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Friday, September 12, 2014

Mock Squid Soup: Burn After Reading

MOCK! and The Armchair Squid are proud to introduce Mock Squid Soup: A Film Society.  Each month, on the second Friday, we shall host a bloghop devoted to a particular movie.  We invite others to watch the same film and post their own reviews.  This month's movie is...

Title: Burn After Reading
Directors: Joel and Ethan Coen
Original Release: 2008
My Overall Rating: 3 stars out of 5
via Wikipedia
The Coen brothers are brilliant, yet not all of their films work for me.  On the one hand, I love The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou and Ladykillers.  On the other, I am uninspired by Fargo and Raising Arizona.  Our movie this month, Burn After Reading, is somewhere in between.  One thing you can always count on from the Coen Bros, though, is memorable characters.  They work repeatedly with actors like John Turturro, John Goodman and Steve Buscemi for good reason.  Those guys waste no time at all digging into the material.  Even an A-lister like Brad Pitt - character actor in a leading man's body - jumps at the chance to work with the Coens, undoubtedly for far less than his usual paycheck, for the sake of quality material.

 Burn After Reading has an all-star cast: George Clooney, Frances McDormand, Pitt, Tilda Swinton, John Malkovich and Richard Jenkins.  All are serious Hollywood heavyweights, all Oscar-winning or Oscar-nominated.  All have the luxury of picking and choosing their projects.  Admittedly, the Brothers have an in with McDormand as she's married to Joel.

Osbourne Cox (Malkovich) has been demoted at the CIA due to his drinking so he quits.  His wife Katie (Swinton) takes it as an opportunity to file for divorce.  She, meanwhile, is having an affair with Harry Pfarrar (Clooney) who's also having affairs with just about everyone else, including gym employee Linda Litzke (McDormand).  One day, Katie's lawyer's secretary leaves a computer disk with Osbourne's financial records and also, accidentally, his memoir manuscript at Litzke's gym.  Her co-worker Chad Feldheimer (Pitt) finds the disk.  He and Linda take it to be something far more important than it is and start shopping it around for blackmail money to fund, among other things, plastic surgery for Linda.  Still with me?

Burn After Reading would be another Coen Bros also-ran for me if not for one fantastic minor character.  J.K. Simmons plays a CIA bureaucrat overseeing agents who are barely managing to keep up with all of this.  Simmons is in two scenes for all of about five minutes total.  He never even gets up from his chair and yet he manages to steal the entire movie.  This was my second time watching and I still laughed to the point of tears through both of his appearances. 

We hope that you, too, will watch Burn After Reading and join in our discussion.  I'll post October's sign-up list tomorrow.  Our feature on Friday, October 10th shall be... Unbreakable

via Wikipedia
In the meantime, for the Burn After Reading discussion, please sign on to the list below:


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20 comments:

  1. AnonymousSeptember 12, 2014 at 8:21 AM

    Yes! Those two segues with the CIA heads were the absolute highlight of the film for me! Although, Simmons was essentially reprising his J. Jonah Jamison role, sans hair. ;)

    I had forgotten LADYKILLERS was a Coen film. I did like that one, also. I liked UNBREAKABLE quite a lot, so I'm looking forward to next month's review.
    Veronica

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    1. The Armchair SquidSeptember 13, 2014 at 8:18 AM

      Simmons is really good at the desk job management role. It's a strange niche but he's clearly become the go-to guy for those parts.

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  2. CherdoSeptember 12, 2014 at 9:58 AM

    Sorry I was so brief this month (sinuses! Arghh!).

    I love J.K.Simmons, too - but I thought Brad Pitt was just unbelievably goofy in this movie. I wished he was in it much longer, ha ha.

    One of my favorite J.K. Simmons' movies was Juno; if you haven't seen it, you must get up from the chair and go check it out. It is required viewing for Simmons' fans. It helped me forget he was in Oz, a series that still disturbs me when I think about it.

    Thanks, Squid!

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    1. UnknownSeptember 12, 2014 at 11:22 AM

      No, I loved JUNO. Good flick. I did like Pitt as well, but I got totally wrecked when his part ended. :(

      Delete
    2. The Armchair SquidSeptember 13, 2014 at 8:21 AM

      No apologies necessary. Feel better soon, Cherdo.

      We haven't seen Juno but it's in the Netflix queue.

      Simmons makes this movie for me. It's always such a joy to see Pitt in supporting roles. He embraces them with such relish.

      Delete
    3. Janie JunebugSeptember 13, 2014 at 3:44 PM

      Some of the dialog during the first part of Juno is ridiculously stilted, but it turns into such a touching movie that I don't mind. Ellen Page is excellent.

      Delete
    4. The Armchair SquidSeptember 14, 2014 at 10:38 PM

      Last I checked, it was #34 in the queue. So, sometime in the next year probably.

      Delete
  3. Maurice MitchellSeptember 12, 2014 at 12:00 PM

    Simmons is always funny so I'll bet he did steal the movie. Great review Squid!

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    1. The Armchair SquidSeptember 13, 2014 at 8:23 AM

      Thanks, Maurice! He definitely has the gift of screen presence.

      Delete
  4. Andrew LeonSeptember 12, 2014 at 12:44 PM

    I know I've seen this, but I can't remember it at all. I guess it didn't do it for me on some level.
    True Grit is probably my favorite of theirs.

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    1. The Armchair SquidSeptember 13, 2014 at 8:25 AM

      Clearly not for everyone. Split decision from the Society this month: 3 for, 2 against. They can't all be Stand by Me. Sadly...

      Delete
  5. Susan KaneSeptember 12, 2014 at 1:19 PM

    Saw the movie and loved the way it jiggles the watcher one way and the other. George Clooney is absolutely crazy. Basically, I love the Coen Bros. movies. They are brilliant in the unexpected.

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    1. The Armchair SquidSeptember 13, 2014 at 8:28 AM

      Absolutely. One can say this: the story isn't remotely predictable. Sure, everything works out for Linda. But for everyone else? Well...

      Delete
  6. Tony LaplumeSeptember 13, 2014 at 2:33 PM

    For me, it's a terrific farce. And also, Simmons is terrific, as always.

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  7. Janie JunebugSeptember 13, 2014 at 3:45 PM

    I can't think of a Coen Brothers movie I don't like. Just a minute. I have to check IMDb.

    Love,
    Janie

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    1. Janie JunebugSeptember 13, 2014 at 3:49 PM

      Okay. I'm back. I looked at their filmography. I haven't seen a few of their movies so they need to go in my queue. The one movie of theirs that Willy Dunne Wooters and I gave up on in disgust is Gambit. It was so stupid that I was shocked it was a Coen brothers movie. I should probably watch it by myself to see it it gets better after a while.

      Delete
    2. The Armchair SquidSeptember 14, 2014 at 10:37 PM

      The Man Who Wasn't There - I didn't like that one. I've never seen Gambit. Perhaps I'll skip it.

      Delete
  8. Toi ThomasSeptember 14, 2014 at 3:15 PM

    I agree J.K. stole the show, but the whole cast was really good. I won't say anything more since I've already written my review, but I gave it a 5. Like you some of there other works just don't suit me, but I like this one.

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    1. The Armchair SquidSeptember 14, 2014 at 10:41 PM

      Doh! I didn't realize you were joining us this month. I'll add your link to the list in just a sec.

      Delete