‘Burn’ in hell, Coens
“What did we learn?”
“Not to do it again … I wish I knew what we did.”
These lines come at the very end of “Burn After Reading,” the Coen Brothers’ latest offering, and they are very apt. Here is a movie that spends a very daffy 96 minutes traveling in ludicrous loops and arrives … nowhere. It is the kind of movie that leaves you entertained but empty, one that disintegrates the second it ends and is ultimately a disappointment, especially after the mournful, brilliant “No Country For Old Men.” What is more troubling, there is a moral vacuum at the film’s center, one which...
#2
By Jack M.
2:56a.m. on September 22, 2008
Actually, I think "The Big Lebowski" is a great movie. The difference is that it's a movie that has deep affection for its characters. It's as warm as "Burn" is cold.
It seems to me that your review is essentially "I want to bash the cohens because, as a pretentious yale film student (or whatever major you are) I simply can't praise the work of last year's Best Screenplay winners." You praise everything about the movie, then say that there is a "moral vacuum" and it lacks meaning. I think "burn" was the cohens' response to all the talk surrounding "no country" - the "what did we learn" line even seemed to poke fun at tommy lee jones' 15 minute rant that ended "no country." It seems they made "burn after reading" as an up-yours film directed specifically at overachieving, pretentious critics and fanboys such as yourself. Is it not enough to go to the theater and laugh and enjoy the talent of some the greatest actors of our lifetime without coming away having gained some introspective "aha!" about humanity or american life? I bet you dislike "the big lebowski" as well. communist.