Burn After Reading (George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, Richard Jenkins, Tilda Swinton, J.K. Simmons) – The Coen Brothers return to their patented formula in this hysterical comedic tragedy of three workers at a “Hardbodies” fitness center (McDormand, Pitt and Jenkins) who find what they think to be classified CIA information on a CD left at the gym. Recently fired-CIA analyst Osborne Cox (what a great character name!), played by John Malkovich in that role he seems to always play so perfectly, is anxious to get back at his old employer by writing a memoir. Of course, that’s really when the fitness dimwits find out they’re way out of their league in dealing with Cox. Meanwhile, back in the Coen’s bizarre minds, Cox’s humorless wife, Katie (played by Tilda Swinton), is having an affair with happily married but perpetually “playing around” gadfly, Harry (played by Swinton’s co-star in Michael Clayton, the sexiest man in the world, George Clooney). She wants to leave her husband for Harry; Harry just likes sleeping around; Harry’s wife suspects something; the Hardbodies duo of Linda and Chad (McDormand and Pitt) tries to sell the disc to the Russians; the CIA follows it all; and it’s just fun. Well, not all fun. There is a hatchet, a gun, impending cosmetic surgery, an affair to remember, and a few other surprises along the way. This is one funny and bizarre film from the kings of the genre. Make sure you see it.
The Coens: Born in the Twin Cities, the brothers were sons of two college professors. Joel is 53; Ethan has a birthday this Sunday and will be 51. Both graduated from a so-called “early college,” Simon’s Rock of Bard College in Barrington, Mass., before Ethan went to Princeton and Joel to the Institute of Film and TV at the Tisch School for the Arts at New York University.
After college, they began writing screenplays. The lifelong collaboration has resulted in a filmography that is rich in creativity, cutting-edge plots, off-beat characters, and a unique blend of comedy, violence and drama all wrapped up into one. They write; they produce; and they direct.
Perhaps the films they are best known for are (wth some help from imdb.com):
1987’s Raising Arizona, a movie I personally didn’t like but one that featured Nicholas Cage and Holly Hunter as a childless, infertile couple who decide to kidnap one of the quintuplets of a rich furniture tycoon named Nathan Arizona. The characters are very Southern and very bizarre. John Goodman, who appears in four other Coen Brothers movies, has a classic role as does future Oscar winner Frances McDormand, who is Joel’s real-life wife.
1991’s Barton Fink earned three Academy Award nominations. Set in 1941, the story is about a newly successful New York playwright (played by John Turturro, another regular of Coens’ films) who accepts an offer to write movie scripts in LA, and finds himself with writer’s block when required to do a B-movie wrestling script, the only relief coming from a traveling salesman living next door, played by John Goodman.
The 1994 film, The Hudsucker Proxy, had only a bit role for Goodman but brought the incomparable Paul Newman into the Coens’ troupe along with Tim Robbins and Jennifer Jason Leigh. There’s even a small role for a young Anna Nicole Smith, believe it or not. When Waring Hudsucker (played by Charles Durning), head of hugely successful Hudsucker Industries, commits suicide, his board of directors, led by Sidney Mussberger (Newman), comes up with a brilliant plan to make a lot of money and appoint a moron to run the company (Tim Robbins as Norville Barnes, who just started in the mail room). When the stock falls low enough, they figure, Sidney and friends can buy it up for pennies on the dollar, take over the company, and restore its fortunes. But reporter Amy Archer (Jennifer Jason Leigh) smells a rat and begins an undercover investigation of Hudsucker Industries.
It was the 1996 brilliant film, Fargo, that propelled the Coen Brothers to fame and fortune. The story of a down-on-his-luck car salesman, played by William H. Macy, who decides to have his own wife kidnapped so he can collect the ransom money from his rich father-in-law, Fargo is a brilliant comedy that becomes a violent tragedy. When things go awry with the kidnappers, featuring an absolutely brilliant performance from Steve Buscemi, the Fargo cops step in, led by McDormand as the Police Chief. She is so wonderful as the Columbo-by-day, housewife at night Marge Gunderson with that Minnesota-North Dakota accent that you get caught up in a typical crime drama while laughing your head off.
That film was followed by The Big Labowski with John Goodman and Jeff Bridges as the stars. The plot is typical Coens — Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski (Bridges) is the ultimate LA slacker, until one day his house is broken into and his rug is urinated on by two angry gangsters who have mistaken him for Jeffrey Lebowski, an LA millionaire whose wife owes some bad people some big money. The Dude becomes entangled in the plot when he goes to visit the real Lebowski in order to get some retribution for his soiled rug, and is recruited to be the liaison between Lebowski and the captors of his now “kidnapped” wife. No Oscar nods here, but just a good time.
In 2000, they did the very odd, Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?, with Turturro, George Clooney, Tim Blake Nelson, John Goodman and Holly Hunter (again). Loosely based on Homer’s ‘Odyssey,’ the movie deals with the bizarre adventures of Everett Ulysses McGill (Clooney) and his companions Pete (Turturro) and Delmar (Nelson) in 1937 Mississippi. Sprung from a chain gang and trying to reach Everett’s home to recover the buried loot of a bank heist they are confronted by a series of strange characters.
The Man Who Wasn’t There played the art houses in 2000 as well. About a personality-challenged barber who blackmails his wife’s lover, this was a great role for Billy Bob Thornton. McDormand plays the wife, James Gandolfini (of The Sopranos) plays Big Dave Brewster and there are small parts for such then-unknowns as Scarlett Johansson, Tony Shaloub and this year’s character actor turned star Richard Jenkins.
Intolerable Cruelty with Clooney and Catherine Zeta-Jones followed. Two win-at-all-cost divorce lawyers go at it in a battle royal. It’s the closest thing to a love story that the Coen Brothers even did. Billy Bob Thornton shows up here too.
The biggest bomb in the Coens’ arsenal was the can’t-miss 2004 Tom Hanks vehicle Ladykillers. A remake of a 1955 comedy, the story revolves around a Southern professor who puts together a group of thieves to rob a casino. They rent a room in an old woman’s house, but she soon discovers the plot and they must kill her, a task that is more difficult than it seems. The movie did $40 million in gross, very low for a Hanks movie, and audiences found it more bizarre than funny.
And it was three years later – just last year — that they hit pay dirt with No Country for Old Men. Talk about going a different way! They adapted the Cormac McCarthy book into a devastatingly bloody, wicked film about a drug bust gone bad and the search for the money by the most ruthless killer since Hannibal Lector. Javier Bardem won an Oscar, too, and Tommy Lee Jones plays the laid-back but determined cop.