A Coen brothers movie you'll enjoy the hell out of

I'd like to think I have grown out of my fanboy phase, but then I see something new by the Coens, and I go all giddy inside. Great stuff.

Hey Jim,

thanks for the shout out. WORLD CINEMA is missing from the CHACUN SON CINEMA DVD set, been looking for it for a while and then suddenly it pops up on YouTube.

I love how it's like a parallel universe Llewelyn Moss, or a slightly more oafish version. LA REGLE DE JUS (!).

It's also quite interesting in the way that it reminds me of friends who aren't into 'other movies' and require some effort to plunge into something they aren't familiar with.

I especially like the way Grant Heslov's character gets it wrong when he corrects Josh Brolin (or is it Llewelyn Moss) that the characters would be speaking "Turkic." It is, of course, Turkish. That's a nice touch.

Wow- great timing! I just rented Chacun son Cinema last week, and was disappointed that the Coens' film wasn't on it (nor was David Lynch's, for some reason). I found the film generally to be quite underwhelming...that would have helped.

I think it's even better as a W. spin-off than NCFOM. Well, W. meets Brokeback Mountain.

I had this dream where Llewelyn, from "No Country for Old Men", was at a movie theatre and was trying to decide between "The Rules of the Game" and "Climates" and chose the latter and really liked it. He also may have been gay, and called himself Dan and then I woke up...

Jim, have you seen David Lynch's contribution to this anthology? It's enchantingly weird and creepy.

Here it is in case you haven't seen it and others might want to see it as well:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ixsj-OEkxOQ

You've got to admire how Brolin keeps the voice slightly different than Moss or Dubya.

Speaking of which, Brolin sure seems indefatigable, and he's looking to have another big year in 2010. He recently wrapped Jonah Hex, he's currently filming a Woody Allen role, and he's rumored to be up for a part in Wall Street 2 which is reported to start shooting this month.

Thanks so much for posting this, I was hoping to see this after reading about it when it played in Cannes but it was unfortunately not included in the DVD, as other have said. It's one of the few in that set that isn't about how wonderful the director is or about how blind people sometimes see more in the movies than sighted people (yuck). This, the Dardennes, Hou Hsiao Hsien and David Cronenberg's are wonderful though.

Haven't seen this since Cannes, when I indeed enjoyed the hell out of it. Hell of a lot of truth in that movie.

Thanks for posting!

Yeah, I was confused by Jim's statement of it being a spinoff of NCFOM, mostly because I figured Llwelyn, even if he didn't know much about world cinema, would be a little cannier--though I suppose Dan here doesn't act dumb per se, just a little extra clueless, especially in his deference to (and crush on) the pretentious clerk.

The fact that Brolin's character, who seems to be gay (and possibly, given his nervousness about expressing directly his attraction for the first movie clerk, closeted), might be a reference to Brolin's portrayal of Dan White (sometimes thought of as closeted) in "Milk". The character is evocative of Llwelyn and W. as well.

"There may be a rabbit in Regle du jeu...."

JE: That's Llewelyn's shirt, Llewelyn's hat, Llewelyn's 'stache, Llewelyn's accent... in a film made to show at Cannes in 2007 at the same time "No Country for Old Men" premiered there. So, you can draw your own conclusions about the nature of the joke, but...

There should be more movie-goers like Dan, the fella with the hat. He's obviously willing to watch anything that sounds alright, whether it's foreign, artsy, mainstream, or whatever. If a movie is incomprehensible and boring, it's usually the director's fault, not yours.

eh.
the Coens' Clean Coal advert was better.

When does Josh Brolin get his Oscar?

I think it's funnier if he's not making a pass at the cashier so much as just asking him a completely random question. Like in "Best in Show" when Fred Willard asks if his co-host "how fast do you think I can run down there and back?" or in the FenslerFilm re-mix of the GI Joe safety message when the kid spontaneously asks "Do you know my dad?"

P.

That was my thinking, too. It being a come-on would be kind of a cheap laugh, and Coen dialog is always weirder and more interesting than the cheap laugh.

It shoulda been Anton Chigurh.

*flips coin*

Anton: Call it.

Theater Employee: Excuse me?

Anton: Just call it.

Theater Employee: I need to know what we're calling it for.

Anton: The date on this quarter is 1975. It has been travelling 34 years to get here. And now it's here. And all you have to do is call it.

Theater Employee: Ok. I guess it better be heads then.

*Anton slaps the quarter down on the counter. It comes up tails.*

Anton: Let me get one ticket for Climates.

Theater Employee: Will that be all, sir?

Anton: Hmmm, should I get popcorn or nachos?

*flips coin*

Anton: Call it.

His random question about what time the clerk gets off work reminds me of Jim Gaffigan's role on Flight of the Conchords, where his thing was asking random questions without a single hint of sarcasm.

Good, not great. The Egoyan short in this set is by far the very best of the bunch. It's also the best thing Egoyan has done since Exotica.

This is a little off topic, but I just saw Burn After Reading on DVD. I am a Coen Bros. fan but this was a huge dissapointment. Maybe it's me but I can't enjoy a movie unless there is at least ONE likeable character I can identify with a little bit. For a comedey, this was a damn bleak story of infidelity, violence, and self-absorption. Sure, blackmail, theft and threats of violence are ok if you want some plastic surgery but resorting to treason?

The question about what time the ticket clerk got off work was taken from Anton's inquiry of the convenience store clerk in 'NCFOM'. I didn't read any homosexual connotation there, although I don't speak Turkec.