I feel that way about the Coen Bros. I am not alone in my adoration, as they are by no means obscure or underground. They’re just so damn good when they wanna be.
Their first eight films make them worship-worthy:
1984’s Blood Simple – dark, engrossing thriller that introduced us (& Joel) to the wonderful Frances McDormand
1987’s Raising Arizona – no exaggeration, THE greatest comedy ever
1990’s Miller’s Crossing – a fantastically delicious noir
1991’s Barton Fink – wickedly evil with all the right quirks
1994’s The Hudsucker Proxy – you know, for kids
1996’s Fargo – laugh or cringe, it’s beautiful
1998’s The Big Lebowski – all the right players dishin’ all the best comedy
2000’s O Brother, Where Art Thou? – who knew bluegrass and The Odyssey would be back in style?
2001’s The Man Who Wasn't There was a great tale, but unfortunately received the audience who wasn’t there.
2003’s Intolerable Cruelty was just that. I like to pretend they had guns to their heads to force their participation in attempting to clean up this lost cause.
I still have yet to see their 2004 remake of The Ladykillers because I had such a sour taste in my mouth from their prior effort.
And now, they seem quite busy.
I’m patiently awaiting a clip from the participation friendly Paris, je t'aime (opening June 1). 18 little Paris vignettes, and you know Steve Buscemi is in the Coen tale. A fellow tag-team-director is another of my favorites, Walter Salles (The Motorcycle Diaries, Behind the Sun), who is coincidentally working on a film with 33 directors, Chacun son cinéma (To Each His Cinema), including the Coens but expanding upon Paris’ mostly French directorship into international territory. Included are the Dardenne Bros. (L'Enfant), Alejandro González Iñárritu (Babel), Aki Kaurismäki (The Man Without a Past), Ken Loach (The Wind that Shakes the Barley), Gus Van Sant (Elephant) and Theodoros Angelopoulos, who participated in Lumière and Company, involving 40 directors’ use of the Lumière Brothers’ Cinematographe technique. But we won’t peruse that list.
This year will release No Country for Old Men, with a tough cast including the Brolin boys, Tommy Lee Jones, Woody Harrelson and Javier Bardem battling for a stash of hash and cash along the Rio Grande, based on Cormac McCarthy’s novel. I’ve driven through the west Texas town and tried to spy the famously mysterious Marfa lights (I didn’t see anything), and I’ll tell ya, there ain’t nuthin’ there. But if there’s something the Coen fellas do well, it’s making somethin’ out of nuthin’ (Arizona desert? Minnesota snow? L.A. bowling?).
In 2008, the Coens reteam with new favorite Clooney (The Good German), his buddy Pitt and the always stunning standby McDormand in the CIA caper, Burn after Reading. Let’s hope they remember old favorites John Goodman, John Turturro and Buscemi, because they seem to be necessary ingredients for Coen magic.
2009 may see a remake of the 1966 MacLaine & Caine Gambit, possibly with Jennifer Aniston, Colin Firth and Ben Kingsley. Odd cast...better add some reliables.
2009 is also rumored to reteam Joel & Ethan with Tim Blake Nelson (O Brother) as a theatre troupe member staging Julius Caesar in Hail, Caesar! The year also hints at something called Suburbicon...though you never know when the Coens are pulling our collective leg and throwing out false leads. What the hell, pull away!