The Coen Brothers

Okay, this New Years Day (and partially today), Dan and I did our normal ritual of a movie marathon. Two years ago it was the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy — extended editions. Last year when Dustin and Chris were here, we watched alternating horror movies and Disney movies, meaning that Cloverfield was followed by Beauty and the Beast or something similar.

This year, I let Dan choose, and he went with “available Coen Brothers movies in chronological order.” A few days beforehand, we had watched Barton Fink (which he had never seen before) because it was only streaming on Netflix until December 31st, so we had that covered. The marathon started with Raising Arizona, a movie we had both seen before. Miller’s Crossing is streaming on Netflix and it’s one of the rare Coen movies neither of us had seen, so we watched that. And then Fargo.

Today we skipped a few (uh…I played Dragon Age: Origins all day) and just watched No Country For Old Men. I’m ashamed to say we bought that DVD over a year ago and just got around to watching it because it was really great. So now that the only Coen movie we haven’t seen is Blood Simple, I’m gonna put them in some kind of arbitrary order for my pleasure.

Here’s my top eleven starting with the “worst” one (quotes because even a bad Coen movie is still awesome:

  • 11. Raising Arizona (1987) – An interesting but early film, has all of the Coen charm but they’re still figuring it out.
  • 10. The Ladykillers (2004) – The characters in this movie are fucking amazing but the plot barely holds my attention.
  • 09. Intolerable Cruelty (2003) – I like this movie a lot but Catherine Zeta-Jones really irritates me and that doesn’t help.
  • 08. The Big Lebowski (1998) – A hilarious classic with plenty of quotable lines. Also Philip Seymour Hoffman.
  • 07. Barton Fink (1991) – It’s just strange enough to be surreal and I love that it’s about a writer with writer’s block written as a way to cope with writer’s block.
  • 06. The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) – My memory might be clouded with time since I haven’t seen it in 5 or so years, but I loved this one.
  • 05. Burn After Reading (2008) – Probably the most laugh out loud of the Coen movies.
  • 04. No Country For Old Men (2007) – There’s a reason everyone always talks about this movie. Cormac McCarthy is also amazing.
  • 03. Fargo (1996) – Everything about this movie is perfect. I don’t even know how to surpass it.
  • 02. A Serious Man (2009) – But somehow they did. Tighter direction and editing make this untouchable to me.
  • 01. O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) – Even though I just said ASM was untouchable, it’s not a movie I could watch every day if I wanted to. One of the top ten movies of all time.

Now, if you haven’t seen any or all of these movies, I can tell you they are each worthwhile and amazing and you should check them out. Joel and Ethan Coen are definitely the best filmmaking duo out there.

January 2nd, 2010 | Tags: , C | 2 comments

random stuff I guess

I am sometimes jealous of people who can have caffeine just because I loved Cherry Coke so much. I drank a lot of it, before I started having chest pains and found out I had mitral valve prolapse, and now I don’t have any. But I went to Dairy Queen for lunch and got a chicken sandwich and three fingers of it, treating it much like an alcohol, having barely enough, because by the time my chest hurts, it’s too late. I start feeling buzzed, half cocked, a headache, sleepy, out of control, unconscious of my own actions. I used to drink a lot of caffeine and now I drink none.

I have been writing a book lately, non-fiction about the period of my life from March 2005 until July 2006, when I was 22 years old, and everything was awful. I’m having a hard time figuring out the order I want to put everything in or the tense to use. I’m writing it in present tense and in episodes, but I don’t know if that’s the best plan. I’m in my school’s computer lab right now and the guy next to me is putting on his contacts at his desk. That’s almost hilarious.

So because I’m writing about a horrible failed relationship where the guy was controlling and abusive, I reread this book called Killing Me Softly by Nicci French. It’s not an amazing book, but it’s tolerable and interesting and there are very scary and strange moments. But in it, the main character, Alice, is walking down the street and sees this guy. He sees her. They both stop in the street and stare at each other without speaking a word. And from that, they fall in love, they go off and sleep together without knowing each other’s names. I can see how this is possible, but it makes me look at everyone who walks by, wondering if there is someone out there who could make me feel like that.

Creepy but it’s not something new for me: I tend to have these unexplainable and impossible fantasies that I don’t know if I really want to have come true.

October 27th, 2009 | Tags: , , , C | One comment