Thursday
07Aug2008
Get to Know Chad and Harry from the Coens' 'Burn After Reading'
Thursday, August 7, 2008 at 4:13PM 
Well, I'm about ready for
Burn After Reading. The new Coen Brothers idiot
comedy - their third such venture with
George Clooney - will hit the Venice Film
Festival before debuting here in the states, and every minute of footage I've
seen in trailers and in these two new featurettes from
Trailer Addict seem to confirm
what I suspected:
Joel and
Ethan Coen are completely back on their game.
I worried about them in the early part of this decade,
with movies like Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers masquerading as
comedies, and by looking outside and adapting another writer's novel (they had
previously only remade screenplays or done original scripts), they struck gold
with
No Country for Old Men.That film, as brilliant
as it is, doesn't have a lot in common with the dark comedies that by and large
constitute the brothers' best work.
So this film, about a missing file, blackmail, the CIA,
and yes, idiots, finds them back in their most natural environment. Burn
After Reading stars Clooney,
Brad Pitt,
John Malkovich,
Tilda Swinton, and
Frances McDormand. That's quite a collection of
talent. And those are only the headliners.
Here are two featurettes about Chad (Mr. Pitt) and Harry (Mr. Clooney).
Reader Comments (2)
I have officially been sold on this movie.
Nice to see that the Coens are putting comedy back in the mix. For a while they lost it, then they threw it out the window and now they seem to have got it back.