TheRetroCritic

At this point The Coen Brothers could pretty much do anything and I'd zombie my way to the cinema without thinking twice about it. With Gambit , a remake of sorts, it looked like they might have written another farce in the vein of The Ladykillers , a film which I've always felt was wrongly underrated. Alas, they aren't on directing duty this time... We follow Colin Firth's art curator as he hires Cameron Diaz's rodeo queen to help him pull off an elaborate heist involving a rare Monet painting. The goal being to piss off Alan Rickman's odious art collector and make quite a few bucks in the process. The film is going for a 60's-style screwball comedy vibe and with a strong cast like this one and a script by the Coens, you'd expect nothing less than a sharp, fun, clever little flick. Sadly, whatever wit we found in the likes of Fargo and whatever cartoonish shenanigans we found in The Ladykillers are nowhere to be seen in Gambit. Sure the film o

It was somewhat inevitable that the Coen Brothers would end up making a straight-up western, especially after modern-day effort No Country For Old Men . This time we get True Grit, a remake of a John Wayne classic but with an alcoholic Dude and a pipe-smokin’ Matt Damon. Borrowing not much more than the core story from the original, the Coens introduce us to a familiar setting and a very simple plot but add their own spin on it, whether it is through touches of black comedy or dark undertones which few John Wayne films would have been comfortable with. Newcomer Hailee Steinfeld is the little girl who drags Jeff Bridges' "meanest" US Marshall and Damon's unsure Texas Ranger across the desert to find her father's killer. Steinfeld is great and really steals the show: she is strong-willed, tough, determined, courageous and doesn't take no for an answer. Bridges is always a safe bet and he does well here but his thick accent, grungy voice and constant mumbl

Can The Coens do no wrong? Is that possible? It certainly appears that way. A Serious Man is indeed yet another mini-masterpiece from the men behind The Big Lebowski , Fargo and countless other triumphs. After a truly perplexing opening 5 minutes, it looked like The Coens were going to really lose us on this one. But of course they were only teasing. A Serious Man is probably their most personal film and feels closer to the likes of Barton Fink than anything else they've done in the past: small, focused, stylish, incredibly clever, truly unique and of course very funny. For anyone with Jewish heritage, the film will probably feel extra-perceptive but at its core the film's ideas and messages are universal. Larry Gopnik's struggle to make sense of the unjust treatment he suddenly receives from the world around him is one which anyone can empathise with and understand. A Serious Man, like a lot of Coen Brothers films, is a bit like watching an ant struggle under a mag