God, I love the Coen Brothers!

Their films are consistently amongst my favorite film experiences. In their own way, the Coens are critics. Except, they don’t write criticism in a newspaper or upon any blog – and they don’t do anything so low brow as to actually say what they’re criticizing, but their films are what they have to say about genres, styles, literature, society, regions and the world we live in.

They’re satirists at the utmost level of cinematic creation. But they’re more than just satirists, they’re poets and they’re comedians. They elevate their actors to existing in their cinematic universe. Just look at George Clooney in Coen films… He is, at the very least, 100 times better than when he isn’t in their hands – and he’s always pretty damn sharp.

With this film, the Coen Brothers are not lambasting Bush or the Republicans, nor are they going after the Liberals. They narrow their sites upon the world of Intelligence gathering, Information Trading, the modern world of Internet Affairs and those that frequent gyms and exercise. Oh… And the D.C. area in general.

The resulting film is exquisitely hilarious, breathtakingly absurd and violently sublime.

They film seems to begin with a series of completely unrelated characters simply going about their lives. We meet John Malkovich’s OSBORNE COX – a fiercely intelligent and frustrated man that feels he is constantly surrounded by unneeded beauracracy and general stupidity – He was an Intelligence Analyst working on analyzing “The Balkans”. We meet his wife, Tilda Swinton’s KATIE COX – a cold hearted cruel bitch of a lady, that is so myopically focused on herself that she only cares about her own status. Osborne is demoted, then quits his job and goes home at the beginning, where he finds his wife being concerned about some sort of cheese thing for the soiree that they’re throwing that night for the Pfarrers.

George Clooney plays HARRY PFARRER – some sort of operative in the State Department, he carries a gun, but has never fired it. His wife is an author of Children’s Books about a cuddily creature that finds itself in the workings of Washington. Turns out that Harry is having an affair with KATIE COX – who wants him to divorce his wife, and she’ll divorce her husband. In her path to divorce she copies Osborne’s files and financials to give to her divorce attorney –

MEANWHILE – completely unrelated is Frances McDormand’s LINDA LITZKE and Brad Pitt’s CHAD FELDHEIMER – they’re just your average HARDBODIES trainers – those folks at the gym that fire you up for your workout, that preach self-improvement and physical beauty. Linda is aging and wants to reinvent her body through surgical procedure, as she’s lonely and wants to find an ideal man for her. Brad’s CHAD. Well. He’s CHAD. And CHAD is an intensely singular individual that is defined only by being CHAD. In watching the film, you’ll discover what I mean. But I really don’t have words to describe CHAD, more than the name CHAD describes CHAD. Like those CHADS in Florida back in 2000… CHADS could fuck up the entire universe.

Those are the basic characters. What they want, what they’re like. Now – you put someone like the Coen Brothers in charge of all of that – and you have them orchestrating, pulling the strings for what purpose? Well, a fellow outside the theater came up to me declaring that the Coen Brothers are the masters of “The Clusterfuck” – essentially meaning, they do chaos better than Satan.

Basically they’re like those 3500 scientists that want to see what protons going at 99.99% Light Speed colliding into one another… they just want to see what happens. And I believe that in the construction of their films… essentially that’s what the Coens do. They are the most literate and cinematic fans of THE THREE STOOGES and THE MARX BROTHERS. They take periods, regions and character types – write them as perfect as you could. Design immaculate sets, shots and situations… but at the end, they would build it all, just to see it blow up.

It’s like when I was a kid. I’d spend 2 hours setting up little green army men in the sand at the base of my 3 story club house… then I’d haul rocks up to the top of club house and then DESTROY THEM, THEIR TANKS and when I was done, I’d climb down from my high vantage point and discover the glory of my destruction.

That’s THE COEN BROTHERS – and it’s genius. Michael Bay essentially does the same thing, but the only tools he has is in the actual explosions. Bay doesn’t have the tools to isolate characters, create convincing situations and emotional motivations, to exquisitely lay it all out. All Bay can do is blow shit up. The COENS… my god. They can do it all. They create explosions not out of napalm and gasoline, but out of character collisions that will BLOW YOUR MIND.

Just ask CHAD.

Goddamn I love the Coen Brothers and I love BURN AFTER READING. This is very much in the vein of their films like OH BROTHER WHERE ART THOU and THE BIG LEBOWSKI… only in the world of paranoid Washington thrillers and crime shenanigans.

If you love their films – this is bliss.