• Simply put- it’s a major triumph for the Coen brothers and ranks amongst their best work- making it one of the better films of the 1990’s
  • Only slightly secondary to the achievement it is for the Coens’, it’s also major triumph for Jeff Bridges and John Goodman as well
  • Owes much to The Big Sleep and the Chandler novels—it actually adds up a bit more than The Big Sleep from Hawks does but it’s similar in that the exact outcome of the plot is secondary to mood, mode, style, location and characters. In spirit it actually owes more to Altman (and Gould’s)’s Marlowe in the long goodbye
  • The full ensemble is terrific from Coen regulars like Turturro and Buscemi to borrowed PTA players like PSH and Julianne Moore
  • One of the most rewatchable films of all time due to the top-notch screenplay by the Coens and rich cinematic and comedic layering (I’ve seen the film 50 times)—because of this (and a few other reasons) it has a strong cult-following but this is not rocky horror or up in smoke cult classic or something- this is an actual cinematic masterpiece
  • Bridges’ “The Dude” is his best work- which is saying something, but I’m not sure he’s up to Bogart’s Marlowe on his own- but Bogart never had a sidekick as brilliant a character (and actor portrayal) as Goodman here
  • It’s more playful and slapsticky than Fargo or Barton Fink or No Country For Old Men of course- it’s more in the mode of raising Arizona or hudsucker proxy– but it’s still a meditation on the Coen’s ongoing obsession with fate and irony—this is the wrong Jeff Lebowski and what happens, like life to them, is often meaningless and random
  • Adore the soundtrack and the opening credit sequence—the idea of Roger Deakins shooting inside Ralph’s grocery store or a bowling alley
  • Placed squarely in the early 90’s with Sadaam and George Bush
  • In the first viewing the abrasiveness of Goodman smacks you across the face- it takes a minute to adjust to the volume and language frankly
  • Looked at as a commercial and critical failure in 1998 following up from their greatest success- Fargo
  • Like all of the Coen’s they love speech and selective vernaculars—we have the repetition here- formally brilliant from “tied the room together” to the “chinaman” and the “parlance of our time”- almost nothing is used just once—every word and phrase carefully picked
  • Love the Scorsese-like slow-motion “hotel California” of Turturro bowling then the 3 guys with great framing placing Buscemi’s Donnie in the middle
  • As I said above I think the Coen’s may have seen Boogie Nights or something in 1997 because they borrow Seymour-Hoffman and Moore from PTA and they are both superb here
  • Love the limo drive with Dean Martin music placement
  • It’s a wild film on the page- the Nihilists with the obscure rodent
  • One-liners and comedic gems galore from the “say what you will about the tenants of national socialism but at least it’s an ethos” to the “Moses to Sandy Kaufax” line- hilarious
  • The narrative absolutely rolls- never pauses- I adore the dream/drug/out of it sequences to allow for multiple deeper readings of the film but also as a chance for Deakins to show off and for them to tip their cap to 1930’s musicals specifically the choreography with the Busby Berkeley stuff—it’s expressionism, a wild imagination and possible acid flashback!
  • Ben Gazarra plays like a Burt Reynolds in Boogie character
  • Adjectives are all repeated at least once- many of them more often
  • Fate—Donnie strikes all movie long then the night of his death the pin stands up when it shouldn’t- he threw it perfectly— Psalms in mortuary house “As for man, his days are as grass. As a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone”
  • A Masterpiece