Screenhead

Jeff Bridges is in discussions with Paramount to star in Joel and Ethan Coen’s remake of True Grit. Bridgeswould play the role that won John Wayne an Oscar for the 1969 original. I think it will be tough for Bridges (or any actor) to follow Wayne’s Rooster Cogburn. I cherish Wayne’s performance and the movie.  There will be constant comparisons from critics and public at large. Yet, I do believe Bridges is the right actor to take this challenge and deliver a fine performance.

Bridges last worked with the brothers when he turned in a tour de force performance as Jeffrey “the Dude” Lebowski in the 1998.

The script has been redrafted by the brothers to be more faithful to the Charles Portis novel in which the original film was based.

The story is about a 14-year-old girl who follows an aging U.S. marshal, Rooster Cogburn, and another lawman to track the outlaw who killed her father. The new version will come from the girls’ point of view, whereas the original was told from Cogburn’s point of view.

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After two largely awful attempts at comedy (Intolerable Cruelty, The Ladykillers), the Coen Brothers blew away the world of cinema with a potent adaptation of the novel No Country for Old Men, a philosophical glance at the role of violence in our life. They followed that up with a flawed but entertaining madcap comedy, Burn After Reading, and seem to be continuing in mood with their upcoming A Serious Man.

The trailer above is a well-crafted 90 seconds of footage that reveals little about the plot. Most probably because there is not much of a plot to this comedic drama. The story follows Larry Gopnik, an academic living and working in 1960s Minneapolis. After his wife wants to leave him it seems poor Larry is trying to find meaning and understanding in hiw life, which is falling apart around him due to the assistance of an utterly disfunctional family.

It’s interesting to see the Coen brothers make a film that seems particularly unambitious. Indeed, you’d almost risk believing that it’s the most personal film the directing duo have made, dealing with their childhood in Minneapolis and their academic parents. Is this the Coen brothers making a Woody Allen film? It’s hard to tell from the trailer, but the amusing attempt to construct Larry’s problems (being bashed against a wall, the hacking coughs of his apparently uncaring rabbi) into a soundtrack of anxiety works well to transform the concept of a humdrum life into a funny tale.

A Serious Man is released in the US in October.

The original True Grit is a classic in every sense of the word.  The cast alone (Kim Darby, Glen Campbell, Robert Duvall, Dennis Hopper, and of course, the great John Wayne) puts it in everyone’s library.

Now, it’s in remake mode. Yikes!  None other than Joel and Ethan Coen will put their spin on True Grit, the iconic Western that won John Wayne an Oscar.

But Variety is reporting that it’s not a traditional remake, the Paramount film promises to be more devoted to the Charles Portis book than the 1969 movie.

Then I ask, why call it a remake?

Anyhow, Portis’ novel is about a 14-year-old girl who, in company with an aging U.S. marshal and another lawman, hunts down her father’s killer in hostile Indian Territory.

But while the original film was a showcase for Wayne, the Coens’ version will tell the tale from the girl’s perspective. Of course, the Coens wrote the screenplay.

Chances are with the Coens’ power we’ll see the movie in production, but let’s not call it a remake.

Today, folks, I’m going to introduce you to a movie that’s very close to my heart personally.  It’s one of my top five all-time favorites, and even after a dozen viewings it still stands up against the competition.  What, you may ask, is this movie that gives me so much joy?  It’s called O Brother Where Art Thou, and now more than ever, it’s the kind of movie we need.   If you’re at all familiar with this one going in, you may already be taken somewhat aback to discover that I think so very highly of a musical, but it’s true. I loved this movie.

Explaining the plot can be as easy as you want it to be—for instance, if I told you that the plot is Homer’s Iliad set in the Great Depression of the United States, well, that’d be a perfectly valid description.  But if you’re not familiar with classical Greek literature, I could just amplify it a bit and tell you it’s about George Clooney, here playing an erudite, pedantic desperado by the mouthful name of Ulysses Everett McGill, who’s just broken out of a chain gang somewhere in the South.  Piecing together some of the place names mentioned like Tishomingo, Itta Bena, and Yazoo suggests that they’re in Mississippi.  Anyway, Everett, as he’s called, has convinced his cohorts to break out along with him in search of buried treasure.  The three set out along a long and tortuous journey that brings them in contact with a Cyclops, sirens, and an insane pirate, among other surprising parallels to the original Greek.

As a comedy, it’s a rollicking romp with plenty of downright authentic musical cues including such peppy early twentieth century titles as “The Big Rock Candy Mountain”, “Keep On The Sunny Side of Life” and one of my personal favorite karaoke jams “Man of Constant Sorrow”.  The level of detail involved with the translation from the original Greek to a screenplay about the Depression is apt and surprisingly detail rich.

Even better, there will even prove to be some thrilling action sequences here as well, with narrow escapes and manic escapades being the order of the day.  Switches between the two seem almost seamless, and the humor balances well with the brief action sequences.

The performances are wonderfully solid and ultimately believable—watch for John Goodman to do an amazing job as a malevolent one-eyed Bible salesman.  Of course, everyone else turns in a fine job as well, whether they’re singing, dancing or running for their lives from an onrushing wall of water.

And just in case you were inclined to doubt, it even has a happy ending.  AND a trick happy ending, if that weren’t good enough on top of it.

Perhaps one of the truest signs of how good a movie is—or isn’t—is how long it lasts.  If the jokes are only funny once, if the shocks are only scary once, and if the drama is only tear-jerking once, it’s nowhere near as good as a movie that’ll make you laugh, cry or jump with sustained viewings.  O Brother Where Art Thou has made me laugh despite dozens of viewings since its release, and thus easily qualifies in the rank of good movie.

A Serious Man, co-directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, signed on Adam Arkin.

Filming continues in Minnesota as Arkin joins fellow cast members such as Michael Stuhbarg and Richard Kind, who play brothers, in the black comedy that takes place during 1967.

In case you didn’t get the full blow-by-blow of the plot Burn After Reading: 

It’s a comedy thriller from Joel Coen and Ethan Coen (No Country for Old Men, Fargo, The Big Lebowski), is world-premiering as the opening-night film of the 2008 Venice International Film Festival.  

At the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency in Arlington, Va., analyst Osborne Cox (John Malkovich) arrives for a top-secret meeting. Unfortunately for Cox, the secret is soon out: he is being ousted. Cox does not take the news particularly well and returns to his Georgetown home to work on his memoirs and his drinking, not necessarily in that order. His wife Katie (Tilda Swinton) is dismayed, though not particularly surprised; she is already well into an illicit affair with Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney), a married federal marshal, and sets about making plans to leave Cox for Harry.  

Elsewhere in the Washington, D.C. suburbs, and seemingly worlds apart, Hardbodies Fitness Centers employee Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand) can barely concentrate on her work. She is consumed with her life plan for extensive cosmetic surgery, and confides her mission to can-do colleague Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt). Linda is all but oblivious to the fact that the gym’s manager Ted Treffon (Richard Jenkins) pines for her even as she arranges dates via the Internet with other men.  

When a computer disc containing material for the CIA analyst’s memoirs accidentally falls into the hands of Linda and Chad, the duo are intent on exploiting their find. As Ted frets, “No good can come of this,” events spiral out of everyone’s and anyone’s control, in a cascading series of darkly hilarious encounters.

In Theatres September 12^th.

The Coen brothers are at it again.  They have picked a pair of relative unknowns to star in their next film, A Serious Man.

Richard Kind, a character actor known for his role in Spin City, and Michael Stuhlbarg, a Tony-nominated actor with little experience in front of the cameras, star as brothers in the period black comedy.

The story is set in 1967, as it focuses on Larry Gopnik (Stuhlbarg), a Midwestern professor whose life begins to unravel when his wife sets out to leave him and his socially inept brother (Kind) won’t move out of the house.

Shooting is set to start at the beginning of next month in Minneapolis.

“I’m a mere good Samaritan.” Chad (Brad Pitt). Trainer. Spy. Clueless.

Focus Features has just released an awesome red band trailer for the upcoming Coen Brothers comedy “Burn After Reading” Trailer. Release date is set for September 12, 2008. It’s a dark spy-comedy from Academy Award winners Joel and Ethan Coen. An ousted CIA official’s, John Malkovich, memoir accidently falls into the hands of two unwise gym employees intent on exploiting their find. Other cast members include George Clooney, Frances McDormand, Brad Pitt, Tilda Swinton.

 

“Burn After Reading” by the Coen Brothers opens the 65th Venice Film Festival.

As usual “Burn” is a dark spy comedy,  and stars Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich and Tilda Swinton.  

If you can make the festival, the film comes to the U.S. in September.  

There has been a lot of buzz about “Burn,” which the Coens wrote and directed. The story pivots on an ousted CIA official, Malkovich, whose memoir falls into the hands of two Washington, D.C., gym employees, who decide to attempt to exploit their find.

 ”Burn” marks the second consecutive year a film from the Working Title stable opens Venice, following “Atonement” last year.