Best Coen Brothers Movie - 2017

Surprised yet pleased A Serious Man topped the poll. It could very well be their best film, and I didn't think that many people would've felt the same.

I kind of have mixed feelings about the Coens', even within the same film in some cases. Virtually all of their films, even the least of them, are commendable for their masterful craftsmanship, and they all have something hilarious about the. But a lot of their films can feel empty or off-puttingly snide and mean-spirited. On the other hand, in the right context, their viewpoint can be a perfect fit, which is why Ethan Coen's 2016 day-after-election editorial for the New York Times is my favorite thing he's ever written - never has humanity been more deserving of his misanthropy.

My three favorites:
A Serious Man
Fargo
Lebowski

Ten years ago I would've included No Country in there as well because it's so well-crafted and the cast is so good, but it just feels emptier the more I see it. (To be fair, I had similar feelings about Cormac McCarthy's work when I gave his books a try.) I wish I could include Inside Llewyn Davis because there are certain ideas that I really like and that I rarely see other films exploring (and that too few people seem to pick up on), but there's also just as much about it that I find off-putting or disappointing.

Surprised Barton Fink isn't on anyone's list, though I haven't rewatched it since it came out.

Cool sound and production designs, sharp John Goodman and Judy Davis performances (as usual), but it doesn't know what it wants to be: pastiche, satire, etc.

I loved Llewyn Davis in the theater, really want to see it again but my partner is not a fan of that one.

Hail, Caesar! has been delightful every time I've rewatched. It's a real 'put it on' movie.

Well, this whole thing is just who knows who.

xxpost agree, barton fink didn't work for me.

inside llewyn davis is probably my favorite coen bros now, which i would not have expected after my first viewing. something pulled me back to it (the cat) and it has become comfort viewing for me. it has some really graceful ambiguity going on. it captures the absurdity and heartache of making art and wanting to be appreciated/paid for it, the sense of there being an endless number of reasonably talented people that slip between the cracks of history, the question of whether art is worth pursuing when one comes to the awareness that you are one of those people

llewyn davis > barton fink > hail caesar > serious man > millers crossing

would be my top 5. i like most of their others too though

xp I had lived with cats (not mine) before I saw Llewyn Davis, but now that I'm raising one with my partner, I've found the cat scenes much more affecting on second viewing.

Everyone I know who was excited to see it before it came out HATED it. One common complaint was the music which I more or less agree with - with one, maybe two exceptions, too much of it is a poor, unconvincing recreation or just thoroughly mediocre. The more damning complaint was that they hated the title character, and this is where I depart from their take on the film. He IS a complete asshole. But that's part of the film's main point. Whether music "redeems" him is debatable, but it's really the way he relates to the world, the way he processes everything he feels that he's never going to openly discuss, and the only means he has to express those things to anyone, often sadly to complete strangers. What he sings is always key, especially when you consider why those particular songs.

God, I would fuck the shit outta Oscar Isaac

xpost lol

i watched it through the lens of that magical time when you're in your twenties and the living is hard and everything seems full of possiblity and potential until suddenly those pathways start to close off

xp lol

Oscar Isaac really is great. Davis, The Card Counter, Show Me a Hero, the remake of Scenes from a Marriage...I probably won't see Moon Knight but with Ethan Hawke in there I wish they'd have dueling diary-writing scenes as an homage to their work with Paul Schrader.

ILD is incredible but i don't love the john goodman chunk, his character is a lot more cartoony than the rest of the movie

barton fink is one of my favorites, turturro is incredible (almost a proto-llewyn davis?) and john goodman is amazing and the ending is so cathartic (I'LL SHOW YOU THE LIFE OF THE MIND) in a way that many of their movies avoid

but trying to rank or pick a favorite feels impossible

I'd file "Barton Fink" as one of their ambiguously metaphysical movies, though its final scene is sort of on the same general plane as the final scene of "Burn After Reading," just totally opposite in tone. A lot of their movies end with some rhetorical variation of "what did I just watch?", often metaphorically but sometimes literally. It never really feels cynical to me, though a case can be made that its would-be profundity can come off phony.

i have to rewatch Barton. rewatched Miller's Crossing. . . it's fine!

one that I don't think holds up is Raising Arizona. Once you get to the yodel diapers chase, it loses steam for me. But I have only seen it 2x so who knows

I love that one, it's sometimes my favorite.

I have a friend who is the exact guy portrayed in ILD (down to the cat).

As I think I've said in another Coen Bros thread, Barton Fink wrote itself into a corner that defied any kind of acceptable ending, so they just burned it to the ground and walked away. However, it did quite well in the first poll here:

Best Coen Brothers movie

xps Raising Arizona is a great YouTube clip movie. There are so many bits and pieces of it that play so well as brief fragments, I thought it was going to be THE greatest comedy ever before I ever sat down to watch the whole thing. (It's still mostly enjoyable.)

Holly Hunter is pure gold in it.

it's easiest for me to say the ones i don't love:

miller's crossing - lots of great stuff in it but just not my favorite coens mode
the ladykillers - duh, though i haven't seen it since it came out
intolerable cruelty - fine but feels pretty empty
true grit - this is just never going to live up to the book for me and tbh i don't love bridges' performance

i haven't seen the man who wasn't there since it came out and i have no memory of it at all

https://vjmorton.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/arizonakid.jpg

I'll never understand why Miller's Crossing isn't valued more highly. It has almost dropped off the map at this point.

Still in the TSPDT Top 1,000 (#794), so I guess not quite. (High of #585 a while back.)

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.