The Coen Brothers' Burn After Reading

Next film is set in Minnesota in 1967, so just got the 70's to do.

ohh eric i really wanna see the women remake, no matter how thoroughly it butchers the original. meg ryan's hair + annette benning's face = OK
― Surmounter

You don't even watch the actual movies, do you?

this was fun, & the score works great

I am never going to be able to get the dildo rocker out of my mind, though

This was OK, but happy I didn't expect anything better than a breezy throwaway.

The trailer was a bait and switch, but I liked this a lot.

i liked this.

Pitt was actually very funny.

thumbs up. it did a great job of neutralizing the horrible taste of Righteous Kill.

This was OK, but happy I didn't expect anything better than a breezy throwaway.

A breezy throwaway that paints America as a land of moronic douchebags (otm, obv).

Pitt was funny til it reached the "look at me acting stupid" stage.

Number one this weekend!

is "portrays americans as stupid" really your benchmark these days?

? I think the bleakness under the comedy belies "breezy."

Of course it's #1, it's full of movie stars. Steep dropoff coming.

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I think the best joke is Pitt getting shot in the face in his first scene w/ George.

no, mark, I don't think it's all that good. The thesis is just one of its virtues.

i think that got the second most laughs, after dildo chair

xpost

well, I didn't mean haha funny, more "George & Brad, together ag... BLAM."

I have to confess I really didn't "get" the running Clooney/bolster joke.

he was using it to fuck Tilda

or he was using it to position his body in order to get at Tilda from another angle

yeah the lols were of the wtf variety, but definitely lols.
xxpost

i think it was just funny that his character was carrying it around. And it was the only thing he left with after they fought. I laughed.

oh, you hets

Most laughs in my theater was the scene where the bureaucrats green-lit McDormand's long-awaited surgeries. "Pay it!"

Dogville painted America as a land of moronic douchebags, too, and made a much better case.

But unfortunately, it was made by a bigger douchebag.

Most enthused smart-critic reaction:

Ooh, it's mean, ooh, it's misanthropic, oh dear, the characters are cartoonish, my my, but there's next to nothing at stake in this empty little contraption. WHO. CARES. This film is endlessly, uproariously funny, and never stops generating new dimensions of witty stupidity... So what if it has no "heart"? It never struck me as being actively mean, in the way that Todd Solondz or Neil LaBute movies or certain Alexander Payne movies are.... Aside from the endless FUCK. FUCK. FUCK.s, this is how they used to do screwball. I say this as someone who honestly never thought I would ever like another Coen Brothers film again, much less love one. I'm just flabbergasted. All hail the new Lebowski.

http://academichack.net/reviewsSeptember2008.htm#Burn

I also read Pitt's Chad as gay, ja?

I enjoyed this. Especially in retrospect, having sat through Eagle Eye last night.

i figured that was for certain.

one of the reviews i read described pitt as "presexual" or something equivalent

I enjoyed this, but compatriots fooled by the slapstick trailer were a little surprised by the Fargo vibe. It was good. Not great.

yeah pitt was kinda asexual as a sort of delayed-adolescent narcissist, i enjoyed his dumb face in this movie -- nice to see him when he's not doing his sexy face / cool face / serious face

i liked it a lot! i don't think it's cruel, but in the early scenes all i really got from it was a huge dose of pointlessness and depression.

JK Simmons, tho, that motherfucker is funny

"dribble?"

"we don't have extradition to venezuela"
"oh. oh yes, right, sir."
"so... what are we gonna do?"
"sir?"
"put him on a fucking plane to venezuela."
"oh yes, quite right, yes."

he's extra super funny to me atm cos i'm watching Oz, ha

"god no. burn the body"

I saw this tonight, enjoyed it, plenty of laughs, but I'm not sure if the combination of the caperish and the super-dark worked for me. More capers made the darkness much more OMG WTF incongruous than in Fargo, say. Kinda seemed like two different films smashed together with no care for reconciling the two parts, but I don't know if that's necessarily a bad thing.

Gotta wonder what kind of audience I was part of that saved their biggest laughs for *SPOILER*the gruesome axe-murder scene.*SPOILER*

I did like Brad Pitt, which is pretty rare.

I want an excuse to go to the movies. Is this not it?

Xp

lol everyone gasped at that bit when I watched it.

also yeah Brad Pitt's 'ha he thinks it's a schwinn' was major lollz

i would say its worth a watch, pinefox

SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOILER

if the movies about greedy and venal people getting their comeuppance, how come the only decent charachter (the ex priestnow gym manager) gets a hammer to the skull?

that's not what it's about.

it's not really about anything.

I didn't know what to make of it. I was expecting more slapstick comedy based on the trailer. I nearly walked out about a third of the way through. JK Simmons was the saving grace for me. I guess I "sorta" liked parts of it but am still baffled by the weird shifts in tone.

i'm ~tempted~ to think it's a small gesture toward a political point. in a lot of ways this is lebowski redux: self-obsessed creeps involved in an increasingly nasty caper, none of them seemingly able or in the least bit interested in figuring out what it is they're caught up in, only getting their hands on some illusory prize. as usual for the coens, not one character shows any ability to listen to or understand any other living thing, or have any self-awareness really.

only this time, the people involved have some responsibility over the rest of us. it's set in washington for a reason, i think.

The picture is quite slight, not very serious, but I think more enjoyable, and thus better, than reviews I've seen have said. The script is sometimes funny enough to be good, or vice versa. The final scene with the CIA officials wrapping things up absolutely trumps the rest of the picture, except for the earlier scene with the same officials - 'let me know when ... when ... well, let me know when it makes sense' - which was also good. That final scene was quite superb.

The final scene with the CIA officials wrapping things up absolutely trumps the rest of the picture

I don't agree. It's funny in and of itself, but it sits uneasily with the extreme darkness of what precedes it.

i'm ~tempted~ to think it's a small gesture toward a political point.

yeah pretty much. me and my wife joked after we saw it that it was about the cia's intelligence failures in the aftermath of 9/11. but she was half serious.

xpost: I think that uneasiness is pretty intentional!

lebowski redux: self-obsessed creeps involved in an increasingly nasty caper, none of them seemingly able or in the least bit interested in figuring out what it is they're caught up in, only getting their hands on some illusory prize. as usual for the coens, not one character shows any ability to listen to or understand any other living thing, or have any self-awareness really.

This sums up Burn After Reading pretty well, but I strongly disagree that it sums up Lebowski (like, at all).

hated the fucking music in this

ha i was gonna say that doesnt sound like lebowski whatsoever

should i bother seeing this in theaters