I'm hoping to start a new series in which I take an overview of a director's film work and give them an overview. This deals with my personal tastes and how I rank their body of work. These are only the directors who's entire body of work I've seen so I've decided to start with the brothers who in my opinion are the best filmmakers working today. The Coen Brothers...Let's begin.
The Masterpieces
1. Miller's Crossing: A stunning piece of filmmaking that never grows old for me. This is my most watched Coen Brothers movie, it's highly entertaining, it's funny, tragic, hardboiled, mysterious, and marvelous to look at, all in all it encompasses why the Coens remain interesting today.
2. Barton Fink: The Coen's follow up to "Miller's Crossing" is just as mysterious, funny, and tragic. It deals with a writer who lives in the life of the mind. He's a Broadway golden boy whisked away to Hollywood to work on a Wrestling picture. He lives in one of the strangest Hotels known to man, he tries to grasp with writing about the common man, yet becomes unglued to the world around him. Basically it's a horror story about a writer and is not to be missed.
3. Fargo: Strangely enough, this violent, dark comedy is one of the Coen's most optimistic, light hearted and poetic films. A series of murder happens in North Dakota which brings together a bunch of desperate characters who come up against a very pregnant town sheriff. The Coens blend genres like they never have before and add stark beauty to the snowy wastelands of North Dakota, ending with one of their most touching finales.
4. No Country for Old Men: A stark contrast to "Fargo", but every bit as profound, it's a meditation on violence and the evils in the world, and what we are capable of facing, and the mystery about what is out there waiting for us. "No Country for Old Men" represents a change of pace for the Coens, their films afterwards have taken a darker tone.
5. A Serious Man: Their latest masterpiece and perhaps their darkest film, even though it's a comedy. It concerns a physics professor in the 1960s who is trying to come to grips as to why his life is unraveling around him. His wife is leaving him, a student of his is trying to blackmail him, he keeps getting anonymous letters from someone trying to sabotage his chances of getting tenure, and his son keeps bothering him to fix the satellite dish so he can watch "F-Troop"
6. Raising Arizona: Their first comedy is probably their best, it's about an ex-con and his policewoman wife who plot to kidnap a baby since they have none of their own. The Coens sometimes go too far with their broad comedy, but here, we get a sense of actually sympathizing with these people, and even though their plan is immoral, we root for them to create what they hope will be a normal family.
7. O Brother Where Art Thou?: Set in the depression era deep south, three escaped convicts bust out of a chain gang to look for some treasure. Probably The Coen Brothers most pleasant film, full of delightful word play, and puns. Boundaries aren't pushed, but they seem to ask us to enjoy the journey as we follow these three misfits through a Coens' odyssey.
The Underrated
1. Burn After Reading: The Coens all-star ensemble dark comedy about espionage and physical fitness. Although the film was one of the brother's best films financially, it was pretty much ignored by critics who claimed it to be another one of the Coens broad comedies about a bunch of idiots. Here The Coens go for darker than usual, unlike their other comedies before this which end with some sort of silver lining, this one leaves us shocked and a tad uneasy, but laughing all the way there.
2. The Man who Wasn't There: Why this isn't ranked higher in The Coens body of work I don't know. This has Billy Bob Thorton in one of his best roles as a barber who murders his wife's lover to money. It's filmed in beautiful black and white and sets its own pace. Like many of their films, many of the big questions are asked and we are left to ponder the mystery behind them. For anyone who hasn't seen this gem yet, seek it out.
The Overrated
1. The Big Lebowski: Although I thoroughly enjoy this film, I guess I'm tired of it being "THE" comedy by The Coens that gets all the attention. Jeff Bridges is "The Dude" there's no doubt about it, and John Goodman has never had a better movie role than he does here, but this film suffers from over exposure, I hope people discover many of the Coens other lesser known comedies, I'd start with "A Serious Man" myself.
The Misfires
1. The Ladykillers: Although not entirely without its merits, I find this to be the weakest of The Coen Brother's films. If anyone was to remake the classic Ealing comedy starring Alec Guinness, the Coens seem to be the ones to do it, their knack for dark humour fits that film's sensibility. However, I felt for once, the wit of The Coens is lost, and the stupidity of the characters takes over too much. Tom Hanks revels in his role, and like most of their films it's great to look at, it's just a film that doesn't seem to stick out.
The Others
1. Blood Simple: Their first film and for some, still their best, for me this is an exercise in style but just a bit more interesting than most filmmaker's first movies. Here you get to see The Coens knack for unique and surprising twists to their stories, you absolutely have no idea where it's going. This is just a taste to what films like "Fargo" and "No Country for Old Men" would deliver.
2. The Hudsucker Proxy: This was actually the first Coen Brothers film I ever saw, I was very young at the time, I didn't get most of the jokes, but even back then I knew it was a unique looking film. After seeing it again for the first time since, I'm a bit wary, it's full of ingenius filmmaking most notably a silent montage which introduces the birth of the hoola-hoop. Jennifer Jason Leigh does an homage to Barbara Stanwyck and Katherine Hepburn, and Paul Newman makes a wonderful snarly villain, however the ending is abrupt and done almost cynically, perhaps in time my opinion of this film will change.
3. Intolerable Cruelty: After reviewing this film I now hold it in better esteem. This was The Coens romantic comedy, I think it works mainly for some spirity dialogue, and the chemistry between George Clooney and Catherine Zeta-Jones. This is a screwball comedy in every sense of the word that harkens back to Preston Sturges. Much like "The Hudsucker Proxy" which was their other mainstream movie, I felt it was too cynical the first time I watched it, and also loud and obnoxious, I have since done an about-face and find it quite charming and ingenius in parts.
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