I understand that this film, the newest from the Coen Bros., isn't set for release until September 12th. However, I just stumbled across the newly released trailer of the film, and thought that, instead of wasting space and making a discussion for the trailer alone, I'd kill two birds with one stone.
So, here is a link to both of them, with the second one (the one with Brad Pitt's kisser slapped on it) differing only in the middle clips:
Based on both, I make these speculations... the dialogue is going to be punchy and fun. Also, expect a performance from Brad Pitt so loose and care-free that it might flow in the same vein as his role in 12 Monkeys.
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My Early Early Oscar Predictions:
PICTURE: Revolutionary Road DIRECTOR: David Fincher, Curious Case of Benjamin Button ACTOR: Leonardo DiCaprio, Revolutionary Road or Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon ACTRESS: Meryl Streep, Doubt or Kate Winslet, Revolutionary Road SUPPORTING ACTOR: Heath Ledger, Dark Knight or Robert Downey, Jr., The Soloist SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Amy Adams, Doubt, or Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Burn After Reading or Milk ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Frost/Nixon, Doubt, or Benjamin Button ANIMATED FEATURE: Wall.E
Posts: 712 | Location: Right behind you. | Registered: December 07, 2007
Depending on where Pitt and McDormand are placed in categories, I think it would be in supporting for both, I would watch out for these to making the list for a nomination. Pitt looks awesome!
Originally posted by Awardshq: Depending on where Pitt and McDormand are placed in categories, I think it would be in supporting for both, I would watch out for these to making the list for a nomination. Pitt looks awesome!
For some reason, I'm only predicting Swinton and Malkovich to make the list, which is ironic considering they were two actors you didn't even mention. Honestly, this could also be a film that is completely ignored for everything save its Screenplay.
My Early Early Oscar Predictions:
PICTURE: Revolutionary Road DIRECTOR: David Fincher, Curious Case of Benjamin Button ACTOR: Leonardo DiCaprio, Revolutionary Road or Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon ACTRESS: Meryl Streep, Doubt or Kate Winslet, Revolutionary Road SUPPORTING ACTOR: Heath Ledger, Dark Knight or Robert Downey, Jr., The Soloist SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Amy Adams, Doubt, or Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Burn After Reading or Milk ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Frost/Nixon, Doubt, or Benjamin Button ANIMATED FEATURE: Wall.E
Posts: 712 | Location: Right behind you. | Registered: December 07, 2007
Originally posted by Awardshq: Depending on where Pitt and McDormand are placed in categories, I think it would be in supporting for both, I would watch out for these to making the list for a nomination. Pitt looks awesome!
For some reason, I'm only predicting Swinton and Malkovich to make the list, which is ironic considering they were two actors you didn't even mention. Honestly, this could also be a film that is completely ignored for everything save its Screenplay.
I don't see the Academy embracing Swinton again so soon. Based on the trailer Pitt looks to be the stand out male of the film, at least that is what it looks like and the Academy has already embraced Pitt for doing off the wall projects, hopefully they will embrace him again. It looks like his role is hilarious. Also, McDormand was the only excited one at the Oscars this year, so I can totally see the Academy embracing here again. We will have to wait for the film, but I am excited for it!
Both trailers look awesome and I can't wait to see the movie. And I think BAR will definetly get a screenplay nomination. But based on the trailers, it seems as if the two standouts will be Pitt and McDormand. It will be interesting to see where this goes becuase (based on the trailers and early reviews of the film) Pitt and McDormand can either go lead or supporting, so... I would love to see both of them get a nomination for this movie, but for right now, I will wait to see the movie to make any decisions. Maybe I will do an early prediction for McDormand in supporting actress, which I would love to see happen, but I really want to see the movie first! This movie looks really good!
2009 Oscars FYC:
Lead Actor - Richard Jenkins, The Visitor Lead Actress - Sally Hawkins, Happy Go Lucky Supporting Actor - Haaz Sleiman, The Visitor Supporting Actress - Amy Adams, Doubt Original Screenplay - Thomas McCarthy, The Visitor
From the trailer, it seems like this movie is going to be a true ensemble piece, in which no body seems to qualify for the lead. Even Malkovich, who, for those lucky enough to read the screenplay that's been drifting across cyber space, seems to have the largest role, looks to fall into a Supporting slot.
I don't know why, but I get the feeling that, if Pitt is pushed for Lead, he won't have a friggin' chance come Oscar time (at least, for this film); however, if he is pushed as Supporting, could he possibly be a double nom, with Benjamin Button also in the equation? Or is all this talk of Winslet, DiCaprio, Brolin, and Pitt all being possible double-nods just way too silly?
I also see what you mean about Tilda Swinton receiving the "too soon after" shrug from alot of the voters. Yes, she was great in Clayton, and she may be even better here, but I can see her recent win as a factor against her chances.
If I were me (which I am), I would put all my BAR chips in the film's Screenplay chances.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: Dr. McPhearson,
My Early Early Oscar Predictions:
PICTURE: Revolutionary Road DIRECTOR: David Fincher, Curious Case of Benjamin Button ACTOR: Leonardo DiCaprio, Revolutionary Road or Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon ACTRESS: Meryl Streep, Doubt or Kate Winslet, Revolutionary Road SUPPORTING ACTOR: Heath Ledger, Dark Knight or Robert Downey, Jr., The Soloist SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Amy Adams, Doubt, or Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Burn After Reading or Milk ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Frost/Nixon, Doubt, or Benjamin Button ANIMATED FEATURE: Wall.E
Posts: 712 | Location: Right behind you. | Registered: December 07, 2007
VARIETY REVIEW - Pitt got a nice mention, otherwise, strike it off your year end list
By TODD MCCARTHY
After their triumphant dramatic success with “No Country for Old Men,” the Coen brothers revert to sophomoric snarky mode in “Burn After Reading.” A dark goofball comedy about assorted doofuses in Washington, D.C., only some of whom work for the government, the short, snappy picture tries to mate sex farce with a satire of a paranoid political thriller, with arch and ungainly results. Major star names might stoke some mild B.O. heat with older upscale viewers upon U.S. release Sept. 12, but no one should expect this reunion of George Clooney and Brad Pitt to remotely resemble an “Ocean’s” film commercially. A seriously talented cast has been asked to act like cartoon characters in this tale of desperation, mutual suspicion and vigorous musical beds, all in the name of laughs that only sporadically ensue. Everything here, from the thesps’ heavy mugging to the uncustomarily overbearing score by Carter Burwell and the artificially augmented vulgarities in the dialogue, has been dialed up to an almost grotesquely exaggerated extent, making for a film that feels misjudged from the opening scene and thereafter only occasionally hits the right note.
Ironically, said curtain-raiser shows the CIA actually getting something right. Career analyst Osborne Cox (John Malkovich) is shoved out, and his subsequent obscene tantrum demonstrates he has all the decorum and self-control of a 5-year-old. Lying to his wife, Katie (Tilda Swinton), that he quit, Osborne sets about writing an explosive memoir, while no-nonsense Katie now seriously begins considering leaving her unhinged husband for her happy-go-lucky lover Harry (Clooney), a federal marshal none too committed to wife Sandy (Elizabeth Marvel).
In an utterly unrelated orbit of D.C. life, desperately middle-aged Linda (Frances McDormand) is ****ed that the insurance company for the fitness center where she works won’t cover the extensive plastic surgery she urgently wants done. So antic and frantic you wonder if anesthesia would ever work on her, she suddenly steps into merde with gym trainer Chad (Pitt), who’s even more hyperactive than she is, when the latter finds a disc they think is loaded with ultra-classified information.
With frosted blond hair, and appearing so dense he may as well have his low-double-digit IQ pasted to his forehead, Pitt’s Chad is what passes for a riot here. Film’s funniest scene may be that in which Chad, having traced the disc to Osborne, phones the latter in the middle of the night to initiate the blackmail scheme that will net Linda the coin she needs to transform her bod. Pitt slices the ham very thick indeed, but uniquely emerges as endearing in doing so.
Coincidentally, Internet dater Linda starts shagging Harry, who, amusingly, likes to go for long runs after sex, and just past the one-hour mark, one major character gets blown away in an accident, a development that’s supposed to be funny as well as startling.
The Coens’ script, which feels immature but was evidently written around the same time as that for “No Country,” is just too fundamentally silly, without the grounding of a serious substructure that would make the sudden turn to violence catch the viewer up short. Nothing about the project’s execution inspires the feeling that this was ever intended as anything more than a lark, which would be fine if it were a good one. As it is, audience teeth-grinding sets in early and never lets up.
Incidental niceties crop up, to be sure. The Coens’ economy of storytelling is in evidence, as is their unerring visual sense, this time in league with cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki; a low-angle shot of Harry, knife in hand, lingers especially. The date montages are cute, and the facial reactions of JK Simmons, playing a CIA boss more dedicated to avoiding fuss and bother than to getting to the bottom of things, are once again priceless. But on any more substantive level, “Burn After Reading” is a flame-out.
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Kirk Honeycutt In "Burn After Reading," the Coen brothers have taken some of cinema's top and most expensive actors and chucked them into Looney Tunes roles in a thriller set in and about Washington.
It takes awhile to adjust to the rhythms and subversive humor of "Burn" because this is really an anti-spy thriller in which nothing is at stake, no one acts with intelligence and everything ends badly.
As a follow-up to last year's multiple-Oscar winner "No Country for Old Men," Joel and Ethan Coen clearly are in a prankish mood, knocking out a minor piece of silliness with all the trappings of an A-list studio movie. Those who relish this movie might treat it as the second coming of "The Big Lebowski"; those who don't might wonder at a story in which no character has a level head. Signs look good, though, for a solid North American opening Sept. 12 following Wednesday's opening-night debut at the Venice Film Festival. The linchpin to the shenanigans comes in a particularly funny scene in which a CIA analyst, played by a caustic John Malkovich, gets summarily fired. He retreats to write a tell-all memoir amid bouts of heavy drinking. Under the circumstances, his wife (an anal-retentive Tilda Swinton) schemes to divorce him in favor of her married lover, federal marshal George Clooney, under the false assumption Clooney will leave his author-wife (Elizabeth Marvel).
Meanwhile, seemingly in another universe, sports gym employee Frances McDormand's forlorn love life causes her to obsess over expensive plastic surgeries, oblivious to the fact that her boss (a moon-eyed Richard Jenkins) is obsessed with her. When a computer disk containing the cashiered CIA analyst's first draft falls into her hands, she and her pickle-brained colleague (Brad Pitt) scheme to blackmail the author.
Everyone here is suffering from a full-blown midlife crisis. All operate in a morality-free zone. The conviction that the grass is greener anywhere but here is rampant. Curiously, everyone looks over his shoulder, certain he is being followed. This is the one and only time the characters are right about something.
The Coens, assuming triple roles of writers, directors and producers, give each person a special eccentricity. Pitt moves his body as if in a marathon aerobics session. Clooney never walks into a new lover's abode without commenting on the flooring. Jenkins is a push-me-pull-you doll, fatally lured by McDormand's charms but repelled by her online dating and involvement in blackmail. Malkovich has a lifetime's supply of cynicism. Swinton fails to "read" anyone.
The key thing is that every actor is riffing on his or her screen persona. The guys who pulled off all those casino heists, the smart-cookie Minnesota police officer, the stars of many Sundance films -- yep, they're all idiots. One of the film's funniest lines comes when a CIA officer listens to a report of everyone's behavior, including murder and an attempt to leak the memoirs to the Russian embassy -- rather prescient that last plot point.
He shakes his head and asks an agent, "Report back to me" -- he pauses with a frown -- "when it makes sense."
Is Brad Pitt's frosted/highlighted gym instructor supposed to be gay? Or just stupid?
I think babypook said it best earlier: Paul Thomas Anderson would never have followed up a prestigious Best Picture win with a zany sub-Lebowski comedy (espionage money for plastic surgery? how droll!)... And although the actors ooze charm out of every orifice, Streep Fan got it right: it looks like you may as well strike it off your year end list...
"I've seen you around, but I had no idea you were queer."
It may be too light to be a serious Oscar contender, but as to the question of whether it's a good film, let's not write it off yet.
Even if its too light for top noms at the Oscars, a screenplay nom seems likely though, should the reviews in the U.S. match those in the U.K. it likely will be up for the best comedy-musical Golden Globe. The fact that is has so many big celebrities in it should also help with the star-crazy Globe folks. Since the Coens did not get their best picture win at the GG's last year (or for "Fargo") they may even have the best chance of taking the top musical-comedy prize... though a little bird is telling me that the worldwide hit "Mamma Mia!" is going to take it despite being awful.
Posts: 14748 | Location: Phoenix, AZ | Registered: February 02, 2003
It may be too light to be a serious Oscar contender, but as to the question of whether it's a good film, let's not write it off yet.
Even if its too light for top noms at the Oscars, a screenplay nom seems likely though, should the reviews in the U.S. match those in the U.K. it likely will be up for the best comedy-musical Golden Globe. The fact that is has so many big celebrities in it should also help with the star-crazy Globe folks. Since the Coens did not get their best picture win at the GG's last year (or for "Fargo") they may even have the best chance of taking the top musical-comedy prize... though a little bird is telling me that the worldwide hit "Mamma Mia!" is going to take it despite being awful.
Oh come on, pacinofan:
Mamma mia, here we go again! My my, how can you resist it?
PS: Don't miss the special sing-along edition in theaters this weekend!
"I've seen you around, but I had no idea you were queer."
It may be too light to be a serious Oscar contender, but as to the question of whether it's a good film, let's not write it off yet.
Even if its too light for top noms at the Oscars, a screenplay nom seems likely though, should the reviews in the U.S. match those in the U.K. it likely will be up for the best comedy-musical Golden Globe. The fact that is has so many big celebrities in it should also help with the star-crazy Globe folks. Since the Coens did not get their best picture win at the GG's last year (or for "Fargo") they may even have the best chance of taking the top musical-comedy prize... though a little bird is telling me that the worldwide hit "Mamma Mia!" is going to take it despite being awful.
Oh come on, pacinofan:
Mamma mia, here we go again! My my, how can you resist it?
PS: Don't miss the special sing-along edition in theaters this weekend!
I love Meryl Streep and I even love a lot of ABBA songs (embarrasingly it used to be my exercize music when I was a teenager and I do have a certain amount of glitter running through my veins) but I still cannot get behind that awkward mess of a film nor the lousy stage show.
Oh, and speaking of glitter flowing through one's veins... presidential candidate John McCain had two, count them two, ABBA songs on his list of top ten best songs with "Dancing Queen" topping the list. A brave admission from the man running in the party that wants to put a ban on gay marriage in the Constitution.
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Posts: 14748 | Location: Phoenix, AZ | Registered: February 02, 2003
This movie looks hilarious. The cast is incredible and I've always been a Coen Bros. fan.
Pitt looks like a standout and it wouldn't surprise me if he finally got his "bookend" Oscar nomination. McDormand looks great, too and I could easily see her getting another Oscar nomination.
Well, if they're saying Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Cruise for Tropic Thunder, why not Brad Pitt for Burn After Reading? It's a crazy world!
PS: I'd wager all three of those performances have a snowball's chance in hell of winning... They may be comedies, but they are not life-affirming, meaningful fables in the style of La Vita è Bella, and none of these actors have reached the age or stage in their careers where they can be seen as beloved icons.
"I've seen you around, but I had no idea you were queer."
Originally posted by A. DeWitt: Well, if they're saying Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Cruise for Tropic Thunder, why not Brad Pitt for Burn After Reading? It's a crazy world!
PS: I'd wager all three of those performances have a snowball's chance in hell of winning... They may be comedies, but they are not life-affirming, meaningful fables in the style of La Vita è Bella, and none of these actors have reached the age or stage in their careers where they can be seen as beloved icons.
None are beloved icons but Pitt and Cruise are big-time movie stars who make Hollywood a lot of money and Robert Downey Jr. has broken out as a big star with "Iron Man" and is probably right behind Johnny Depp as the coolest actor in Hollywood. Due to the coolness factor and the break-out factor I think Downey Jr. has much more than a snowball's chance in Hell for an Oscar nom... the other two almost certainly not. Also, a lot of Hollywood denizens probably want to see Downey at the Oscars again after a 15 year absence.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: pacinofan,
Posts: 14748 | Location: Phoenix, AZ | Registered: February 02, 2003
Originally posted by A. DeWitt: Well, if they're saying Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Cruise for Tropic Thunder, why not Brad Pitt for Burn After Reading? It's a crazy world!
PS: I'd wager all three of those performances have a snowball's chance in hell of winning... They may be comedies, but they are not life-affirming, meaningful fables in the style of La Vita è Bella, and none of these actors have reached the age or stage in their careers where they can be seen as beloved icons.
None are beloved icons but Pitt and Cruise are big-time movie stars who make Hollywood a lot of money and Robert Downey Jr. has broken out as a big star with "Iron Man" and is probably right behind Johnny Depp as the coolest actor in Hollywood. Due to the coolness factor and the break-out factor I think Downey Jr. has much more than a snowball's chance in Hell for an Oscar nom... the other two almost certainly not. Also, a lot of Hollywood denizens probably want to see Downey at the Oscars again after a 15 year absence.
They may be big-time movie stars, but Tom Cruise now has to wear a disguise to get cast in films, and poor Brad Pitt couldn't even
