An Open Letter to James Cameron
The following article was originally published on 12ftdwende.com on 19 March 2010. Dear Mr. Cameron, Firstly: big fan. Seen most of your movies (have yet to track down Piranha II: The Spawning, but will most definitely get around to it) and have enjoyed all I have seen. I know I am a lowly community college … Continue reading
Raising Arizona (1987)
Raising Arizona (1987) – Oh those Coen Brothers and their Coen-y Coen-ness… I always love that they feel free to indulge their own idiosyncratic impulses and make some bizarre and entertaining films. The Coens have long followed series films (Fargo, No Country For Old Men) with more overt comedies (The Big Lebowski, Burn After Reading) … Continue reading
True Grit (2010)
True Grit (2010) — Well it doesn’t happen often that a remake is better than the original film (though with The Maltese Falcon, The Wizard of Oz, & The Thing it is not unprecedented) but here we have it. That doesn’t diminish my love for Henry Hathaway’s film featuring the always-iconic John Wayne, but as … Continue reading
New York, I Love You (2009)
New York, I Love You (2009) — A sort-of sequel to Paris, je t’aime, this is several short films edited together. It’s not as good as its Parisian counterpart, but that one had the Coen brothers, Alfonso Cuaron, Gus Van Sant, Christopher Doyle, Wes Craven, Walter Salles, Tom Tykwer, and Alexander Payne. New York, I … Continue reading
Barton Fink (1991)
Barton Fink (1991) — Another Coen brothers film that dazzles you with its magnificent Coen-y-ness. But truth be told I’ve enjoyed thinking about this movie more than I enjoyed watching it. However, there’s something kind of awesome about that… I’m not sure this review makes sense, but if things that don’t make sense [at least … Continue reading
A Serious Man (2009)
A Serious Man (2009) — I found a lot of this film to be quite funny but in the end it didn’t really work for me. Things just didn’t seem to come together. This was most likely intentional on the part of the Coens who have made some great movies where things rather intentionally did … Continue reading
Miller’s Crossing (1990)
Miller’s Crossing (1990) — This is a gangster movie by the Coen brothers. That should really tell you all you need to know. It has the violence expected of a gangster movie, only from that skewed Coen perspective. It has noir-ish banter, only from that skewed Coen perspective. Great cast: Gabriel Byrne, Marcia Gay Harden … Continue reading
Persistence of Vision 