By Peter Bradshaw
Translator: Issac
Proofreading: Goji Uchida
Source: The Guardian
18. The Old Woman Killer
What exactly is this movie about? It's a remake of the Ealing Company's crime comedy classic (the unrealistic, planning role played by Alec Guinness this time played by Tom Hanks), which at least proves (if proof is needed) that the Coen brothers have excellent fan taste. But the film is meaningless and confusing, and only the Coen brothers would make it that way.
17. "Burn After Reading"
It's a great movie to pass the time: a tight-paced, boring black comic gangster with a number of big stars on board, a good joke or two, and Brad Pitt's portrayal of a very good but stupid freak does bring an interesting twist.
16. The Shadow Tycoon
It's a Frank Capra-esque comedy of the times about an ordinary, even unattractive person (played by Tim Robbins) who is caught up in a stock market scam. The film proves that the Coen brothers' comedies sometimes lack focus: too spooky, too lax.
15. The Three Kings of Prison Break
The Coen brothers' love for Preston Sturges can be seen once again in this film, which uses its title in a bizarre way to echo the extremely serious social realism film planned by Sturges in 1941's Sullivan's Journey.
It's an attractive, flattering movie about three fugitives in desperate America who make their way through the cracks, and the songs they sing have inexplicably become popular. The film shows silly but cute things that have slowly faded over time.
14. "Long Live Caesar"
This slow-paced comedy tells the story of Hollywood, the star-studded city of Stars, with a more retro vibe from the golden Hollywood era: drunkards, bribe-givers, female singers, dancers, and third-rate writers. The story revolves around the role of George Clooney in the vulgar and inferior Roman epic, who needs to wear a robe, and he plays a star who has never been popular and has never been popular, but his face is getting older. This film reminds everyone what a wonderful dancer Channing Tatum is.
13. "Earth Thunder"
The film was a coensal remake of the 1969 John Wayne classic, which led to an unprecedented commercial success; or rather, they were also a completely new adaptation of Charles Portis's original novel. Jeff Bridges may be the only person to play Rost Cowborn, who has no backstory, and his fourteen-year-old assistant Marty Rose is played by Hayley Steinfield. It's a gentle, well-made film, but it may have lost the power of the original film or the Coen brothers' other films.
12. "True Love and False Love"
In contemporary research on the Coen brothers, the film is the most "underrated". After the film's release, most critics seemed to agree that the grotesque comedy about divorce starring Catherine Zeta-Jones and George Clooney was unsatisfactory. I disagree. The role of The Eight-Faced Lawyer Miles Massey is inherently suitable for Clooney, and Zeta-Jones plays a predator who does not give up until he reaches his goal, and his performance is also excellent.
11. Raising Arizona
Some Coen brothers researchers believe that this comedy of their early years is in the top three of their productions; there is even a chance of topping the list. In my opinion, this movie is not so dazzling, but it is a very unique film, a realistic, fantasy action comedy with strange sub-plots and sub-characters that are not directly related.
Holly Hunter plays a cop who falls in love with a criminal played by Nicholas Cage; after the two discover that they are unable to have children, they are involved in a child abduction case that is incredibly bizarre and innocent.
10. The Ballad of Buster
The Ballad of Buster is the latest work of the Coen brothers, who have created a treasure. The film tells several stories from the interesting and beautiful Old West, with humor, warmth and visual talent. There are several stories, but the best one is truly brilliant, and Buster Scruggers, played by Tim Blake Nelson, is a man who loves to sing and play with guns, which is also the best character of his career.
9. "Barton Fink"
The award-winning film brought the Coen brothers into the Hall of Fame. The film is a fantasy satire about golden Hollywood, about a lone screenwriter named Fink (John Tetro) who is caught up in a terrifying mystery. More prominent than the main thrust is the style of the film in the early nineties, and arthur Miller alone has criticized the film as "meaningless", but it is undoubtedly fashionable and elegant.
8. "Drunken Folk Song"
Moving and often hilarious, the film, about a failed folk singer in Greenwich Village, describes the comfortable world of the singer from the sixties, before Bob Dylan: the beleaguered Levin Davis (a welsh-sounding name that doesn't exist in real life) played by Oscar Isaac. When the artist reaches middle age and understands that his career is not improving, he must make bad decisions, and when he sees these scenes, it is painful and painful.
7. "Serious Man"
People often debate how interesting the Coen brothers want to deliberately make the work, and the answer to this question may be made clear by the adjectives in the title of the film: it is a very engaging and personal film about the childhood of Midwesterns. Michael Stuber's performance is brilliant, playing an academic researcher who falls into despair when his wife declares their marriage bankrupt.
6. Miller's Crossroads
The film borrows from other thriller films about the thugs of the Prohibition period and ends up as an elegant and eccentric Coen Brothers work. The young Gabriel Byrne plays an important gangster, and his performance is very eye-catching: the ambitious young man who stays in the criminal gang encounters a situation that he himself can't cope with. There is also a spectacular shootout scene with the soundtrack to "The Boy" in The Dany.
5. Ice Storm
The film noir, which was once crowned a laurel by Cannes, has now been made into a television series, which twists and turns, and Francis McDormand, who plays Maggie Gunderson, may have contributed one of her best performances in a Coen Brothers film, starring the pregnant Minnesota police officer who investigates a strange conspiracy in which William Gunderson is the titular character of the Coen Brothers film. The car manager played by H. Messi actually kidnapped his wife.
4. The Absent Man
Discussions about the Coen brothers' work often revolve around which films are high/undervalued, and the debate leaves a lot of room for works in the middle. But for me, The Absent Man is one of their best films: a grotesque and charming, slow-paced black-and-white film noir that takes place in Los Angeles, featuring james F. Kennedy. M. Kane or Robert Aldridge's style. In the play, Billy Bob Thornton's barber's wife (Francis McDormand) and her boss (James Gandofini) seem to have an affair. The whole film is gripping.
3. Labyrinth of Blood
The Coen Brothers' small budget debut debuted on screen in early 1984 as an exciting black thriller without the comic-like weirdness of their later works. Although the film is clearly following the old routine of this type of film, it still gives people a new feeling of complete originality. Francis McDormand plays a young woman who steals love behind her back from her sadistic husband (played by Dan Hadaya). So the latter hired a terrifying detective to follow her, played by M. Emmett Walsh, whose evil performance was extremely exciting.
2. Murder of the Green Toe
For many people, this film will always be the best work of the Coen brothers in their minds, and the film is funny, loose, freewheeling and strange. Jeff Bridges' exquisite appearance in the role of "Governor" gives the role a strange sense of solemnity. If you give this role to an actor who is not skilled enough, I am afraid that it will only make the audience feel sluggish and strange.
1. "The Old Man Has Nothing to Rely On"
The film, based on Comac McCarthy's Western thriller novel, was a sensation and apocalyptic, and still seems to be the coen brothers' masterpiece: a black nightmare that took place in Texas, with subtle humor.
Javier Baden's Anton Ziggy is a very strange villain, and the old sheriff played by Tommy Lee Jones represents the sanity and humor of this evil world.