Friday 9 February 2024

Burn After Reading (2008 Joel & Ethan Coen & scr, prod, ed)

George Clooney's in it? Considering it was only three years ago, I had forgotten a lot. I know, the scene with Brad Pitt in the wardrobe is fabulous... but I'd forgotten how funny it is!

Everyone - except Frances McDormand - ends up worse off. I love the incredulity of J.K. Simmons at the end - 'What did we do wrong? We didn't do anything.' The way the CIA manages to disappear half of the cast is blackly funny.

Clooney is the marvellously fussy eater - he can't eat 'shellfood'! All the acting's good, but you have to especially single out the tightly-wrapped Tilda Swinton and the increasingly frustrated McDormand.

Skip Livesay is the sound designer again.


It's funny, isn't it? There's the solid gold ones, like Fargo, Hail Caesar and True Grit (and O Brother Where Art Thou?) and then there's the ones you're not quite sure about like The Hudsucker Proxy, A Simple Man and The Ladykillers... and then a raft of in-betweeners like this and Inside Llewyn Davis.

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