A frankly awful ranking
The top five and bottom four are incorrect but arguable enough, the middle is almost perfectly backwards
Blood simple and raising Arizona excluded, those are no. 1 and 2
I’m not as enamored with Fargo and No Country as literally everyone else is whereas I think True Grit and O brother are unfairly underrated and everything in the middle is in the wrong place
i still like no country a lot, the movie is much more profound once i realized it is basically a remake of raising arizona
fargo i can see not aging well, it has that thing where you feel like the filmmakers really just hate their characters and want them to suffer that made burn after reading really unlikable to me
true grit has really great elements, including the most effective use of matt damon to date, but something about it just makes it feel like less than the sum of its parts, not sure why
Serious Man is top 3 coen bros and belongs nowhere near the middle
O Brother feels like 90 minutes of schtick that doesn’t come together, no one but the Coens could’ve made it and there are some individually great parts but all of their other 90s work is like tonally perfect whereas I have to make a huge effort to stick with O Brother
(I’d make the same criticism of Hail Caesar)
Serious Man is definitely top 3, yeah
yeah that one is really underrated! I wish they would do more movies that don’t rely so heavily on ‘’’’‘star power’’’’’ these days, I feel like it detracts from the craft to see all these famous actors hamming it up doing their impersonations of other good Coen brothers performances of yore
it’s very difficult to criticize Fargo, it’s just that its critical reputation has been blown out of proportion. I adore it but I can’t imagine really being in the mood to watch it again
if I had to do a top 5 I think it would come out really obvious, like
lebowski
serious man
raising arizona
no country
barton fink / fargo (pick one)
90 minutes of schtick that doesn’t come together is the best thing about movies
ladykillers is the one I never seen but I have a hard time believing it’s worse than the one that ends with a wife beater and fixer for hollywood bosses triumphantly beating up a guy for saying maybe the commies had some good ideas, god bless hollywood
I’m sure the fargo tv show has made it to where I wouldn’t be able to stand the fargo movie either now
true grit is good
the fargo tv show is f’n phenomenal
i am pretty sure hail caesar was meant to be satirical…
it’s good
Burn After Reading is the best DC movie ever made and is critically important in our current moment
it’s so caustic and heavy handed and not that funny though!
Like I would rather watch In The Loop a million times over
I think I just hate their version of George Clooney
I mean, right. Perfect.
(I actually think it’s hilarious though)
MILLER’S CROSSING is the most compulsively rewatchable movie ever made
I usually love stories of any kind about people fucking up and continually making things hilariously and unnecessarily worse and I certainly have no problem with the premise that all political staffers are cretinous, I think I just need it to be pitched a little more gamely?
like Burn After Reading is just start to finish “these people are morons” and while I wouldn’t say it’s unnecessarily cruel all the performances are in way too absurd a register for me
I still enjoyed the Ladykillers.