Entries Tagged 'Joel Coen' | Indie Eye

Entries tagged “Joel Coen”

"Kurt Russell is to the right of Attila the Hun."

By Alison Willmore on 08/28/2008

Filed under: In quotes

Quotes from the interview circuit: "No one seems to mention that the President of the United States in Escape from New York is British! [Laughs] We made up some story about him being the love child of Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. That didn't make it into the movie because Kurt Russell is to the right of Attila the Hun. He actually doesn't think we should have to pay for roads--unbelievable. But we're friends because we respect each other's work ethic. He's a wonderful guy; I love him." --John Carpenter on political disillusionment at Time Out New York. "You know, at... MORE »

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"Burn After Reading": The trades say yes! And no!

By Alison Willmore on 08/27/2008

Filed under: Critic wrangle, Festivals

The early reviews of the Coens' "Burn After Reading," which opens the Venice Film Festival tonight, are out, and they're up, down and all over the place. Todd McCarthy at Variety thinks the film finds the brothers C retreating "to sophomoric snarky mode," bemoaning the fact that the "seriously talented cast has been asked to act like cartoon characters." The Coens' script, which feels immature but was evidently written around the same time as that for "No Country," is just too fundamentally silly, without the grounding of a serious substructure that would make the sudden turn to violence catch the... MORE »

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In the works: "Pump your brakes kid, that man's a national treasure."

By Alison Willmore on 08/19/2008

Filed under: In the works

In the works: Paul Hogan has a new film -- "Charlie & Boots" will follow "a father and son who travel from Victoria to Cape York to fulfill their lifelong ambition to fish off Australia's northern tip." Hogan's last, 2004's "Strange Bedfellows," found him and Michael Caton pretending to be a gay couple in order to take advantage of new tax laws -- it was the source of a minor uproar when the producers took up a failed copyright suit against the awfully similar "I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry." [Variety] The Coens have found the leads of their... MORE »

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Tilda Swinton founds strangest film festival ever.

By Alison Willmore on 07/08/2008

Filed under: Festivals

Tilda Swinton is starting a small festival in her hometown of Nairn in north-east Scotland. She's passed up what I feel is a key opportunity to capitalize on her recent Hollywood role by calling her event "Nairnia" or the like, instead going with "The Ballerina Ballroom Cinema of Dreams." Tickets to films will cost Â£3 or a tray of baked goods, and everyone will sit on beanbags to take in "films with highly coloured, dreamlike elements," according to the Guardian. Part of the impetus behind the festival is Swinton and [co-organiser Mark] Cousins' idea that "Money dictates the festival circuit... MORE »