MetaChat - Every critic LOVED the new Coen brothers film.

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21 November 2007

Every critic LOVED the new Coen brothers film. Everybody but Jonathan Rosenbaum. His Coen-loving readers fight back. My favorite comment: "Rosenbaum supported and apologized for regimes that really carried out mass murders in the tens of millions. Yet, he's completely blind to HIS OWN history. We may like 'mass murderers' on the screen, but Rosenbaum likes them in politics--as long as the mass murders are in the name of radical progress."

post by: matteo at: 10:14 | 9 comments

Yeah, it has, like, a 96% on Rotten Tomatoes.

(I saw it. I loved it, but I think we might have been in the minority in our particular theater).

The few bad reviews I've read have all been "Oh, it was so dark. I'm sick of dark movies."

posted by muddgirl 21 November | 10:36

Um, it's McCarthy and The Coens, together at last. I frankly don't give a flying fuck if everyone in the world hated it, I'd still pay to see it.

On to matters of import: The Road is being cast. It looks like it'll be Guy Pearce and the director of The Proposition, John Hillcoat.

Blood Meridian is going to be directed by Ridley Scott.

posted by chuckdarwin 21 November | 11:02

Hey chuck, if I were going to buy and read my first McCarthy book, which one would you recommend?

posted by muddgirl 21 November | 11:06

Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West (1985)

posted by chuckdarwin 21 November | 11:12

yeah Blood Meridian

posted by matteo 21 November | 11:22

Oh man, I officially stand hesitantly elated about a movie version of Blood Meridian and I've got to go see the new Coen movie this weekend.

muddgirl, Blood Meridian is dense and, well, bloody. Suttree is no less dark, but might be a better starting point (depending on how you feel about Faulknerian-length sentences).

The thing to keep in mind about Cormac McCarthy is that pre-All the Pretty Horses, they're very dark and full of death, incest, and blood. Post- AtPH, they're less so.

posted by sleepy_pete 21 November | 12:27

The thing to keep in mind about Cormac McCarthy is that pre-All the Pretty Horses, they're very dark and full of death, incest, and blood. Post- AtPH, they're less so.

You know how summer time reading is supposed to be light and fluffy - mysteries with happy endings, romance novels, chick lit., Michael Chabon et. al? Yeah, I like my winter time reading to be exactly the opposite, as long as it's well-written.

posted by muddgirl 21 November | 13:25

It's cool, just wanted to forewarn you. But, since you're up for it, these are all excellent early books by McCarthy:

Outer Dark
Child of God
The Orchard Keeper

and definitely read Suttree, I think that's his best book besides Blood Meridian.

Offtopic: If you want to read something really dark, and you haven't read it yet, read The Painted Bird. I read it this summer. Or Vollmann's Poor People. I think everyone should read that book and it's nonfiction.

posted by sleepy_pete 21 November | 13:36

I fucking abhore the Coen brothers. No Country For Old Men is by far the best movie they've ever touched. It's really a great film.

posted by koeselitz 23 November | 17:42

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