Hail, Caesar! Review

[feilongfan]

I went to see a Thursday 7:15p showing. It is a smaller auditorium in the theatre, with about 30+ people in it. In my row, I am pretty sure two girls are Channing Tatum fans. Channing has three or four scenes, two are more substantial. The total of his screen time is about 15 minutes. His first appearance is 50-min into the movie, the last one, 80-

Comments

[nimue_8]

That's a very interesting critic. Thanks, Fei.
I should be able to finally watch the movie later this week. I'll come back and let you know what I thought.

I'm glad Channing is being praised for his work in the movie.

I'm not too worried about the box office. Nobody expected them to score a 50M opening. The 11+ M is quite acceptable. Let's how it performes next week end. There is a niche audience for this specific movie, spoofing Golden era Hollywood.

[feilongfan]

Looing forward to your thoughts. Also I just read this

https://36.media.tumblr.com/8ecee1b9286ead1452502b244872b262/tumblr_o2ax0ncROI1qzkk5mo1_540.jpg

[nimue_8]

I finally watched it!
I enjoyed it because I expected alight fare, but it would have been even better if all the fun parts were tied more coherently together.

Like Kamion stated it would have been interesting if there was something deeper with the Communist writers.
Baird Withlock misadventure didn't bring much.
I would have liked to see the other characters more developped, like in a series.

That said, I really enjoyed Tatum. He was funny when his character takes his defection to USSR so seriously! He was also excellent in the dance/song number. I would have liked to see more of that character too.
The young cowboy and theater director Laurence Lorentz were very fun too.

[feilongfan]

Yes. The submarine scene is funny. Do you know Burt named the dog Engels, Karl Marx's writing partner?

The movie will be more enjoyable if one understands all the references.

Deadpool is like that too. It has many references to pop culture from 80s and 90s. I watched the movie with a friend who were born it the 1980s, she had no idea of the Britush boy band "WHAM!" and their song "Careless Whisper". She also didn't get the homage paid the movie "Notting Hill".

[kamion]

your right, interesting moments, but lacking an engaging storyline. when the credits came I wondered: "that was it?"
I got the feeling that I had watched all the interesting moments in the trailers already and the movie just tied those up.

what I didn't like at all was the goofball presentation of the writers. the timesetting is in the heydays of McCarthyrism and those kind writers, ( commies or not) were the main victims of McCarthy, something very seriously felt in Hollywood.
not even a hint about it, just some stupid airheads. If it was intented to be funny I completely missed the joke.

the whole movie got me the feeling that was still some fireworks to come which did not set through, most sharply felt when the music played in the submarine scene reminded of the splendid songs in Hunt for Red October, but was muffled before you could hear it.

short: It did not live up to its expectations

[feilongfan]

When I read the reviews of this movie from other people, they often described the Coens as "self-indulgent". Even Channing said this movie is a wet dream of the Coens.

I think they just wanted to shoot all those scenes to satisfy themselves, and because they are so accomplished as moviemakers, they can cast all the big names without paying much.

It is an experiment, the ones have the most lost are the audience. But the studios probably will make a small profit after the complete theater run, the actors were praised, the writers and directors fulfilled one of their dreams.

I feel I am entertained but not completely satisfied. I will still buy the Blu-ray though, cuz I find Burt Gurney quite interesting.