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 whole film was graded digitally on computer. The negative was scanned in with a Spirit Datacine at 2K resolution and then colors were digitally fine-tuned. The process took several weeks. The resulting digital master was output on film again with a Kodak laser recorder to create a print master. It was the first time this had been done for a whole film in Hollywood (but not in other countries). See more »
Goofs
There is a very heavy focus on the use of the Confederate Battle Flag at the KKK rally. However, the association of the KKK (and racists in general) with the "Rebel" flag grew out of the Civil Rights conflict of the 1960s. During the Twenties and Thirties, the peak of KKK membership, only the U.S. flag was represented at KKK rallies, even in Mississippi. 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 »
Not being a fan of the Coen Brothers or George Clooney, anyone can see the skepticism I took into the theater. Once again, someone in Hollywood dares to create something different. This time it was those zanie (for a temporary lack of a better word) Coens doing "their thing" to one of the great works in literary history. Who would've ever thought Homer had this in mind? I don't know where this film is going to fit in the history books of Hollywood, but it will be in both mine and many others DVD or VHS library. It is one of those films that you can watch over and over. The story is brilliantly written. Clean and entertaining, with a couple of Gumpesque brushes with fame, great performances by Clooney, Turturro, Nelson, and a brief but hilarious Holly Hunter. Being born in Mississippi and raised in other parts of the south, I wish more people would poke a little fun at us like this. They even invoke a soundtrack fitting for the rural south. You are NOT doing anything better this weekend, go see this movie!
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Not being a fan of the Coen Brothers or George Clooney, anyone can see the skepticism I took into the theater. Once again, someone in Hollywood dares to create something different. This time it was those zanie (for a temporary lack of a better word) Coens doing "their thing" to one of the great works in literary history. Who would've ever thought Homer had this in mind? I don't know where this film is going to fit in the history books of Hollywood, but it will be in both mine and many others DVD or VHS library. It is one of those films that you can watch over and over. The story is brilliantly written. Clean and entertaining, with a couple of Gumpesque brushes with fame, great performances by Clooney, Turturro, Nelson, and a brief but hilarious Holly Hunter. Being born in Mississippi and raised in other parts of the south, I wish more people would poke a little fun at us like this. They even invoke a soundtrack fitting for the rural south. You are NOT doing anything better this weekend, go see this movie!