care what happened in the rest of the movie and left. still never seen the rest of it. millers crossing, barton fink, raising arizona are the ones I like.

I’ve tried Millers Crossing several times and it leaves me totally cold.

Jennifer Jason Leigh was awkward in Hudsucker. Something about her just didn’t fit Coen land.

if you are far enough out of the target audience for a serious man that you couldn't recognize any of the secret handshakes, then I can see how none of it would connect in even the slightest way. I was almost exactly the same age as the youngest protagonist (the kid getting bar mitzvahed) and from 1968 to 1972 in high school I hung with a lot of jewish kids, both reform and conservative synagogue, so this movie was my jam.

No mention whatsoever in this thread of The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is weird

I think it kinda had its own thread. The Coens have spawned more than their share.

Found it. About 200 posts long. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs - Coen Brothers Netflix series turned portmanteau movie

I never saw that, either, for no good reason. That, Hail Caesar, ILD are my overlooked. I should watch them! I think I've seen all the others (minus the two misfired) multiple times.

if you are far enough out of the target audience for a serious man that you couldn't recognize any of the secret handshakes, then I can see how none of it would connect in even the slightest way.

would could connect - I'm pretty far from that and I still thought the movie was amazing.

I grew up around Minneapolis in the early 70s and my dad went to high school in the town where A Serious Man takes place (St. Louis Park), so it definitely worked for me in personal ways (same with Fargo and The Hold Steady).

A Serious Man is my favorite Coens joint but I’m not Jewish or from the Midwest or of that late-boomer generation.

Though I was raised religious and Gen-x is not far from that generation to be fair.

I think I mentioned this once or twice, but I used to know their cousin, who once told me that if you knew their family growing up, everything about all their movies makes so much sense.

Anyway, having seen Drive-Away Dolls, a fun fillip. (84 minutes! I was well inclined for that alone!) My sis and her crew of friends will absolutely love the shit out of it and I told her as much.

Barton Fink and Miller's Crossing are still their best work IMO. Maybe I'm old.

I only saw Barton Fink for the first time a few years ago, one of the last of their films I hadn't seen, and was blown away. Possibly even their best, which is crazy that it took me so many years to get to, but I guess with them you never know what will click

Loved Barton Fink. Which makes it odd to me that A Serious Man felt flat. And I'm Jewish, though not from the Midwest or lived in that era.

Miller's Crossing was also incredible but very different in tone and setting than much of their other films. It's not "iconic" like so many others so it gets lost in the weeds. Need to watch it again!

I grew up around Minneapolis in the early 70s and my dad went to high school in the town where A Serious Man takes place (St. Louis Park), so it definitely worked for me in personal ways (same with Fargo and The Hold Steady).

― paisley got boring (Eazy)

I grew up in SLP (though I am not Jewish, half of my friend group was), graduated from Park having studied cinema with the guy who also taught the Coens, and even the names of certain characters in ASM made me laugh hard because of town lore, etc. Plus I can find my friend Avrom being an extra in the temple scenes. My mom and her siblings also went to Park, which class was your dad in, Eazy?

ASM, Fargo both favourites of mine. Loved Barton Fink when it came out, but like others, it’s been a while since I watched it.

I saw Barton Fink way late in the game too, and it didn’t exactly click all that often but John Goodman’s fiery rampage did sear itself

Plus I can find my friend Avrom being an extra in the temple scenes. My mom and her siblings also went to Park, which class was your dad in, Eazy?

(belated reply!)

'55 or '56? He then joined the Peace Corps in the early 60s and lived abroad for almost a decade before returning with my pregnant mom...and then I was born in St. Louis Park (but grew up in Burnsville).

Also (to suzy) the Red Owl scene in A Serious Man was the one that most connected with my early-70s memories there, though I did go with my parents once to their marriage counselor who was in a strip mall at Excelsior and Hwy 100.