Monday at the Movies - April 3, 2017

Welcome to another installment of “Monday at the Movies.” When your Cinema King goes channel-flipping, you never know what he’ll find.

A Serious Man (2009) – It’s no secret around here that I’m a fan of Joel and Ethan Coen, but I hadn’t remembered this movie well enough to prepare myself for how quickly it would sink its claws into my brain and there prey upon my weakness for a good puzzle box. Put another way, as its protagonist frequently laments, “What’s going on?!” Michael Stuhlbarg stars as physics professor Larry Gopnik, up for tenure amid a swirling cavalcade of calamity; his son’s bar mitzvah rests in a hazy pot-clouded future, his shiftless brother (Richard Kind) lives on his couch, a divorce looms with his wife and her ersatz beau Sy Ableman, and a disgruntled South Korean student may have left a bribe in Prof. Gopnik’s office. The film is Gopnik’s search for answers – from his family, his attorneys, and his God – but as with most Coen movies, the result is a madcap romp seasoned with light misanthropy, a dizzying world that makes increasingly less sense but nevertheless transfixes the viewer. It shares some affinity with Barton Fink, whose glasses Gopnik seems to have borrowed, and it carries a similar theme of a bewildered academic who’s all the more frustrated by the feeling that all of this should be making sense to him. After a few viewings, I’m still not sure if this is a modern-day story of Job or a postmodern search for answers in a world unable to provide them, but two things of which I’m certain – it’s irresistibly hilarious and eminently quotable. I don’t often hear this mentioned among the best of the Coens, though I’m starting to think that’s a weirdly exclusive list, since A Serious Man is as good as any of their other comedies of errors.

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you next week!

Hail, Caesar! (2016)

Hail, Caesar! tickles a lot of my moviegoing fancies: it’s a dark comedy farce courtesy of the Coen Brothers, in which an all-star cast of buffoons blunders their way through old Hollywood while the plot twists and turns like a postmodern poodle chasing its own tail. That may not be everyone’s cup of tea, recalling the plotless meandering of The Big Sleep and its successors, but for me it’s the most fun I’ve had at a movie in a long while (yes, maybe even more fun than Deadpool).

Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin) has the unenviable job of being the chief “fixer” for Capitol Pictures; when something goes amuck, it’s Eddie’s task to make sure the motion picture shows go on. The latest catastrophe he’s tasked with suppressing is the abduction of Baird Whitlock (George Clooney), Capitol’s number-one star, though somewhat of a lush and a dim bulb. Of course, the Capitol lot is busy with numerous other crises, including a disgruntled mermaid (Scarlett Johansson), a highstrung director (Ralph Fiennes) and his twanging lead actor (Alden Ehrenreich), twin newspaper columnists (Tilda Swinton and Tilda Swinton), and a chipper musical star (Channing Tatum).

I’m reviewing Hail, Caesar! as someone who has very much partaken of the Coen kool-aid, so if The Big Lebowski was never your cup of tea or if Burn After Reading left you feeling parched, this is really more of the same, and you’d be better off watching something else. I say “more of the same” not as a negative, because I’m personally delighted to see more of the madcap mania the Coens have turned into a personal brand because it’s not something I get anywhere else at the cinema. No one does horseplay like Joel and Ethan Coen.

As for the plotlessness of Hail, Caesar!, the film is akin to an indoor amusement ride in which the audience shuffles from film set to film set to peek in on a day (27 hours, to be precise) in the life of 1950s Hollywood, and each of these individual setpieces is an exercise in the line between straight-face and satire. The Coens are masters at straddling this line, allowing the characters’ idiocy to penetrate to the foreground without the need to resort to caricature or signposting. On the surface, there’s nothing intrinsically funny about Tatum’s song-and-dance routine, but there’s something about the deadset sincerity, coupled with the amazingly insightful small nods to clichés of the era (such as taking the bartender’s dish rag and polishing his bald dome with it), leave the audience rolling with laughter – a continuous giggle punctuated by bursts of glee. Which is not to say there aren’t jokes; the moment when an Eastern Orthodox priest dismisses a chariot stunt as “fakey” is as funny as anything in a comedy special, and the moment when Hobie finds it difficult to drop his accent when saying “Would that it twere so simple” gets funnier the longer the gag goes on.

Then there’s the ever-present Coen delight of seeing a team of A-listers perambulating through the spectacle. Brolin is engaging as the over-hardboiled fixer, gritting his way through exaggerated Catholic guilt, and his interactions with the other cast members carry the film on his tensed shoulders. As ever, it’s a delight to see George Clooney playing the quintessential Coen idiot, who here scratches his head at his own kidnapping while being naively dazzled when his captors introduce him to the writings of Karl Marx. Even Coen mainstay (and spouse) Frances McDormand pops in for a vignette as a film editor whose scarves get caught in the projection reels. Delightfully madcap cameos like this one make Hail, Caesar! a standout.

At the conclusion of Hail, Caesar! everything wraps up fairly quickly and tidily. Whether this is a ending far too pat for the demands of realism, or whether I simply didn’t want the film to end, is up for debate; or is it, as the film suggests, a commentary on the function of films in society, as illusory dreams constrained by their own rules, entirely divorced from reality? It’s the final indication that Hail, Caesar! is something much smarter than it might initially present. The joke is on the characters, not on the audience, and the steadfast refusal of the Coens to pander is a tremendous credit to us and to them. Hail, Caesar! indeed!

Hail, Caesar! is rated PG-13 for “some suggestive content and smoking.” There’s a quick mention of an unwed pregnancy and one unelaborated mention of sodomy.

Heads up, True Believers – we’ll continue to Make Yours Marvel this Wednesday with another installment in “The Grand Marvel Rewatch,” so check back then for 2010’s Iron Man 2. Or subscribe above, and receive those missives right in your inbox. Nuff said!

The Big Lebowski (1998)

To say that I'm a fan of the Coen Brothers is something of an understatement: they're among my favorite filmmakers, abundantly entertaining and deftly profuse. So to say that The Big Lebowski is my favorite Coen flick is probably also an understatement (though Barton Fink kind of muddles that statement).

There are two Jeffrey Lebowskis - The Dude (Jeff Bridges), amiable stoner hero extraordinaire prone to swilling White Russians, and The Big Lebowski (David Huddleston), a prime mover in the L.A. region. When the two are confused by a pair of nitwit goons - and one micturates on The Dude's rug - looking for The Big Lebowski's wife Bunny (Tara Reid) and the money she owes to one Jackie Treehorn, that's where the trouble begins. It only gets worse when The Dude tells bowling buddies Walter Sobchak (a perfectly over-the-top John Goodman), a Vietnam vet obsessed with his service and his religion ("Shomer Shabbos!"), and Donny (Steve Buscemi), who can't seem to get a word in edgewise, Walter convinces The Dude to petition The Big Lebowski for rug compensation. After all, "that rug really tied the room together."

That's all in the first ten or so minutes. The rest is a tangled web of mystery, blackmail, kidnapping, Creedence Clearwater Revival, pornography, deceit, and bowling. Eat your heart out, Raymond Chandler. Speaking of Chandler, this is the best adaptation of The Big Sleep since Bogart and Bacall bantered back in the Forties. It's also the most comprehensible, although I'll admit it took me a second viewing to fully understand just what had happened. This is a top-notch screenplay from the Coens, poetically profane and tantalizingly tangled.

Much as Sweeney Todd was for Tim Burton, this is the movie that the Coens have been aiming to make throughout their whole career. It's got all the Coen staples - both plot points and cast members - and it's their pinnacle film. Nothing before or since - not even No Country for Old Men, Oscar-winner though it may be - has matched The Big Lebowski.

The film takes place in a world populated by classic Coen characters, The Dude and Walter not least among them. There's John Turturro as pederast bowler Jesus Quintana, who talks a big game; Philip Seymour Hoffman as bootlicking sycophant butler Brandt; Julianne Moore as feminist artist Maude, who wants The Dude in more ways than one; Ben Gazzara as mysterious smut peddler Jackie Treehorn; Arthur Digby Sellers, a classic TV writer now confined to an iron lung; his son, a sloppy juvenile delinquent; and Sam Elliott as The Stranger, a narrator soothing enough to give Morgan Freeman a run for his money.

It's difficult to say much more about The Big Lebowski beyond "It must be seen." This is a wholly original movie that really escapes description. Relaxed and entertaining, The Big Lebowski is certainly my favorite Coen Bros. picture - and may even land a spot on my irregular-around-the-margins Best Movies of All Time list.

Barton Fink (1991)

Where do we begin discussion about a film like the Coen Brothers' Barton Fink? Do we examine the allegories to Nazism, the Fight Club syndrome that diagnoses most films as "it's all in his head," my personal theory that the Hotel Earle is really hell, or do we simply ask "What the heck is up with John Turturro's hair?"

After the lackluster Blood Simple., I needed a film that would restore my faith in the filmmaking abilities of Joel and Ethan Coen. It was then that I realized that I was two films shy of seeing the enire Coen canon - Barton Fink and The Hudsucker Proxy. Almost by fate, Fink fell on television yesterday afternoon, so I had to take a powwow for it.

Let me say this about Barton Fink. It is the most fascinating "slow movie" I have ever seen. That is, the pacing of the movie is deliberate and without hurry, but - though little happens on the screen for large portions of time - I could not stop watching. Even as the credits rolled, I remained glued in thought.

After his socially conscious play makes big splashes, quirky playwright Barton Fink (Turturro) lands a gig writing Wallace Beery wrestling flicks for Capitol Pictures. While desperately attempting to dodge deadlines and writer's block, Barton Fink resides at the Hotel Earle, a place where Steve Buscemi valets, strange noises come from the sixth floor, and his boisterous neighbor Charlie Meadows (John Goodman) is a constant visitor - who sometimes steals the glassware. The film is a butterfly collection of the most unique characters the Coens have ever crafted, including angry film moguls Jack Lipnick (Michael Lerner) and Ben Geisler (Tony Shalhoub), groveling gopher Lou Breeze (Jon Polito), drunken novelist Bill Mayhew (Frasier's dad John Mahoney), and his jaded sweetheart Audrey Taylor (Judy Davis).

If it sounds like a lot to take in, that's because there are a lot of parentheses in the preceding paragraph. The Coens keep the film moving and create three-dimensional figures that are characteristically Coen in their prolixity and personality overloads. The basic through-line of the film is simple - Barton Fink has writer's block. The rest of the film is a series of character-driven vignettes that give the Coens an opportunity to flex their dialogue muscles and give the actors involved the chance to show us just how believable they can make these ridiculous characters.

The central performance - though all are worthy of commendation - is Turturro's Fink. Fink is restrained, quiet, shy, and nervous; everything Turturro does, from the quiver in his voice to the way he holds his coffee cup, is completely in step with his character. Ditto for Goodman, who's perfectly cast as the jolly world's-worst-neighbor.

An added bonus is the absolutely beautiful set design and direction that make me nostalgic for a 1941 that probably never was. Every set piece contributes to the all out 40s-immersion the film projects, prompting me to say at several points, "Boy, I wish I could live there." Even the decrepit Hotel Earle, with its peeling wallpaper and occasionally igniting walls, generates that nostalgic feeling.

If we are to believe the theory that Barton Fink is a response to/remake of David Lynch's Eraserhead, it's a marked improvement. But I'm inclined to believe that Barton Fink is a wholly original Coen creation, because no one else could have come up with a product as quirky at this one.

Blood Simple. (1985)

If I may be fatuous for a moment, the Coen Brothers only make two kinds of movies: balls-out comedies with overtly verbose protagonists (think The Big Lebowski or O Brother, Where Art Thou?) and dark tragicomedies of an elaborate crime gone horribly wrong (Fargo is perhaps the seminal example, though we can't overlook their Oscar winner No Country for Old Men). [The Ladykillers tried to be both - and failed miserably.]

Blood Simple, the first Coen Bros. vehicle, is most certainly an example of the latter.

When Marty (Dan Hedaya, who never seems to stop brooding) discovers that his wife Abby (Coen staple and wife Frances McDormand) is cheating on him, he hires private detective (or, in the parlance of our times, brother shamus) Loren Visser (M. Emmet Walsh) to kill her and her lover Ray (the slightly unsettling John Getz). Visser opts for a double cross, stages the death of Abby and Ray, and attempts a real murder - of Marty. But, in true Coen fashion, the best laid plans of mice and men... well, you know the rest.

As the first Coen Brothers film (and pretty much the last one of theirs I hadn't seen), there's a lot in here that seems familiar to a loyal viewer - or precursors of things to come in their cinematic canon, if we're taking things chronologically. It has the tangled plot and mystery angle of The Big Lebowski, the violence and crime-gone-wrong of Fargo, and the scenery and moral ambiguity of No Country for Old Men.

That said, it's not a particularly great film. The direction is interesting but lacks the polish anad overall flair that the Coens are known for. The plot, though intricate, never fails to hook the viewer's attention, relying on frustratingly terse characters who always seem to do the wrong thing and never really earn the audience's sympathy. And the pacing of the film is brutally slow at times, with a great deal of the film elapsing in silence. What dialogue there is isn't terrifically memorable.

For the most part (setting aside Walsh's performance for now), the acting (which is limited to only four important players) is restrained to the point of dullness. Almost everyone wears a mask of general unease on his/her face, but nothing truly comes of the unease, and there's no progression beyond that to show off acting chops that I know McDormand, if no one else, possesses. The notable exception here is Walsh, whose portrayal of ethically sketchy Loren Visser can rightly be called the first "Coen Brothers character" to join the ranks of The Dude, Anton Chigurh (who I suppose is more Cormac McCarthy than Coen), and Marge Gunderson. Each time Walsh is on the screen, he's riveting, leaving the audience guessing how and why he's doing what he's doing - and what exactly is he doing, anyway?

The plot and dialogue are not supremely memorable. A few plot twists - and dead people that won't stay dead - are good for a few "What the--?!" moments, and the Coens keep the violence at an evenly blatant level, just enough to unsettle and startle but not enough to wholly disturb. And the film is missing trademark Coen dialogue; I find myself unable to recall any good lines from the film, save the dramatic "I don't know what you're talking about, Ray" and Walsh's eerie chuckle.

These are the same guys who wrote The Big Lebowski? There are a few moments where I believe it, but for the most part Blood Simple is no Citizen Kane. As debut films go, Blood Simple is better than a few I can think of (the exceedingly dull Garden State, anyone?), but the Coens have done a lot better. Thank goodness for that. As a quaint "Oh look where they started. My, how far they've come, eh?" experiment, Blood Simple isn't terrible. But as a film standing on its own two legs?

The best, as they say, was yet to come for the Coens.