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

As much as I love the Mission: Impossible movies, this first installment has always been my least favourite. Which is weird because being the first movie you'd expect it to easily be the best one, especially when it's directed by someone who knows what they're doing. And yet a re-watch confirms that this is still not the Mission: Impossible movie for me. Don't get me wrong: it's a decent movie and far less silly than its successor (what isn't?). It starts off strong with the team being taken down one by one in a mission that, ironically, really does prove impossible. Turns out a mole set everyone up and Ethan Hunt, being the only survivor, is the prime suspect. Luckily he's got old men masks, a shitty old PC and chewing gum bombs to keep him safe. He bolts and the rest of the film sees him having to retrieve a mega-important list of spies from a super-safe over at Langley thereby proving his innocence. To do this, he hires the help of Ving Rhames and

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