The Song Fight Bulletin Board

The Fargo thread inspired this thread.

For me:

Great or really good:
Hudsucker Proxy
Fargo
Intolerable Cruelty

Pretty good
The Man Who Wasn't There
O Brother Where Art Thou
Raising Arizona
Blood Simple

Crummy
The Big Lebowski
Barton Fink
Miller's Crossing

I went with Raising Arizona. I think it's they're defining work. But I also really liked Big Lebowski, O Brother Where Art Thou?, and The Man Who Wasn't There.

A bunch of those on the list I've never seen, or haven't seen in a long while. Guess I better take some time off from work...

i've heard a lot about how great these people (and several of these movies) are, but i'm embarrassed to admit i have seen none of them except "fargo". i guess i've got some work to do!!

Wow - hard choice. I love so many of these.
I've gone for Fargo - although it could easily have been O Brother, or Miller's Crossing.

One thing I've always loved about the Coen Bros is that visually, all of their movies seem to be associated with a different colour. Don't quite know how to describe it (any cinematographers out there?) - but Fargo is white, Miller's Crossing is a rich golden brown, O Brother is sort of sunny golden yellow, Arizona a pale sandy yellow... - does this sound strange - does anyone understand what I'm talking about?

I think Fargo, because it was the one that spent the least amount of time saying 'hey, we understand our place in the big scheme of film history'. I liked the Big Lebowksi. The Man who Wasn't There was Ok but I have an irrational hatred of BBT. Bug-eyed freak. ANd can i say contrioversially - Barton Fink = self-indulgent toss-bucket?

J$

Barton Fink = My Favorite Movie (for a long time). Most people don't click with it; thankfully I do. It's fantastic.

Of course, most of the Coen brother's movies are filling up my top ten list.

Favorite
The Hudsucker Proxy

Great
O Brother
Raising Arizona
Big Lebowski
Barton Fink

OK
Intolerable Cruelty
Miller's Crossing

Meh
Fargo
The Man Who Wasn't There

Haven't Seen It
Blood Simple

Caravan Ray wrote:One thing I've always loved about the Coen Bros is that visually, all of their movies seem to be associated with a different colour. Don't quite know how to describe it (any cinematographers out there?) - but Fargo is white, Miller's Crossing is a rich golden brown, O Brother is sort of sunny golden yellow, Arizona a pale sandy yellow... - does this sound strange - does anyone understand what I'm talking about?

The fact that I understand EXACTLY what you're talking about is testament to their amazing talent.

j$ wrote: The Man who Wasn't There was Ok but I have an irrational hatred of BBT. Bug-eyed freak.

Haha, yeah. But Scarlett Johanson more than makes up for it. Yowza! (though I suppose not for you...)

Lunkhead wrote:
Haven't Seen It
Blood Simple

Blood Simple is the only one I didn't like much.


No-one has mentioned The Ladykillers - I haven't seen it but I heard it sucks - any comments?

c hack wrote:
Haha, yeah. But Scarlett Johanson more than makes up for it. Yowza!

Thinking of Lost in Translation - I second your Yowza!

In My roommate is Barry Sonnenfeld's cousin. Barry worked with the Coen Bros on a few of their earlier movies... Blood Simple, Miller's Crossing, and I think Fargo.

In Blood Simple, there's a scene where one of the characters signs a contract, but the Coens forgot to shoot the ECU of the hand. So it's my roommate's Dad's hand. Barry's brother.

Totally random trivia, yeah. I voted Hudsucker.

Caravan Ray wrote:No-one has mentioned The Ladykillers - I haven't seen it but I heard it sucks - any comments?

I thought it sucked.

they are all wonderful, but i have to go with the big lebowski.

Caravan Ray wrote:No-one has mentioned The Ladykillers - I haven't seen it but I heard it sucks - any comments?

Meh. It wasn't the worst movie ever, but not really worth seeing in my opinion. Although the asian dude does this amazing cigarette-swallowing thing that I had to watch on slow-motion a dozen times cause it was so awexome.

Big Lebowski. Simply because In and Out ARE good burgers, man.

My roommate, if he were registered here, would cast his vote for Blood Simple.

Fargo or O Brother? Fargo I think. But then, there is Pappy O'Daniel's Flour Hour and R-U-N-N-O-F-T. No, I'm sticking with Fargo. My fave scene is where the husband gets up and cooks eggs for his pregnant wife.

YA LEBOWSKI.

Blood Simple is just dated. It's a really good premise and it's really well done. However, it's a slow movie and it hasn't aged all that well. However, it's still a very good movie.

Why is Intolerable Cruelty on that list?

Justincombustion wrote:good burger

now THAT was a good movie.

Hoblit wrote:Blood Simple is just dated. It's a really good premise and it's really well done. However, it's a slow movie and it hasn't aged all that well. However, it's still a very good movie.

Why is Intolerable Cruelty on that list?

http://imdb.com/title/tt0138524/fullcredits

It's not really their story, but they directed it and contributed to the screenplay. I think it's one of the better ones, myself.

Resurrecting a two year old thread. I just watched Miller's Crossing and Blood Simple, and they were both very good.

Blood Simple is probably the least surreal Coen movie (haven't seen Intolerable Cruelty, so I can't say for certain). It lacks the specialized color palette their movies usually have (unless dark is a color), and it's very light on the ironic visual humor they usually deliver (although it makes up with tons of dramatic irony), but it has a fantastically deliberate pace and the atmosphere is absolutely chilling. Another thing I noticed was that the dialogue was very realistic; in fact, everything about this movie--especially the character motivations--was extremely believable. This is something I thought The Man Who Wasn't There was missing, and absolutely needed. As Hoblit mentioned back in 2004, it hasn't aged well, but I still recommend it.

Miller's Crossing was very good, and has nestled snuggly into my top 3 Coen Bros movies. I found the plot and the character motivations too convoluted for my brain to handle in one sitting; I'll probably need to see it again someday. Visually the movie looks stunning, and the color palette thing was in full effect. The acting is good, but John Turturro steals the show. Despite being a generally grim film, I thought this was one of their funniest. When the Coens make a genre-movie they often have a hard time balancing their reverence of the genre with their parodying of it; in Miller's Crossing they pull it of perfectly.