My Review: Raising Arizona (7/10)

"Are you boys gonna chase down your leads or are you gonna sit drinkin' coffee in the one house in the state where I know my boy ain't at?"

Raising Arizona, the Coen brothers' sophomore film, is an eccentric screwball comedy that feels cartoonish at times but served as an exercise in form for their upcoming comedies. This perhaps is much lighter in tone and more humane, but some of their common trademarks can be found in this early film of theirs. I don't think it's as cynical as most of their other work, but it does have a similar quirky sense of humor that can be found in all their comedies. Besides being original, it also happens to be very entertaining introducing some wacky and memorable characters. If you are fan of the Coen's work you will see a lot of familiar faces (John Goodman and Frances McDermond in supporting roles), but it was the lead roles from Nicolas Cage and Holly Hunter that truly surprised me. They were great together playing this unconventional family that will be really hard to forget. Hi is one of Nicolas Cage's most memorable characters and his crazy hair was the highlight of his performance. As in most of their films, the stereotypes are captured really well and this time it was the Southwest's turn to play for laughs with their thick accents. The performances in this film were all highly exaggerated giving the film its cartoonish tone. Raising Arizona was a joyful experience despite the fact that I didn't find myself laughing too hard; it's a good film, but not as good as The Big Lebowski. Despite their familiar trademarks, the Coens show so much range in their films going from neo-noir to slapstick comedies. They are a force to reckon with. 

H.I. McDunnough (Nicolas Cage) meets his future wife, Ed (Holly Hunter), in the most uncommon of situations. She is a police officer in Arizona, and he is a criminal who keeps on getting caught for robbing convenience stores. Since he never carries a loaded weapon his stints in prison are short, but he manages to turn his life around once he falls for Ed. They enjoy their first years of marriage and are truly happy together, so much so that Ed convinces Hi to start a family because their blissfulness should be shared. The only problem is that they are unable to conceive a baby and due to Hi's criminal past they can't adopt either. The only solution is to kidnap one so they find their perfect victim: one of the quintuplets of a furniture tycoon, Nathan Arizona (Trey Wilson). They don't think it's fair that the Arizona's got five children, so they convince themselves that they have more they can handle anyway. This event changes their lives forever as friends from Hi's past show up (John Goodman and William Forsythe), as well as his coworkers (Sam McMurray and Frances McDormand), and an evil apocalyptic bounty hunter (Randall Tex Cobb) who haunts his dreams. This baby has changed their lives forever.

The wacky and over the top performances in this film worked really well thanks to some skillful writing from the Coens and some clever one liners. I already mentioned how good the lead performances were, but some of the supporting turns were also quite impressive, the standouts being Frances McDormand and Randall Tex Cobb. Cobb's character reminded me a lot of a cartoonish version of Javier Bardem's turn in No Country for Old Men. There are also some very funny scenes revolving around Trey Wilson and once again the Coens make the victim look really unsympathetic, allowing the audience to root for the wacky outlaws. It's a charming film with some great scenes, one involving a long crazy chase across an Arizona neighborhood. It is a very sharp and clever comedy that also happens to be very entertaining taking us through an adventure that only the Coens could come up with.

My Review: Inside Llewyn Davis (8/10)

"If it was never new, and it never gets old, then it's a folk song."

The Coen brothers have worked together over the past couple of decades delivering some inspiring work. Their films are extremely varied (ranging from dark comedies to westerns or thrillers) and that is why people rank their films so differently according to their own genre preferences. What these films tend to have in common is that they focus on an unfortunate main character (the Coen brothers don't seem to be too interested in successful characters) and they also include a lot of quirky characters. The Coens are also great at writing interesting characters that despite being unpleasant at times still capture our attention,  and they also include a lot of dark and sharp humor. Inside Llewyn Davis is one of those films where we are forced to follow an unpleasant guy in the course of a week and somehow hope he recovers and achieves his goal. This is a film that you probably enjoy more when you think about it once it's over or on a rewatch because it's philosophical and sad, but rewarding none the less if you stick through it. It is also open to many readings and interpretations. You can think of this as being an honest film about someone who doesn't achieve his dreams. We've been saturated with so many films that focus on following our dreams and never giving up on them, but it is rare to see a film focusing on someone who doesn't achieve them. Like Llewyn, we sometimes throw away other possibilities for success because we are too blinded on pursuing our own thing. That is exactly what happens here (and in this way it differs from A Serious Man where the main character suffers misfortune from things that he can't control). Llewyn could've listened and taken good advice, but he's so narcissistic and blinded by his own ambition that he misses several good opportunities. Another way you can read this film, and this is the one that worked best for me, is that Llewyn is learning to cope with the loss of his partner. He was a better singer when he wasn't on his own and now that he has lost his partner he doesn't seem to know what to do next. He is a tortured artist struggling to cope with grief. It's as if the Coens were admitting that they wouldn't know how to make films without each other. They inspire one another and that is where their success relies. Perhaps if something would happen to one of them they would feel like Llewyn, lost and unable to move on. This is just brilliant filmmaking and the Coens prove once again that they are on top of their game.

The film takes place in the course of one week as we follow a struggling folk singer named Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaacs) across Greenwich Village in the winter of 1961. He has recently released a solo album that isn't selling. With no money and no apartment, Llewyn spends his days jumping from couch to couch at friends houses while performing small gigs at local Cafes. One of the places he crashes in is at fellow musicians, Jim (Justin Timberlake) and Jean's (Carey Mulligan) apartment. Llewyn isn't really a guy anyone wants to be around much, but he continues to pursue his dream of becoming a solo artist. In a way he's his own worst enemy as many of the obstacles he faces are his own doing. 

I'm not a fan of depressing films, but somehow the Coens captured my attention through their smart script and beautifully constructed film. The gray cinematography is gorgeous and really sets the melancholic tone of the film. Somehow despite not liking Llewyn, Isaacs manages to portray his character so well that we do root for him and want him to succeed. It's an impressive film that succeeds thanks to Isaacs heartfelt performance. We also get to meet some of the quirky characters that the Coens always include in their films. John Goodman and Garrett Hedlund were the chosen ones this time around and they both added the dark humor in this otherwise sad and melancholic film. The soundtrack is also a lot of fun to listen too and Isaacs has a great voice.

My Review: True Grit (10/10)

¨You must pay for everything in this world, one way and another. There is nothing free except the grace of God.¨

At first sight fans of the Coen brothers might not recognize True Grit as one of their works since it is a bit different from most of their other movies. First of all they never made a remake before and True Grit is actually one which stared John Wayne back in 1969. Sometimes we have so much high expectations from the Two-Headed directors that we expect original work from them, but I have to admit that this film is really superior to the original and the Coen`s have made one of the best westerns of the decade. True Grit is based on the novel of the same name written by Charles Portis, and the Coen brothers did an excellent job with the adaptation of the screenplay. The language feels so real for the period the film is depicting (set in 1880) and it just adds to the authenticity of the story, along with the great performance from the entire cast. However in my opinion the highlight of the film is Roger Deakins`s beautiful cinematography. Deakins is a regular collaborator for the Coen brothers and he is definitely one of the best in the field. True Grit won`t rank among the Coen`s best work (it isn´t Fargo, The Big Lebowski, nor No Country for Old Men), but it is an excellent film nonetheless and I can`t judge this film solely on my high expectations for it. True Grit is an excellent and perfectly executed Western and it will stand out as one of the best among the genre.

The movie takes place in a small town in Arkansas where a 14 year girl named Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) narrates the story of how her father has been cowardly murdered by a thief who goes by the name of Tom Chaney (Josh Broslin). Mattie is not your typical teenager; she is very smart and mature beyond her years. She decides to hire a U.S. Marshall to help her catch the runaway fugitive across the Indian nations. The man she is looking for is Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges), a man who has proven over time to have ¨true grit¨, although he looks more like an old and wasted alcoholic. Together they decide to chase Chaney across the Indian nation. Chaney seems to be working with Lucky Ned Pepper`s (Barry Pepper) gang, and they seem to be hot on their trail. Rooster and Mattie are not alone in their chase however, as a Texas Ranger named LaBoeuf (Matt Damon) is along the ride with them. He is after Chaney for a crime he committed against a Texas Senator a few years back. Mattie wants Chaney to be brought back to justice in her town in Arkansas for murdering her father and doesn´t really want LaBoeuf to catch him and bring him back to Texas where he`ll die for killing a politician. The three of them form an unlikely bond on their pursuit of the fugitive.

The movie combines the right amount of action with comedy. You can tell Matt Damon and Jeff Bridges had a lot of fun with their roles, and they were great in this movie. Hailee Steinfeld had the most serious role as she played the uptight teenager, and she pulled it off really well. Her character actually did deliver some laughs due to her mature behavior. Steinfeld is the true star of this movie, although she has been considered for an Oscar in the Best Supporting category. There is no way she was a supporting character in True Grit; she had more screen time than anyone else in this movie and more than most of the actresses that are up for Best Lead Actress in the Oscars. I don´t know how she pulled it off, but she managed to outshine both Bridges and Damon in this movie, who were really great as well. True Grit received 10 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and I do agree with those nominations although I don`t think it will win many. If Deakins doesn`t win an Oscar for Best Cinematography then there is no justice in this world. It is just amazing. The film actually did really well in the Box Office, which isn`t usually very typical for a Coen brothers movie, but maybe Steven Spielberg`s involvement as the Executive Producer had something to do with that. I actually enjoyed True Grit and I can´t find anything negative to say about this movie. It is perfect even though it won`t live up to Joel and Ethan`s best work. True Grit is without a doubt one of the best films of the year.

http://estebueno10.blogspot.com/

My Review: A Serious Man (7/10)

¨You can`t understand the physics without understanding the math. The math tells how it really works. That`s the real thing; the stories I give in class are just illustrative, they`re like fables, say, to help give you a picture.¨

(7/10) Those are the words professor Larry Gopnik tells one of his student`s who is trying to bribe him in order to get a better grade and that is perhaps what the Coen brothers were trying to tell us about this movie. The entire plot serves as just an illustration to something they don`t have all the answers to. Just like the story one of the Rabbi`s tells Larry about the Goy`s teeth which doesn`t have a resolution, but nevertheless that doesn`t mean it isn`t a good story. Larry seems so preoccupied in this film to discover the meaning of all the tragedies that he is going through that we are expecting to find an answer, but what the directors are telling us is that sometimes there isn`t an explanation for things that happen, they just do. This is the Coen brothers (Joel and Ethan also known as ¨The Two-Headed Director¨ because they tend to work together) latest film after their Oscar Award winning No Country for Old Men and their dark comedy Burn After Reading. A Serious Man is more in the line of Burn after Reading except that it doesn`t count with the big names and most of the actors in this film are unknown. It is a much more personal movie for the directors who themselves are Jews who grew up in Minneapolis. The humor in this film is dark and it isn`t a laugh out loud film, but it does have a lot of comedy in it that mixes well with the depressive mood the main character is in.

The story takes place near 1970 in a Minneapolis suburb. The main character of the film is Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg who had a small role in Body of Lies and is mostly known for working in plays) a Jewish Physics professor who explains most everything through mathematical equations. His life begins to turn upside down when his wife asks for a divorce because she has fallen in love with one of his best friends, while at the same time one of his students is trying to bribe him in order to get a better grade in his exam or sew him for defamation if he says anything, his son and daughter are a major headache, and to make matters worse his immature and unemployed brother is living in his couch. Things begin to unravel one by one for Larry and he seems to be falling into one debt after another due to the different lawsuits and problems he faces. Comparisons with the Biblical story of Job can`t be ignored at this point as he seems to be falling deeper and deeper into disgrace. Sari Lennick plays Judith, Larry`s wife who is tired of her marriage and is ready to live with Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed). I didn`t know either of these actors, but they both did a great job, especially Fred who was probably the funniest character in the film. Larry´s son, Danny (Aaron Wolff, also a newcomer) is studying Hebrew because he is about to have his bar mitzvah, but he gets into trouble for listening to Jefferson Airplane in class and buying weed from one of his classmates. Larry`s troubled brother, Arther (played by Richard Kind from Spin City) who lives with him and always seems to be getting into trouble with the law, gives him as much headaches as his son. Everywhere Larry turns he seems to be getting himself into trouble so he decides to go visit the Rabbi, but he can never get a hold of Rabbi Marshak (Alan Mandell) so he first has to settle with young Rabbi Scott (Simon Helberg from The Big Bang Theory) and later with Rabbi Nachtner (George Wyner), but neither of them have the answers he`s looking for.

If we actually pay attention to the small clues that the Coen brothers leave we know that Larry will not find the answers he`s looking for. At first I wasn`t excited about the ending of the film, but after I thought about it I really loved it. It would have been so easy to end the movie a few minutes before it actually did and we would think that Larry would end up fixing his life, but the final parallel sequence between him in college receiving a phone call from his medic and the one with Aaron in his Hebrew class is just great and really has the Coen signature all over it. The movie is very entertaining although I wouldn`t say it is among my favorite Coen films. I think Fargo is by far their best movie to date. Anyways it is always a lot of fun to watch their movies and most any actor would work for them for free. The opening sequence only served as a mere illustration as did the story of Goy`s teeth. Rabbi Scott would say that both are simply different perspectives which don`t have a real purpose; you`re better off if you let it be. I recommend this movie especially if you are a Coen fan.