What movies are you watching?

[Mickey]

Amazing
True Grit
No Country For Old Men
Fargo
The Big Lebowski
O Brother, Where Are Thou?
Burn After Reading

Slightly Less than Amazing
Hail Caesar!
A Serious Man
Raising Arizona
Miller's Crossing

A Little Disappointing
Inside Llewyn Davis
Blood Simple
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Still Need To See
The Man Who Wasn't There
The Hudsucker Proxy
Intolerable Cruelty
The Lady Killers
Barton Fink

From two months back. I've seen Intolerable Cruelty now and I'd slot it in ahead of Buster Scruggs.

[tragabigzanda]

Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.

[Anders]

i didn't know they were shot-for-shot remakes, that was really interesting to see...

My memory of the original, which I haven't seen for a long time, is that Rooster and Mattie both come across as kind of hokey. The dialogue's not the same, is it? If it is, then maybe I need to watch it again.

But man, I just loved the chemistry between Bridges and Steinfeld. I don't remember that being nearly as good in the original, it felt like there was no humor whatsoever. And in the new one, at the core of the film is Mattie's ability to disarm all these grown men with her vocabulary and gritty personality. Did the original have that stuff in it as well? I remember watching it on TV when I was younger and it just felt very lame.

The True Grit is Mattie in my mind. So of course, Mattie needed to be tough in both movies.

Hailee Steinfeld did a fantastic job, better than Kim Darby, but I don’t think Bridges was anywhere close to his best. There are other actors who could have done better.

[lennytheweedwhacker]

I've yet to see Miller's Crossing and Blood Simple. Need to see those soon I think.

Miller's Crossing is a bonafide masterpiece, but it's a bit impenetrable on the first viewing. The dialogue is fast, deep, and the accents are heavy. Consider watching with captions on!

I love Blood Simple. But it's kind of a minor Coens film, in that they improved on the core formula in their later works.

big agree

ditto

[Anders]

Top John Wayne movies:

1. The Searchers
2. Rio Bravo
3. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
4. Stagecoach
5. Red River
6. Fort Apache
7. The Shootist
8. El Dorado
9. True Grit
10. The Quiet Man
11. The Longest Day
12. She Wore A Yellow Ribbon

[VinylGuy]

I love love love The Searchers.

[Anders]

old westerns may by my biggest cinematic blind spot, which is weird because I know I will probably love them. I loved Good Bad and Ugly.. just saw that for first time several months ago.

It’s not for everyone, but there are a lot of good westerns out there. I’ve seen just about all of them.

[tree_]

Speaking of Coens, did you guys see that Joel's going it alone with an upcoming take on Macbeth?

[Malloy]

Amazing
No Country For Old Men
Fargo
A Serious Man
Miller's Crossing
The Big Lebowski
Barton Fink
Burn After Reading
O Brother Where Art Thou

Slightly Less than Amazing
Hail Caesar!
True Grit
Raising Arizona
The Man Who Wasn't There
Intolerable Cruelty

A Little Disappointing
Inside Llewyn Davis
Blood Simple
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
The Lady Killers

Still Need To See
The Hudsucker Proxy

[epilogue]

The Hudsucker Proxy is probably my second favorite CB movie, behind Barton Fink and just barely ahead of Fargo.

[tree_]

WEIRD

[epilogue]

I also think Llewyn Davis is top tier. So probably don't listen to me on this.

[Anders]

The Hudsucker Proxy is probably my second favorite CB movie, behind Barton Fink and just barely ahead of Fargo.

I’ve always loved The Hudsucker Proxy. I did put it 6th on the list I made on the previous page, which is still very high, but for pure enjoyment it’s higher.

[tragabigzanda]

Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.

[lennytheweedwhacker]

I LOVE the first 2/3 of Hudsucker, but it kind of loses me in the third act.

it’s been a long, long time since I’ve seen it but this sounds familiar

i’m pretty sure it was my first coen’s and I was young so i probably knew nothing about them...so it will always be a little special to me

[epilogue]

I LOVE the first 2/3 of Hudsucker, but it kind of loses me in the third act.

I can't really fault that criticism. But the whole thing just works perfectly for me. It was maybe my introduction into full magical realism, which is a sub-genre that has captured my heart ever since. I sometimes wonder if I would have ever found David Lynch (for example) if not for The Hud.

Given what the CB do best, maybe it's a little to pat, a little too tight and bow-wrapped, but that's also something that I respect the hell out of when it's executed well. And The Hud is just so perfect.

[tragabigzanda]

Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.

[epilogue]

I LOVE the first 2/3 of Hudsucker, but it kind of loses me in the third act.

I can't really fault that criticism. But the whole thing just works perfectly for me. It was maybe my introduction into full magical realism, which is a sub-genre that has captured my heart ever since. I sometimes wonder if I would have ever found David Lynch (for example) if not for The Hud.

Given what the CB do best, maybe it's a little to pat, a little too tight and bow-wrapped, but that's also something that I respect the hell out of when it's executed well. And The Hud is just so perfect.

Yes! That's exactly what bothers me about that ending! Not that it's magical realism, but because it's such an abrupt and tidy ending to things!

That makes total sense to me. Again, I happen to love it, but I totally get why it would rub some the wrong way, for sure. And it's weird because there are definitely other films where that bugs the shit out of me!

Probably because the movie has always been a sort of post-modern fairytale to me. So that tidiness makes sense.

[Anders]

The Professionals

Seen it many times before. But I’m working on 1964-66 now. After this one I’ve only got the Dollars Trilogy and three movies I’ve never seen left.

Burt Lancaster, Lee Marvin, Robert Ryan, Woody Strode, Jack Palance, Claudia Cardinale and Ralph Bellamy. What a cast.

[Malloy]

in light of monte hellman's death, i'm watching THE SHOOTING