When a childless couple of an ex-con and an ex-cop decide to help themselves to one of another family's quintuplets, their lives become more complicated than they anticipated.
Larry Gopnik, a Midwestern physics teacher, watches his life unravel over multiple sudden incidents. Though seeking meaning and answers amidst his turmoils, he seems to keep sinking.
Directors:
Ethan Coen,
Joel Coen
Stars:
Michael Stuhlbarg,
Richard Kind,
Sari Lennick
An eccentric, if not charming Southern professor and his crew pose as a classical ensemble in order to rob a casino, all under the nose of his unsuspecting but sharp old landlady.
Loosely based on Homer's "Odyssey," the movie deals with the picaresque adventures of Ulysses Everett McGill and his companions Delmar and Pete in 1930s Mississipi. Sprung from a chain gang and trying to reach Everett's home to recover the buried loot of a bank heist they are confronted by a series of strange characters--among them sirens, a cyclops, bank robber George "Baby Face" Nelson (very annoyed by that nickname), a campaigning governor and his opponent, a KKK lynch mob, and a blind prophet who warns the trio that "the treasure you seek shall not be the treasure you find."Written by
Armin Ortmann <armin@sfb288.math.tu-berlin.de>
The three little girls singing "In the Highways" at the political rally are a nod to the Carter Family, as the song was written by Mother Maybelle Carter, and was often performed by her daughters (Helen, June and Anita Carter (June later married Johnny Cash) when they were about the same age as the girls in the film. There are recordings online of them singing this song in 1939, and they sound identical to version in the film. See more »
Goofs
During the recording of "Man of Costant Sorrow" Ulysses steps away from the microphone to let Pete and Delmar sing their part but we hear three part harmony. See more »
Quotes
[first lines]
Ulysses Everett McGill:
Say, any of you boys smithies? Or, if not smithies per se, were you otherwise trained in the metallurgic arts before straitened circumstances forced you into a life of aimless wanderin'?
See more »
Crazy Credits
The credit for Alan J. Schoolcraft, the president of operations for Mike Zoss Productions, is all in Spanish: "El Encargado de Mike Zoss Productions" See more »
This was the best film I saw in the year 2000. The Cohen brothers have never let me down before, and they certainly didn't this time either.
It's one of those rare movies these days - it's witty, intelligent and vastly entertaining. I left the cinema with a warmth in my heart. Of course, there's lot of Cohen stuff in there - odd characters and peculiar gadgets, well-developed plot and magic camerawork. But no Cohen film is resembling any other Cohen film, if you overlook the general quality of them, of course.
The big surprise for me was that Clooney is so good. But the true master performance in this movie comes from Tim Blake-Nelson. But the rest of the cast is superb too.
A film that is lightweight comedy with a musical touch that evolve it's story round rednecks and old time country music - dripping with wit and intelligence. Thats a very unlikely combination. But it's exactly what this picture is.
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This was the best film I saw in the year 2000. The Cohen brothers have never let me down before, and they certainly didn't this time either.
It's one of those rare movies these days - it's witty, intelligent and vastly entertaining. I left the cinema with a warmth in my heart. Of course, there's lot of Cohen stuff in there - odd characters and peculiar gadgets, well-developed plot and magic camerawork. But no Cohen film is resembling any other Cohen film, if you overlook the general quality of them, of course.
The big surprise for me was that Clooney is so good. But the true master performance in this movie comes from Tim Blake-Nelson. But the rest of the cast is superb too.
A film that is lightweight comedy with a musical touch that evolve it's story round rednecks and old time country music - dripping with wit and intelligence. Thats a very unlikely combination. But it's exactly what this picture is.