Wednesday

I was surprised by how quickly the Coen brothers produced Burn After Reading after No Country for Old Men. Perhaps this was exaggerated by a late and prolonged release of the latter, and an early release of the former, in order to gain more publicity. They took three years to make a movie after Ladykillers, but before that made four films in four years. Anyway, in looking up screening times on the Odeon website, I decided to start reading user reviews of the movie, and became fascinated by them. The reviewers either hated or loved the film. Many said it was the worst film they had ever seen, whilst some said it was the funniest. I have a feeling that those who hated it were drawn into the cinema by mis-advertising. They were expecting a comedy with Brad Pitt and George Clooney. They did, of course, get one, but it was a very, very dark comedy, with its two stars playing unconventional, bizarre roles. I loved it. The Coen brothers return to the territory of Fargo, but this is much darker, and Carter Burwell's epic music seems even more brilliantly out of place. I am a little uncertain about John Malkovich, but he does get better as the film goes on. Certain scenes did seem that enough time hadn't been spent on them. There were good jokes there, but the actors didn't deliver them well enough, and there were pauses in dialogue when there shouldn't have been. Nonetheless, this is a good movie. I wonder, however, how far such a script would have got without the Coen name attached to it.