May 01, 2010 22:34
BURN AFTER READING
sometime late March 2010, DVD, home, from Netflix
Please do pardon my delay in keeping my reviews current. As a lot of us experience, I have been getting bogged down in maintaining my various slices of internet presence, and for the last couple of months simply didn't feel like doing it. But film-viewing continues apace (with several weeks where I only abused Netflix for their True Blood episodes), and the reviews are beginning to pile up. Let me get these ones discussed before it all goes to hell.
Definitely the Coen Brothers' movie with the meanest, darkest spirit, even if it is a slapstick comedy, BURN AFTER READING is populated with boobs, idiots, the hysterically vain, the clueless, the useless, and the just plain annoying. They are all well-drawn, complex, and funny as hell, but there is absolutely nothing in any of them to like. It's a bit uncomfortable, especially in a goofy comedy jam-packed with movie stars like this, but it works. This is not a film that plays nice; it's satire of the harshest Juvenalian flavor.
Everybody looks like shit, from George Clooney on down to Brad Pitt, making no unscheduled stops at Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton, Dermot Mulroney, or god knows not J.K. Simmons or Richard Jenkins. Everything is grotesque, even the sleek interiors of rich folks' homes or 24-hour fitness joints, and the stakes are pathetically, laughably small. Paranoia abounds; insecurity is never more than a mis-heard phone message away; the characters' lives are driven by greed and arrogance. Whoopee! Good times!
As I said, it works, but it's not going to be a film I revisit. Gimme LEBOWSKI, BLOOD SIMPLE, or even O BROTHER over this.
home,
comedy,
r,
netflix,
indie,
dvd