My wife and I enjoyed this one a lot.
It's a melodramatic black comedy with an A list cast, written and directed by the Coen Brothers.
The Link
It's a comedy because it's funny.
A black comedy, because most of the funny stuff is dark and tragic.
It's a melodrama because the story controls the characters, rather than the other way around.
And it's silly, almost like a Marx Brothers' movie.
It's my understanding that in drama the main characters control and build the story with what they do, while in melodrama fickle fate or what the characters do controls and usually destroys them.
The dramatic action is driven, exaggerated and heightened, in a melodrama, by the uncontrolled/uncontrollable nature of what is happening to the folks involved.
Everybody's caught up in an intertwined, interwoven, over the top situation of their own initiating; they're in over their heads and they respond with over the top ineptness and/or stupidity.
Tilda Swinton is the only one who's more selfish than she is stupid, but this just means she gets the fewest laughs.
The summarizing updates provided by the one monitoring CIA agent to his bewildered superior, as they try to make sense of and manage whatever's going down, hilariously describe the ongoing clusterf*ck.
It's pretty amusing, because once the plot elements are all revealed everybody's plans all turn to sh*t, as Brad Pitt's character in this flick would be apt to say.
In "Snatch," he managed to be pretty funny even though I couldn't understand anything much of what he was saying.
Here what he says is pretty funny.
I thought George Clooney was initially unbelievable in "O Brother, Where Art Thou?," but I finally accepted that strange casting as part of the humor.
Here he fits in fine.
All the funny actors were cartoonish in their portrayals, while ice queen Swinton played a dragon lady as Meryl Streep also can do so well.
The movie's vibe is somewhat similar to the sh*t hitting the fan in "The Big Lebowski," where stuff happens but nobody really knows why or what's going on.
Or "Much Ado About Nothing," as Shakespeare might have put it.
"Fargo" is a another story that the Coens told as a comedic melodrama.
"Before The Devil Knows You're Dead" is also a comedic melodrama, wherein the self-initiated situations turn to crap, the role players can't escape their fate and they bumble along ever more desperately.
Those movies had funny parts, but there was more real crime and some real criminals.
In "Burn After Reading" there are fewer crimes, but more self-trapped morons.
It's just a matter of where the movie makers placed their main emphasis: on comedy or on drama.
I learned some of this theatrical classification stuff in class at Aggieland from C. K. Esten, who's remembered as "The Voice of Kyle Field" and the faculty sponsor of "The Aggie Players."
The Greeks also knew how to mix comedy and tragedy in their fables, epic poems and plays and how each of those would heighten or contrast with the other.
Their Gods controlled everything and mortals were merely pawns in fun, games, crimes or conquests and in matters of life or death.
Alfred Hitchcock also mixed crime with comedy in varying proportions with misfits, maniacs, innocents, murderers and, on occasion, a moron or two.
This is a good movie for the right viewers and those who don't like it will likely think it was pretty pointless or too silly.
As those who disliked "No Country For Old Men" disparaged its open ending or the violence.
And like those who didn't get "Lebowski," because in a final appraisal nothing much really happened.
That's cool.
Different strokes for different folks.
IMHO, the Coens make their movies exactly as the interesting opening and final shots in this movie depicted their process.
They drop in on a situation carrying a camera, then film it from a superior viewpoint like Zeus would, perhaps messing with what's going on a bit if it suits their fancy and then they leave without further ado.
In between making their movies, they accept their awards and collect kudos.
There's not a beginning with a pre-story buildup, nor an end with a big climax, but rather merely a start and a finish with some juicy roles and good cinema in between.
And then their characters go on with the rest of their fatalistic, predetermined or chosen lives or they are left behind to meet their maker, depending on whatever.
I'll decide later what awards and kudos I think that their movie and these actors might get or deserve at Oscar time.
I will need some time to reflect on all that.
I, FAST FRED, approve this message and recommend this movie to those who don't object to bad language, cartoonish silliness, homemade Sybian machines and pointless, in the end, black comedy.
It's a melodramatic black comedy with an A list cast, written and directed by the Coen Brothers.
The Link
It's a comedy because it's funny.
A black comedy, because most of the funny stuff is dark and tragic.
It's a melodrama because the story controls the characters, rather than the other way around.
And it's silly, almost like a Marx Brothers' movie.
It's my understanding that in drama the main characters control and build the story with what they do, while in melodrama fickle fate or what the characters do controls and usually destroys them.
The dramatic action is driven, exaggerated and heightened, in a melodrama, by the uncontrolled/uncontrollable nature of what is happening to the folks involved.
Everybody's caught up in an intertwined, interwoven, over the top situation of their own initiating; they're in over their heads and they respond with over the top ineptness and/or stupidity.
Tilda Swinton is the only one who's more selfish than she is stupid, but this just means she gets the fewest laughs.
The summarizing updates provided by the one monitoring CIA agent to his bewildered superior, as they try to make sense of and manage whatever's going down, hilariously describe the ongoing clusterf*ck.
It's pretty amusing, because once the plot elements are all revealed everybody's plans all turn to sh*t, as Brad Pitt's character in this flick would be apt to say.
In "Snatch," he managed to be pretty funny even though I couldn't understand anything much of what he was saying.
Here what he says is pretty funny.
I thought George Clooney was initially unbelievable in "O Brother, Where Art Thou?," but I finally accepted that strange casting as part of the humor.
Here he fits in fine.
All the funny actors were cartoonish in their portrayals, while ice queen Swinton played a dragon lady as Meryl Streep also can do so well.
The movie's vibe is somewhat similar to the sh*t hitting the fan in "The Big Lebowski," where stuff happens but nobody really knows why or what's going on.
Or "Much Ado About Nothing," as Shakespeare might have put it.
"Fargo" is a another story that the Coens told as a comedic melodrama.
"Before The Devil Knows You're Dead" is also a comedic melodrama, wherein the self-initiated situations turn to crap, the role players can't escape their fate and they bumble along ever more desperately.
Those movies had funny parts, but there was more real crime and some real criminals.
In "Burn After Reading" there are fewer crimes, but more self-trapped morons.
It's just a matter of where the movie makers placed their main emphasis: on comedy or on drama.
I learned some of this theatrical classification stuff in class at Aggieland from C. K. Esten, who's remembered as "The Voice of Kyle Field" and the faculty sponsor of "The Aggie Players."
The Greeks also knew how to mix comedy and tragedy in their fables, epic poems and plays and how each of those would heighten or contrast with the other.
Their Gods controlled everything and mortals were merely pawns in fun, games, crimes or conquests and in matters of life or death.
Alfred Hitchcock also mixed crime with comedy in varying proportions with misfits, maniacs, innocents, murderers and, on occasion, a moron or two.
This is a good movie for the right viewers and those who don't like it will likely think it was pretty pointless or too silly.
As those who disliked "No Country For Old Men" disparaged its open ending or the violence.
And like those who didn't get "Lebowski," because in a final appraisal nothing much really happened.
That's cool.
Different strokes for different folks.
IMHO, the Coens make their movies exactly as the interesting opening and final shots in this movie depicted their process.
They drop in on a situation carrying a camera, then film it from a superior viewpoint like Zeus would, perhaps messing with what's going on a bit if it suits their fancy and then they leave without further ado.
In between making their movies, they accept their awards and collect kudos.
There's not a beginning with a pre-story buildup, nor an end with a big climax, but rather merely a start and a finish with some juicy roles and good cinema in between.
And then their characters go on with the rest of their fatalistic, predetermined or chosen lives or they are left behind to meet their maker, depending on whatever.
I'll decide later what awards and kudos I think that their movie and these actors might get or deserve at Oscar time.
I will need some time to reflect on all that.
I, FAST FRED, approve this message and recommend this movie to those who don't object to bad language, cartoonish silliness, homemade Sybian machines and pointless, in the end, black comedy.
