Posts Tagged ‘Coen Brothers’

  • 15 Dec

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    Review: True Grit (2010)

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    Director: Joel and Ethan Coen (Raising Arizona, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, A Serious Man)
    Novel: Charles Portis
    Screenplay: Joel and Ethan Coen
    Producers: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, Scott Rudin
    Starring: Jeff Bridges, Hailee Steinfeld, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Barry Pepper
    MPAA Rating: R
    Running time: 110 min.

    (3.5/5)

    Tough to go any extended length of time knowing that a Coen Brothers film is right around the corner. It is an event for most cinephiles and everything else just seems to pale in comparison with the expectations and anticipation felt by movie goers everywhere. So finally the day comes and we rush to the theater with excitement. Is it worth the wait? The short answer is yes. True Grit has all of the trappings of a Coen Brothers picture; complete with antiquated, yet somehow goofy dialogue, fabulous casting, a fun storyline (often having to do with a satchel of money or some sort of “on the run” scenario) and of course Roger Deakins. Yes, this is a worthy trip to the multi-plex this holiday season. But there are some reservations.

    It must be understood that this is not a remake of a film of the same name produced in 1968 and starring the late, great John Wayne. No, this is the Coens’ own interpretation of the novel. That said, having seen the 1968 version, one would find it difficult to not compare the two as they’re both extremely similar on many levels – neither of them deviating much from the screenplay-like dialogue of the book. So I’ll get this out of the way first: overall, I like the original version of the film better. It’s arguably not fair to compare the two movies and one should let this product stand on its own. But again, that’s difficult to do with the previous version so fresh in the mind and if I were letting it stand on its own I’d say its certainly a lesser entry into the repertoire of Joel and Ethan.
    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 11 Nov

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    Cinecast Episode 189 – Just a Symptom of 1986

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    It is again that wonky time of year where studios favour the platform release, getting in the way of folks from Toronto and Minneapolis having a friendly movie chat about the same darn movies. Instead, we must be content with Multiplex Matt Gamble and the mainstream mega-release. Here he gives some thoughts on Todd Phillips’ newest, Due Date and tries to break down some pre-conceived notions. There is also some talk of the Asian Film Festival. Kurt gives a snippet of reaction to Danny Boyle’s follow-up to his Oscar win, 127 Hours. It is likely that the boys will revisit this one at some point for a consensus discussion, but as a nice double bill with the other ‘trapped between a rock and a hard place’ movie Buried there is a fair bit of stuff to chew on. Meanwhile Andrew finds solace in the comfort of his Blu-ray player… sometimes twice a day. Peter Weir is revisited in a lengthy discussion on The Mosquito Coast and also some Picnic at Hanging Rock, Master & Commander, The Truman Show and of course, the upcoming The Way Back. DVD picks and Japanese pornography are also on the bill.

    As always, please join the conversation by leaving your own thoughts in the comment section below and again, thanks for listening!

     
     

    Cinecast Episode 189 [ 2:40:22 | 110.12 MB ] Play Now | Play in Popup

     
     

     

     
    Full show notes are under the seats…
    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 05 Oct

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    True Grit Poster

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    Let us continue with our love fest of the Coen’s and True Grit. Here is the fresh off the printer one sheet.

    True Grit
  • 17 Aug

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    Bookmarks for Mid August

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    • When should a director stop messing with a movie?
      “There are many kinds of re-cuts, created for different reasons, under different circumstances. Whether you consider a second or third or fourth cut valid (or superior) to the first depends on what you liked or disliked about the first cut, and the circumstances that produced that first cut, and what you think was gained or lost in revision.”

    • Lock & Load (Video)
      A video montage-essay on Cinema’s fetish with guns (mostly America, but look for a lot of Johnnie To and John Woo in there too.)

    • Mit Out Sound, Mit Out Solution
      Guy Maddin on Josef von Sternberg: “With this mild mea culpa, von Sternberg was done turning out his pockets. Every interview he did after that, until his death just a few days before Christmas of 1969, was a variation on the theme of “I could tell you the secret of my genius, but upon reflection, I prefer it remain a mystery for the ages.” He’s left it for us to work out, that dumpy, dapper rapscallion, but I can hardly blame him. A mystery as insoluble as this is a gift nearly as great as the films themselves.”

    • ‘Scott Pilgrim’ Versus Itself
      “I don’t want to be the guy arguing that a movie adaptation of a comic book doesn’t do justice to the original comic. I especially don’t want to be the one doing that about Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, because there have already been dark accusations about it being too fanboyish, and I am most definitely a fanboy for Scott Pilgrim the comic book. But the little things that bug me about the movie all ultimately feed into one big complaint: the wonderful treatment of female characters in the comic book gets lost in the transition to the big screen. It’s what happens when you make a big action-filled summer film. But it’s not good that this requires the female characters and their particular relationships to be swept under the rug. ”

    • Half a Century of Making Cars Into Stars
      “There was KITT, the modified Pontiac Firebird Trans Am that protected and talked to David Hasselhoff in the 1980s television series “Knight Rider.” There was the rebuilt and countrified 1921 jalopy that Jed Clampett drove — with Granny in a rocking chair behind him — from the Ozarks to Hollywood in the 1960s series “The Beverly Hillbillies.” And most notably there was the 1955 Lincoln Futura with the bubble top that Mr. Barris and his crew chopped and stretched into a sinister-looking shiny black-and-red crime fighting machine called the Batmobile “In the hall of fame of car customizers, George Barris is No. 1,””

    • Rene Laloux’s Fantastic Planet on Blu-Ray (U.K)
      “I hesitate to use the word ‘surreal’, because it has become so dulled by overuse as to become almost meaningless, but if there was an animated work that warranted such a label, it is this one. Be warned though – the drug-inspired and often highly sexualised designs complete with images of bare-breasted aliens will probably deter the more Victorian-minded from presenting this to their pre-teens as a Disney substitute. This is definitely one to be filed under the category of “adult art animation”.”

     

    You can now take a look at RowThree’s bookmarks at any time of your choosing simply by clicking the “delicious” button in the upper right of the page. It looks remarkably similar to this:

  • 09 Aug

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    Trailer: A Simple Noodle Story

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    The US trailer for Zhang Yimou’s remake of Blood Simple, with its title translating to A Girl, A Gun and a Noodleshop (aka A Simple Noodle Story) is 180 degrees different in tone from the slap-stick heavy teasers ran in China while the film played at Berlin earlier in the year. At least with this trailer you can tell it is indeed a remake of the Coen Brothers neo-noir. But the final product presumable contains both elements and is probably different than either the Chinese or US trailers. Yet, I like Zhang Yimou in general (both his flashy art-wuxia pictures, like Hero and House of Flying Daggers as well as his earlier social/political dramas along the lines of To Live and Raise The Red Lantern) and I am intrigued as to how the remake concept will work going the opposite direction across the ocean for once! Blood Simple is an elastic/generic enough noir picture that even labeling A Simple Noodle Story (is there a pun in the title?) a remake is almost redundant anyway.

    The trailer is tucked under the seat.
    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 15 Apr

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    Millar’s Crossing: Extended Thoughts on Kick-Ass

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    In Carl Matheson‘s early aughties piece on the humour of TVs The Simpsons, he talks about something he calls hyper-irony: “The flavor of humor offered by today’s comedies is colder, based less on a shared sense of humanity than on a sense of world-weary cleverer-than-thou-ness.” Of course this is not designed to be perjurious, but rather complimentary, insofar as any fan of The Coen brothers reacts to the humour of their equally cleverer-than-thou takes on both genre and cinema. Matthew Vaughn’s new superhero adventure certainly plays in this sandbox and it does it very well. It walks the line of ‘what if’ while soft-shoeing around comic nerd fantasy and realism. Knowing full well that the bulk of comic-book entry points are from the adolescent pure fantasy point of view (Iron Man‘s wise-ass chauvinist inventor stud billionaire anyone?), that is the tone that wins out in the end, but damn if it still wants you to believe that things are set it in real world. I think it is this sort of high-wire act that got The Dark Knight such critical and audience love, although it was done without any sort of ironic distance by Christopher Nolan and company. Kick-Ass seems to specialize in this sort of tone and succeeds (not in making high-art) where the makers behind the film version of Millar’s Wanted completely failed to find the right proportions of grounded-ness and ironic fantasia. Vaughn and Goldman have certainly done the author a service.

    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 08 Apr

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    Cinecast Episode 161 – Nightmares of Incomprehensibility

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    Picking up where we should have started last week is easy (at least we think so) as nothing really noteworthy was theatrically released over the weekend anyway (Those looking for yet another round of movie pundits bagging on the bad 3D and lack of coherence in Clash of the Titans look elsewhere, we wisely skipped this one). Instead we munch on some mumblecore-tinged Noah Baumbach, Greenberg starring Ben Stiller and a little How To Train Your Dragon earns some love for CG Animations second fiddle, Dreamworks. As a bonus, some retro goofery with Hot Tub Time Machine, depressed Danes in Terribly Happy and some steamy Canadian voyeurism with Chloe. As a further bonus, extensive Mad Men love from Gamble, cannibalism in the rain forests of Tasmania, Harrison Ford in the dirty back alleys of Paris with Roman Polanski and joined in the jungles of South America by Andre Gregory. Oh, and the joys of The Dude as President eating a shark sandwich. To confuse things further, some of our DVD picks are from this week and some are from last. It is a nightmare of incomprehensibility (in the parlance of our times), but it is a good time (parts of it, anyway) as we managed to make up for a messy part of the release calender with a lot of older movies on TV and Netflix. Enjoy.

    As always, feel free to leave your own thoughts in the comment section below and again, thanks for listening!

    Cinecast Episode 161 [ 2:07:47 | 87.74 MB ] Play Now | Play in Popup



    To download the show directly, paste the following URL into your favorite downloader:
    http://rowthree.com/audio/cinecast_10/episode_161.mp3

     
     
     
    Full show notes are under the seats…
    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 05 Jan

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    UPDATE: Hurt Locker Still Leading Critics’ Awards. By a Long Shot

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    UPDATED: (01/05)Continuing into the new year, critics all across the country are placing their votes and announcing the “winners” of their picks for outstanding achievement in film in all of the usual categories. These are all precursors of course to the Oscars, with the pinnacle of those being The Golden Globe nominations which were announced in December.

    Other than The Hurt Locker taking the spotlight in almost every case by a huge margin, early indications are not really all that surprising. George Clooney, current front-runner for a leading man Oscar leads mentions while Christophe Waltz is not surprisingly completely running away with it for his breakout role in Inglourious Basterds. Carrie Mulligan and Mo’Nique are also top winners so far in the leading and supporting actress categories respectively. Oh and even more surprising (at least to me, who hasn’t seen the film (update: I have now)), NY Critics give the best picture award to Avatar! Interesting.

    Of course it’s still early, but other than The Hurt Locker taking home so many wins for best picture and best director, I’d say this is about as an exact replica of the Oscar ceremony as you’re going to see – at least for the five major categories.

    Below are the Indiewire links to many of the critics choice awards around the country with the full results from the Boston and L.A. critics awards just for reference below that. Take a look below. See anything shamefully overlooked or is this about right? Does the uber-love for The Hurt Locker surprise anyone?

    AWARDS and NOMINATIONS announced so far:
    African-American Film Critics
    Alliance of Women Film Journalists
    Austin Film Critics
    Boston Film Critics
    British Indie Awards
    Broadcast Film Critics Awards
    Chicago Film Critics
    Cinema Eye Honors
    Dallas-Fort Worth Critics
    Detroit Film Critics
    European Film Awards
    Florida Film Critics
    Golden Globes
    Golden Satellites
    Gotham Awards
    Houston Critics
    Int’l Doc. Assoc.
    Indiana Film Critics
    Las Vegas Film Critic
    London Film Critics
    Los Angeles Film Critics
    National Board of Review
    National Society of Film Critics
    New York Film Critics
    New York Film Critics Online
    Online Film Critics Society
    PGA Awards
    Phoenix Film Critics
    San Diego Critics
    San Francisco Film Critics
    Screen Actors Guild Awards
    Southeastern Film Critics
    Spirit Awards
    St. Louis Film Critics
    Toronto Film Critics
    Utah Film Critics
    Washington D.C. Area Critics

     

     

    Best Picture:
    The Hurt Locker 11 wins (NY, LA, NSFC, Las Vegas, Austin, Satellites, Houston San Francisco, Boston, Gothams), 13 mentions (PGA, Globes, London, Online, BFCA, Utah, Southeastern, St. Louis, Detroit, African-American, NBR, Washington, NY Online)
    Up In The Air 7 wins (Dallas, Florida, Southeastern, Utah, Indiana, NBR, Washington) 12 mentions (PGA, Globes, London, Online, Chicago, Dallas, African-American, BFCA, St. Louis, LA, Satellites, Detroit, NY Online)
    Inglourious Basterds 3 wins (Toronto, Phoenix, San Diego) 14 mentions (PGA, Globes, BFCA, NSFC, Online, Chicago, Utah, Dallas, Southeastern, Detroit, NBR, Washington, NY Online)
    Precious 1 win (African-American Critics) 10 mentions (PGA, Globes, Dallas, BFCA, Southeastern, St. Louis, Spirits, Washington, NY Online, Satellites)
    Up 1 win (Detroit) 11 mentions (PGA, BFCA, African-American, Online Southeastern, Dallas, St. Louis, NBR, Washington, NY Online)
    Avatar 1 win (NY Online) 5 mentions (PGA, Globes, London, Dallas, BFCA)
    Moon 1 win (British Indie)
    Hunger 1 win (Toronto)
    A Serious Man 9 mentions (BFCA, Southeastern, Online, Chicago, NBR, Dallas, Gothams, NY Online, Satellites)
    (500) Days of Summer 6 mentions (Globes, Southeastern, St. Louis, Spirits, Detroit, NBR)
    An Education 6 mentions (PGA, BFCA, Dallas, St. Louis, NBR, Satellites)
    The Messenger 4 mentions (Southeastern, NBR, NY Online, Satellites)
    Fantastic Mr. Fox 4 mentions (Dallas, Southeastern, Indiana, NY Online)
    Invictus 4 mentions (PGA, BFCA, St. Louis, NBR)

    Best Director:
    Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker 14 wins (NY, LA, NSFC, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, Southeastern, Houston, Satellites, NY Online, Washington, Las Vegas, Austin, Toronto) 6 mentions (BFCA, London, Online, St. Louis, Globes, Detroit)
    Jason Reitman, Up in the Air 3 wins (Utah, Florida, Dallas) 7 mentions (Globes, Chicago, London, BFCA, Southeastern, St. Louis, Detroit, Washington)
    Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds 2 wins (Phoenix, San Diego) 6 mentions (Globes, Online, Chicago, BFCA, St. Louis, Detroit, Washington)
    Lee Daniels, Precious 1 win (African-American) 4 mentions (BFCA, Spirits, Satellites, Washington)
    Clint Eastwood, Invictus 1 win (NBR) 3 mentions (Globes, BFCA, Washington)
    Spike Jonze, Where The Wild Things Are 1 win (Indiana) 1 mention (Chicago)
    Andrea Arnold, Fish Tank 1 win (British Indie)
    Pete Docter, Up 1 win (Detroit)
    James Cameron, Avatar 4 mentions (London, Online, Globes, BFCA)

    Best Actor:
    George Clooney, Up in the Air 9 wins (NY, Dallas, Phoenix, Indiana, Florida, NBR, Houston, Southeastern, Washington) 9 mentions (Globes, Online, Chicago, SAGs, London, BFCA, St. Louis, Detroit, Satellites)
    Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker 5 wins (NSFC, Las Vegas, Chicago, Satellites, Boston) 8 mentions (SAGs, Online, Utah, Southeastern, Indiana, BFCA, St. Louis, Washington)
    Colin Firth, A Single Man 4 wins (Austin, Detroit, San Diego, San Francisco) 7 mentions (Globes, SAGs, BFCA, LA, Spirits, Washington, Satellites)
    Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart 2 wins (LA, NY Online) 10 mentions (SAGs, Chicago, NSFC, Online, London, Globes, BFCA, St. Louis, Spirits, Satellites)
    Morgan Freeman, Invictus 2 wins (African-American, NBR) 5 mentions (SAGs, Globes, BFCA, St. Louis, Washington)
    Viggo Mortensen, The Road 1 win (Utah) 2 mentions (BFCA, Washington)
    Nicolas Cage, Bad Lieutenant 1 win (Toronto) 1 mention (NSFC)
    Tom Hardy, Bronson 1 win (British Indie)
    Matt Damon, The Informant! 4 mentions (Globes, Chicago, Detroit, Satelllites)
    Joseph Gordon-Levitt, (500) Days of Summer 3 mentions (Globes, Spirits, Detroit)
    Michael Stuhlbarg, A Serious Man 1 win (Satellites) 3 mentions (London, Globes, Chicago)

    Best Actress:
    Carey Mulligan, An Education 9 wins (NBR, Toronto, Dallas, San Diego, Utah, Chicago, Washington, Indiana, British Indie) 9 mentions (Globes, SAGs, London, Online, BFCA, St. Louis, LA, Detroit, Satellites)
    Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia 7 wins (NY, San Francisco, Phoenix, Boston, Satellites, Southeastern, NY Online) 12 mentions (Globes, BFCA, SAGs, NSFC, Online, Chicago, London, Indiana, St. Louis, Detroit, Washington)
    Gabourey Sidibe, Precious 3 wins (Detroit, Florida, Las Vegas) 9 mentions (Globes, SAGs, Chicago, BFCA, Online, Southeastern, St. Louis, Washington, Spirits)
    Yolande Moreau, Seraphine 2 wins (NSFC, LA)
    Melanie Laurent, Inglourious Basterds 1 win (Austin) 1 mention (Online)
    Nicole Beharie, American Violet 1 win (African-American)
    Shoreh Aghdashloo, The Stoning of Soraya M. 1 win (Satellites)
    Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side 4 mentions (SAGs, Globes, BFCA, Washington)
    Abbie Cornish, Bright Star 4 mentions (Chicago, NSFC, London, Satellites)
    Maya Rudolph, Away We Go 4 mentions (Chicago, Utah, St. Louis, Washington)

    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 03 Jan

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    Bookmarks for January 3rd

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    You can now take a look at RowThree’s bookmarks at any time of your choosing simply by clicking the “delicious” button to your left. It looks remarkably similar to this:

    • Analyzing 2009
      What story can be told of the film industry in 2009? The story, as I see it, is Hollywood’s realization that it must do a better job of protecting the financial viability of franchise films from being undermined by an increasingly voracious and savvy viewing public that is constantly searching for a greater degree of access to and control over the film properties to which they have become attached.
    • Movie Posters of the Decade
      Trawling through databases of all the movie posters released in the past ten years and trying to remember my ten favorites, two things stand out: that only a very small percentage qualify as great pieces of design in their own right and that my favorite posters have little bearing on my favorite films.
    • Dissertations on His Dudeness
      Joel and Ethan Coen’s 1998 movie, “The Big Lebowski,” which stars Jeff Bridges as a beatific, pot-smoking, bowling-obsessed slacker known as the Dude, snuck up on the English-speaking world during the ’00s: it became, stealthily, the decade’s most venerated cult film. It’s got that elusive and addictive quality that a great midnight movie has to have: it blissfully widens and expands in your mind upon repeat viewings.
    • Criticwatch 2009: The Whores of the Year
      “The question is whether Nature actually deserves a religious response. Traditional theism has to wrestle with the problem of evil: if God is good, why does he allow suffering and death? But Nature is suffering and death. Its harmonies require violence. Its “circle of life” is really a cycle of mortality. And the human societies that hew closest to the natural order aren’t the shining Edens of James Cameron’s fond imaginings. They’re places where existence tends to be nasty, brutish and short.”
    • God, Gaia, and Avatar
      Another year, another accoutrement of whores to accompany those who put some actual thought into film. The death of the film critic has been greatly exaggerated, but as always the rise of the quote whores and anonymous fanboy bloggers has gone ruefully under-reported.
    • Unwatchable Avatar: Hollywood Greed Could Kill 3D
      Like millions of others, I saw Avatar last weekend. I loved it—despite the 3D, not because of it. Admittedly, my seat was shitty and I wear eyeglasses, but if the experience isn’t guaranteed, 3D will fail.
    • The man who is scaling Mt. Criterion film by film
      The Criterion Collection is the standard bearer among high-quality DVDs, but he wasn’t associated with them, except in an indirect way: He has set himself the goal of seeing and writing about every single film in the Collection!
    • Too Big to Fail: The 34th Toronto International Film Festival
      Firmly established as the pre-eminent film event in North America, the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) seems less compromised than comfortable. Rumours of a few years ago that TIFF was cutting back on adventurous programming may or may not have been accurate, but quite a few strange little items are still finding their way into the festival.
    • Current Decade Rates as Worst in 50 Years
      Not really movie related (not directly anyway), but we wanted to share. As the current decade draws to a close, relatively few Americans have positive things to say about it. By roughly two-to-one, more say they have a generally negative (50%) rather than a generally positive (27%) impression of the past 10 years.
    • Larry Gross’s Four Most Underreported / Misreported Movie Stories Of 2009
      The Hangover, The Road, Zoe Kazan, Funny People. Have at it; Larry is not shy with his opinion.
    • 40 Brilliant Robot Artworks
      Robots have been a driving force in technological innovations and in multimedia roles. From movies such as Star Wars, i,Robot, Wall-E, and Terminator, to videogames, and even real life with the Mars Rover, robots have advanced significantly over the past years in both design and functionality. As with any expanding field, artists often create conceptual works to help direct and illustrate.
    • Going Na’vi: Why Avatar’s politics are more revolutionary than its images
      Cameron is blunt when it comes to Avatar’s political overtones. But rather than a clunky work of agitprop the movie can—and, I think, ought to—be seen as a polemic, which makes criticism of its obviousness beside the point. Having Lang’s colonel refer to his plan to bomb the Na’vi into submission with the words “shock and awe” is not subtle, but it’s not meant to be. Cameron means to be confrontational, and to be sure, audiences looking for a diverting night out are not allowed to overlook the parallels.
  • 03 Dec

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    Bookmarks for December 3rd

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    Mammoth
    • On Pixar and Finding Nemo: Teamwork, Friendship and Egalitarian Dictatorships
      “In the world of classic Disney animation, opposites commonly attract each other in a romantic way. That’s the core of the chemistry in Disney films from “Cinderella” to “The Little Mermaid” or “Aladdin.” In the world of Pixar, opposites like Marlin and Dory attract in a platonic way, as seemingly mismatched friends who have very different but very complimentary skills, and though “Finding Nemo” is ultimately a story about fathers and sons, the film’s most emotionally devastating moments are the ones that test the bonds between great friends.”
    • Coen’s True Grit to Shoot in Austin
      The deets: Release Date – 2011; cast – Matt Damon, Jeff Bridges and Josh Brolin; the story – a reboot of John Wayne’s 1969 western.
    • P.T. Anderson’s latest film is in the very early stages and at this point, it sounds like an interesting update of John Huston’s Wise Blood
      “A period drama to star Philip Seymour Hoffman as a founder of a new religious organization in the 1950s. [..] Hoffman, who has played supporting roles in most of Anderson’s past films, this time will be at the center, playing “the Master,” as in “master of ceremonies,” a charismatic intellectual who hatches a faith-based organization that begins to catch on in America in 1952. The core is the relationship between the Master and Freddie, a twentysomething drifter who becomes the leader’s lieutenant. As the faith begins to gain a fervent following, Freddie finds himself questioning the belief system he has embraced, and his mentor.”
    • Lukas Moodysson’s Mammoth Undertaking
      “I felt this was a meditative film rather than an angry film, so I was surprised by the controversy because I thought it was smooth and warm. You never really know what kind of film you’ve made until it’s finished.”
    • Totally Recalled: Your Fave ’90s Sci-Fi Flicks
      After Wired released its 50 greatest sci-fi flicks of all time, many readers cried foul and so we’ve put together a list of (not) forgotten sci-fi from the 90s
  • 06 Nov

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    Talk Amongst Yourselves

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    A regular Friday afternoon feature here in the third row. An image and your thoughts. That’s it. Traditionally it’s been a B&W still of a famous actor, but I thought I’d go a little more “controversial” today.

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  • 29 Oct

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    Zhang Yimou’s Baffling Blood Simple Remake Trailer

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    Zhang_Yimou_BloodSimple

    Not exactly what one would expect, and a little context may help on this one. Earlier this year the news broke that after producing the spectacle of the Beijing Olympic Games Opening Ceremony, Chinese auteur Zhang Yimou was already shooting a loose remake of The Coen Brothers’ debut film, Blood Simple. The film is now titled San qiang pai an jing qi (English Title, Amazing Tales: Three Guns) . And it is set in the middle of the desert in a noodle shop. It is also a period piece with fancy armour and swords (Yimou has been doing this for some time now, peaking in production design with Curse of the Golden Flower. But the kicker here, and why the trailer looks so baffling, is that one half of the film would be a comedy, the second a thriller. So expect some massive tonal shift at some point. The Coens have always balanced thriller and comedy, but they tend to do so from scene to scene, Yimou seems to be taking a different approach by splitting the film into two ‘parts.’ Either way, the signature Yimou spectacle touches are all there to keep your eyes warm and fuzzy.

    I remain intrigued, even if the trailer (via Twitch and Sina) is a bit ungainly. It’s tucked under the seat. Sorry no subtitles at this point.
    » Read the rest of the entry..

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