Ethan Coen

HONEY DON’T: kinda funny, disposable

by
Photo caption: Margaret Qualley in HONEY DON’T. Courtesy of Focus Features.

In Ethan Coen’s dark comedy Honey Don’t, the potential clients of private eye Honey O’Donahue (Margaret Qualley) keep getting killed, and she suspects that the deaths are connected to a sexually predatory sham preacher (Chris Evans). She’s a whip-smart lipstick lesbian, and she sizzles with the local cop MG (Aubrey Plaza). Honey and the phony pastor have lots of robust sex, none of it with each other. We think we know who the big villain is going to be, but there’s a big surprise twist.

There’s a lot of sassy dialogue, and there are some LOL lines like “no, but I saw Palmdale” that could have become iconic if this were a better movie. It’s kinda funny, dotted with a few inspired moments, but, on the whole, a disposable movie.

Director Ethan Coen co-wrote Honey Don’t with longtime Coen Brothers editor Tricia Cooke, who also co-wrote his Drive Away Dolls. In a twist on the detective genre, the oversexed, badass characters are women – Honey, MG and a mysterious, motor scooter-riding drug importer (Lera Abova). The two main male characters are Evan’s predatory minister, a doofus who thinks he’s a mastermind, and a smarmy cop (Charlie Day), who knows that he’s a doofus and is blissfully content with being one. That being said, Honey Don’t is all about the carnage-laden comic violence that men tend to enjoy, and I doubt that the female-centric angle is enough to draw women into the audience.

Qualley and Evans are both very good, and I will watch anything that features Aubrey Plaza. There are excellent comic performances by Josh Pafchek, as an impressively dim thug, and Kale Browne, as an old man whose identity isn’t revealed right away.

One of the most distinctive and fun stars of the film is its setting – emphatically downscale Bakersfield. I’m not convinced that there is a nice part of Bakersfield, but, if there is, we sure don’t see it here. Californians will also enjoy the references to Lancaster and Palmdale.

Honey Don’t is a mildly enjoyable 87 minutes, but not a Must See.

HAIL, CAESAR: cool Hollywood parodies, but ultimately empty

by

Alden Ehrenreich in HAIL, CAESAR
Alden Ehrenreich in HAIL, CAESAR

Here’s the problem with the Coen Brothers’ disappointingly empty comedy Hail, Caesar – there is no real story at its core.  The plot ostensibly centers on commies kidnapping a movie star and a studio exec mulling over a job outside the movie industry.  But these are contrived as an excuse to parody Old Hollywood and the movie conventions of the studio Golden Age.  And that’s not enough by itself to make up a really good movie.  At the end of Hail, Caesar, the guy sitting behind me said, “That’s it?”.

The parodies are well-executed, and the more you know about movies, the richer the laughs.  The characters are making a ponderously devout sword-and-sandal epic called Hail, Caesar, which is closely modeled on the 1959 Ben-Hur, right down to the subtitle of the source novel, “A Tale of the Christ”.   The epic stars a charismatic but shallow leading man, played well by George Clooney.  This part is funny.

So is a spectacularly executed Busby Berkeley number with Scarlett Johansson as an Esther Williams type aquatic movie star.  And Channing Tatum shines in a Gene Kelly-like song-and-dance set piece.  Later in the film, famed cinematographer Roger Eakins brilliantly lights Tatum as an icon of Soviet-era Socialist Realism.

By far the best part of Hail, Caesar is Alden Ehrenreich as a singing cowboy.  Where did they find this guy?  Ehrenreich is convincing and hilarious as he performs  tricks with his pistol, horse and lariat in a formula Western and then is forced to fit into a period costume for a drawing-room romantic drama.  It’s an exuberantly singular performance, and something we haven’t seen on-screen since Gene Autrey and Roy Rogers.

All of the actors are good here, including Josh Brolin as the lead, and Clooney, Johansson, Tatum, Ralph Fiennes and Tila Swinton.   Frances McDormand is wasted in a very brief physical comedy bit.   That old scene-stealer Clancy Brown, here growling as the actor playing Gracchus in the Hail, Caesar-in-the-movie-Hail, Caesar shows why he’s one of my favorite character actors

There are always expectations of a Coen Brothers film, because of their masterpieces: Fargo, True Grit, Blood Simple and their seriously underrrated A Serious Man.  Plus there’s the critical favorite No Country for Old Men and the cult fave The Big Lebowski.  But they’ve also made some more forgettable fare (Inside Llewyn Davis, Burn After Reading) and Hail, Caesar is one of them.

Bottom line:  if you want to enjoy a string of first class movie parodies, see Hail, Caesar.  If you’re looking for something more, skip it.

DVD of the Week: True Grit

by

Joel and Ethan Coen (Fargo, Blood Simple, No Country for Old Men) have brought us the splendid Old West story of Mattie Ross, a girl of unrelenting resolve and moxie played by 14-year-old Hailee Steinfeld in a breakthrough performance.   Without her performance, the movie could not have been the success that it is, and Steinfeld has no problem standing up to the likes of Jeff Bridges, Josh Brolin and Matt Damon.  Mattie’s merciless smarts and resourcefulness become clear in her negotiations with prairie mogul Col. Stonehill (magnificently played by Dakin Matthews).

Jeff Bridges is perfect as the hilarious, oft-besotted and frequently lethal Rooster Cogburn.  Damon, Brolin and the rest of the cast are excellent, especially Matthews and Barry Pepper.

This film is made from the same source material as, but is not a remake of, the 1969 John Wayne oater (a movie that I particularly dislike).  The 1969 film is burdened by a hammy effort by Wayne, the miscast and undertalented Kim Darby (playing a 14-year-old at 22) and Glenn Campbell.

The film opens (without title credits) with the old hymn Leaning on the Everlasting Arms, signaling that the Coen Brothers will play True Grit absolutely straight within the traditional Western genre – no ironic winks at the audience.

True Grit is one of my Best Movies of 2010.

True Grit

by

Joel and Ethan Coen (Fargo, Blood Simple, No Country for Old Men) have brought us the splendid Old West story of Mattie Ross, a girl of unrelenting resolve and moxie played by 14-year-old Hailee Steinfeld in a breakthrough performance.   Without her performance, the movie could not have been the success that it is, and Steinfeld has no problem standing up to the likes of Jeff Bridges, Josh Brolin and Matt Damon.  Mattie’s merciless smarts and resourcefulness become clear in her negotiations with prairie mogul Col. Stonehill (magnificently played by Dakin Matthews).

Jeff Bridges is perfect as the hilarious, oft-besotted and frequently lethal Rooster Cogburn.  Damon, Brolin and the rest of the cast are excellent, especially Matthews and Barry Pepper.

This film is made from the same source material as, but is not a remake of, the 1969 John Wayne oater (a movie that I particularly dislike).  The 1969 film is burdened by a hammy effort by Wayne and the miscast and untalented Kim Darby (playing a 14-year-old at 22) and Glenn Campbell.

The film opens (without title credits) with the old hymn Leaning on the Everlasting Arms, signaling that the Coen Brothers will play True Grit absolutely straight within the traditional Western genre – no ironic winks at the audience.