,,chad feldheimer: appearances can be... deceptive."
burn after reading is a 2008 black comedy film written, produced and directed by joel and ethan coen. the film stars brad pitt, george clooney, john malkovich, frances mcdormand, tilda swinton, richard jenkins and j.k. simmons. why burn after reading is the best movie of 2008 so far? you' ll see! first, as you can see, the cast is fantastic! all the actors did outstanding jobs and delivered amazing performances. brad pitt, for example, has delivered here his second best performance, of course, after the one in fight club. george clooney proved that he' s a brilliant actor, and, by far, his performance in burn after reading is the best one. john malkovich was cold and great as a cia ex - agent. and i can continue with this forever! the cast is simply perfect! the story revolves around a disk containing the memoirs of a cia agent that ends up in the hands of two gym employees who attempt to sell it. a satirical espionage story, with many brilliant twists and unexpected moments. i have to admit it, by far, the best twist that i have ever seen in a movie (not including fight club and the machinist) is SPOILER chad' s death; i was truly shocked! the script was well - written by ethan and joel coen, so here is another plus! the soundtrack is great, the most memorable song to me is grounds for divorce by elbow. the cinematography, camera angles, background, all are amazing! but, another fantastic thing about burn after reading is the characters. from the cold and incredibly calm osbourne cox to the amazing, well - looking fitness coach chad feldheimer, from the ruthless doctor that is katie cox to linda litzke, the gym employee who wants a new body, sculptured with the modern cosmetic surgery methods. and, as it is a coen brothers' s production, burn after reading is full of action. chases, punches, shootings and lots and lots of funny moments will shoot your brains out in the most memorable black - comedy that i have ever seen, and certainly, the best movie of 2008, a year poor in brilliant films like burn after reading. ohhh, and what can we learn from burn after reading?! like chad says, appearances can be deceptive; i didn' t expected to watch a film like this when i started to watch burn after reading!
The new Coen brothers movie is great because of the way they've made a smart and funny film out of something that is not a matter of great importance!John Malkovich plays a CIA agent who gets fired from his job and decides to write his memoirs,nothing majorly important,just an account of his life and time at the CIA, but when the disc containing them gets into the hands of a couple of fitness instructers who believe whats on the disc is top secret CIA "shit", the whole thing turns into big conspiracy type situation with Malkovich's wife and the man she's having an affair with getting involved along the way.Great performances from the whole cast,a clever script,as expected,and just pretty fun stuff all round.
In terms of tone and humour, Burn After Reading seemed like a combination of two other Coen films, Intorelable Cruelty and Fargo.
A nicely bookended screwball tale that is simply there to be enjoyed, more as a fly on the wall view into the world that is the Coen's bizarre phonebook of characters and the equally bizarre things that happen to them. Of course, The creators are no amateurs, so the all round technical aspects of Burn are a joy to watch
There's plenty to enjoy - with Clooney's serial wife cheater the main highlight for me, but this film certainly doesn't reach the heights of some of the previous Coen comedy efforts.
By the time the credits role though, it feels very much like a good short story - will put a smile on your face, but it's lack of any sort meaning or ambition makes it fairly forgetable.
Its what you come to expect from a Coen Brother movie. Sharp script, quirky characters, dark humor, meandering story. JK Simmons is great, Brad Pitt does his fitness dork thing great, Frances Mcdormand is funny, Malkovich is hillarious and George & Tilda carry on from Michael Clayton. Very good satire playing on pananoia, the itelligence community and spy culture in general. Ends a little bit prematurely in my eyes but still really enjoyable. If this was made by anyone else other than the Coens it would get 4 stars but because its them ill give it 3 and a half.
A simple but clever satire on the intelligence services with the kind of quirky, dark, dry humour you find in the best American indie movies. The tangled plot builds up slowly like a thriller but delivers a great punchline.
This definitely wasn't on the same level as The Big Lebowski, as the humor was certainly lacking in a lot of parts in the film, Nevertheless it was more entertaining as the film progressed and the humor that was there was very well done, could have used a bit more depth, but oh well.
I just couldn't get into it. For me, this movie should have been titled, "Burn Before Reading..." I'll give it another shot when it becomes available for rent.
It was pretty funny and Brad Pitt was the most likable I've seen him in ages. However, it didn't have as much momentum as I would've liked, and the Cohen bros. meandering plot style can be a bit tedious. Overall it was an enjoyable film but I probably wouldn't see it again.
Good performances, a clever script, and an arbitrary plot make this a watchable movie about nothing. One of the characters even comments upon this, wondering what, if anything, they learned about whatever it was that happened. We enjoy watching the picture unfold, even though we cannot really make sense of it and have no reason to do so.
Una agradable comedia muy muy Coen. Me encanta el maravilloso elenco, que en parte hacen burla y homenaje a si mismos... por lo que te mueres de la risa!!! Altamente recomendable y disfrutable. Con tematica fuerte pero manejada con el clasico humor negro que tan popular es.
I was disappointed, but it wasn't ALL bad. It had potential but came up seriously seriously short. Much like Malkovich's character, I spent the whole movie asking "what the fuck?"
Who says oddballs cannot star in a super-smart crime-thriller? They definitely can!
The Coen Brothers pulls out a satire about these plethora of mystery movie failures. Kinda goofy, but the A-list actors made everything fall into place.
When I see a movie by the Coens, I always end up with a WTF expression...they have a weird sense of drama, weird sense of humor...weird sense of everything....and I love that they do. I can't explain what is so great about this film..I have no words...it's just genius...i laughed my ass off!!! haha....I dunno, most of the things I laughed about, I can't explain what was so funny about them...they just were. Frances McDormand, I just love her...but in this film my heart was stolen by none other than Brad Pitt!!!! ohhh yes!!...and has nothing to do with his sex appeal, he's just hilarious...maybe is just that the dummy part was perfect for him I dunno, but he nailed it.
Can't decide wich one is my favorite quote, but I'll go with this: "it was just lying there"...haha that Manolo!!
I love Frances McDormand (see North County) and she shines in this film. Pitt is great, and plays the ultimate Him-bo, great film, great cast, dark humour.
"I have a drinking problem? Fuck you Peck, you're a Mormon. Next to you, we all have a drinking problem." A dark, funny and weird drama comedy. Great cast with Frances McDormand, George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Tilda Swinton, Richard Jenkins and the brilliant John Malkovich. Also in a small part J.K. Simmons as a CIA superior who doesn't like to be involved too much. Great ominous and haunting score by Carter Burwell. A spy film from the Coen brothers, done the way only they can do it.
Osbourne Cox? I thought you might be worried... about the security... of your shit.
Directed by: Joel And Ethan Coen Starring: George Clooney, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton, Brad Pitt
Genre: Comedy/Crime
Running time: 96 minutes
My review:
A disk containing the memoirs of a CIA agent ends up in the hands of two unscrupulous gym employees who attempt to sell it.
I find Burn After Reading absolutely hilarious. All of the characters involved are just brilliant. It is a film that is like really original of the genre comedy but in a really dark way which is obviously called a black comedy. Other ones like Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch, Trainspotting, Fargo and Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb. I find it to be the black comedy of the year so far and is a contender of a few Oscar nominations next February. This film really made me laugh not really because of what the characters were like but what was said by the characters said. Mostly John Malkovich made me laugh because he kept saying "f***, f***, f***, f***" all the time which is obviously rude but is bloody hilarious. I was quite nervous about watching this film at first because my sister watched this film and said it was crap. But I didnt listen to her because she hated WALL-E too saying that was worst even than Cars and I loved WALL-E to bits. So, when I watched Burn After Reading, I told her that it wasnt crap at all and deserves a lot of credit. But the one thing that did disappoint me a bit with this one was that I dont think that it was as well adapted as I had hoped because it was quite confusing and quite complex too.
George Clooneys performance was quite good because Harry is a complete slimeball because of his having an affair with a married Katie Cox. That is what is so good about Clooney at times because he is like an irresistable man in his films by playing a charming and irrestable character. He did make me laugh in some ways because of how much of an arsehole he is and the awkward position he gets himself into when he accidentally does something. Also, the situation where he is seeing two women by cheating on both of them with the other. Basically, two-timing them both. Frances McDormand makes me laugh as an actress not just as some of the characters she portrays. Her performance is really quite bizarre really because she wants to be in a relationship with a man and "get laid". She mostly makes me laugh by the desperate measures she takes by sleeping with any man. Frances does have those sorts of looks to look like a middle aged woman who is wanting a relationship. John Malkovich delivers in my opinion the best performance of the whole film and also one of the best performances of the year. He makes me laugh so much because he swears so much and says some things that he shouldnt really be saying to the people he is talking to. He is a bit of a slimeball aswell as Harry. I am predicting Malkovich for an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor but not a win. Winner for me will obviously be the late Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight. Tilda Swinton is really good as Katie Cox because Katie is like a cold character which is like her character Karen Crowder in her recent Oscar winning performance in Michael Clayton. Brad Pitt was in my opinion totally miscast for this film because I dont think he quite got into the character that much but he did have the arrogance look for the character.
The Coens did another good job in this film. They made it a very original film with a big meaning. It is the Coens funniest film since The Big Lebowski. I did really like how they both pulled off a masterpiece No Country For Old Men and they pulled off another awesome follow-up but not a masterpiece. This film was well written by the Coen Brothers because it was really original and really quite masterful which is what the Coens are really like. But No Country For Old Men wasnt really an original story, it was more of a really hard thinking adapting story. Cleverly written scenes especially involving Osbourne Cox.
This film was similar mostly to Fargo because of the black comedy humour used not because of the violence between the two films. But they are both different stories which is like all the Coen films are like. It was different aswell because of the much brighter story. The level of brightness with the story is like The Big Lebowski because of the hilarious comedy in that film but funnier comedy though. This film shows in my opinion that the Coens can recreate black comedies after doing a tense action thriller like No Country For Old Men.
The chemistry between Harry and Katie was obviously love but I was more focused on George Clooneys with Tilda Swinton because I can remember when Tilda Swinton won her Academy Award and said her speech and she said about George Clooney being a total b****** in front of everybody. So that is where I didn?t really like Harry and Katies relationship. I did like the chemistry between Linda and Harry because they are both middle aged people who are both sort of mixed up in their own way which is a way of how characters can join together and form a relationship that changes their personality slightly. I find Lindas relationship with Chad to be like mother and son because she treats him like a little kid even though he does behave like one at times. Also, because of how he appears aswell. I know that they are Chads work clothes but they seem a bit dorky so it might seem a bit like Linda can treat him like a little baby. She sort of uses him to get to people. For example, that call that they both made to Osbourne Cox. That was what she treats him like at times. I liked Katies relationship with Osbourne because it is a really argumentative, disagreeable and bitter relationship which brings even more comedy into the film which is really great. Also, I could tell how unhappy both of them were with each other which is why Katie had the affair with Harry in the first place.
The costumes were really good because they were so original and were just ordinary and casual which is what every day people wear. I liked the cinematography used in this film too.
This film will earn I can guarentee maybe only one Oscar nomination and that will be Best Supporting Actor for John Malkovich but wont win because Heath Ledger will win for The Dark Knight or maybe Best Original Screenplay.
This is my least favourite Coen Brothers film even though I really enjoyed it. Like films like Fargo, The Big Lebowski and especially No Country For Old Men more. This is my favourite George Clooney of the films I have seen so far from him even though I dont really like him at all. Frances McDormand didnt dissapoint me but she is better in her Oscar winning performance in Fargo than in Burn After Reading. Burn After Reading is a film that should be considered as one of the must-see films of 2008.
In the attempt to be relevant, the Coen brothers have made this at times farcical dramedy. Odd but not necessarily in a good way - some funny set pieces but this is as disjointed and rushed as you could get for an A-list casted film. What weird times and a weird year for cinema.
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