Several years ago I predicted that eventually the Coen brothers would be accepted as the greatest filmmakers of all time. Tonight's Oscars were a giant step in that direction.....
The Coens' film, No Country For Old Men, won 4 Oscars: Best Supporting Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director, and Best Picture. That's half of what they were nominated for. Sure, it's no Titanic or Ben-Hur, but for a couple of nerdy Jews from Minnesota, that's pretty damn good. I think it was their best Oscar night ever, and I think they blew everyone else out of the water, too, including Paul Thomas Anderson and There Will Be Blood. I don't think any other single movie won more than two Oscars tonight.
If not for their half-assed remake of The Ladykillers a few years ago, they wouldn't have a single movie that wasn't excellent. And even The Ladykillers wasn't bad. It just wasn't excellent.
There's no point in me using my usual rating system for their films, since they'd all be 5s with an occasional 4 thrown in. I guess The Ladykillers might only be a 3, but still.....
The best I can do is rank their own films against each other. Pick ANY film, and it will assuredly be better than 99% of the crap that's usually deemed worthy of wide release. Their only real competition is Kubrick, and he's dead.
So, for your edification and pleasure, I give you the Coen brothers' films, ranked in my order of preference:
Miller's Crossing
Barton Fink
The Man Who Wasn't There
Fargo
Raising Arizona
The Hudsucker Proxy
Blood Simple
The Big Lebowski
Intolerable Cruelty
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
The Ladykillers
I must stress that I do not stand by that list in any shape or form, except that Miller's Crossing is the best film ever made, and The Ladykillers is the worst work the Coens have ever done. It's all so excellent, it's very hard to compare. Rent any and all of them. You will not be disappointed. I may even have to abandon my own credo of waiting for cable, and rent No Country For Old Men when it is released on DVD on March 11th.
I've been trying for 10 minutes to think of an appropriate quote to close this post, but I give up. I'm gonna go with:
"Where is pancakes house?"
The Coens' film, No Country For Old Men, won 4 Oscars: Best Supporting Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director, and Best Picture. That's half of what they were nominated for. Sure, it's no Titanic or Ben-Hur, but for a couple of nerdy Jews from Minnesota, that's pretty damn good. I think it was their best Oscar night ever, and I think they blew everyone else out of the water, too, including Paul Thomas Anderson and There Will Be Blood. I don't think any other single movie won more than two Oscars tonight.
If not for their half-assed remake of The Ladykillers a few years ago, they wouldn't have a single movie that wasn't excellent. And even The Ladykillers wasn't bad. It just wasn't excellent.
There's no point in me using my usual rating system for their films, since they'd all be 5s with an occasional 4 thrown in. I guess The Ladykillers might only be a 3, but still.....
The best I can do is rank their own films against each other. Pick ANY film, and it will assuredly be better than 99% of the crap that's usually deemed worthy of wide release. Their only real competition is Kubrick, and he's dead.
So, for your edification and pleasure, I give you the Coen brothers' films, ranked in my order of preference:
Miller's Crossing
Barton Fink
The Man Who Wasn't There
Fargo
Raising Arizona
The Hudsucker Proxy
Blood Simple
The Big Lebowski
Intolerable Cruelty
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
The Ladykillers
I must stress that I do not stand by that list in any shape or form, except that Miller's Crossing is the best film ever made, and The Ladykillers is the worst work the Coens have ever done. It's all so excellent, it's very hard to compare. Rent any and all of them. You will not be disappointed. I may even have to abandon my own credo of waiting for cable, and rent No Country For Old Men when it is released on DVD on March 11th.
I've been trying for 10 minutes to think of an appropriate quote to close this post, but I give up. I'm gonna go with:
"Where is pancakes house?"

