so goddamn creepy rewatched it with my wife this weekend.

 

Mike Leigh's Naked with David Thewlis from 1993. highly recommended if you are in mood for dark comedy/drama (and for some Manchester accent). The script was largely created by improvisation during 11 weeks of rehearsal before shooting. The script was only 25 pages long.

from imdb: Johnny flees Manchester for London, to avoid a beating from the family of a girl he has raped. There he finds an old girlfriend, and spends some time homeless, spending much of his time ranting at strangers, and meeting characters in plights very much like his own.




I found out about this movie through The Orb's track S.A.L.T. from Orblivion album who used sample from this movie (The Mark Of The Beast scene...amazing dialog)

found it on youtube in full and watched it again. big thanks to uploader.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMwzvAt84P8

No Country was a creepy show, but it really didn't seem very "Coen-y" to me, lack of humor and snappy dialog. It just seemed like a good adaption of the book. What the hell is Cormac up to these days, the racist old bastard?

That Mike Leigh is fantastic, thanks for the link.

It wasn't very Coen-y in the normal sense. But they were on an adaptation kick for a while, with No Country and True Grit. I think they wanted to fuck around with more traditional film making. I think it's a great movie. Great acting, great cinematography, great pacing... Almost Hitchcockian at times. A real classic. Better than the book, in my opinion.

But my favorite Coen Bros. films are the ones that pack the black comedic punch (Fargo, Barton Fink) or the pure absurdity of Burn After Reading and O Brother. Their style is so unique that I can't help but think their talents are a bit wasted on non-originals. But No country was stellar.

Have you seen Hail Caesar? Not their best, but still pretty good. One of my favorites is Millers Crossing, especially the dialog.

i love this film. its absolutely in my all time best list

Miller's Crossing is fucking AMAZING. That was my favorite film EVER for years. I was going through a bit of a "gangster" phase, (in other words, pretty much a Scorcese, Coppola, early Tarantino phase), and being Irish I particularly loved that film. Best Irish mob film ever. God, Albert Finney as Leo in that fucking movie... electric! That scene with the cigar (you know the one, I'm sure) ... Just wow.

Now I think I prefer Fargo and Barton Fink. But Miller's Crossing is up there. Underrated. A classic.

No, I haven't seen Hail Caesar! I heard so-so things about it. I kind of lost track of the Coens around the time they made Intolerable Cruelty and Ladykillers (yikes). I got back into them in '07 and '08 with No Country and Burn After Reading, but A Serious Man SUCKED to me, and I think I need to rewatch it because everyone else loved that ... Thing. I liked True Grit, but didn't even try to watch Inside Llewyn Davis (kinda want to though.) Anyway, point is I haven't really kept up hardcore since Big Lebowski and O Brother.

But I read about Hail Caesar! and it sounds like "my kind of Coens."

Yeah, it is pretty extrordinary. I think the Javier Bardem's performance in this film is one of the three best male screen performances of 200-2009. Just below Heath Ledger in the Dark Knight, and Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood.

^ three times Oscar got it right.

Also, No Country for Old Men certainly deserved that Best Picture Oscar. More than any film in recent memory. I would have been happy with TWBB winning, but No Country is a cinematic achievement. Might not be "Classic Coens" like Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, Fargo, Lebowski, etc. But it's a masterpiece nonetheless.

You guys wanna weigh in on a strange "classic dilemma" question that's been rattling around in my head for about 20 years now?

COEN BROS.
vs.
TARANTINO

I don't know exactly why I've always compared the two. Maybe it started with Fargo being declared "this year's Pulp Fiction" on the VHS box in 1997. Maybe it's something else. But both are definitely outside-the-box indie-film auteurs who've gained international acclaim for their crime stories, weird ass characters, artistic appreciation for violence done right, etc.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. To me it seems as natural as comparing Ridley Scott and James Cameron back in the '80s and '90s. But maybe I'm just crazy.

its funny you mentioned There Will Be Blood that is another masterpiece i was just randomly thinking about. damn it do i love every minute of that film

i think coen brothers get the nod as better film makers but i think Tarantino could win it for Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown alone. however if we went item by item on the filmography of Coen bros vs Tarantino i think overall they have a larger body of quality films. in many respects i think No Country.. is their best work

i liked seven psychopaths but its not a flick you can watch repeatedly.

Yeah, me too. Gives me chills every time. It's Paul Thomas Anderson's best film. And Daniel Day Lewis just killed it. That guy is a motherfuckin' actor. But that's not news. He's been killing it since My Left Foot and In The Name of the Father. I wish he took on more rolls though.

From a cinematic perspective, Blood reminds me a lot of Dark Knight. A lot of it has to be the ambient guitar drone, but it's also the way the shots are set up, the way tension builds, and the story moves along. TWBB is dark as hell, and extremely sinister, and its pacing reminds me of TDK.

I am a Coen Bros fan from the way back. However, I did not enjoy Oh Brother where art thou one bit. I found it corny, stupid, and nostalgic in the worst possible way. fuck that sepia toned bullshit movie.

Hail Ceasar was not great but fun, but it is a love story to old Hollywood filmmaking. every shot and character is an homage to the old 30's-40's Hollywood films. if you do not like those films or have a familiarity with them you will not enjoy Hail Ceasar Salad.

and I was bored by There will be blood. I turned it off about 1 hour in and could give fuck to watch the rest of it. Just did not care.

I certainly wasn't as impressed with There Will Be as many others. I thought the story was poorly done at the end. Daniel Day is pretty great, though the Last of Mohicans is a great Sat afternoon popcorn movie.

You may need to rewatch A Serious Man, I think it's pretty autobiographical. Inside Llyewyn is like it, better on the 2nd time around.

Why's that? I've only seen it once, and haven't been moved to see it again, but I'm curious why you think this is the case.

You are an odd duck, Rob.

I didn't like O Brother Where Art Though when I first saw it. It took a while. I really warmed to it once I learned that it was based on The Odyssey though. I had to have that story in mind to appreciate it.

And you know, it's supppsed to be corny as fuck. It really is. The sneaky thing about the Coens is the way they can create an utterly absurd little film and then pepper it with deeply disturbing and unsettling moments, like the KKK scene, and the other bit with Johm Goodman's "Cyclops" character. Just comes out of nowhere... much like the ending of Barton Fink, which is without question one of the most fucked up endings in the history of film.

The Coens claimed early on that their desire was to make films in every genre. I did not like whatever genre they saw Oh Brother Where art thou as. I also HATED that shit ass soundtrack. fuck that shit.

There will be... felt like I was watching an "important" movie but not an entertaining movie.

I thought it was real good until the end. Then got real "fanciful" and not in a good way.

I hated the end the first time I saw it. Mainly because the kid who plays the preacher was NOT convincingly made up to look like an adult. He had wrinkles and shit, but his voice still sounded like a child's.

When I re-watched it I found this much less irritating. Not sure why. That ending really speaks volumes about the entire "moral" of the story, which is that our society has been forged by the equally corrupt worlds of religion and industry, and drives the point home that there is no such thing as man overcoming sin, and that God simply has no place in the day to day dealings of human beings.

Quite nihilistic. Quite dark. And of course our fucked up demon of a protagonist is unphased and ultimately triumphant, which is pretty much how things work in the real world.

damn my phone i meant to say the opposite!

the fucking ending was brilliant! i don't think it was anti-religion or anti-God but rather anti-charlatan and while i can understand why folks from atheist background could see it as such as atheists tend to see all religions as charlatans BUT i felt There Will Be Blood was criticizing the bogus charlatans who were particularly active at that time in American history

also i thought that it made Daniel Plainview's character as being a charlatan of sorts the way he played the game with the feigned conversion and the bastard in a basket

I agree, I hated the ending.

what ending would y'all have expected?

i disagree that the moral is that "no one can overcome sin" but it definitely was highly critical view of the sins of some kinds of people. i also disagree that it says God has no place in day to day life, i think it was again critical of charlatans no doubt but i doubt it intended to say all religions are charlatans as certainly there is a difference even if God turns out to be omagined. charlatans like daniel plainview or Eli willfully manipulate people religious sentiments while not believing, that is different from sincere piety in people or religious ministers who might sincerely believe even of God turns out not to exist

That's pretty much what I meant.
I'm not an atheist. But I do think that evangelical Christianity is totally warped, and is basically nothing more than a long con.

But yeah, charlatans of any stripe. Be they manipulative religious zealots, cheating people out of money and into political action, or big industry types like Trump and the dudes at Enron. I think TWBB was about exposing the truth behind the lies that these two groups tell the world, and showing a terrifying picture of what hides behind the façades of "progress" and "faith" that the two primary characters represented.

Plainview telling these townspeople that he wanted to make them rich, make their lives better, when all he really wanted was power. And the preacher kid selling anger in response to Plainview's Puritan unfriendly sensibilities, also making a power grab, selling a lie of equal proportions to the masses searching for a leader, and a person to blame. A God and a Devil, I guess.

Really i agree with what you're saying completely. I just went about saying it in a different way, I guess. I don't think it was anti-religion. I'm not either. But I'm totally anti-charlatan, anti-phony ass conman, anti-greed, anti-power. And the film is a goddamn masterpiece because it presents such awesome/horrifying examples of two of the primary means by which evil is brought into the world: corrupt religion and corrupt commerce.

Yeah, again, I agree. I just said it wrong the first time around I guess.

I only had an issue with Eli's make up. I got past it, and by the second time I watched it, I just thought it was a perfect movie. I like the ending just fine.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Severian again

Think I'd have to go with Coen Bros. over Tarantino, simply because they have more 5-star (in my opinion) films to their credit than Mr. T.

Coens have:
Blood Simple
Miller's Crossing
Barton Fink
Fargo
The Big Lebowski
O' Brother Where Art Thou
Burn After Reading
No Country for Old Men

Tarantino has:
Reservoir Dogs
Pulp Fiction
Jackie Brown
KILL BILL (counting both volumes as one movie; get over it ;) )
Inglorious Basterds
Django Unchained

8-6 Coens.

Of course, the Coens have more shitty (Intolerable Cruelty), and meh/so-so (Hudsucker Proxy, A Serious Man) movies than Tarantino, who has... well, none. I haven't seen Death Proof, but I doubt it's outright shitty (probably quite fun, but not likely a 5-star work or a masterpiece).

I also haven't seen a couple Coens films (Hail Caesar!, Llewin Davis), but even if they're total shit, it won't take away from the cinematic mastery of their best films. I think Tarantino is a bit more singular... he's synthesized a style entirely his own out of Scorcese, Shaw Brothers, Coppola, Don Siegel, the spaghetti westerns and Blacksploitation films of the '70s, and a host of other stylistic and narrative elements from the history of film. With this he's managed to become more than just a revisionist, bringing an ultra-modern, often meta flare to "classic" filmmaking. He's more iconic and iconoclastic than the Coens.

The Coens are probably more adept at nuts and bolts filmmaking, having mastered black comedy and quiet tension on both script and screen. Despite being equally oddball when they're just being themselves, I'd say the Coens are more "mainstream" -- they're utterly absurd, but they also have a knack for making more generalized *movie* movies, if that makes sense. Like No Country and True Grit. Just total crowd pleasers that anyone can appreciate. I'm sure Tarantino has this in his skill set somewhere, but he's clearly not interested in making that kind of film.

The Coens are more masters of a craft than flippers of a script. The opposite is true for Tarantino, though he is certainly a master as well.

Blech. Not sure who I outright prefer, but statistically I'd have to go with the Coens. For now.

... 'Cause I know you were all just dying to know. ;)

Another thing about the Coens. You don't have to see all of what they're doing, movies like Fargo and O Brother are also pretty solid for their entertainment value. I think Quentin is a bit more "sledge-hammery" with his stuff, although Jackie Brown just rides both rails, too

Yes, I'd agree. Tarantino can be subtle — I think the script for Pulp Fiction will be studied by film students for centuries, unraveling the mysteries of that perfect dialogue — but he comes from a different angle completely than the Coens. Again, I think the Coens are heavily influenced by Hitchcock, a bit by Davud Lynch, and, odd ad it may sound, perhaps Woody Allen too. Their take on gangsterdom is heavy on the "radio days" ambiance, and very suspenseful and haunting. Tarantino's gangsters are a much louder, more motley crew. Scorcese would (should) be proud.

severian i did what you did to make an earlier post. i went through both filmography and determined overall the Coen brothers have a superior body of work though i admit my fav Tarantino films are like my all time fac films by any director

See? Lookit how alike we are when all is said and done! ;)

I watched the Hungarian movie Son of Saul yesterday.

It made me physically sick. It's a very very powerful movie, yet not for the weak-hearthed.

High Rise, newest one by Ben Wheatley......can't rightly say, had its moments, but nowhere near as good as Kill List or A Field in England. I did note that Wheatley had no writing credits for this one, instead his spouse, Ms Jump was responsible.....also, many of the stable of actors he's used were not in it, eg Mike Smiley...instead the box office gold types, Miller, Irons....so, it's sticking with me, but it's not on my recco list

Another Director-Director match-up that I think may be worth exploring:

Christopher Nolan v. David Fincher.

Obviously I'm a Nolan man. Dude's never made a film I haven't loved. But Fincher's had his moments, and at one time I thought he'd be a decent choice for a Batman reboot (before Nolan proved to be the only choice). But Fight Club, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Social Network, Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and Gone Girl were all good to great.

Nolan and Fincher really don't have a hell of a lot in common, I guess. I just think the comparison is rather apt, based on the dark/gritty and or surreal/epic qualities both directors bring to their projects. But what the fuck do I know? Not a ton, that's for sure.