needed its own official topic eventually. according to imdb the damn things status is "completed".
Oh that is the best news I've heard in a long time...
I loved the original movie - I can't possibly imagine what they're going to do with it but I have total faith in them. If pretty much anyone else was behind this remake I would be shouting "Whatthefuckthatfilmisperfectleaveitasitis" to anyone who would listen, but as it is: I am fine...
the plot of this movie is sphinxtastic
CAN-NOT-FUCKING-WAIT
I haven't seen the original...it sounds like one of those twistedly delightful comedies along the lines of 'Arsenic And Old Lace.' I can't wait to see Hanks in a Coen brothers film...especially acting with Marlon Wayans. Brilliant!
Yeah, that's pretty close! It's slightly edgier though (and funnier in my opinion).
Strange that ex-Coen-cameraman Barry Sonnenfeld is listed as a "producer."
Why strange?
thats because...
The Coens Court Ladykillers
Replacing Barry Sonnenfeld on the black comedy remake.
April 29, 2002
According to Variety, the Coen brothers plan to follow their next project, Intolerable Cruelty, with a remake of the 1955 black comedy The Ladykillers. The original British pic, which starred Sir Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers, "centered on four accomplices in a robbery who try to kill their indestructible elderly landlady." Joel Coen will direct the film, which he'll co-write with brother Ethan.
Variety claims the Disney-based remake "is set in the South and revolves around an eccentric matron who unwittingly rents out rooms in her house to a gang of professional thieves. They plan to use the innocent address as a hideout while they plot a big-ticket heist. But they discover they're no match for the woman."
Filmmaker Barry Sonnenfeld (Big Trouble, Wild Wild West) was onboard to helm the remake but has instead opted to produce The Ladykillers along with Tom Jacobson. Before he became a director, Barry Sonnenfeld was a cinematographer who shot the Coens' Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, and Miller's Crossing.
Quote from: children with angelsWhy strange?
I just thought it was quite unusual for a cinematographer who went on to direct ends up producing for the very directors who gave him his start... just seemed like an odd reversal of circumstances, or something. I don't really care for Sonnenfeld as a director, though, so I should probably just be glad the Coens are doing this.
Coen Brothers Shooting Ladykillers in Natchez
Source: The Natchez Democrat
The Natchez Democrat reports that Joel Coen and Ethan Coen will be filming Touchstone's The Ladykillers, starring Tom Hanks, Marlon Wayans, George Wallace and Ryan Hurst, in Natchez, Mississippi:
Fresh on the heels of their hit "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" brothers Joel and Ethan Coen are hard at work on their next film - and they've chosen Natchez as a location.
As it now stands, the filmmakers are set to be in and around Natchez the first two weeks of September to film outside shots for their remake of the 1955 black comedy "The Ladykillers."
Filming will take place on Canal Street across from the convention center, on Commerce Street near the Ritz Theater and in the 200 block of Linton Avenue as well as locations outside the city limits.
While star Tom Hanks will not be in Natchez for the filming, co-star Marlan Wayans and a handful of other actors will. And about 50 to 60 local extras will be cast in late August for some of the scenes, Godfrey said.
How did the Coen brothers find Natchez?
"They had filmed "O Brother" in Mississippi, too, so when they started working on this one, they remembered that Mississippi had riverboat casinos," said Assistant Location Manager Ed Godfrey. "They contacted Mississippi Film Office, which sent them here."
The brothers themselves visited Natchez three times earlier this year, and other co-producers are set to return later this month to tie up loose ends.
Filming has already started in Los Angeles, where inside shots - about 90 percent of the film - are being shot.
In "The Ladykillers" - the original of which starred Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers - Hanks will play a would-be riverboat casino robber whose plans are foiled by his elderly landlady.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Coen Brothers Rewriting Fun With Dick and Jane
Source: Variety
Joel and Ethan Coen will rewrite director Barry Sonnenfeld's Fun With Dick and Jane, starring Jim Carrey and Cameron Diaz. The Columbia Pictures remake is scheduled to start production in eight weeks with Brian Grazer producing.
The original Columbia film starred George Segal and Jane Fonda as an upper middle-class couple who turn to pulling heists to pay the bills.
The film marks Carrey and Diaz's first pairing since The Mask, the film that made stars of both.
damn the coen bros. r busy dudes. its all good news though.
Despite my extreme excitement for both Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers, despite my thinking that Fun With Dick And Jane sounds like delightful fun, despite my love for whatever the Coen Brothers decide to do next -- I hope they don't keep doing remakes.
I think they're cashing in a few of their chips right now. They've been at this for 20 years. Time to earn a couple of bucks and settle into the next phase of their careers. They're from an older generation now. They're legit.
Pictures are up from The Ladykillers at:
http://www.empiremovies.com/gallery/ladykillers/ladykillers_pictures_01.shtml
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Tom Hanks has never looked cooler.
What's cool is that he let the Coens dress him like that...
Always anxious for another Coen Bros. film. For you Alias fans, Greg Grunberg (Agent Weiss) will be co-starring in The Ladykillers.
Fucking awesome...been waiting for pictures...
This film looks awesome just from these pics. Makes me want to hunt down the original film. I'm still irked that the Coen's seem to be doing such mediocre Hollywood stuff (Intolerable Cruelty) and remakes, instead of creating original work they are capable of.
Quote from: OnomatopoeiaThis film looks awesome just from these pics. Makes me want to hunt down the original film. I'm still irked that the Coen's seem to be doing such mediocre Hollywood stuff (Intolerable Cruelty) and remakes, instead of creating original work they are capable of.
I think it's a combination of things. Money and maybe actually interested in the material. I also think it's a different process remaking, adapting and rewriting others material.
I'm still convinced (hoping/praying) that they're just doing a few profitable studio pics so that Fox will finally give them the extra 20 million they needed to make To The White Sea, which will be absolutely brilliant and unlike anything they've ever done before.
Although Intolerable Cruelty isn't turning out to be that profitable. But The Ladykillers will be, because of Hanks.
Quote from: OnomatopoeiaMakes me want to hunt down the original film.
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Buy On Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00006FMAT/qid=1066683084/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_2/102-9371549-7120922?v=glance&s=dvd&n=507846)
those picks look classic!!! first time I'm excited about a Hanks picture since Big.
Since Big? What about Forrest Gump, Castaway, or Road to Perdition? The trailers alone made me rush out to see them. :shock:
Quote from: GhostboyI'm still convinced (hoping/praying) that they're just doing a few profitable studio pics so that Fox will finally give them the extra 20 million they needed to make To The White Sea, which will be absolutely brilliant and unlike anything they've ever done before.
Although Intolerable Cruelty isn't turning out to be that profitable. But The Ladykillers will be, because of Hanks.
To The White Sea...what's this about? I haven't heard about this before. Possible redirects?
Quote from: GamblorTo The White Sea...what's this about? I haven't heard about this before. Possible redirects?
A WWII film starring Brad Pitt not saying a word in it. Too fucking bad it didn't get made. Hope you're right Ghostboy.
Quote from: GamblorTo The White Sea...what's this about? I haven't heard about this before. Possible redirects?
Based upon the 1993 novel of the same title by James Dickey (1923-1997), a poet who said he only wrote novels to pay bills. This was only his third (and last) novel, after Deliverance in 1970 and Alnilam in 1987.
Premise: An American WWII tail gunner, Muldrow (Pitt), stranded when he parachutes from his burning B-29 over Tokyo, must use the violent skills he learned as an Alaskan hunter to journey north through Japan to the island of Hokkaido, and from there, perhaps, home to Alaska.
In development since 1993, this project started at Universal, but was put in turnaround; it was then positioned at 20th Century Fox for two years, but Variety reported that budget concerns over the Japan filming have caused negotiations to fail, with both the Coens and Brad Pitt dropping out altogether.
Screenwriter: David Webb Peoples (Unforgiven, Soldier) and Janet Peoples (writing team of 12 Monkeys, Stompanato); rewrite by Ethan and Joel Coen.
Script review here. (http://www.screenwritersutopia.com/script_reviews/to_the_white_sea.html)
A slithly better explanation than mine :)
Quote from: pinkerton310Since Big? What about Forrest Gump, Castaway, or Road to Perdition? The trailers alone made me rush out to see them. :shock:
.... like I said, since Big...
aww c'mon, dont hate on Hanks.
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That movie right fucking there traumatized me as a kid. I cannot take a dog getting killed. It's kinda stupid, I know, but I just can't stand it. Sometimes, when it's offscreen it's okay (like Conformist), but usually I just won't watch...
I don't hate on Hanks, I just don't find most of the movies he picks to be that exciting to me. Big has always been a personal fav...
Not even Gump?
Quote from: SoNowThenThat movie right fucking there traumatized me as a kid. I cannot take a dog getting killed. It's kinda stupid, I know, but I just can't stand it. Sometimes, when it's offscreen it's okay (like Conformist), but usually I just won't watch...
Thanks a lot for the spoiler alert! 8)
anything known as "disney-based" makes me reel around and want to vomit, especially anything live action with famous people only. GAH.
Speakin' o' Ole Sonnefeld, Addams Family was MUCH better than it should have been.
END.
saw the trailer for The Ladykillers today. said it would be released in March 2004, which would be about 6 months in between intolerable cruelty and this, which is pretty strange. i wasnt blown away by the clip when i watched it, but after i saw it a bunch of times it started to grow on me. a little worrisome that a hanks movie is opening in march, but obviously this is not going to be a giant hanks hit so better news for us coen fans. a few other things about this: i thought it was set in the 20's or something but according to marlon wayanas clothes, it is certainly not. so thats very bizarre. another odd thing was that the clip had an african american oversample, which means that in addition to the regular people to do the interviews for the preview there needed to be an 'extra' percentage of black people to watch the movie, as a potential audience. WEIRD. hanks delivery was hilarious and some of his 'looks' were great. cant be worse than intolerable cruelty.
sounds pretty cool...
I don't care, everything the Coens do has a VIP spot on my can't-wait list.
National Lampoon Acquires Lady Killers
Source: Variety
In a strange move, National Lampoon has acquired Delfino Entertainment's Lady Killers and will release the film under the National Lampoon banner March 26, the exact same date as the Coen brothers' have The Ladykillers scheduled.
Are they trying to pull business from confused moviegoers who can't tell what is what? We seriously doubt it. Fans of Tom Hanks and Marlon Wayans probably won't have any trouble seeking out that Touchstone comedy.
The National Lampoon project, written and directed by Gary Preisler, stars Will Friedle (Boy Meets World) and Chris Owen (American Pie) as losers who marry two wealthy, elderly sisters in hopes of inheriting their Beverly Hills estate. It also stars Renee Taylor, Louise Lasser and Nikki Ziering.
National Lampoon will handle the film's theatrical release, focusing on cities that receive the National Lampoon TV Network serving college and university communities.
Quote from: MacGuffinNational Lampoon Acquires Lady Killers
Source: Variety
In a strange move, National Lampoon has acquired Delfino Entertainment's Lady Killers and will release the film under the National Lampoon banner March 26, the exact same date as the Coen brothers' have The Ladykillers scheduled.
Are they trying to pull business from confused moviegoers who can't tell what is what? We seriously doubt it. Fans of Tom Hanks and Marlon Wayans probably won't have any trouble seeking out that Touchstone comedy.
The National Lampoon project, written and directed by Gary Preisler, stars Will Friedle (Boy Meets World) and Chris Owen (American Pie) as losers who marry two wealthy, elderly sisters in hopes of inheriting their Beverly Hills estate. It also stars Renee Taylor, Louise Lasser and Nikki Ziering.
National Lampoon will handle the film's theatrical release, focusing on cities that receive the National Lampoon TV Network serving college and university communities.
That just seems silly... and not in a National Lampoon kind of way.
New photo:
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Quicktime Trailer here. (http://movies.yahoo.com/movies/feature/theladykillersqt1.html)
My reactions: I'm very excited to see this movie though it looks a bit too mainstream. A bit snobbish? Maybe. But my Coens are quirky, odd and weird. Tom Hanks looks and sounds great. Wayans? Don't know. Looks like he always does.
I'm probably not gonna be disappointed but hopefully this is their way to get the money to make To The White Sea.
quite a bit different from the test one i saw a few months back, but some of the same scenes. after IC not terribly excited about this one, but hopefully i'll be surprised.
hanks will steal the show. it might be good! :-D
It seems a little 'nhé'...
my favorite part is where they kill the lady.
they've totally lost the idea that the innocent, kindly old lady accidentally foils everything.
though "we must have waffles. we must all have waffles FORTHWITH." is one of the best things in a trailer ever.
Can't wait for this one. Hanks and Wayans seem funny as. And the mix of times is cool, first you think its a period piece (Hanks's fashion, the look of it etc) and then Marlon pops up in street gear. Coen genius at work.
It looks very...Coen brother-ish
Quote from: SydneyIt looks very...Coen brother-ish
imagine that.
Quote from: picolas;though "we must have waffles. we must all have waffles FORTHWITH." is one of the best things in a trailer ever.
That was hilarious. And such an odd group too. Tom Hanks in that weird outfit. Marlon Wayans.
The scene with the old lady slapping Marlon Wayans looks like something one would see in a typical comedy, but the trailer still makes me want to see it.
Quote from: RaviThe scene with the old lady slapping Marlon Wayans looks like something one would see in a typical comedy, but the trailer still makes me want to see it.
the coen brothers stole that from this movie:
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Martin Lawrence is irritating!
Nothing to Lose ripped it off retroactively from the Coens.
Trailer looks good, really can't wait to see this. Looks much more Coen-esque than Cruel Intentions. And my doubts on Tom Hanks have gone too - he wasn't *Tom Hanks-the-same-as-in-every-other-movie-he's-ever-done*, he was *Tom Hanks with a Coen-esque twist*. Big thumbs up for the trailer. Coens seem to be back on top form.
But will this really pull in the crowds...?
Quote from: SleeplessTrailer looks good, really can't wait to see this. Looks much more Coen-esque than Cruel Intentions. And my doubts on Tom Hanks have gone too - he wasn't *Tom Hanks-the-same-as-in-every-other-movie-he's-ever-done*, he was *Tom Hanks with a Coen-esque twist*. Big thumbs up for the trailer. Coens seem to be back on top form.
But will this really pull in the crowds...?
People will pay to see Tom Hanks read the phone book. I did and it was terrific. I particularly liked his delivery on "Adams, Michael R. 820-589-9925."
Quote from: SleeplessLooks much more Coen-esque than Cruel Intentions.
Indeed.... :wink:
i am so not excited about this movie. the more i think about it, the more i think it will probably suck. and this is coming from a huge coen bros. fan who loves tom hanks. something about this movie just doesnt look like its going to work.
Quote from: themodernage02i am so not excited about this movie. the more i think about it, the more i think it will probably suck. and this is coming from a huge coen bros. fan who loves tom hanks. something about this movie just doesnt look like its going to work.
I think you're talking about Wayans.
I just saw a commercial for this. It looks horrible.
Quote from: MacGuffinNational Lampoon has acquired Delfino Entertainment's Lady Killers and will release the film March 26, the exact same date as the Coen brothers' have The Ladykillers scheduled.
according to a commercial during the Super Bowl, the Ladykillers (Hanks version atleast) is indeed coming out March 26th.
Super Bowl Trailer here. (http://download.ifilm.com/qt/portal/2532953_200.mov)
Quote from: SleeplessQuote from: themodernage02i am so not excited about this movie. the more i think about it, the more i think it will probably suck. and this is coming from a huge coen bros. fan who loves tom hanks. something about this movie just doesnt look like its going to work.
I think you're talking about Wayans.
How soon we forget his performance in 'Requiem for a Dream' Just b/c you are rarely given the opportunity to act doesn't mean you cannot.
I can't wait for this one! Tom Hanks as Foghorn Leghorn/Colonel Sanders/Mark Twain is superb!!!
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What is she doing to him?!
Hanks looks swellegant. The looks commercial.
This is one of those rare trailers that I just don't get tired of.
I can't make it out completely in that poster, but are both Ethan and Joel credited with directing? That's a first if so.
Quote from: GhostboyI can't make it out completely in that poster, but are both Ethan and Joel credited with directing? That's a first if so.
Looks like it. IMDB listing says so too:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0335245/
Quote from: GhostboyThat's a first if so.
a new era...
Quote from: SloyjWhat is she doing to him?!
hahaha, i thought so too.
Quote from: MacGuffinQuote from: GhostboyI can't make it out completely in that poster, but are both Ethan and Joel credited with directing? That's a first if so.
Looks like it. IMDB listing says so too:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0335245/
actually if you look IMDB credits them both as directing for most of the films...starting with Blood Simple
Quote from: Weirdo1769movieMikeQuote from: MacGuffinQuote from: GhostboyI can't make it out completely in that poster, but are both Ethan and Joel credited with directing? That's a first if so.
Looks like it. IMDB listing says so too:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0335245/
actually if you look IMDB credits them both as directing for most of the films...starting with Blood Simple
It's well known that they both produce and direct the films, but Ethan gets solo prod. credit and Joel solo directing credit on the films themselves. This is the first time Ethan has had official directing credit on a movie.
if i hadnt known that this was a coen's brothers film before viewing the trailer, i wouldve thought it was from teh creators of big mammas house -- this looks really really fucking horrible -- however i do have faith; to this day the coens have proved themselves that no wrong can be done -- lets hope they keep that legacy alive with this one.
Quote from: cowboykurtisif i hadnt known that this was a coen's brothers film before viewing the trailer, i wouldve thought it was from teh creators of big mammas house -- this looks really really fucking horrible
Yes it does look horrible... :cry:
Quote from: RoyalTenenbaumQuote from: cowboykurtisif i hadnt known that this was a coen's brothers film before viewing the trailer, i wouldve thought it was from teh creators of big mammas house -- this looks really really fucking horrible
Yes it does look horrible... :cry:
If by horrible, you mean awesome, then yes. Sure, the old lady beating Marlon Wayans with the pillow is a bit much but no different from the bug-eyed reactions of... just about everybody in O Brother.
"We must have waffles. We must all have waffles forthwith!" :lol:
I'm not worried at all.
Quote from: hacksparrowQuote from: RoyalTenenbaumQuote from: cowboykurtisif i hadnt known that this was a coen's brothers film before viewing the trailer, i wouldve thought it was from teh creators of big mammas house -- this looks really really fucking horrible
Yes it does look horrible... :cry:
If by horrible, you mean awesome, then yes. Sure, the old lady beating Marlon Wayans with the pillow is a bit much but no different from the bug-eyed reactions of... just about everybody in O Brother.
"We must have waffles. We must all have waffles forthwith!" :lol:
I'm not worried at all.
I really want to love it, but I stil can't get over the fact that Intolerable Cruelty, in general, sucked big donkey dicks.
I didn't realize this was going to be rated R. At the very least, it means they're not pulling any punches.
or that sumone says a naughty word.
Yeah. When I was little, I got my mouth washed out for saying "waffles."
Saying "pancakes" was ok, but then I was instructed to do a couple of karate moves before I sat back down on my bench.
first time ethan is credited as director
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watched the original Ladykillers tonite with Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers. (not sure if anyone else here has seen it besides possibly Macguffin and maybe Cinephile), but it was okay. not terribly funny, but it had its moments. its more a better 'idea' than a 'film', so i dont think a remake is a terrible idea in this case. except for the fact that the coens shouldnt be wasting their time in the first place doing one when they should be generating superior material. oh well.
Quote from: GhostboyI didn't realize this was going to be rated R. At the very least, it means they're not pulling any punches.
Quote from: Pubrickor that sumone says a naughty word.
or that somebody smokes a cigarette.
R Rated R for language including sexual references and tobacco use.
http://www.mpaa.org/movieratings/search/index.htm
Short making of here. You get to hear Ethan's laugh. So its all good...
http://bvim-qt.vitalstream.com/Ladykillers/Ladykillers_MakingOf_7036_1500.mov
"He is given very poor human material to work with."
Love that quote... :)
Hanks takes on `Killer' role for Coen bros.
Tom Hanks regards the bleak wintry expanse of the Public Garden, so different from "the cargo shorts and flip-flop'' weather he left behind in Los Angeles.
"It's moody,'' he said from his fifth-floor perch in the Four Seasons. "I want to curl up with a good volume of poetry: Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Just read all day long.''
It's quite a departure from the temperature and tomes of his upcoming film, the Coen brothers' deep-fried remake of "The Ladykillers'' in which the A-list actor plays a Mississippi charlatan with a penchant for robbery, caped planter's suits and the florid poetry of Edgar Allen Poe.
"Not since Shakespeare have I been wearing capes,'' Hanks said of his Southern Gothic character, Goldthwait Higginson Dorr, Ph.D. "It's pure Doc Severinsen territory. You don't comment on how goofy your clothes are.''
A fan of the Coen brothers' films "Fargo'' and "Raising Arizona,'' Hanks was sold on the updated script about a hapless group of thieves who masquerade as classical musicians while trying to steal $1.6 million from a Mississippi riverboat casino. After playing a geekish lawman in "Catch Me If You Can,'' Hanks is on the other side in this caper, trying to mollify his suspicious landlady (Irma P. Hall) with his all-linen wardrobe and dramatic recitations of "To Helen.''
"You can't put your finger on what it is about a Coen brothers movie,'' Hanks said. "They're very odd movies that end up dictating their own kind of logic....As a guy that goes to the movies, I just want to see something I've never seen before. I want to have things demanded of me, my attention and my professional skills, in a place I've never been. And this was it.''
A place where an endless stream of garbage barges plies the Big Muddy and riverboat gamblers aboard the Bandit Queen dream large while playing penny slot machines.
"The Ladykillers'' represents a departure for the Coens: It's their first remake, unless one considers "O Brother, Where Art Thou?'' a faithful sampling of Homer's "The Odyssey.''
The droll 1955 original, which starred Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers, was the final release from England's Ealing Studios ("Kind Hearts and Coronets,'' "The Lavender Hill Mob''). Hired to adapt a script for Barry Sonnenfeld, the Coens took on the entire project when the "Get Shorty'' director passed.
"Big fans (of Ealing)? Um, yeah,'' said Joel, the elder Coen, who takes directing credit.
"You sound like a measured fan,'' kidded his brother, Ethan, the producer, who considers the Ealing comedies a bit precious - the movie equivalent of painted teacups.
"Makes you want to smash a couple,'' he added with a smile.
Instead of cudgels, the Coens employed gospel music and the trombonelike sackbut, irritable bowel syndrome and F-bomber Marlon Wayans.
"If some other type of filmmaker came up and said, 'Hey, we're going to remake the Alec Guinness comedy,' I'd have said, 'You have fun,' '' Hanks said. "But I only knew this as a Coen brothers movie.''
(The Coens did pay homage to Ealing in their first film, "Blood Simple,'' giving the detective a signature line from "The Ladykillers'': "Who looks stupid now?'')
"We like knuckleheads. There's no question about it,'' Joel Coen said.
"They make movies about knuckleheads, guys who have these plans that are somehow fool-proof,'' Hanks said. "It's not that everything goes wrong. It's that one thing goes wrong. It's like the necklace snaps and all the pearls go bouncing into every corner of the room.
"If there's something that attracts me to Coen brothers movies, it's that they're always about some foible of the human condition that assumes something impossible,'' he continued. "We all think we can get away with stuff. But the characters in Coen brothers movies think they can get away with a lot.''
Which is the antithesis of the modest actor's approach.
"It's all just a big crapshoot,'' Hanks said of the film business. "We're all just dodging bullets up there.''
Before the year is out, he'll also appear in Steven Spielberg's drama "The Terminal'' and Robert Zemeckis' effects-laden adaptation of the modern children's classic "The Polar Express.''
"So it's quite possible it all ends this year,'' Hanks said. "One last big swipe, then everybody says, 'That's it.' ''
Quote from: MacGuffinHired to adapt a script for Barry Sonnenfeld, the Coens took on the entire project when the "Get Shorty'' director passed.
AND THERE YOU HAVE IT. the reason this movie, like intolerable cruelty, does not look very good. FUCK, coens, get your shit together. QUIT agreeing to write scripts for other people. QUIT agreeing to RE-write bad scripts by other people. and GODDAMNIT, QUIT fucking deciding you want to direct that not-so-good script! get back to coming up with your own ideas, and QUICK.
COENS QUIT, QUICK.
yeah, they're seriously losing it. or saving up/gaining boring ppl's trust in preparation for a HUGE SURPRISE.
at least, that's what i tell myself.
Quote from: PubrickCOENS QUIT, QUICK.
yeah, they're seriously losing it. or saving up/gaining boring ppl's trust in preparation for a HUGE SURPRISE.
i hope so
Oh, I'm waiting for To The White Sea...
If they don't make it I will kill myself...head in oven. Quick and painful.
Quote from: kotteOh, I'm waiting for To The White Sea...
If they don't make it I will kill myself...head in oven. Quick and painful.
You'll, like, beat your head into the oven? Care to sell tickets for the show?
Quote from: RoyalTenenbaumQuote from: kotteOh, I'm waiting for To The White Sea...
If they don't make it I will kill myself...head in oven. Quick and painful.
You'll, like, beat your head into the oven? Care to sell tickets for the show?
That would make for the most surreal Xixax reunion ever.
Mr. BK: Who's the guy with his head in the oven?
GDIDM: That's Kotte.
Mr. BK: Oh. Reminds me of a burger I had once...
GDIDM: Have you ever had someone in your anus?
Etc.
Quote from: CinephileQuote from: RoyalTenenbaumQuote from: kotteOh, I'm waiting for To The White Sea...
If they don't make it I will kill myself...head in oven. Quick and painful.
You'll, like, beat your head into the oven? Care to sell tickets for the show?
That would make for the most surreal Xixax reunion ever.
Mr. BK: Who's the guy with his head in the oven?
GDIDM: That's Kotte.
Mr. BK: Oh. Reminds me of a burger I had once...
GDIDM: Have you ever had someone in your anus?
Etc.
LOL.
MUTNYCO: I hate him banging his head on the oven as much as I hate Scorsese!
ShanghaiOrange: :(
*Insert banned member here*: The admins are behind this!
Banky: You know what's better than this guy? Jersey Girl, opening March 26, check your local listings.
Eheheh
Which would lead to MacGuffin redirecting to the Jersey Girl thread.
In which thread I bet is a mention to Kevin Smith hating Magnolia.
I just saw this tonight.
:(
or even
:cry:
Aww, come on? Really bad? Or was it just really sad? Please just say it was really sad. I can't stand the thought of a Coen bros film that makes people weep without being sad...
I still think they are bying themself room to make To The White Sea.
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I saw it too. I didn't think it was bad. It was entertaining. I didn't feel like my life was being wasted while I watched it. It's beautifully shot and has some funny performances. It's just "bad" when you compare it to other Coen Brothers movies. It's on a par with Intolerable Cruelty. It had the same problems as IC did, which is that it seems like the Coens are trying to become more "crowd-pleasing", which they really shouldn't. They should just do their own thing. Hanks's character was a prototypical Coen Bros. character, his dialogue is great- the long, flowery speeches that he is given. But then you had characters like J. K. Simmons (who existed only to supply bathroom humor- probably my least favorite type of humor in a movie), and Marlon Wayans who plays himself basically.
Incidentally, the R rating for the movie is entirely due to Marlon's profanity-laded dialogue, which was really unnecessary. Cursing can be funny if done right (witness Lebowski's "This is what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass" scene), but this just seemed extraneous. So yeah, an entertaining enough movie, but certainly not wonderful.
Quote from: kotte(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.filmcafe.nu%2Fmem%2F%2Fusers%2Fchristopher%2F%257B6652-8979-3543%257D.jpg&hash=9283cfc56a26b6b828d1df35b2b99d48298a580f)
Oh...
Quote from: godardianI just saw this tonight.
:(
or even
:cry:
Oh my...
Quote from: FishbulbIt's just "bad" when you compare it to other Coen Brothers movies. It's on a par with Intolerable Cruelty. It had the same problems as IC did, which is that it seems like the Coens are trying to become more "crowd-pleasing"
:cry:
A few impoverished eccentricities, some visuals and structural symmetry... other than that, might as well be a really bad UPN sitcom.
They didn't write
Intolerable Cruelty. The minds that wrote
Barton Fink and
Fargo and
Man Who Wasn't There actually wrote this... :cry:
oh well. i fucking knew it. :(
Goddamn it! My bubble's been burst! The trailer was just sooo good, but Godardian and I's disagreeance on the work of Baz Luhrman is not enough to convince me that we may be split on this film too.
Is it better to have your hopes dashed in advance and not look forward to a movie anymore or to have them dashed as the movie plays out and with crestfallen distress you realize it is nowhere near what you were hoping?
I would still encourage any Coens fan to see this for themselves... I'm just sharing my feeling that the things in Barton Fink and the other "real" Coen masterworks that made me fans are, to me, in extremely short supply in these last two films, and then there's all this other stuff- some of which I found really dumb and would have regardless of who the filmmakers were- that just could've been done by anybody.
... and it does make me a little depressed to have to use the word "dumb" to describe something done by the Coens. I don't just mean "lowbrow," here- I don't find Big Lebowski or Raising Arizona, one of the best comedies of all time, dumb- but just... pandering sitcom-y stuff.
Quote from: RoyalTenenbaumOh...
A moment of realization that it may never happen. :?
OH GOD. i always wondered how crushing it must've been to people around to see the decline of their favorite filmmakers like scorsese or coppola or whoever else. like, how could they go from making great films to just all of a sudden, mediocre ones? what went wrong? it looks like we're getting a chance to see for ourselves, the decline of great artists.
Quote from: themodernage02OH GOD. i always wondered how crushing it must've been to people around to see the decline of their favorite filmmakers like scorsese or coppola or whoever else. like, how could they go from making great films to just all of a sudden, mediocre ones? what went wrong? it looks like we're getting a chance to see for ourselves, the decline of great artists.
We don't know it's a decline. It could be as I said their way to make room for expensive,
riskier, less commercial projects.
If we look at Ladykillers (haven't seen this yet) and Intolerable Cruelty from the point of view of the average movie-goer, a person who knows nothing or very little about movies, are these two movies bad?
They haven't lost their (secret) shit...you just wait ('till Billy Bob return the bag)
I liked Intolerable Cruelty quite a bit. Does that mean I'll like Ladykillers?
Quote from: SHAFTRI liked Intolerable Cruelty quite a bit. Does that mean I'll like Ladykillers?
but would you say its one of your favorite coen films? like, would it go in your top 3?
Quote from: GhostboyThe trailer was just sooo good
I must've missed something. What trailer did you see that could've made this look good? All the commercials I saw were awful, and generally trailers follow suit, or vice versa. Got a link or something?
Me, I'm just glad my shit detector is working.
I love all the Coen brothers movies. To start hypothesizing their decline is ridiculous.
"they're just doing some comercial stuff so they can get the money to do more riskier projects. Yeah thats right. Im sure thats what they're doing"
I think a better way to look at it would be to think that people who might not ordinarily go to see the brothers talents might like this one, and go back through the catalogue. Then there'll be all the more people to complain about the good old days when the Coens didnt make movies that appealed to a broader audience.
Quote from: themodernage02oh well. i fucking knew it. :(
What's really bad about this is that probabbly 80% of the Coen fans are really expecting this movie to be mediocre. The surprise would be if it wasn't, And that's bad, really bad. These are the guys who did Lebowski, man... Damn it!
Quote from: godardianmight as well be a really bad UPN sitcom.
.....hahaaha.......damn thats some harsh sh*t .........this must UNFORTUNATELY suck..........oh.. and i know i can't spell/type worth sh*t........
i never saw Intolerable Cruelty and i am NEVER going to see The Ladykillers. i know i should give it a chance, but i KNOW i will hate it. i am going to savor every last memory i have of the coens of old. i will treasure my repeat viewings of Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, Barton Fink, etc. i want back that coen originality. i want back a coen bros. film. i cannot bring myself to see their big studio crap. its not gonna happen. thank you though for all who will sit through The Ladykillers and wish you could get that 2 hours back. i am glad i will still have mine. :lol:
Quote from: filmboy70i never saw Intolerable Cruelty and i am NEVER going to see The Ladykillers.
Then you aren't allowed to express yourself about the films.
Please shut up.
Quote from: themodernage02Quote from: SHAFTRI liked Intolerable Cruelty quite a bit. Does that mean I'll like Ladykillers?
but would you say its one of your favorite coen films? like, would it go in your top 3?
No, I wouldn't say that but Coen Bros are a pair of filmmakers whose movie I will always give a chance, but they don't always work for me.
Worked: Fargo, The Big Lebowski, Raising Arizona, Intolerable Cruelty
Kind of worked, but not as much as others claim: Blood Simple, Miller's Crossing, The Man Who Wasn't There
DIdn't work at all: O Brother Where Art Thou
still need to see Barton Fink.
Raising 'Ladykillers': Coens hit remake trail with black comedy update
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Some filmmakers tiptoe around the word "remake." Others delicately suggest their film is more a "revisitation" or "reimagining," afraid of being scorned for filching someone else's ideas. The Coen brothers guffaw over such euphemisms.
"Listen, this is a remake," says Joel Coen, who joined with brother Ethan to write, produce and direct The Ladykillers, starring Tom Hanks in an update of the 1955 Alec Guinness black comedy.
Leave it to the Coens, though, to call it a remake while infusing it with so much of their own warped, absurdist humor and macabre yet funny imagery that it feels entirely original.
After last fall's nearly normal Intolerable Cruelty, the George Clooney-Catherine Zeta-Jones romance that was the Coens' most mainstream film yet, the brothers are back in their oddball America where such wicked little yarns as Fargo,The Big Lebowski and Barton Fink could only exist.
In The Ladykillers, Hanks takes on the Guinness role as mastermind of a gang of daft thieves, who rent rooms from a sweet old lady as a base of operations and then bumble through attempts to knock her off when she uncovers their plan.
Hollywood is churning out remakes by the dozen these days, but that didn't disturb the Coens. "We don't think about it in those terms," Ethan Coen says. "We wouldn't have done it if we didn't think we could have fun with it."
They had not seen The Ladykillers in years, though they borrowed one of its memorable closing lines — "Who looks stupid now?" — for their 1984 debut, Blood Simple.
The Coens took the "bones of the plot" and ran with it, transplanting The Ladykillers from London to the Deep South and creating a more active heroine than the porcelain-teacup widow of the original.
Irma P. Hall co-stars as a slightly batty, devout Southern Baptist who discovers her dandy of a tenant (Hanks) and his buddies (Marlon Wayans, J.K. Simmons, Tzi Ma and Ryan Hurst) have tunneled from her cellar into a casino and cleaned out its cash vault.
Propelling the action is an invigorating collection of church tunes gathered by music producer T Bone Burnett, a soundtrack that could rouse interest in gospel the way Burnett's work on the Coens' O Brother, Where Are Thou? did for roots music.
Hanks delivers a wildly eccentric performance as a caped, toothy "professor" with a rat-quiver laugh, a passion for dusty literature and a heart of ice (the Coens viewed Hanks' character as a cross between Col. Sanders and 19th century actor Edwin Booth). Like Guinness in the original, Hanks creates an effeminately creepy heavy, but in an entirely different manner, without the slightest trace of imitation.
The Coens have always equally shared writing, directing and producing, but The Ladykillers is the first of their 11 films on which they share all three credits. Previously, Joel, 49, has taken the directing credit and Ethan, 46, the producing credit, while screenplays were credited to both.
They felt compelled to share credits this time, since the movie originated elsewhere and had three other producers, including Barry Sonnenfeld, who was the cinematographer on their first three films —Blood Simple,Raising Arizona and Miller's Crossing.
The Coens' process has been the same from the start, the two alone in a room talking out a script while one of them types it.
"The only kind of a rule is we show up," Ethan says. "We go to the office every day when we're writing, or supposed to be writing. It's not always productive and there's a lot of procrastinating, just staring at the wall, like any other writing. But we just make ourselves go to the office every day for more or less the whole day."
On set, directing chores are allotted to "whoever is closest to the question being asked," Joel Coen says. They edit most of their films under the pseudonym Roderick Jaynes.
They often cast the same actors, among them John Turturro, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi and Joel Coen's wife, Frances McDormand, who won the best-actress Academy Award for Fargo (that film also earned the Coens the Oscar for original screenplay).
The Coens made super-8mm movies together growing up in Minnesota. Joel went on to film school at New York University while his brother studied philosophy at Princeton.
After college, Joel got his start as an assistant editor for Sam Raimi on The Evil Dead, and he and his brother collaborated on scripts in New York City.
The Coens have a small, loyal fan base, and occasionally their films connect with a broader audience. O Brother, their biggest moneymaker, took in $45.5 million.
But much of the general public simply does not get the Coens, and some critics gripe that their flamboyant characters could not exist in the real world.
"Well, they don't," the brothers say almost in unison, laughing.
"We don't do realism, and if that's what you go to the movies for, you're not necessarily going to like our stuff," says Joel.
"But who goes to the movies for that?" Ethan says. "Mainly, people go to movies for kind of the Hollywood pablum, which isn't the real world, either."
"Right, they go for what they think is realism," Joel says. "They see Heat, Michael Mann, cops. It's gritty realism, when in fact it's just obviously not."
"Let me tell you the movie that really struck me," Ethan concludes. "Pretty Woman is about a businessman that comes to L.A. and hires a prostitute to accompany him to all his business meetings, functions, that he has. It's a huge mainstream success. My God, that's realistic? People say we're weird?"
Quote from: ®edlumI love all the Coen brothers movies. To start hypothesizing their decline is ridiculous. I think a better way to look at it would be to think that people who might not ordinarily go to see the brothers talents might like this one, and go back through the catalogue. Then there'll be all the more people to complain about the good old days when the Coens didnt make movies that appealed to a broader audience.
no its not. 2 shitty movies in a row can be considered a decline. its not that they're making good movies that are now appealing to a wider audience, they're making movies (if ladykillers is anything comparable to intolerable cruelty) that are awful, even by 'normal movie' standards. (i doubt that anyone would describe any of their earlier works as 'really bad UPN sitcom'.
Quote from: kotteQuote from: filmboy70i never saw Intolerable Cruelty and i am NEVER going to see The Ladykillers.
Then you aren't allowed to express yourself about the films. Please shut up.
sure he is. actually i wish i could trade places with him, if i had the willpower to stay away, and leave my coens untarnished with this junk.
Quote from: SHAFTRQuote from: themodernage02Quote from: SHAFTRI liked Intolerable Cruelty quite a bit. Does that mean I'll like Ladykillers?
but would you say its one of your favorite coen films? like, would it go in your top 3?
No, I wouldn't say that but Coen Bros are a pair of filmmakers whose movie I will always give a chance, but they don't always work for me.
Worked: Fargo, The Big Lebowski, Raising Arizona, Intolerable Cruelty
Kind of worked, but not as much as others claim: Blood Simple, Miller's Crossing, The Man Who Wasn't There
DIdn't work at all: O Brother Where Art Thou
still need to see Barton Fink.
:shock: oh. you might like this one then?
Quote from: themodernage02
Quote from: kotteQuote from: filmboy70i never saw Intolerable Cruelty and i am NEVER going to see The Ladykillers.
Then you aren't allowed to express yourself about the films. Please shut up.
sure he is.
Uh, no, I wouldn't think so.
Quote from: themodernage02Quote from: ®edlumI love all the Coen brothers movies. To start hypothesizing their decline is ridiculous. I think a better way to look at it would be to think that people who might not ordinarily go to see the brothers talents might like this one, and go back through the catalogue. Then there'll be all the more people to complain about the good old days when the Coens didnt make movies that appealed to a broader audience.
no its not. 2 shitty movies in a row can be considered a decline. its not that they're making good movies that are now appealing to a wider audience, they're making movies (if ladykillers is anything comparable to intolerable cruelty) that are awful, even by 'normal movie' standards. (i doubt that anyone would describe any of their earlier works as 'really bad UPN sitcom'.
Quote from: kotteQuote from: filmboy70i never saw Intolerable Cruelty and i am NEVER going to see The Ladykillers.
Then you aren't allowed to express yourself about the films. Please shut up.
sure he is. actually i wish i could trade places with him, if i had the willpower to stay away, and leave my coens untarnished with this junk.
Quote from: SHAFTRQuote from: themodernage02Quote from: SHAFTRI liked Intolerable Cruelty quite a bit. Does that mean I'll like Ladykillers?
but would you say its one of your favorite coen films? like, would it go in your top 3?
No, I wouldn't say that but Coen Bros are a pair of filmmakers whose movie I will always give a chance, but they don't always work for me.
Worked: Fargo, The Big Lebowski, Raising Arizona, Intolerable Cruelty
Kind of worked, but not as much as others claim: Blood Simple, Miller's Crossing, The Man Who Wasn't There
DIdn't work at all: O Brother Where Art Thou
still need to see Barton Fink.
:shock: oh. you might like this one then?
Hehe, lists are fun. I'm a Coen fan who hated Fargo, and was totally lukewarm over O Brother and Miller's Crossing. And no, I don't think IC is top three, but I still like it. Not every movie can be "the best" movie. Like, Color Of Money is not Scorsese's best movie by a long shot, but it's still a great, fun, breath-of-fresh-air picture.
Quote from: CinephileQuote from: themodernage02
Quote from: kotteQuote from: filmboy70i never saw Intolerable Cruelty and i am NEVER going to see The Ladykillers.
Then you aren't allowed to express yourself about the films. Please shut up.
sure he is.
Uh, no, I wouldn't think so.
Giving an opinion and not knowing what we're talking about is never something to be taken seriously. You could say that the trailer or the conditions that originated these movies or the cast doesn't appeal to you, but without seeing it, you can never say it's bad, good or that those were some good waffles
am the first one to trash a film without seeing it? wow! i was expressing the opinion that i know i will hate it (sorry hanks). i didnt say any of you will hate it. i was just saying that for the people who see it and wish they hadnt..then i am sorry. now i will shut up. :wink:
I don't care what the reivews say, etc... I'm going to see this movie anyway. The Coen's have still yet to disappoint me and I've seen ALL of their work.
I think the Ladykillers looks pretty darn good.
Quote from: filmboy70am the first one to trash a film without seeing it? wow! i was expressing the opinion that i know i will hate it (sorry hanks). i didnt say any of you will hate it. i was just saying that for the people who see it and wish they hadnt..then i am sorry. now i will shut up. :wink:
I know what you were trying to say. I just said you can say a film doesn't appeal to you, but that's it. You can't criticize it if you haven't seen it... right? And, please, don't shut up.
alright i saw this. *(sigh). being a huge coen fan since birth, i couldnt help myself even though i thought/heard/knew it might/would be bad. it was okay. not terrible, but not really anything i'm excited about watching again. just so 'blah' it makes me want to puke. what happened to my precious coens? had a few similarities with the original, but was pretty different. watching hanks devour the role was the most fun part of the film. a lot of the jokes i just did not think were funny. perhaps they were aimed at a more 'urban' audience who thinks 'hippedy hop jokes' are funny. perhaps the problem with the last two films is the casting? like, there were NONE of the big coen regulars (john tutturo, john goodman, holly hunter, francis mcdormand, steve buscemi) in them, and therefore, were bad. theres just got to be a reason for this. i feel bad for hanks getting to work with them on one of their worst films. hopefully he'll get another swing when they get back to their 'roots'. as far as its grosses, i doubt itll do very well considering again, how weird it is, and how mainstream audiences feel about weird. nice bruce campbell cameo though.
What themodernage said.
I think there were five really good scenes in this: two of them being where Hanks recited Edgar Allen Poe, one of them consisting of the final moment on the bridge, and the other two having already made haste from concrete memory, leaving only ephemeral traces of pleasure, thus perhaps inspiring you to wonder 'were they, in fact, great at all, seeing as how they now evade recollection?.' This may well be true, but I know I laughed out loud, heartily, at least twice.
Also, they sort of reprised the inhaler joke from Intolerable Cruelty. It was hilarious the first time. Speaking of Intolerable Cruelty, that and this film are two in a pair.
I agree. I liked the film and it was an ok 100 minutes, but I'm glad it wasnt longer. It was funny at moments and I liked Hanks and his character (the laugh was great). And I liked the type of Coen ending which was funny. But this wasnt anything special or appealing to see another time or get the DVD. Its one of those movies that go unnoticed in the career of both the Coens and Tom Hanks.
I wanted to see Jersey Girl but the next showing was in like 50 minutes and I didnt want to wait so much so it was ok... but I would see another movie this weekend if I were you (Eternal Sunshine which I already saw, Jersey Girl, I dunno...)
Quote from: andykbut I would see another movie this weekend if I were you (Eternal Sunshine which I already saw, Jersey Girl, I dunno...)
How about "Scooby Doo 2"?
The movie is funny at times and is rarely boring, but as a whole it didn't come together for me. Some of the humor was not of my taste, such as the portrait of the old lady's dead husband. It was an old gag and seemed out of place here. Roger Deakins provides some nice cinematography.
Quote from: andykAnd I liked the type of Coen ending which was funny.
the ending was almost exactly the same as in the original.
Quote from: andykBut this wasnt anything special or appealing to see another time or get the DVD.
i know. and isnt that sad, that even the most hardcore coen fans have to say this about one of their films? what a sad sad state of affairs.
Quote from: themodernage02Quote from: andykAnd I liked the type of Coen ending which was funny.
the ending was almost exactly the same as in the original.
Quote from: andykBut this wasnt anything special or appealing to see another time or get the DVD.
i know. and isnt that sad, that even the most hardcore coen fans have to say this about one of their films? what a sad sad state of affairs.
Yes, I completely agree that it is sad... and it's frustrating, too, to see those little Coen touches- visually and character and plot-wise- and wonder why they won't really indulge us (as they did last with
The Man Who Wasn't There, which I adore) instead of wasting so much time on jokes that are no more funny than Urkel?
Quote from: godardianwasting so much time on jokes that are no more funny than Urkel?
Desparation (or perhaps distinct disinterest), thy name is IBS.
The IBS thing was idiotic. I was surprised to see something so stupid.
Wasn't Barry Sonnenfeld originally to direct the Coens' script?
this movie sucked. i think ethan should stay away from directing. though the movie had it's funny points, all in all, the movie was awful.
QuoteThe IBS thing was idiotic. I was surprised to see something so stupid.
holy shit, i know. and marlon wayans was really really bad. and while watching the movie it felt like they were trying to do a variation on "The Big Lebowski" having every other word 'fuck.'
Quote from: RaviWasn't Barry Sonnenfeld originally to direct the Coens' script?
yeah
Quote from: themodernage02Quote from: MacGuffinHired to adapt a script for Barry Sonnenfeld, the Coens took on the entire project when the "Get Shorty'' director passed.
AND THERE YOU HAVE IT. the reason this movie, like intolerable cruelty, does not look very good. FUCK, coens, get your shit together. QUIT agreeing to write scripts for other people. QUIT agreeing to RE-write bad scripts by other people. and GODDAMNIT, QUIT fucking deciding you want to direct that not-so-good script! get back to coming up with your own ideas, and QUICK.
Quote from: El Duderinothis movie sucked. i think ethan should stay away from directing. though the movie had it's funny points, all in all, the movie was awful.
haha, i dont think its ethans fault. just because he got credited, i dont think he was any more involved in the directing this time and suddenly screwed everything up. haha, although that is a funny theory.
also: for anyone hoping these last two will finance dream project To The White Sea, remember THATS A RE-WRITE TOO! and you know the rules...
Quote from: GhostboyQuote from: godardianwasting so much time on jokes that are no more funny than Urkel?
Desparation (or perhaps distinct disinterest), thy name is IBS.
I was just telling a friend of mine that they could probably make a
South park about IBS and it would be genius and very funny, but if there's anything that's not Coen territory, it's that sort of no-brow thing. At most, they do pseudo-no-brow really well... but there was no mistaking what those stupid IBS bits in
Ladykillers were, which was just pandering or laziness or (most disappointingly) creeping dullness... probably the lowest point for me, really. Those jokes and the Marlon Wayans jokes belong to a world that is very distinct in my mind from the Coen's world...
Wow, we're all really starting to gel looking at this thread and the "Eternal Sunshine" thread. A lot of us are actually starting to agree on things.
Yup, I guess I can finally say I've seen a bad Coen Bros movie. I never though I'd see the day, lol. I mean, I'm not too crazy about "Hudsucker" or "The Man Who Wasn't There" or even "Blood Simple" for that matter but I definitely couldn't call any of them BAD. This is the first one that I've made that I can.
Anyway, I guess it had some kinda funny parts but apart from the music, there is absolutely nothing I can think of that I liked about it. Hanks was the best part acting wise I guess. Him and the old lady had some decent scenes together. This isn't to say either of them were GREAT though. There really isn't much more to say I guess. The Bros slipped up, plain and simple. No big deal though, they're definitely entitled to at least one screw up plus a few more as well, they've blessed us with some classics in the past. They deserve a little break in my eyes. Let's just hope they get back to themselves soon enough. I don't care if they stay in the mainstream, just as long as they start making good movies again.
I actually like Ladykillers, though sure, muck of it was stupid. I figure they're just in the slumps, banging a couple of proverbial fatties so they can get it out of their system.
Quote from: RaviRoger Deakins provides some nice cinematography.
I thought it was perfect..!!
This movie had me from the opening credits.
Very enjoyable. The football game had me rolling in the isle..!!
All is forgiven for IC.
Some things I liked in this film:
-Marlon Wayans. His face as he backs away from the old lady after getting slapped is priceless.
-The Asian guy
-The Asian guy's intro
-The football sequence
-POSSIBLE SPOILER: The garbage truck sequence towards the end
-SPOILER: How Tom Hanks met his end
-The old lady
-Roger Deakins' cinematography
The United States of Coen
The Coen brothers, in 11 films, have represented no fewer than eight states and at least a dozen cities or towns across America. Source: Los Angeles Times
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"The Ladykillers," the new Coen brothers film, is the story of a florid robber (Tom Hanks) and the prayerful black matron who foils him. It takes place in the fictional town of Saucier, Miss. Where it really takes place, though, is the South. The Coens have been there before: It's where they go when they want to find snoozing police chiefs, devout Baptists, white linen and the occasional gruesome death, all of which abound in this film.
Though set in the new, multicultural South — brought forth most of all in the soundtrack, which mingles classic gospel, hip-hop and Baroque chamber music — "The Ladykillers," like so many of their films, feels like a throwback. It wavers between the farcical and the gothic.
There are those American film auteurs — John Ford, Billy Wilder, Martin Scorsese — whom we associate with certain places and times. The Coen brothers, Joel and Ethan, represent another tradition. (And we can call it a tradition: They've been making films together now for 20 years.) They are itinerants. In 11 films, they've represented no fewer than eight states and at least a dozen cities or towns.
They've made films in California, Minnesota, New York, Louisiana, Arizona, Texas and Mississippi, and with a mind to the 1920s, '30s, '40s, '90s and 2000s, which is to say nothing of the befogged Jeff Lebowski of "The Big Lebowski," the Dude as he's known, who lives around the time of the Persian Gulf War but is stuck in a cloud of marijuana smoke wafting over from the 1960s.
Joel, who takes credit for directing and cowriting, and Ethan, who takes credit for cowriting and producing (in fact, they both do everything), build each story around their vision of a place, even going so far as to include geography in the titles, as in "Raising Arizona" and "Fargo," a city in North Dakota; they craft characters and find houses and cars and clothes and music that bespeak the place down to the minutest detail; and then, poof, they pick up camp and go somewhere completely different for their next project.
The Coens grew up in Minneapolis. They attended Simon's Rock College in Massachusetts, a school for gifted students below college age ("We couldn't get out of Minneapolis fast enough"). Joel, 49, continued on to New York University, and Ethan, 47, headed to Princeton. They now both live in Manhattan, Joel with his wife, actress Frances McDormand, who's appeared in five of their films, and their adopted son, Pedro, 9, on the Upper West Side.
Ethan lives close by in the Murray Hill neighborhood with his wife, Tricia Cooke, an editor who's worked on seven of their films, and their daughter, Dusty, 3, and son, Buster, 5. Sitting in either corner of an overstuffed couch in a Century City hotel last week (with their blue jeans, loose shirts and 5 o'clock shadows, the brothers looked as though they might have been more comfortable in the gloomy Hotel Earle from "Barton Fink"), the Coens said they began thinking hard about landscape and locale from their first moments in film. A few years ago, they planned to make a film called "To the White Sea," about a World War II fighter pilot from Alaska who is shot down over Japan and traverses the country on foot to get to the Pacific Ocean. "That was going to be all about landscape," said Joel, the more talkative and taller of the two. (The project foundered for lack of money.)
They made "Blood Simple," their 1984 debut feature, in and around Austin, Texas, where Joel briefly attended graduate school. The film opens with a curt monologue from a reptilian private detective, played by M. Emmet Walsh.
"What I know about is Texas," he mutters. "Down here, you're on your own." This cartoonish rendition of the Lone Star ethos shoves us, like some incensed ranch hand, into a Texas of barren expanses and roads stretching menacingly into the night.
"Location is often a starting point in our thinking about stories," Joel said. "It's not necessarily the first thing that comes to mind, but it's got to be there pretty early." In "Blood Simple," whose bare-bones plot begins with adultery and murder and ends with more murder, they were inspired by a spate of true-crime books from the early 1980s that they called "very Texas." As untested independent filmmakers ("Blood Simple" was made for $750,000), they used locations and crew members drawn from around Austin and among Joel's friends as a matter of economy.
Even so, the film touched off the Coens' fascination with the South and Southwest generally, a fascination that continues with "The Ladykillers." They are constantly taken anew with the region's "backwards-looking, melancholic" feel, Ethan said. "The Civil War is still going on down there." So taken were they, in fact, that they were inspired to write their second film, "Raising Arizona" (1987), partly by the Southern accent of actress Holly Hunter. Hunter plays Edwina, the headstrong but infertile police officer who, with her conscientious ex-con husband, played by Nicolas Cage, kidnaps the child of an Arizona furniture magnate. That Hunter is from Georgia and Arizona is in the Southwest didn't bother them; they have always gone for a "generic" regional feel, the Coens said.
Why Arizona? They'd never been to the state before that.
"It was a good title," Joel said. "Maybe because of the title?" Ethan thought about this for a few seconds, nodding, and then added: "We wanted this kind of Road Runner terrain too." In fact, cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld's antic dollying shots and Carter Burwell's mishmash score, which combined cowboy yodeling with a banjo rendition of Beethoven's Ode to Joy, do call to mind the Warner Brothers cartoon. The Coens' Arizona is a Reagan-era frontier land, full of pistol-wielding convenience-store clerks and eloquent fugitives. Was the Grand Canyon state ever really like this, John McCain notwithstanding? One can only wish.
'Miller's' unnamed environs
Their third film, "Miller's Crossing" (1990), was a stark departure from the deserts and highways of "Blood Simple" and "Raising Arizona." A story of feuding Irish and Italian gangs in the 1920s, it is relentlessly urban, down to the labyrinthine plot. All grimy streets and tenement apartments, it takes place in an unnamed city that people usually think to be Chicago or perhaps Boston. Again, the Coens wanted a "generic" feel, this time of the Northeast.
The illusion of the Northeast may be there, but the film was shot entirely in New Orleans, where the Coens liked the nondescript period look of the buildings. Additionally, they wanted a city with a working trolley car, because they couldn't afford to build one (such are the details they cling to).
This diachronic take on geography — the there-but-not-quite-there mood of a film that takes place in the Northeast but was shot in Louisiana — contributes to a sense of alienation in some of the Coens' work that has been commented on often. Such a mood is prominent in "Blood Simple," "Barton Fink" (1991) and, more recently, "The Man Who Wasn't There" (2001). Sometimes their characters are grounded in locales and yet oddly dislocated from them. Gabriel Byrne's Tom Reagan in "Miller's Crossing" is an example; Steve Buscemi's bewildered hit man in "Fargo" is another. In "Blood Simple," Walsh wears a cowboy hat and bolo tie but drives around in a VW bug.
Do they think about this dislocation? Not really, the Coens said.
Does it perhaps stem from their own lives, they're asked, from moving from Minnesota to Massachusetts to New York and New Jersey in their youths, and then, over the last 20 years, all over the country?
Nothing there, either. The first instinct for these artists, steeped in the history of their medium, is always to point not to themselves but to other films. (One gets the feeling they could carry on an hours-long conversation in nothing but film titles.) So rather than talk about their childhoods they refer to "The Glass Key," the 1945 Alan Ladd noir, and "Red Harvest," a 1932 gangster picture on which "Miller's Crossing" is loosely based.
Just as often, the Coens have books in mind. Their fascination with the South comes partly from a love of its literature, particularly William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor. O'Connor's gothic sensibility and cruel twists of fate show up in "The Ladykillers," even though it takes place in the present day, and Tom Hanks' character is continually quoting Edgar Allan Poe, who himself is often thought to be Southern but was in fact from Boston. (Again with the dislocation.) Even the Coens admit their fourth film, "Barton Fink," is dripping with the sense of dislocation. John Turturro's title character has moved to Hollywood from New York to work on a screenplay for a big studio, and in the process of writing, or rather not writing, goes insane. The main inspiration for the story, they said, was the book "City of Nets," Otto Friedrich's study of Los Angeles in the 1940s.
Cinematographer Roger Deakins, whose first film with the Coens was "Barton Fink" (he's shot every one since), said, "There was a sense of decay we wanted to get across." They shot numerous exteriors around Hollywood, in bedraggled corners of old studio lots and in the less picturesque parts of Griffith Park. But they decided to cut them out to make it "more claustrophobic." The result is a film that takes place mostly in Barton Fink's head.
A film that screams L.A.
Not so "The Big Lebowski" (1998), the Coens' Raymond Chandler-inspired paean to Los Angeles. Unlike "Miller's Crossing" or "The Hudsucker Proxy" (1994), a nod to 1930s screwball comedies that opens on a mock New York skyline, "The Big Lebowski" positively screams L.A.
The Coens' most realistically site-specific film, it is filled with decrepit apartment complexes, old bowling alleys and pancake houses (much of it was shot near Deakins' home in Santa Monica). It counts among its characters the unemployed hero, who walks around in a Thai stick- and White Russian-induced haze; a bad performance artist; and a gang of German nihilists who dabble in electronic music and porn. There is nowhere "The Big Lebowski" could have been set but L.A.
"The only thing we left out was a religious charlatan," Joel said.
"The Man Who Wasn't There," their darkest film since "Barton Fink" (so dark, indeed, they made it in black and white), is set in Santa Rosa, Calif., in the late 1940s. Like "Barton Fink," it is a meticulous film about a man, this time a laconic barber played by Billy Bob Thornton, who feels increasingly alienated from the world around him. If "The Big Lebowski" is the Coens' paean to the city, "The Man Who Wasn't There" is their nightmare vision of the suburbs.
Although "O Brother, Where Art Thou" is a completely different kind of film taking place in a different state, the Coens went for a similar washed-out feel. Deakins said they wanted "a dry, dusty, otherworldly look. Like an old, faded postcard." But the film was shot in the summer, when Mississippi is lush. To achieve the desired effect, the Coens removed all the greens from the final print digitally. To find places to shoot, they took a long, slow drive through the South. (The Ku Klux Klan rally scene, incidentally, was shot on the Disney lot in Burbank.)
It was, they said, the most fun they've had scouting locations.
In "O Brother," as in "The Ladykillers," the Coens relied entirely on non-original music to help define the story's locale, and the soundtrack of classic bluegrass, compiled by T Bone Burnett, attracted as much attention as the film. It almost single-handedly revived interest in American roots music. "The Ladykillers" soundtrack may prove to have a similarly rejuvenating effect on gospel.
It wasn't until the mid-1990s, a decade after they first picked up a camera, that the Coens decided to set a film in Minnesota. "Fargo" (1996), to date their most acclaimed endeavor, also conveys the strongest sense of place of any of their films. The film is so thoroughly set in the frozen North it makes one cold just to watch it. Though they are generally reluctant to relate their own lives to their films, the Coens said that "Fargo" was based "on a lot of direct experience of the locale. Sometimes our stories are very specifically bound up in the landscape."
"I guess Minneapolis is a nice place if you didn't have to grow up there," Joel said, and this sentiment comes across in the film. The main character is not really McDormand's indomitable policewoman, nor William H. Macy's hapless car salesman, whose kidnapping plot she unravels, but, rather, the snow. "Fargo" is filled with never-ending snow; gray, horizon-less expanses of snow that are even more dreary than the expanses of road in "Blood Simple." The landscape, like the characters, and like the eerie Hardanger fiddle music, inspires shivers.
Tellingly, the most relatable character in the film, Buscemi's hit man — "the audience surrogate," Ethan called him, in a rare moment of critical objectivity — is a coldblooded murderer. He is, as Joel put it, a geographically neutral guy in an insanely specific place. Given enough snow, even normal people can be driven to kill, they seem to be saying.
Apparently, the Coen brothers don't miss Minnesota much.
I haven't seen it yet, but a lot of the reaction I've read here sums up what I thought of The Big Lebowski when it first came out. It seemed like a dumb, broad humor caricature. Especially being released right after Fargo. It was totally off the road. It took a few years to catch on and is arguably their most popular film.
But considering how bad the reviews were (of course every critic watched the original before writing their review, just to stupidly compare them), and the fact it was only playing in fewer than half the theaters of Scooby Doo, it's per-screen average was pretty good. That's easily because of Hanks. But if mass audiences can connect this with Lebowski, O Brother and Raising Arizona, it could be a hit.
Everybody keeps looking at this and Cruelty from a Coens POV. That's wrong. Look at them from a mainstream POV. Are these better than typical mainstream comedies? Cruelty certainly was. And that's all it was supposed to be.
Quote from: mutinyco
Everybody keeps looking at this and Cruelty from a Coens POV. That's wrong.
Absolutely not. It's not wrong to compare the current work of one of your favorite directors- particularly directors who have developed an extremely unique and recognizable "take" on things in their films- to their best work, the stuff that made you care about them in the first place. In fact, that's exactly
right. Which is not to say that they should ever try to repeat themselves or coast, but that there's a certain level of quality they have to live up to, whatever the project is; "mainstream" or no, they've failed that standard this time around. In my opinion, they also failed it with
Intolerable Cruelty.
It seems very wrong to me to think of these things in terms of categories like "mainstream," since that could mean just about anything that turns a buck and has little or nothing to do with the content of a film (unless a filmmaker is actually willing to admit they purposefully threw their vision out the window in a cynical ploy for popularity, which even hacks won't usually cop to). Some great films make a buck; many don't. I doubt anyone would've called
Passion of the Christ "mainstream" before it made so much money. These concepts- "mainstream," "alternative"- are so limited and worn out in every semiotic sense that I've refused to use them for some time now, much as I can't even remember the last time I seriously thought of calling something "weird." Some words become so misused and commonly relied upon that they carry no weight; they're lazy, prefabricated terms suitable for use by media trolls, not our very own private brains.
All glib labeling aside, I'd be extremely happy with this film if it were good, and I'm not because it's not. Nice for the Coens if they have a box-office success with this one; would've been nicer for them and for us, the audience, if they'd made something that actually lived up to the expectations they themselves have set by making some truly inventive, interesting, singularly memorable films.
The Big Lebowski seems a bit broad at first, but it's actually packed with the kind of eccentric cleverness only the Coens could concoct and execute. With
The Ladykillers, it's abundantly clear from the word go that there's much, and I mean
much, less there. And what about
Raising Arizona, one of my favorite Coens? It's really nothing but slapstick, but it's
all theirs. They obviously have their influences, but nobody has done slapstick quite like that.
I don't doubt that there's a way for the Coens to make whatever kind of film that the money people assume a very large audience will go to see (which would be whatever "mainstream" coincidentally happens to be this season) where the film would also be, as I said before, inventive and interesting, in their style. I just know they haven't found it yet.
One of the things that Coen detractors often use in their arguments against the fraternal pair is that they don't care about their characters, that they are too cold and sardonic; those who know and love their oveure will point out immediately that they do in fact care very much.
I think the chief problem with The Ladykillers (and with Intolerable Cruelty, for that matte) is that, for the first time, there is a disregard for the individuals on screen -- the Coens seem, with these films, to be mainly interested in the trappings associated with their previous films (the precariously structured rhetoric, the equally precarious nomenclature, the irony of these and other details being mishmashed with the locale of choice), and pile them on in an attempt to add some personal creative fix to a project that they most likely had very little interest in to begin with.
Thank you MacGuffin
I like that stuff about the snow.
No surprise to any, but I did not like the film. I admire what the Coens try to do, but in the midst of trying to create great and unique farce, they never seem to truly get there in my opinion. I keep comparing their films to How I Won the War, a film of the greatest farce ever seen on film for me and in my top ten list of best films ever made. That film shredded 20 cliches in the midst of twenty seconds and created one of the most unique approaches to telling a story I've ever seen. With the Coens, I find too much flattery with the mainstream, the conventions they seem to ridicule and love at the same time. Intolerable Cruelty and the Ladykillers are by far the most mainstream films I've seen by them, works that hardly get beyond the general self ridicule in all comedies today. The Big Lewbowski at least presented a unique world of comedy and drama. Its just with that film and the other Coen works, I never was pushed over the top to really like them.
Quote from: CinephileQuote from: themodernage02
Quote from: kotteQuote from: filmboy70i never saw Intolerable Cruelty and i am NEVER going to see The Ladykillers.
Then you aren't allowed to express yourself about the films. Please shut up.
sure he is.
Uh, no, I wouldn't think so.
This coming from the same lemon (Cinephile) who trashed a film, solely based on reviews, without having actually watched it or making the attempt to at some point. :roll: How's about forming you're, "golly gee", very
own independent thoughts and opinions on things. Try it, it's real real good sometimes. Honest. :-D
Quote from: billybrownThis coming from the same lemon (Cinephile) who trashed a film, solely based on reviews, without having actually watched it or making the attempt to at some point. :roll: How's about forming you're, "golly gee", very own independent thoughts and opinions on things. Try it, it's real real good sometimes. Honest. :-D
Did you completely ignore MacGuffin's post in the other thread?
Quote from: MacGuffinStop this now.
You even had the last word too. And now you've rehashed something I said to somebody ELSE
five days ago. Do you have a life at all, kid? You're annoying everybody. Take a hint and quit while you're ahead.
Quote from: CinephileQuote from: billybrownThis coming from the same lemon (Cinephile) who trashed a film, solely based on reviews, without having actually watched it or making the attempt to at some point. :roll: How's about forming you're, "golly gee", very own independent thoughts and opinions on things. Try it, it's real real good sometimes. Honest. :-D
Did you completely ignore MacGuffin's post in the other thread?
Quote from: MacGuffinStop this now.
You even had the last word too. And now you've rehashed something I said to somebody ELSE five days ago. Do you have a life at all, kid? You're annoying everybody. Take a hint and quit while you're ahead.
Stop speaking for other people and spreading innuendo -
that is what is annoying. Judging from a few PM's I've gotten, you aren't as precious as you'd like to think you are. And all this re-hashing biz started on your end regarding the Ebert comment, so think you before you continually make assanine comments. Judging from the 3 million non-sensical posts you make, I'd say you're the one with infinite time on your hands. I'm done with all this silly back and forth with such a silly person. Now run along little man.
To everyone that has had to read all this crap, my apologies, but this Cinephile character is such a... I digress. Cheers.
Isn't it clear by now? None (or very few) of us have a "life" to speak of, what with the posting on Interweb message boards and all. If we did, we'd be living it, hence the absences of certain people who have chosen to live theirs.
So now then, let's all hold hands, sing "Wise Up," and continue to salivate over the prospect of PTA's next film like the fan boys we are.
At the risk of repeating myself:
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Quote from: Onomatopoeia
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hahahahaha
*clenches hands* "It's not....what you thought..."
billybrown, at least in the ebert thread cinephile called u out. this time u went looking for it.
don't kill anymore threads please. thanks.
Quote from: Pubrickbillybrown, at least in the ebert thread cinephile called u out. this time u went looking for it.
don't kill anymore threads please. thanks.
First off, what are you saying, or trying to say?
That whole Ebert thing was me making a JOKE, and he re-hashed the whole Brown Bunny thing with a direct comment to me. Unless Cinephile
is Roger Ebert, your point is utterly irrelevant. I dropped that whole thing months and months ago, yet some of us here can be very very petty. I merely responded to his mindless banter.
Get your facts straight. Thanks for coming out.
Quote from: OnomatopoeiaIsn't it clear by now? None (or very few) of us have a "life" to speak of, what with the posting on Interweb message boards and all. If we did, we'd be living it, hence the absences of certain people who have chosen to live theirs.
So now then, let's all hold hands, sing "Wise Up," and continue to salivate over the prospect of PTA's next film like the fan boys we are.
At the risk of repeating myself:
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:lol: Cheers to that. :yabbse-thumbup:
listen, stop being a jerk.
that's "what i'm trying to say". work it out in PMs if u want to hav a bitch fight but don't ruin anymore threads with ur bullshit.
Quote from: billybrownI'm done with all this silly back and forth
let's hope that is true.
see ya
Quote from: fultysee ya
I hope that doesn't mean you're leaving us.
I saw it earlier tonight. I didn't dislike it while I was watching it. In fact, I found aspects quite interesting. I initially pinpointed the problem by thinking it didn't work because the main character was completely undeveloped. We never saw him putting the gang together, or what drew them together. Or what his motivation was outside of the physical act of stealing the money.
A few hours after, it started to settle. I think this movie's kinda brilliant. It's essentially a movie that doesn't give a fuck. It's a film of no consequence. The bad guys kill themselves, the old black woman is deemed senile by the police, then she gives the stolen money to Bob Jones University thinking she's done good -- but it's a school with a racist mission. So, what was the point?
Also, I kinda thought the whole black culture clash was interesting -- it depicted one generation raised on The Bible, simple-minded and God-fearing; the other was raised on TV and gangsta rap...pop culture, and he's violent and ignorant. One character is so simple that she's duped, the other is so misguided that he dies by his own gun.
We never learn anything about the robbery crew. They're essentially cartoons. They have no backgrounds -- and they're all so bizzare. They have NOTHING in common. There's no comradary. No banter. They're total opposites. And all we know is that they were assembled through a newspaper ad. It doesn't matter. They all die and nobody will ever know what happened to any of them.
The puzzling thing is that it's a terribly bleak film -- one character is so dumb that he proved not only his lack of general inelligence, but also, that he never saw Intolerable Cruelty. Yet at the same time, and I'm now rethinking this as I've written it, maybe the ending with her giving the school money is a happy ending. Through sheer luck, this old black woman will be buying into a traditionally white institution. By accepting her donation the process of change can begin...
What am I thinking? She's the type who would send it all in a box. Probably anonymously.
Quote from: mutinycoI The bad guys kill themselves, the old black woman is deemed senile by the police, then she gives the stolen money to Bob Jones University thinking she's done good -- but it's a school with a racist mission. .
thanks for ruining the plot fuckboy
welcome.
I saw this!
It was really funny and stuff.
SPOILERS!!!
It's not hard, type as you read...S-P-O-I-L-E-R-S-!-!-!
I enjoyed watching Hanks chew the scenery. Perfect delivery on lines like "we are quiet and yet NOT quiet."
I think the whole argument of "spoilers" is pretty weak. If you're going to write seriously about a film, you're going to give important details away. If it's something that bothers you, then just don't read anything until you've seen the movie. But don't complain because you were curious enough to read it. It's unnecessary to proclaim "spoliers". It should be taken for granted.
The give-away in your review was quite pointless...
and why not write "spoilers"? I see your argument but I don't agree. Please write "spoilers" and let all of us enjoy your posts.
Quote from: mutinycoI think the whole argument of "spoilers" is pretty weak. If you're going to write seriously about a film, you're going to give important details away. If it's something that bothers you, then just don't read anything until you've seen the movie. But don't complain because you were curious enough to read it. It's unnecessary to proclaim "spoliers". It should be taken for granted.
You've been around for nearly a year, right? If you had any brains, you'd know that everybody here types "Spoilers" or "SPOILERS" or even "spoilers are in dis bitch," before typing things that could give away plot points. If you're going to be completely ignorant of the fact that EVERYONE ELSE is considerate of others, then here's an idea for next time: don't be an asshole. Thanks, mutinyco. I'll see you in the next thread when you ignore what I wrote here.
Uh-oh. Looks like some dumb motherfucker is trying to bait me into a fight. The fact remains: "SPOILERS" is unnecessary. This is a thread about "The Ladykillers". If you don't want to read about the film, then don't read about it. Period. My review wasn't meant for people who hadn't seen it, but for those who had, and in my opinion, didn't get it. As obviously you don't. Grow up. Writing about a film means writing about a film.
I thought "spoilers" was dumb years ago. I think it's dumb now. If you'd like to have an actual discussion about the movie be my guest. Take on the merits of what I wrote. But don't try to attack me like an ignorant prick because, as you guessed, I'm not listening.
You should grow up and go with the flow, for fuck sake...
Going with the flow doesn't get you anywhere. Any discussion of art should never contain the phrase "go with the flow"...
If people don't want to know about a movie, then don't read about it. It's a silly symptom of our media overload -- there's too much information and everybody wants to read it. But if you actually say anything important -- God forbid -- it's wrong. And you need to notify people that you're actually going to say something relevant.
Like this. We're talking about spoilers instead of the movie.
It's about giving away the ending...there are tons of ways to critique a movie without giving it away.
Critics do it all the time...
Possibly. But not in this case. It's the ending that ties all of the themes together. Again, my post was for those who'd already seen it.
Quote from: mutinycoAgain, my post was for those who'd already seen it.
Well, I would have known if...
Mutinyco's right in one regard: a discussion of film doesn't need spoiler warnings.
However, this isn't Film Comment. Common courtesy suggests that, if you write a review for people who have already seen a film, simply label it as such, so that those who haven't seen it but wish to engage in the ongoing conversation that makes a messageboard a messageboard can save your comments for later.
If you don't like the word SPOILER, don't use it, but a warning of some sort should always be in order; and I'd wager that it takes less time to type that immediately recognizable admonition than a sentence saying the same thing.
Wait! I'm confused. You mean this ISN'T Film Comment?...
Jesus Christ, and I thought I dropped some dumb posts. This argument is a no brainer! Mutiny, for the love of God: S-P-O-I-L-E-R! You can post your reviews on your website.
Thankyaverymuch.
I have a few things to say:
Intolerable Cruelty was not very funny. It was over the top. The only one there with a true comic timing is Clooney, but he's all alone. I remember from the very beggining, when Geoffrey Rush says: "It's funny that we have someone to clean the pool since, WE DON'T HAVE A POOL", I thought, simply: "lame"...
The Ladykillers is not like Intolerable Cruelty, it's not that much about being mainstream and it is funnier. People were laughing last night, a lot more than when I saw IC back in october or something like that. Like mutinyco says, this movie doesn't give a fuck, and the final joke about the University is Coen Brothers at their best. This reminded me of The Big Lebowski. The dialogues are brilliant all the way through, specially Hank's...and everyone seems to be having a lot of fun.
This is not mainstream at all. It's too weird. Mainstream comedy is Scary Movie, or something along those lines. From the get go, the soundtrack is not some punck rock/top 40 collection of songs, and most of the jokes, even the ones about farts and digestive problems are funny because of the way the characters react to them (never breaking the character), not because of the jokes in themselves.
Time will treat better this one, I guess. Just like with The Big Lebowski.
About the spoilers thing...well, just for politeness we should warn about them, but frankly, I don't see the point of reading reviews or comments about a movie that you haven't seen. When I come here, is always to read what the others think of the movie, but never before I see it. I come here to read the other's opinions cause I respect them and find them interesting. After all, we all love movies. I like to read comments that adress everything, even the endings, of course. Roger Ebert always reveals a lot of plot details and sometimes even ending details in his reviews, cause that's actually the only proper way to write about a movie.
Also, it's kind of tiresome that I watch a movie, come home, get into xixax to read comments, and it's always seven pages of bullshit posts like "This looks interesting", "Oh, I wanna see that", or even things like "mmmmmh" before any real opinion is posted...Not that I'm suggesting anyone to change their sacred xixax habits, but it's kind of boring sometimes...
alexandro
I agree!
Sorry, but I just had to make this post.... couldn't... resist...
the toilet humor in this movie is no different than the toilet humor in the wayans bros. Scary Movie. (although, its probably funnier when the wayans bros. do it.) the big lebowski was great on opening night when i saw it and is still great now, the same will not be said for this piece of shit: today tomorrow or far off into the future it will be shunned like the red-headed stepchild of the coens oeuvre. also, keep in mind: ITS A REMAKE. just the idea of the coens lowering themselves to REMAKE a fucking movie is sickening, so anything that actually shines through in this turd was probably in the original (hence, not theirs), so lets not try to make excuses. we are all in a state of denial because of how badly we dont want it to be true, but we all have to face the music. they've been making shit for the past few years, and lets hope it stops here.
I agree with everything modage said except that the Wayans bros. are never funny. Never. Scary Movie had a good premise but didn't take it far enough. Scary Movie 2 was one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Scary Movie 3 wasn't anything to write home about either. Someone seriously needs to make a truly funny either send-up of scary movies, or a legitimate one will all the requisite R-rated material so lacking in the PC world of these days.
Although, I haven't even seen the Ladykillers, and pretty much refuse to due to lack of time and the principle of the thing. Like modage said, it's a fucking remake ... and it has the Wayans bros. and slapstick comedy meant to appeal to the idiots of the world like some kind of lame Hollywood gross-out schtick geared towards pre-adolescent boys.
Quote from: DonamatopoeiaSomeone seriously needs to make a truly funny either send-up of scary movies, or a legitimate one...
...*cough*
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.amazon.com%2Fimages%2FP%2FB00009YXI0.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg&hash=a0ff2897677ac5d9027f86e9ad6c466229aa0480)
Quote from: themodernage02the toilet humor in this movie is no different than the toilet humor in the wayans bros. Scary Movie. (although, its probably funnier when the wayans bros. do it.) the big lebowski was great on opening night when i saw it and is still great now, the same will not be said for this piece of shit: today tomorrow or far off into the future it will be shunned like the red-headed stepchild of the coens oeuvre. also, keep in mind: ITS A REMAKE. just the idea of the coens lowering themselves to REMAKE a fucking movie is sickening, so anything that actually shines through in this turd was probably in the original (hence, not theirs), so lets not try to make excuses. we are all in a state of denial because of how badly we dont want it to be true, but we all have to face the music. they've been making shit for the past few years, and lets hope it stops here.
the toilet humor may be the same. i don't think so, but it may be. But that's got nothing to do with the fact that scary movie is mainstream and the ladykillers really isn't. not that is a good or a bad thing, but that's the way i think it is. not very mainstream...
It is a remake but is also a remake that happens to be better than the original. and what's so humiliating about making a remake is you make it your own like the coens did with this. if the ladykillers were the lower point of my career, that would be a nice career. not that it actually is.
Title: The Ladykillers
Released: 14th September 2004
Further Details
Touchstone Home Entertainment has announced the release of The Ladykillers which is the latest film from the Academy Award winning filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen. This laugh-out-loud comedy about smalltime criminals who attempt the heist of the century, will be available from the 14th September this year for around $29.99. As well as a 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen presentation and Dolby Digital 5.1 track, the disc will include The Slap Reel outtakes, Gospel of The Ladykillers deleted music scenes, a Danny Ferrington: The Man Behind the Band feature and The Ladykillers Script Scanner which is an enhanced DVD-ROM feature. We've attached our first look at the official region one package artwork below:
artwork here...
http://www.dvdanswers.com/index.php?r=0&s=1&c=4008&n=1&burl=
The greatest criminal minds of all time have finally met their match.
is that the stupidest tagline you ever heard or what? why are they the greatest 'of all time'? what the hell are they talking about?!?
Quote from: themodernage02The greatest criminal minds of all time have finally met their match.
is that the stupidest tagline you ever heard or what? why are they the greatest 'of all time'? what the hell are they talking about?!?
Haven't seen it yet, but isn't it supposed to be ironic?
yeah but isnt 'of all time' taking it a little too far?
But what if they wanted to really really ironic?
Bit of advice. The Coens don't handle their marketing. Marketing guys do. They're trying to sell it to the masses.
I don't really see how that's "advice"
Quote from: mutinycoBit of advice. The Coens don't handle their marketing. Marketing guys do. They're trying to sell it to the masses.
i'm trying to figure out whether i hate 'the masses' or 'the marketing'. maybe a bit of both? :?
You hate The Massketing!!! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!......... oh...... ahah.... ah........ yeah... :?
Quote from: themodernage02yeah but isnt 'of all time' taking it a little too far?
How about "taking it a little too fargo"..?..!!
And I think Tom Hanks THOUGHT he was the greatest mind of all time, so it fits okay with me.
Me + LK DVD = :-D
Quote from: fulty
Me + LK DVD = :-D
Me + That Statement = :|
Quote from: themodernage027th September
Okay, a week sooner.
Just try and stop me. AHAHAHAHA.
I've got to see the opening titles again.
Kinda like bird-poop.
This is old hat now, I guess...
but I really enjoyed this movie. This and Intolerable Cruelty... I dunno why most of you guys hated them so much. I would watch both these movies again before I would watch Miller's Crossing or Fargo or O Brother. And it looked FANTASTIC!!! Beyond the garbage dump island (great great great image), and the obvious stuff, was there a load of digital manipulation? It seemed like a lot of the visuals were cheaked up. If so, Deakins is really using this new technology in a wonderful way which makes it really exciting outside of a special effects (ie. Lord Of The Rings) arena...
Quote from: SoNowThenwas there a load of digital manipulation?
Yeah, they've been all about that since O Brother (which, along with Fargo and Miller's Crossing, as well as most of their other oveure, had much more substance than either of these flicks put together, but to each his own).
man, i have this movie on in the background on HBO. it is HORRIBLE. marlon wayans is BEYOND annoying and so out of place i can't even believe how wrong this movie went. oh coens...
Quote from: modage on March 14, 2004, 10:56:40 PM
watched the original Ladykillers tonite with Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers. (not sure if anyone else here has seen it besides possibly Macguffin and maybe Cinephile), but it was okay. not terribly funny, but it had its moments. its more a better 'idea' than a 'film'
That's the impression I got when I saw it today. Its an interesting idea with nothing special other than the fact that it mixes a nice old lady with seedy con men. You're with the film because you want to see what happens to the characters, but after its over you wonder why you watched it.