For decades, Joel and Ethan Coen operated like one brain split between two people, and were synonymous with razor-sharp dialogue and dark comedy, creating some of the best characters in the most memorable American films of the last half-century, like Fargo, The Big Lebowski, and No Country for Old Men. When the brothers stopped making movies as a duo after 2018’s untraditional western The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, fans assumed something big must have happened behind the scenes. But according to Ethan Coen, the real reason for the brothers’ split is far less dramatic.

Promoting his 2025 movie release, the hardboiled detective riff Honey Don’t, in an interview with Collider alongside his wife and collaborator Tricia Cooke, Ethan Coen set the record straight, admitting the “split” wasn’t really a decision at all, and was rather just timing and circumstance:

That detour led Ethan to rediscover his interest in filmmaking, while Joel pursued his passion project in The Tragedy of Macbeth. The result, Ethan says, was simply a matter of the two “getting out of sync.” As he put it:

Ethan confessed that after years of back-to-back projects, he was burned out. Taking a break not only gave him space but also helped him rekindle his curiosity. During lockdown, he and Cooke pivoted to archival documentaries before diving into scripted features like last year’s sexy but flawed Drive-Away Dolls and now Honey Don’t, which they describe as a spiritual cousin to The Big Sleep and Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye.

In the new flick, which has been met with mixed reviews critically, Margaret Qualley stars as Honey O’Donahue, a sharp detective whose banter channels Humphrey Bogart (with a dash of Lauren Bacall). Aubrey Plaza co-stars as a cop, while Chris Evans leans hard into sleaze as a corrupt reverend. It’s the kind of genre experiment that feels very Coen-esque, even without Joel’s name in the credits.

Joel, the other half of the Coen Brothers, has carved out his own solo lane, starting with Macbeth and reportedly developing a still-untitled horror project. Ethan acknowledged that the brothers still share unfinished scripts and even have ideas they once outlined together. It’s not so much a conscious parting as it is two artists working at their own rhythms.

So, are the Coen Brothers finished for good? Don’t count on it. Ethan emphasized there’s no rift, no creative divorce, and no finality. As for Honey Don’t, it just landed in theaters, so be sure to check your local listings. And while fans may miss the Coens’ signature joint credit, Ethan’s explanation makes it pretty clear that their partnership isn’t over, it’s just on pause.

Some filmmakers require time to find their voice. They have to make a few simply "ok" features before having the skills required to make their masterpiece. But that's not the case with the directors featured on this list. These folks quickly figured out what they could do with a camera, and they produced magic with their first feature.

It's a terribly hard thing to do, but here are 32 directors who made great films on their very first try.

Orson Welles – Citizen Kane

A lot of incredible films are highlighted on this list, but Citizen Kane is special given that in addition to being Orson Welles’ first feature, it’s considered by many to be the greatest movie all time. The hunt for the meaning behind a publishing titan’s last word is endlessly compelling and a fascinating examination of the soul corruption that comes with a rise to power.

Quentin Tarantino – Reservoir Dogs

Before making modern and instant classics like Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, Inglourious Basterds and Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, the legend of Quentin Tarantino began with the phenomenal Reservoir Dogs. The sharp dialogue, the non-linear storytelling, the tense violence and the needle-drop centric soundtrack all instantly confirmed that Tarantino was a talent to watch.

Jordan Peele – Get Out

It came as a shock when comedian Jordan Peele announced that he was shifting to a new phase of his career, as he wanted to pursue his true passion: directing horror movies. It was hard to know what to make of the decision at the time, but Peele has since established himself as one of the industry’s greatest genre filmmakers, and it all started with the stunning Get Out. It’s scary, layered, and the big third act twist never loses its impact.

Spike Jonze – Being John Malkovich

Spike Jonze wasn’t exactly inexperienced when he took the helm of Being John Malkovich as his first feature, as he had established himself as a genius talent in the world of music videos, but that doesn’t take anything away from his accomplishments. It’s a wild, strange, and perfect execution of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman’s genius and cerebral script, and both the design and cinematography make it unforgettable.

Sidney Lumet – 12 Angry Men

It requires incredible skill to direct a film that almost entirely takes place in a single room and juggles 12 different characters with different perspectives… but there’s a reason why Sidney Lumet is considered one of history’s greatest filmmakers. The basic description of 12 Angry Men doesn’t sound particularly cinematic, but it grips you from the start, and keeps you fascinated throughout – particularly thanks to one of Henry Fonda’s greatest performances.

Joel & Ethan Coen – Blood Simple

Joel and Ethan Coen are masters of crime fiction, and they proved that instantly in the start of their careers as feature filmmakers. Blood Simple is a tense neo-noir that comes with all of the trimmings of the genre – from the chiaroscuro lighting to a brilliant femme fatale turn from Frances McDormand – and M. Emmett Walsh is a force as the relentless Loren Visser.

Rob Reiner – This Is Spinal Tap

Few filmmakers have had runs like what Rob Reiner accomplished in the 1980s/1990s, sequentially making Stand By Me, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally, Misery and A Few Good Men, but his genius as a director was first established with 1984’s This Is Spinal Tap: a hilarious rock n’ roll mockumentary widely considered to be one of the greatest comedies of all time.

Sam Raimi – The Evil Dead

In the late 1970s/early 1980s, Sam Raimi, Rob Tapert and Bruce Campbell were college students determined to make their first ever feature, and traveled from Michigan to a dilapidated cabin in Tennessee to make The Evil Dead. The production of the film was an absolute nightmare, but the juice was very much worth the squeeze, as the movie exists as a testament to brilliant imagination, and it is an important classic in the history of the horror genre.

Frank Darabont – The Shawshank Redemption

After writing a brilliant adaptation of Stephen King’s novella “Rita Hayworth And Shawshank Redemption,” Frank Darabont actually took a major pay cut so that Castle Rock Entertainment would allow him to make The Shawshank Redemption his directorial debut. This turned out to be a legendary move that has cemented Darabont in cinematic history, as the movie is one of the most beloved of all time and an antidote to cynicism.

John Singleton - Boyz n The Hood

With his directorial debut, John Singleton captured the perspective of an underrepresented audience on the big screen – crafting a Stand By Me-esque coming-of-age story about life in south central Los Angeles. In one of his earliest roles, Cuba Gooding Jr. demonstrates incredible talent alongside Ice Cube and Morris Chestnut, but it’s Laurence Fishburne’s Furious Styles for which the film will always be remembered.

Emerald Fennell – Promising Young Woman

Emerald Fennell made quite an impression in 2020 with the debut of Promising Young Woman – a primal scream of a movie that captures the horrors that women experience in our modern world and comes together as a darkly comedic revenge thriller. Carey Mulligan’s performance is wicked, and it sports a finale that leaves the audience breathless and mind-blown.

Dan Gilroy – Nightcrawler

Jake Gyllenhaal is unquestionably one of the greatest actors of his generation, and Nightcrawler sees him let off the leash to showcase his phenomenal cinematic presence. Dan Gilroy was an experienced screenwriter prior to making his directorial debut, and one can understand why he wanted to make this movie himself: it’s a vicious, Taxi Driver-esque look at crime scene videography and a stunning and cutting commentary on “if it bleeds, it leads” culture in local journalism.

George A. Romero – Night Of The Living Dead

There aren’t exactly a lot of filmmakers who successfully launched an entire new subgenre with their first feature, but that’s exactly what George A. Romero did with Night Of The Living Dead. The zombie film was a shocking standout upon its original release – featuring a Black actor as its lead and a series of nightmarish scenes of horror – and its genius is no less apparent today.

Rian Johnson – Brick

Long before wowing us with his ensemble-driven Benoit Blanc mysteries Knives Out and Glass Onion, Rian Johnson stunned cinephiles as a first-time director with Brick. It’s a stylized neo-noir that stands out with its high school backdrop and young characters, and it dazzles with unyielding tension, unique dialogue, and a terrific third act reveal.

Tom Hanks – That Thing You Do!

Admit it: even just seeing the title of That Thing You Do! has immediately gotten the eponymous song stuck in your head. But on top of that track being two minutes and 50 seconds of peppy greatness, the film is a fantastic tale about a one hit wonder that pops thanks to Tom Hanks’ excellent direction and a delightful ensemble cast.

David Lynch – Eraserhead

It didn’t take long for David Lynch to tell cinephiles what he is all about. The auteur filmmaker established his nightmarish, cerebral sensibilities from the get-go with Eraserhead – which is a confident work from the first time director and paved the road for further masterpieces like Mulholland Drive and Twin Peaks.

Amy Heckerling – Fast Times at Ridgemont High

Amy Heckerling would easily be in the Coming-Of-Age Movie Hall Of Fame if Clueless were the only film on her filmography, but it was 13 years earlier that she made one of the genre’s all-time greatest titles as her directorial debut: Fast Times At Ridgemont High. There is so much to love about this film, from the radical Jeff Spicoli, to the drama of the relationship between Stacy and Mark, to the sounds of The Cars’ “Living In Stereo.”

Destin Daniel Cretton – Short Term 12

It’s a remarkable thing when a film, a series of images mixed with sound rapidly displayed to show movement, can touch your soul, but that’s something that Destin Daniel Cretton’s powerful directorial debut does – centering on the staff of a residential treatment facility. In retrospect, the ensemble cast in this one is beyond outstanding (including Brie Larson, Kaitlyn Dever, Rami Malek, LaKeith Stanfield, and Stephanie Beatriz), and their talents are on full display.

Patty Jenkins – Monster

Patty Jenkins’ directorial debut, Monster, is far from a fun cinematic experience, and one actually feels compelled to take a shower after watching it, but it’s a riveting work. Charlize Theron delivers what is arguably the best performance of her career and earned her Academy Award.

Josh & Benny Safdie - Good Time

Cinephiles were thrilled to discover the cinematic heart attack that is Josh and Benny Safdie’s Uncut Gems in 2019, but anyone who watched the brothers’ directorial debut was at the very least mentally prepared for the experience. Starring Robert Pattinson, Good Time is a deeply stressful crime film that comes packed with touches of Of Mice And Men, and it leaves a deep impression on whoever watches it.

Darren Aronofsky – Pi

Darren Aronofsky has a gift for making movies that makes you want to curl up in a ball and cry (see: Requiem For A Dream, Black Swan, mother!), and it’s a mode he hasn’t diverted from since making his feature debut with Pi. It’s a stylistic story of obsession and has one of the most upsetting endings of all time.

John Huston - The Maltese Falcon

There are some films that are held up as the true classics of classic film noir, and right alongside Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, Bill Wilder’s Double Indemnity and Carol Reed’s The Third Man is John Huston’s phenomenal The Maltese Falcon. Humphrey Bogart’s Sam Spade is an icon of detective fiction, and the twists and turns of the mystery feel as fresh today as ever.

Ari Aster - Hereditary

Ari Aster has quickly become one of the most exciting modern filmmakers making original horror, and that’s in part because audiences are still experiencing nightmares from his directorial debut. A look at both generational trauma and grief, Hereditary is a movie so scary that it would make you feel cold if you were in the middle of the desert, and has more than a few images that end up tattooed on the back of your eyelids as you try to go to sleep at night.

Michael Mann - Thief

Nobody makes crime movies like Michael Mann, and it all started with Thief. It’s a thrilling and captivating look at a talented Chicago criminal who is looking for his way into legitimacy and finds himself fighting forces that try and drag him back into his shady business. The movie features one of James Caan’s best performances, and the talented ensemble includes Jim Belishi, Dennis Farina and Willie Nelson.

Francois Truffaut - The 400 Blows

Valued as an important part of cinema history and the French New Wave, Francois Truffaut’s The 400 Blows is a powerful coming-of-age story starring Jean-Pierre Léaud as Antoine Doinel, a troubled youth who ends up quitting school and turning to thievery, only to be apprehended and thrown in a juvenile detention center. Truffaut is recognized for having created some of the most beautiful films to ever be produced in France, and it all started here.

Jean Luc Goddard - Breathless

Another evocative title that emerged from the French New Wave, Jean Luc Goddard’s Breathless is a visually stunning work of crime and love, with tremendous cinematic innovation, attitude that bleeds off the screen, and an outstanding performance from star Jean-Paul Belmondo in his breakout role.

Barry Jenkins – Medicine For Melancholy

Barry Jenkins first earned widespread acclaim in 2016 for his film Moonlight (which deservingly won Best Picture at the Academy Awards), but not to be slept on is the debut feature he made eight years earlier: Medicine For Melancholy. Starring Wyatt Cenac and Tracey Heggins and set over the course of a single day, it’s a beautiful and emotional romantic drama.

Steven Soderbergh - Sex, Lies, And Videotape

Steven Soderbergh is now recognized as one of the most talented, eclectic filmmakers in cinema, but it all started with Sex, Lies And Videotape – a fascinating romantic drama with brilliant meta levels examining intimacy via camera.

George Miller – Mad Max

Many genre classics have been covered in this list, and now it’s time to dive into one of the greatest action/adventure films of all time. With Mad Max, George Miller takes us to an unnerving not-to-distant future full of violence and chaos, and his unique skills as a filmmaker capturing all that wildness all in camera is what makes this a forever-thrilling experience.

Damien Chazelle – Whiplash

One can read and learn that there is intense competition in performance arts schools, but it’s another thing to live it – and that’s what audiences get to do in Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash. Miles Teller is brilliant as the determined and talented Andrew Neiman, but it’s the Oscar-winning work of J.K. Simmons that makes this outstanding directorial debut exceptional.

Mel Brooks – The Producers

Every legendary cinematic run has to start somewhere, and for Mel Brooks, it was with the brilliance of The Producers. Long before he was shocking with the world with Blazing Saddles and History Of The World Part I, the brilliant comedian unleashed his tale of a Broadway scheme and the insanity of “Springtime For Hitler.”

Jim Abrahams, David Zucker And Jerry Zucker – Airplane!

In the 1980s/1990s, nobody made spoof movies like Jim Abrahams, David Zucker And Jerry Zucker, and they quickly established their special comedic voice with their directorial debut: Airplane! The insane pacing of the jokes and the sheer ridiculousness of everything make this a movie that threatens to choke you with laughter, and there are so, so many quotable lines – many thanks to the deadpan brilliance of Leslie Nielsen.

This list obviously has the potential to grow forever, and it'll be exciting to see who the next big breakout movie directors are. 

Directors Joel and Ethan Coen have produced some of the most iconic films of all time, from Raising Arizona and Barton Fink to Fargo and No Country for Old Men. Of course, the entry in their filmography that’s arguably penetrated pop culture in a way that the others haven’t is The Big Lebowski. The 1998 crime comedy is a classic amongst most movie-loving circles, and that’s why so many would still love to see a sequel. Members of the cast have been asked about the possibility over the years, providing a plethora of answers. The latest person to receive the question is the great John Goodman, who gave some honest thoughts while weighing in.

The 71-year-old actor memorably portrayed Walter Sobchak – the bowling-loving and one-track minded friend of Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski. Goodman’s performance as the bombastic army veteran has long been revered and, if you’re like me, you probably think it was worthy of an Oscar nomination, at least. The actor has since moved on to other roles but was recently asked about the notion of reuniting with the Coen Brothers for another Lebowski film. The veteran performer didn’t mince words when giving his response, as it was straight and to the point: 

John Goodman shared those sentiments with Looper while promoting the third season of HBO’s The Righteous Gemstones (which can be streamed with a Max subscription). His comments are sure to disappoint admirers of the beloved movie. It’d be interesting to see what Walter would be up to these days and see how his opinions have possibly been changed by the current social and political landscape. But alas, it seems that it’s just not meant to be. At the very least, there's definitely a solid chance that Goodman could work with either one of them sometime soon.

I suppose this shouldn’t be all that shocking, though, as the Coens aren’t exactly big on sequels. During the course of their illustrious careers, they’ve pretty much jumped from one story to the next, seemingly satisfied with the self-contained tales they’ve told. As of late, the brothers (who’ve been working solo more frequently during these past few years) have their hands full with other projects. Ethan, for instance, is currently looking towards the release of his latest film, Drive-Away Dolls, a road trip comedy. 

While a proper sequel to the movie has yet to be made, some of its characters have returned in some surprising ways. Jeff Bridges reprised his role as The Dude for a Super Bowl commercial, and he channeled the character on a separate occasion while honoring John Goodman at his Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony. There’s also the spinoff flick, The Jesus Rolls, which centers on John Turturro’s somewhat antagonistic character from the movie.

Sequel or not, The Big Lebowski – on its own – still has quite a legacy. Following its recent 25th anniversary, Jeff Bridges recalled how people “didn’t get it” when it was first released. (The actor also discussed those pitch-perfect F-bombs that were dropped throughout.) Considering the initial lukewarm reception to it, it’s amazing that so many people still want another installment and that John Goodman and his colleagues are still fielding questions about it decades later. I’d say that the chances of that production happening are slim at this point. But to partially quote The Dude, there’s always a possibility that “new shit” can come to light on that front.

The Big Lebowski is available to stream with a Hulu subscription, and that same membership will also give you access to The Jesus Rolls.

For decades, brothers Ethan and Joel Coen went together like peanut butter and chocolate in the filmmaking world, churning out movies as a duo like Raising Arizona, The Big Lebowski and No Country for Old Men. But that era has come to an end, as they’ve now embarked on separate professional paths. Late last year, Joel Coen delivered the Apple TV+ movie The Tragedy of Macbeth to the masses, and now Ethan Coen is lining up a great cast for his first movie without Joel’s involvement.

Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan have been tapped to lead the untitled movie that Ethan Coen is putting together at Working Title and Focus Features. No details were shared about either of the actress’ roles, but according to Deadline, these roles have become “some of the more coveted parts in the biz for up-and-coming actresses” as Coen’s been meeting with talent over the last several months. Qualley and Viswanathan were ultimately selected when they made it onto the shortlist and knocked it out of the park with their screen tests.

Margaret Qualley has accumulated film credits like The Nice Guys, Death Note, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and My Salinger Year. She’s also impressed on TV through shows like The Leftovers, Fosse/Verdon and Maid, with the latter Netflix show (which Qualley co-starred in with her mother, Andie MacDowell) netting the actress an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie, among other accolades. Pivoting to Geraldine Viswanathan, she made her first big cinematic splash in the 2018 comedy Blockers, and has since appeared in movies like Bad Education The Broken Hearts Gallery and 7 Days, which explored Indian arranged marriages and immigrant experiences. She’s also known for her numerous roles in the comedy series Miracle Workers. 

Since there’s no plot information to work with about this Ethan Coen movie, there’s no way to predict what kind of dynamic Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan’s characters will have, although chemistry readings were held as part of their auditions, so we can at least count on the two of them being entertaining together. Coen co-wrote this mysterious movie with his wife Tricia Cooke, and they’re also producing alongside Robert Graf and Working Title’s Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner. Filming is expected to begin in this fall.

While we wait for more information on Ethan Coen’s movie, including the title and who will join Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan in the cast, the actresses have plenty of other upcoming projects on the way. Qualley’s future movies include Stars at Noon (which premiered at Cannes this past May), Sanctuary (which premieres at TIFF next month) and Poor Things, and Viswanathan is starring in Cat Person and The Beanie Bubble. Look through our 2022 release schedule and 2023 release schedule to learn what’s been officially slotted for the near future.

Learning on set is something Denzel Washington has used to his advantage. He’s taken every opportunity to learn from great directors to help him in his directing career. Of course, working with Joel Coen on The Tragedy of Macbeth was no different for the two-time Oscar winner, but there was one moment where Washington posing a question led to him being bamboozled by Coen.

The Tragedy of Macbeth star has continued to be a film student despite being in Hollywood for decades. Even though he has a few films under his director’s belt, Denzel Washington wanted to learn from Joel Coen’s process as a filmmaker. The actor opened up to Collider about the one moment watching Coen seemingly backfired.

Sometimes you just want to film a beautiful ceiling. It seemed like the moment was a bit of a letdown for Denzel Washington. As a director, he thought Joel Coen was using the angle for a certain purpose, but it was simpler for the filmmaker, as he wanted the ceiling in the scene. Even someone as mythical as Washington can be bamboozled while pondering another director’s decisions.

Washington expanded on the incident by mentioning that Coen was prepared to film the Shakespearean adaptation. Joel Coen had storyboarded every scene and angle but was open to changes at a moment’s notice. The two-time Oscar winner took away from the director’s words that there’s room for improvisation, and if something isn’t working, you can try something else.

Of course, watching and observing other directors wasn’t anything new for the Fences star. Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola have been on his radar as well. Washington spilled that Spielberg advised him that all great directors steal from each other. Of course, Denzel Washington wasn’t immune to that approach as he watched and reused certain shots from Spielberg and Coppola’s works.

Understanding and studying the greats has paid off. Denzel Washington’s track record as a director has been almost as flawless as his acting resume. Just last year, he directed A Journal for Jordan with Michael B. Jordan, who admitted helped him prepare for his directorial debut Creed III. Jordan asked Washington plenty of questions and observed the way he ran his set. The two-time Oscar winner had previously directed the Oscar-nominated Fences, as well as Antwon Fisher and The Great Debaters.

Now the student has become the teacher. While Washington is leaning more toward directing, he is still in high demand as an actor given his exciting update about The Equalizer 3. Along with the sequel, more upcoming movies are coming down the pipeline. Of course, working with Coen led to Denzel Washington scoring an Oscar nomination, though he's facing serious competition from other actors, including Will Smith (for the second time) amongst the 2022 Oscar nominees.

With Oscar nominations right around the corner, CinemaBlend is taking a look at which films and performances are likely to be in contention for nominations. Let’s look at the Best Director race. 

Locked In

The director’s branch has dealt some brutal snubs in the past, but if there’s one candidate who is immune, it’s Jane Campion for The Power of the Dog. Her thoughtful, meticulous direction has earned her more critics awards than any director this season by far.

Denis Villeneuve is likely to find himself in the director race again with Dune. It’s perhaps the most stunning looking and sounding big budget film of the year, and one that will be supported with nominations in just about every tech category.

Paul Thomas Anderson solidified himself in this category after a DGA nomination for Licorice Pizza. The Academy was the only major awards body to nominate him for Phantom Thread, so it’s hard to imagine he’ll miss for his latest, which will easily show up in Best Picture and Original Screenplay as well.

Likely Bets

This branch of the Academy is no stranger to nominating directors from international films, even ones that don’t make the Best Picture lineup like Cold War and Another Round. Ryusuke Hamaguchi has a great shot at being that sort of nominee with Drive My Car. The film is a frontrunner in International Feature, and is one of the most acclaimed of the year. BAFTA nominations in Screenplay and Directing add a lot of confidence to this pick.

Nearly every year, this category produces a shocking snub or two. Should Hamaguchi make it in, it’ll likely be Steven Spielberg or Kenneth Branagh who misses. Films with strong visual craftsmanship excel here, so it’s baffling to imagine Spielberg missing for West Side Story. However, Spielberg isn’t always nominated alongside his films, and a weak performance from BAFTA makes me skeptical of his nomination. I think West Side Story is a weaker contender overall than Belfast, so shockingly, I am predicting Spielberg misses for Branagh and Hamaguchi. 

Dark Horses

Adam McKay seems likely on paper to be nominated for Don’t Look Up, but he hasn’t received support with precursors like DGA and Critics Choice the way he did for his previous two awards contenders. Guillermo del Toro and Joel Coen have certainly made some of the most eye-popping films of the year with Nightmare Alley and The Tragedy of Macbeth, respectively. However, their films are weaker contenders overall. 

Perhaps there’s another international contender we should consider like Julia Ducournau for Titane or Joachim Trier for The Worst Person in the World, but Hamaguchi is more likely to be that candidate.

You can check out our other category breakdowns for Lead Actor, Lead Actress, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Original Screenplay and Adapted Screenplay.

William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Macbeth is one of most popular and darkest plays from the prolific writer’s body of work and has been been adapted countless times over the years, but Joel Coen’s upcoming adaptation starring Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand looks to be one of the most unique retellings of the classic story yet. The soon-to-be-released A24 film, which will also be available on the Apple TV+ streaming service, appears to be a bold and dreamlike interpretation of the iconic play about the psychological effects political ambition can have on someone. Here’s everything we know about it so far.

The Tragedy Of Macbeth Theatrical Release Date Is Set For December 25, 2021, Will Premiere On Apple TV+ On January 14, 2022

Moviegoers in large cities or areas lucky enough to get access to films upon their limited release will be able to check out The Tragedy of Macbeth starting December 25, 2021, which sounds like one hell of a way to spend Christmas afternoon with the family. Those not living in or near markets with access to the limited release, which is be distributed through A24, will have to wait until January 14, 2022 when The Tragedy of Macbeth makes its streaming debut on Apple TV+ where it will join a slew of other movies that have distributed through the platform.

The Tragedy Of Macbeth Cast Includes Denzel Washington, Frances McDormand And Corey Hawkins

The list of actors that appear as part of The Tragedy of Macbeth cast is truly something to behold. Leading the tragic story will be two-time Academy Award winner Denzel Washington as Lord Macbeth, three-time Oscar-winning actress Frances McDormand as Lady Macbeth, and Emmy-nominated rising star Corey Hawkins as Lord Macduff. The rest of the cast is just as impressive with Brendan Gleeson, Harry Melling, Moses Ingram, Ralph Ineson, Stephen Root, Sean Patrick Thomas, and several other notable stars.

The Tragedy Of Macbeth Is A Retelling Of William Shakespeare’s Iconic Play Of The Same Name

When The Tragedy of Macbeth opens in theaters and Apple TV+ they will be welcomed back into the world of William Shakespeare’s 17th Century tale about an ambitious Scottish lord who believes he should become king following an encounter with a trio of mysterious and powerful witches. Lord Macbeth’s quest for power and glory will lead to murder, madness, and deceit before everything is said and done.

The Shakespeare Adaptation Will Touch On How Age Impacts The Ambition Of Lord And Lady Macbeth

Joel Coen’s adaptation of The Tragedy of Macbeth will not only deal with Denzel Washington’s character’s desire to become the King of Scotland but also the way in which his age impacts that ambition. During a 2020 interview with The Film Stage, Frances McDormand (who is also producing the movie) revealed that the age of the characters “puts a pressure” on them as well as their ambition:

The whole “last chance for glory” comment made by Frances McDormand sounds like it could add even more tension to an already tense story.

Joel Coen Is Making This Movie Without His Filmmaking Partner And Brother

Going back to their 1984 feature-length film debut Blood Simple, Joel and Ethan Coen, known together as the Coen brothers, have written and directed some of the most important films of all time including Fargo, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, and No Country For Old Men. And even though Ethan Coen wasn’t credited as a director on some of those movies, he has very much been part of the process. That all changes with The Tragedy of Macbeth.

Upon reading about the movie, you might find it strange to only see Joel Coen’s name listed as the writer and director for The Tragedy of Macbeth, but that will be the case this time around. During a 2020 interview with Collider, composer Carter Burwell (who composed many of Coen’s movies including his latest) discussed working with Joel Coen on his own when they were first talking about this film. And even though things will “be a little different,” Burwell said he thinks the movie will have that familiar Coen voice.

The Tragedy Of Macbeth Was Shot Entirely On Sound Stages

One way that The Tragedy of Macbeth will differ from other adaptations of the play, like the Justin Kurzel-directed 2015 epic Macbeth, is the fact that it was shot entirely on sound stages. During a 2020 interview with IndieWire, composer Carter Burwell had this to say about the production and its impact on the look of the film and scope of its story:

In the original play, Lord Macbeth is deeply impacted by nightmares and visions throughout the narrative, and this method of shooting the movie could really add a dreamlike quality to the film.

The Tragedy Of Macbeth’s Mysterious Trailer Gives You A Taste Of What’s To Come

In September 2021, A24 released the first trailer for The Tragedy of Macbeth, which gives you a rather brief look at some some of the film’s major characters and a small amount of information. And though it only clocks in under a minute in length, this teaser sets the mood for and tone of what’s to come in this highly anticipated Shakespeare adaptation.

Watch the trailer below:

Expect to hear more about The Tragedy of Macbeth and the rest of the upcoming 2021 new movie releases as we push through the final months of the year.

When tremendous talent comes together, it’s hard not to always expect tremendous results, and The Tragedy Of Macbeth is a perfect example. Based on the play by William Shakespeare, the new film is written and directed by the brilliant Joel Coen, and playing the lead roles are the incomparable Denzel Washington and Francis McDormand. It is set to premiere this week at the New York Film Festival – but before the first wave of reviews rolls in, we now have this brand new trailer to bring our excitement to extreme levels.

Marking the first time that Joel Coen has shot a movie in black-and-white since 2001’s The Man Who Wasn’t There, The Tragedy Of Macbeth features Denzel Washington as the titular Scottish lord, whose journey begins in the story when he is told that he is destined to be crowned king. Filled with ambition as a result of this prophecy, Macbeth acts to ensure that the events in the divination come to pass, with his wife (Frances McDormand) supporting him all along the way – but in his quest to achieve great power he ultimately sacrifices his soul.

The Tragedy Of Macbeth is the first feature that Joel Coen has directed on his own, having spent his entire career working with his brother, Ethan. The last film that the siblings made together was the western anthology The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs, which hit Netflix back in late 2018. It is presently unclear what’s to come in terms of future collaborations (it’s been said by composer Carter Burwell that Ethan Coen “just doesn’t want to make movies anymore”), but for now we’re definitely excited to see what Joel Coen can do as a solo director – and this trailer suggests that he is plenty capable on his own.

This movie marks the first time that Denzel Washington has taken on the role of Lord Macbeth, though he has been forming Shakespeare since the start of his career. In 1979 he was in a stage production of Coriolanus that featured Morgan Freeman, Keith David, and CCH Pounder, and in 1993 he played the role of Don Pedro in Kenneth Branagh’s big screen adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing. Washington has changed a great deal as a performer since then, but in this first look at this return to the work of The Bard it looks like he is going to be putting on a clinic.

Featuring a stacked supporting cast that includes Brendan Gleeson (as King Duncan), Harry Melling, Ralph Ineson, Sean Patrick Thomas, and Corey Hawkins, The Tragedy Of Macbeth will have its world premiere at the New York Film Festival this Friday, but soon after will hit theaters courtesy of A24 – specifically on December 25 (it will be available on AppleTV+ starting January 14). Look for it to be a big player in this year’s awards season, and to see all of the features still to come in the rest of the year, head on over to our 2021 Movie Release Calendar.

Mild spoilers below for Loki's first two episodes, so be warned if you don't want to know anything before watching.

Much like Marvel's first big TV series WandaVision was an inspired amalgamation of a multitude of classic TV sitcoms, Tom Hiddleston's Loki features lots of lovingly crafted homages to the world of science fiction. Considering the main storyline involves time travel aberrations and a mysterious organization of timekeepers, the genre self-awareness is right on point throughout the episodes released so far. But as Loki director Kate Herron revealed exclusively to CinemaBlend, the Coen Brothers cult classic The Hudsucker Proxy also played a big non-sci-fi influence on how the TVA was conceived.

Loki's Time Variance Authority initially seems like an all-powerful, no-nonsense faction that guards the "sacred" timeline with an iron fist, it quickly becomes aware that the shadowy organization and its physical-esque headquarters are really just gussied-up extensions of office building drudgery. (To the point where I wouldn't be surprised if the TVA bought out the tech company Initech from Office Space.) Kate Herron mentioned how film noir and detective stories played into influencing the aesthetic, which is a subgenre Ethan and Joel Coen know extremely well. So it made perfect sense when she later namechecked the Tim Robbins-starring Hudsucker Proxy as another influence. In her words:

Though Owen Wilson's Mobius seems professional and capable enough of getting shit done when need be (unless the shit in question is telling Loki the truth about Phil Coulson), the TVA in and of itself quickly exudes a sense of endless middle-management representatives going all the way up the supervisor ladder. And while there are clearly many differences between Loki's outside-of-reality bureaucracy and the Hudsucker Industries in the Coen brothers' film, the connective tissue is definitely on display.

On the same side of the satirical office-oriented coin is Terry Gilliam's Brazil, which also served as an inspiration for Loki's Kate Herron. As seen in the video above, she definitely namechecked that classic satire alongside others, also explaining that she also wanted the TVA to have all the mundanity of a real-world office.

I think all Coen brothers' fans will know what's coming if one of Loki's many variants winds up having a wood chipper on hand, especially if it's William H. Macy playing the variant. (Speaking of, Kate Herron, Tom Hiddleston and more talked to CinemaBlend about that real variant reveal in Episode 2, and there are definitely big spoilers involved.) But if you'll excuse me, I'm now going to imagine various MCU characters embroiled in a Blood Simple-level storyline.

Loki drops new episodes on Disney+ each and every Wednesday morning at 3:00 a.m. ET, so while you're already awake and waiting for those eps to go online, be sure and keep up with all the other streaming and linear shows coming soon to the 2021 Summer TV schedule.

Fargo is turning 25 years old in 2021, don’t ya know. The classic Coen Brothers movie that stars Frances McDormand, William H. Macy, Steve Buscemi and more is beloved by many for its memorable characters and mix of dark humor set against the snowy white backdrop of Minnesota. That love has been extended to include four seasons of the popular FX series Fargo. But here, we’re going back to the 1996 original for some behind-the-scenes facts about how Fargo became the crime classic it is today.

Fargo Was Shot During One Of Minnesota’s Warmest Winters

One of the most iconic things about Fargo is its setting - the snow-covered terrain of Minnesota. With filming scheduled to take place in the heart of winter, I’m sure snow was something that Joel and Ethan Coen thought that they would have plenty of to work with. Mother Nature, however, was not ready for her close-up.

Many of the film’s stars and crew, including William H. Macy and frequent Coen Brothers cinematographer Roger Deakins, said in interviews that snow often eluded the shoot, as Minnesota was experiencing one of its warmest winters on record. The production kept traveling further and further north to find some snow, trucking some in or using snow-making equipment, according to Macy. Macy also said that in one scene he had to drink hot tea so that his breath would be seen.

However they did it, the white landscape covering most of the film is striking and one of its best calling cards.

Fargo Was Almost Called Brainerd

Fans love to dig deep into many of the hidden meanings in Coen Brothers movies, from Barton Fink to The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou to A Serious Man. Fargo is no exception, with one particular interest being the film’s title.

Fargo is a city in North Dakota, which during the opening scene of the movie William H. Macy’s Jerry Lundegaard goes to meet Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare’s criminals to set his kidnapping scheme into motion. That is the only sequence that actually takes place in Fargo the entire movie.

Many fans have posited theories, including one Redditor who offers a very philosophical possibility that the title is a metaphor for a place outside your normal existence that changes your life.

The answer may be simpler than that. During an interview with Charlie Rose in promoting Fargo, Joel and Ethan Coen essentially say that the title choice was between Fargo and Brainerd, the two most important locations in the film in their opinion. They thought Fargo sounded better.

The Coens Insisted That The Film Was Indeed Based On A True Story

Fargo opens with the text “This is a true story” of events that took place in Minnesota in 1987, with names changed but the events occurring as they happened “out of respect for the dead.” The Coen Brothers were sticking to that story all the way through filming and promoting the movie.

In the Charlie Rose interview mentioned above, the Coens confirmed that they did base the film on real events, and they would do the same in a number of different interviews.

In actuality, while the film does take bits and pieces that are similar to actual murder cases, the events of the film and the characters have long been confirmed as fictional. But the creative choice, and possibly their commitment to the bit for an extended period, gives the film its uniqueness, something that has been continued in the FX TV series. It also inspired the independent film Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter.

Carter Burwell’s Score Was Inspired By A Norwegian Folk Song

Carter Burwell is one of the most prolific film composers working today and has long been a staple of Coen Brothers films - he has scored every one of their films except O Brother, Where Art Thou and Inside Llewyn Davis. For Fargo, he opted to find inspiration in another snow-filled land from which many in Minnesota have roots.

In a Vulture article looking back at his most iconic scores, Burwell recalled what inspired him for Fargo:

Surprisingly, despite all of his work with the Coens, neither of Burwell’s two Oscar nominations come from any of their collaborations.

Bruce Campbell Makes A Cameo Via An Old Soap Opera

Bruce Campbell, best known as the star of cult classics The Evil Dead and Army of Darkness, is not unfamiliar with the Fargo franchise. He had a cameo in the show’s second season as Ronald Reagan while he was campaigning for president. However, to eagle-eyed viewers, he actually shows up in the movie Fargo thanks to an old TV set.

After kidnapping Jean Lundegaard and transporting her to their cabin hideaway, Carl and Gaear attempt to pass the time by watching some TV. But the only thing that appears to work is an old soap opera. Gaear becomes hooked to the soap, or perhaps to its charismatic leading man, who happens to be none other than Bruce Campbell in Generations.

According to The Atlantic, Campbell hoped to be in Fargo, but the only way was by donating some “bad footage,” which he was happy to do.

Prince Nearly Had A Cameo In The Movie

Another interesting cameo story surrounds one of the Coen’s contemporary Minnesota legends, Prince.

The symbol that Prince often used as his logo appears in the credits as one of the victims in the field in the triple homicide that occurs early in the movie. The body is not Prince, however, but rather storyboard artist J. Todd Anderson.

However, Peter Stormare told Huffington Post that Prince was angling to show up in a small part for Fargo:

Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare Got Pulled Over In Real Life During Filming

The triple murder that starts the whole bundling of the kidnapping central to Fargo’s plot is set off when Buscemi and Stormare’s characters Carl and Gaear get pulled over by the police with Jean tied up. According to Stormare, life would imitate art for the two actors that very night.

Detailing it for Huffington Post, Stormare says that after shooting the cop killing scene, the crew decided to get some early morning pancakes. Buscemi drove his costar, but Stormare says he wasn’t the best driver. Buscemi apparently missed the turn for the restaurant, performed an illegal U-turn and then went down a one-way street. Cops saw this and pulled them over.

Just like in the movie, Buscemi is not able to provide the officer the car’s registration because it is a rental. Thankfully the similarities end there.

Stormare says that somehow Buscemi managed to get out of the situation without a ticket, though they were baffled by it all, wondering if it was a prank by the Coens. It was not.

William H. Macy Threatened To Shoot Ethan Coen’s Dog To Get His Part

Actors will often go to great lengths to get a part. William H. Macy was no different as he pursued the role of Jerry Lundegaard, even going so far as to (jokingly) threaten Ethan Coen’s puppy.

Macy has detailed his audition process for Fargo multiple times. It essentially breaks down like this: At first he was reading for a small part as an officer interviewing Jerry, though he was immediately drawn to the character of Jerry. The Coens liked what he did and asked if he wanted to read for Jerry. Macy said “yeah,” read the part and got a call back for the next day. He impressed the brothers again in the call back, but found out that they were going to New York to audition more actors. So Macy hops on a plane and crashes the audition, telling the brothers essentially they will screw up their movie if they don’t give him the part of Jerry. Then he took it a step further:

Perhaps the play to the Coen’s dark sense of humor was what won them over, but Macy proved inspired casting. He earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor and it was the part that really got his career rolling to what it is today.

The Reason Joel Coen Is The Only Credited Director

The Coen brothers are a duo. However, until they made The Ladykillers in 2004, Joel Coen was the only credited director on all of their films; they would share writing and producing credits, though. But everyone who worked with them knew that the directing of their movies was a partnership, so why did it take so long for Ethan to get his due? Thank the Directors Guild for that.

In 1978, the DGA put in a provision into its collective bargaining agreement with studios that there be only one director assigned to direct a motion picture at any given time. Directing duos could apply for a waiver of this rule, however, the DGA says the Coens never did until The Ladykillers, instead opting to let older brother Joel take top billing.

They’ve been using the co-directing credit since 2004, and the DGA rule is now defunct. We are however, getting a solo Joel Coen-directed film in the near future, an adaptation of Macbeth.

Edie Falco Starred In A '90s Fargo TV Pilot

I’ve mentioned FX’s Fargo TV series a few times in this post already, but that was not the first time that an adaptation of the movie made its way to the small screen.

In 1997, Edie Falco was cast to lead a Fargo pilot that would follow Marge Gunderson (Falco replaced Frances McDormand), still pregnant as the story picks up about a month after the events of the movie. The Coen brothers had nothing to do with the show.

Ultimately, nothing came out of the pilot. It didn’t even air on TV until 2003 as a TV movie. The more recent Fargo TV series did get the approval of the Coens - they serve as executive producers - and has aired for four seasons.

Fargo officially turns 25 on April 25. Celebrate with a rewatch or see where it ranks in my fellow CinemaBlend writer's ranking of their entire filmography (minus The Ballad of Buster Scruggs).

During the Halloween season, movie fans love to perpetually revisit their favorite horror films – be it A Nightmare On Elm Street, Friday The 13th, Scream, or Hocus Pocus – but it’s also a wonderful time to broaden one’s horizons and think a bit differently about one’s watching habits. Cinematic history is filled with not only a diverse assembly of amazing yet under-the-radar films that deeply embrace their genre roots, but also more subtle explorations that don’t outwardly appear to be of the horror variety but most definitely are. A perfect example of the latter? Joel and Ethan Coen’s A Serious Man.

Released in 2009, the film is widely embraced by Coen fans and critics as a sinister, hilarious dark comedy heavily influenced by its writer/directors’ Jewish upbringing – and there is certainly no intention in this piece to downplay just how remarkably funny it is. What should be additionally recognized, however, is that the source of that comedy is a kind of sick schadenfreude that comes with watching the life of an innocent man unravel for absolutely no reason. From the perspective of Michael Stuhlbarg’s Larry Gopnik, he’s a guy trapped in a monster movie, and the monster stalking and tormenting him is the Old Testament God.

It Starts With A Literal Ghost Story

Before we further discuss the plight of Larry Gopnik, let’s first address this blatant fact: A Serious Man’s opening scene is a straight-up ghost story. Pulling from Jewish mythology, the vignette tells the tale of a 19th-century Eastern European husband and wife who one night find themselves beset upon a dybbuk – the walking spirit of a man named Reb Groshkover, whom the wife recognizes has been dead for three years. Her husband protests and Groshkover denies the claim, but she is steadfast in her belief that her home has been cursed, and she plunges an ice pick into the guest’s heart to prove her point.

But is he really a dybbuk? Groshkover laughs off the stabbing at first, but then he begins to bleed and hurriedly leaves. The husband bemoans that they are ruined, and that once the body is found “all is lost.” The question is left open ended.

The answer doesn’t really matter. Either Groshkover was a malicious spirit whose presence cursed the couple, or the act of murder was committed; either way, fate has made a malevolent choice for them. Another way of saying that is God made a malevolent choice for them – which is what makes it an apt prologue for A Serious Man’s main story.

The Story Of Job Without God As A Character Is A Nightmare

A Serious Man is, in all practical purposes, a loose adaptation of the Book of Job from the Hebrew Bible. The story begins as Satan has a conversation with God about one of God’s devout followers, a man named Job, stating his belief that Job only praises the Lord’s name because he has received so much in life – including a beautiful family and great wealth. God permits Satan to kill the man’s children, servants and livestock to prove Satan wrong, believing that Job’s faith will hold strong, and he is ultimately proven correct. Despite losing almost everything in his life, Job continues to praise God’s name.

Analyzed religiously, the story of Job is one about the power of faith – but the whole thing takes on a much different energy when you consider the narrative directly through Job’s perspective. Not having any awareness of godly machinations, he is just an innocent, pious guy who sees everything good in his life rapidly destroyed due to no action of his own. That’s a fucking horror story, and the story of Larry Gopnik.

When we first meet Larry in A Serious Man, he is introduced as a decent and good person – an honest family man with strong morals and a love of physics – but then everything in his world starts to crumble. His wife Judith (Sari Lennick) has fallen in love with a family friend, Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed), and is demanding a ritual divorce. A failing student (David Kang) tries to bribe him, and then the student’s father (Steve Park) tries to sue him for defamation for accusing him of bribery. The decision to grant him tenure is threatened by a series of anonymous letters. His goy neighbor (Peter Breitmayer) is constantly encroaching on his property. The Colombia Record Club just won’t stop calling. Larry hasn’t done anything to deserve these plagues in his life, and yet he is being plagued. And nothing gets better.

Larry’s search for answers takes him to the leaders of his faith, but their answers do nothing to comfort him or fix things. He is told that he needs to achieve a new perspective on his own life. He is told that “you can’t know everything.” And his temple’s main rabbi is too busy “thinking” to provide council. He’s left spinning in consequence for no act he’s committed and is provided with no consolation or reason. It’s a waking nightmare interspersed with literal nightmares.

Fear Of Uncertainty And The Unknown

A Serious Man is heavily immersed in elements of Jewish culture, both religious and social, but also key to understanding the film is the influence of existentialism – a philosophy rooted in the nature of existence and the unknown. Existential dread is defined as the fear that life is meaningless and random, and it’s what’s behind Larry’s breakdown as he tries to figure out why his life is piled around his ankles.

The (intentioned) irony is that, as a physicist, Larry’s field of study is in part examining uncertainty – and yet as much as he understands the concepts, it doesn’t stop him from being a victim of it. In the circumstance with the student’s bribe, for example, his uncertainty regarding the origin of the envelope of cash on his desk leaves him facing one of two consequences by following his moral code: either he reports that his student tried to bribe him, which results in the student’s father suing for defamation, or he pretends that the money doesn’t exist, and the student’s father sues him for taking a bribe. To borrow a phrase from Jean Paul Sartre’s famous story of hell, there’s no exit, and his recourse is to “accept the mystery” – an ever more maddening endeavor.

At The End, God Proves He Can Be Not Just Randomly Cruel, But Also Vengeful

To take an optimists perspective of uncertainty and chaos, there is also a comfort that can be found in the recognition that nothing matters. Accepting the randomness of life has its own kind of peace in it because it’s an understanding of the way things work. There is no reason, but at least you know that.

But to repeat: A Serious Man is a horror movie. So just when everything seems figured out… whoops, there goes the rug.

After spending the whole film proving himself a moral and serious man, Larry receives his bill from attorney Ron Meshbesher, and not being able to afford the cost, he capitulates by changing the grade of the student who bribed him from an “F” to a “C-.” What’s the harm, right? If the universe is random, then actions don’t always have consequences.

But Larry is wrong. It turns out that God can not only punish people randomly, but also with vengeance. In the span of a few seconds, it’s suggested both that Larry has some kind of fatal illness and that his son is going to be killed by a tornado. In classic horror tradition, the movie ends with the deadly antagonist getting the last laugh.

A Serious Man only has one jump scare, and its tone is certainly atypical for the horror genre, but the categorization is still appropriate, and only serves to make the film more fascinating. So as we get closer to Halloween, consider heading over to Netflix and hitting play, because with the right angle on it you’ll find that it is more than appropriate for the season.

For 14 episodes, the ReelBlend podcast (formerly the AwardsBlend podcast), has broken down the best and most interesting angles of movie and Oscars news. Regular listeners know the familiar voices of co-hosts Sean O'Connell, Kevin McCarthy and Jake Hamilton. But this week, for the first time in ReelBlend history, the trio breaks ground by inviting a guest!

Juan Fernandez-Paris is the film critic for Wapa America. He's a longtime veteran of the junket circuit, where he has passed hours, days and years geeking out about movies with Sean, Jake and Kevin in cities around the world. And as an ardent supporter of this week's biggest release -- Steven Spielberg's Ready Player One -- we invited him on to provide his insights into Spielberg's latest, and to play along with Coen Brothers Blend!

What is Coen Brothers Blend? Well, it's part of an ongoing game that we brought to ReelBlend where we pick a beloved director (or filmmaking team) and then debate their BEST movie. Not our favorite movie by them. Their BEST. And we try to convince the other guys that our opinion is right. We also ask YOU to participate by using a hashtag on social media. In the past, we have debated Martin Scorsese, Christopher Nolan, Paul Thomas Anderson and more. This week, it was #CoenBrosBlend, and your responses were all over the board. So were ours. Listen to the podcast to see which movies we chose.

This week, we also dive deep into Ready Player One, a movie that the guys really loved, for totally different reasons. In a spoiler-free fashion, they try and explain why you need to get to a theater and see Steven Spielberg's new film as soon as possible.

But the best conversation from the week ends up being a heated debate inspired by an off-hand Spielberg comment, in which the legendary director says movie's that debut on Netflix shouldn't be eligible for an Academy Award. Spielberg is trying to protect and defend the theatrical experience, but it overlooks some hard truths about the current distribution models in Hollywood, and the ReelBlend guys get into a passionate debate about which side is right.

ReelBlend is a LIVE podcast that we do on CinemaBlend's Facebook page. As soon as we are done on Facebook, you can download the latest episode (and all of our past episodes) for FREE on our iTunes page! Visit. Subscribe. Like and comment. Review! Apple loves when you have star ratings and reviews, so if you listened, and you liked it (or even if you didn't), let us know. We also are on Spotify. And Google Play. And basically everywhere that you download podcasts. So download us!

Meanwhile, follow the guys on Social Media at @Sean_OConnell, @JakesTakesand @KevinMcCarthyTV. We will be back at it next week, LIVE on CinemaBlend's Facebook page. See you then!

Hollywood isn't quite yet at a place where the line between movie stars and TV stars has fully eroded, but it's coming, and the same holds true for those working behind the camera. Oscar winning filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen blew some minds earlier this year by announcing they were making the jump to the small screen for the anthology TV series The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, and now our minds are blown even more by the reveal that streaming giant Netflix will be the new show's home.

Fans can expect the Coen brothers to feel right at home with Netflix, as The Ballad of Buster Scruggs sounds like it will be right in tune with the streaming service's veritable buffet of genre offerings. The series will offer up six standalone stories set in the American West of yore, with Coen regular Tim Blake Nelson taking on the title role of Buster Scruggs. Other big names reportedly involved include Stephen Root, Zoe Kazan, Tyne Daly, James Franco and more, although not much else is known for sure about what to expect.

One of the big initial projects for the Annapurna Television shingle being run by former HBO president Sue Naegle, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs will be fully written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, who conceived the idea themselves before spinning it into an episodic format. It wasn't clear, however, if Annapurna still plans on giving this project some form of theatrical touch, as it was hinted at earlier on. Given how seemingly controversial it is anytime Netflix programming is meant to hit a real theater, it might just stick to streaming.

I think we can all agree that, judging from their lone official statement in the announcement, that Joel and Ethan Coen are excited about joining the Netflix ranks.

I guess they're into that whole brevity thing.

The Coen brothers are obviously comfortable within the world of Westerns, most notably having directed the acclaimed True Grit remake in 2010; if nothing else, that movie hopefully brings the Coens to get Jeff Bridges and Hailee Steinfeld involved. (As well as Matt Damon and Josh Brolin and Domhnall Gleeson and Barry Pepper and all the rest.) And for all that Netflix can boast everything from adult animated comedies to Marvel shows to Stranger Things, the company hasn't invested a lot into the wild west, Adam Sandler movies aside. That will change with Scott Frank and Steven Soderbergh's limited drama Godless, debuting later this year, so hopefully that will be a solid way to spend our time waiting for Buster Scruggs to arrive.

No official release date is set just yet for The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, though Netflix will be debuting it around the world at some point in 2018. To see what else this year has to offer, check out our 2017 Netflix schedule, and then widen your choices to include all small screen offerings with our summer TV schedule and our fall premiere rundown.

Now that television has become the new form of Hollywood, with an increasing number of big screen stars and creative minds making the jump to episodic storytelling in recent years, it's almost easier to point out which film favorites have not done it. Joel and Ethan Coen have been on the "not" side for a long time now, but that all reportedly changes with the The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, an in-development limited series within a genre the brothers know quite well: the Western. As if "Buster Scruggs" could exist in anything else.

While early details on the project aren't plentiful, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs sounds like it'll be more True Grit than No Country for Old Men, with the project set to center in the Old West. Joel and Ethan Coen apparently already wrote the western drama from an original idea they created, according to Variety, and they will direct the entire project for Annapurna Television, lest anyone start to worry that this was a pilot-only endeavor for the Oscar-winning duo, or an executive producer cred, as it goes with FX's Fargo.

It will also be an anthology piece, if this early report is accurate, with six different storylines being intertwined. It's possible/probable the idea was initially considered for a feature, but then sprawled out and got too big and complicated for just one movie. I assume each episode would center on a specific character or characters, with elements from other episodes being introduced. Otherwise, I don't know how the intertwined-ness of the anthology aspect would work. Not that it matters, as all trust is in the Coens to deliver the goods.

Interestingly, this new project for the Coen brothers might not solely exist as part of the TV medium. The storyline is apparently such that Annapurna is interested in potentially making it both televised and theatrical in some form, with the long-in-the-making Dark Tower's adaptation process serving as a point of comparison. Without knowing what the story looks like, it's hard to guess how such a plan would play out, but if there's a way to fix the universe so that we can watch a new Coens-directed film in theaters and then go home to watch a new episode of their TV show, that would be way cooler than the Eagles, man.

Since everything is just getting going for The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, no network has been locked down just yet, but I have to imagine a bidding war is imminent. Joel and Ethan Coen's last film, Hail Caesar!, was a big and glorious musical comedy honoring the glory days of Hollywood, so it makes sense that they'd want to get their hands dirty for the follow-up project. And dark dramas are where the critics and awards organizations heap their praise on the siblings, so expect HBO, Netflix, Starz and more to stand in line to negotiate.

All that, and we didn't even talk about what kind of cast this show will have, but that's because we would be here for weeks. So while we wait to hear more about this exciting new show, head to our midseason premiere schedule to see everything that is confirmed to appear in the coming months.

The Coen Brothers, or just Ethan and Joel to their close pals, have never made a bad film. Sure, there have been disappointments. But in a world where Fifty Shades Of Black and Sinister 2 exist, any film by the idiosyncratic pairing is devoured rapidly by cinephiles. 

Hail, Caesar! is their latest effort. And to celebrate its release, I decided to take on the unenviable task of ranking the Coen Brothers collection. It was impossible. And I felt as though I betrayed every single film that didn’t finish number one. Which is exactly why they’re cinema’s favorite siblings.

This was really fucking difficult. I would make the obligatory Sophie’s Choice comparison, but she only had two children to choose from and neither had the complexity of A Serious Man or seemed likely to match the thrills of Fargo. Here's my ranking. What's yours?

17. The Ladykillers

OK, I lied. This part of my list was easy. The Ladykillers is an odd film because it’s not odd. It lacks the usual flair of characterization that normally makes even minor characters in a Coen Brother film memorable. Instead it just feels like a waste of Tom Hanks. As you’d expect, their script is still speedy, tight, and has plenty of laughs, while their direction is slick and moody. But, in comparison to other Coen films, it’s underwhelming. And except for the magnificent Irma P. Hall and J.K. Simmons, the only good to come out of The Ladykillers is that this was the first time Joel and Ethan Coen shared producing and directing credits. Still better than most Hollywood drivel, though.

16. Burn After Reading

Fresh off the success of No Country For Old Men, the Coen Brothers could have picked any project that they wanted. With Burn After Reading they went for a screwball spy film, but substituted the explosions for an all-star cast that included George Clooney, John Malkovich, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, Richard Jenkins, Brad Pitt, and J.K. Simmons. Each member of the ensemble revels in the comedic freedom that they’re given. Clooney delivers the Coen’s dialogue with panache, while watching Malkovich erupt with anger is always a joy. But it’s too frivolous and aimless to be up there with the Coen’s best work. It still features one of the pair’s greatest ever final scenes, though.

15. The Hudsucker Proxy

The Hudsucker Proxy was the Coen Brothers’ first attempt to make a big-budgeted, outright commercial film. It cost them a cool $25 million to make (probably $40 million after marketing), and even starred Paul Newman. The fact then that it only made $3 million at the box office means that it will always be tainted as the Coen Brothers’ biggest flop. But, thanks to its sweet-natured, whimsical tone, grandiose 1950s setting (its meticulous production design is divine) and its proud screwball zaniness (it reeks of Preston Sturges, Frank Capra and Howard Hawks), The Hudsucker Proxy is still enchanting. Jennifer Jason Leigh is particularly revelatory as the spunky Amy Archer. Sure, it’s a little style-over-substance, and rings a bit hollow, especially in its attempt to satire "Big Business." But it’s still enjoyably lightweight, and impossible to hate.

14. Hail, Caesar! 

Hail, Caesar! isn’t just a black comedy about the black-list, or a love letter to the Golden Age of Hollywood. It also works as a nifty biopic to the life of legendary studio "fixer," Eddie Mannix. Like Inside Llewyn Davis, we’re placed firmly into the shoes of Mannix and follow him around for a day, which leaves room for a stunning array of cameo performance from Jonah Hill, Scarlett Johansson, Tilda Swinton, Ralph Fiennes, Frances McDormand, Channing Tatum, and even Dolph Lundgren. But, while the cameos keep Hail, Ceasar! buoyant, this really is Josh Brolin’s film. Sure, George Clooney is humorous as the idiotic Baird Whitlock, and special praise needs to be paid to Alden Ehrenreich for his loveable comic turn.

But Brolin carries the entire burden of the film sturdily on his shoulders. More gently witty than laugh-out-loud hilarious, Hail, Caeser! is nevertheless flamboyant and fun throughout and probably the closest they’ll come to Preston Sturges’ Sullivan’s Travels, a film they’ve referenced throughout their career. But it lacks the substance or focus to be truly memorable. Seeing the Coens’ versions of a musical, Roman epic, melodrama, aquamusical, and cowboy comedy is worth the price of admission alone, though. 

13. Intolerable Cruelty

After The Ladykillers was only met with lukewarm reviews, it was suggested that the Coen Brothers were in a slump. What started this slump? Apparently Intolerable Cruelty. But the fact that this this glossy, riotous romp has garnered a reputation as a crud only highlights just how pristine the Coen Brothers’ filmography is. George Clooney and Catherine Zeta Jones have never looked more glamorous, while Intolerable Cruelty’s pacey script is another example of them tipping their collective hat to the screwball genre. The meandering plot just about tows the line between convoluted and captivating, but it’s also smart, sharp and includes more laugh-out-loud moments than five Hollywood comedies combined.

12. The Man Who Wasn't There

The Coen Brothers film that is most often overlooked, which probably has something to do with the fact that its lead character Ed Crane, played almost effortlessly but still affectingly by Billy Bob Thornton, is monosyllabic throughout. Despite its relative anonymity, there’s still an awful lot to admire about The Man Who Wasn’t There. First off, it’s utterly stylish, which is partly down to its use of black and white, with cinematographer Roger Deakins making even the simplest of shots hypnotic to look at. It’s a delightful homage to the film noir genre, as its lead character says little because he has little to say.

It also becomes increasingly bleaker as it progresses, which still doesn’t illicit too much of a response from the constantly passive Ed Crane. Kudos to Michael Badalucco and Tony Shalhoub as the talkative barber and shyster lawyer, respectively, who inject verve and vigor into the film. But, ultimately, The Man Who Wasn’t There is too dispassionate to really leave an impression. Even though it’s a hell of a journey while you are watching.

11. Barton Fink

Here’s the first film on my list that I feel bad for placing so low. The previous six, while each with their own charm, don’t provide the seamless heady mix of humor, poignancy, thrills, and drama that the next Coen Brothers pieces, including Barton Fink, somehow manage. Barton Fink is probably the greatest film ever created about screenwriting and the struggles of Hollywood, as the magnificent John Turturro’s titular character fails to adjust to scribing for the big-screen following his huge success on Broadway. It might not surprise you to learn that Barton Fink was written while the Coen Brothers themselves struggled with writer’s block as they scribed Miller’s Crossing. They took a break, and within a month, Barton Fink was written and ready.

The whole host of ideas that fester throughout Barton Fink is evidence of just how speedily it’s written, which works as both a detriment and a perk. It examines the superficial differences between high and low culture, poking fun at numerous renowned writers along the way, while exploring themes related to fascism, World War II, working in creative industries, and simply being a man. But, most importantly, it’s an art house film that pokes fun at art house films. Which is just deliciously Coen.

10. True Grit

I didn’t like True Grit at first. I expected a rough-and-tumble, standard western that had much more in common with the 1969 original. I was an idiot. It took until my second viewing to realize just how subtle, finely crafted and preposterously well performed it is. If he hadn’t won it the year before, Jeff Bridges would have been a shoe-in for the Best Actor Oscar as his gruff Rooster, while Hailee Steinfeld is a revelation as the peppy, driven Mattie. The Coens have never stayed within the confines of a genre more, while Deakins’ cinematography forgoes the stunning landscape shots in favor of a dusty, dirty aesthetic.

And then there’s Carter Burwell’s score. While working for the Coen Brothers, Carter Burwell has written four themes that immediately encapsulate the mood of the film. Miller’s Crossing, Fargo, Raising Arizona, and True Grit just wouldn’t be as good without Burwell’s music, which immediately elevates the fantastic material. While probably not quite matching his work on Miller’s Crossing, Burwell’s True Grit theme is my second favorite of his Coen scores. It immediately sets a nostalgic tone, but as the melody builds, you begin to envision Hailee Steinfeld’s Mattie Ross charging forward on her duty to avenge her father with Rooster in tow. It’s sad, mournful, but still enchanting. And that’s exactly what True Grit is, too.

9. O Brother, Where Art Thou?

The reason that the likes of The Ladykillers, Intolerable Cruelty, Burn After Reading, and, unfortunately, Hail, Caesar! ultimately feel a little like disappointments, even though there are just a handful of problems in otherwise faultless films, is because of O Brother Where Art Thou? And The Big Lebowski. And Raising Arizona. This trifecta of films is proof that when the Coen brothers do lean towards more lightweight material, they are still able to create fully realized worlds of idiosyncratic characters that repeatedly get into peculiar adventures. O Brother is full of them. From Charles Durning’s Pappy O’Daniel to Daniel von Bargen’s Sheriff Cooley, via John Goodman’s Big Dan, Frank Collison’s Wash, Chris Thomas King’s Tommy Johnson, Michael Badalucco’s George Nelson and Wayne Duvall’s Homer Stokes. O Brother starts off at a breezy pace, somehow still feels oddly poignant, and is just an awful lot of fun to watch.

The music selections by T. Bone Burnett, which immediately set the film’s groove and only become more important, propel the perfectly cast leading trio of George Clooney, John Turturro, and Tim Blake Nelson on their merry jaunt away from incarceration. While Roger Deakins’ sepia-toned cinematography papers over any cracks that even briefly start to manifest. All of which combines to make O Brother, Where Art Thou? the cinematic equivalent of a soothing, warm bath.

8. Blood Simple

Danny Boyle has a theory: "Your first film is always your best film." Blood Simple is a film he often uses in this argument. For him, it will always be the Coen Brothers’ greatest. For most others, it’s simply a raw example of sublime filmmaking talent, which has gone on to be honed meticulously over the subsequent 32 years. Blood Simple even features a whole host of traits that we’ve now come to associate with the Coens. There’s deceit, murder, dark comedy, idiotic characters that are way in over their heads, and even an opening, rambling narration. Sure, it’s now a little dated and flabby. But you’re always aware that you’re under the spell of sublime filmmakers as it manages to mix tense and suspenseful scenes with darkly comic tinges; Marty’s gun not working when it’s aimed at Ray and he’s about to be buried alive being the prime example. Poor Marty. Has there ever been a bigger loser in cinema? No. No, there has not. This tone is why Blood Simple is pitch perfect. Despite its seemingly lowly position on this list, I still understand Danny Boyle’s stance. Because just imagine seeing Blood Simple back in 1984. There was nothing like it. It’d be enough to inspire you to get behind the camera yourself.

7. Miller's Crossing

That cold open. That score. The ‘Danny Boy’ shoot-out sequence where Leo proves he’s still an artist with a Thompson. Just the name Bernie Bernbaum. It really does destroy me that Miller’s Crossing is only seventh on this list. It’s probably the Coen Brothers’ most layered script, with each additional viewing unveiling new lines of dialogue and quips to marvel over. But perhaps what’s most delightful about Miller’s Crossing is that it’s exactly what you’d expect from a Coen Brothers gangster film. It’s surreal, comical, yet still firmly rooted in, while also poking fun at, the genre, with tips of the hat to The Godfather, Cagney, and dozens from its heyday in the 1930s. Plus, it’s finale is a direct homage/rip-off of The Third Man.

So why is it not higher? It’s a little too convoluted – it was so densely plotted the Coen Brothers got writer’s block – and equally self-aware. But that’s also what makes it so intoxicating and unique. From any other filmmaker, it would be the pinnacle of their careers. For the Coen Brothers, it’s close to the norm.

6. The Big Lebowski

By this point The Big Lebowski is more than just a film. It’s a religion. Literally. Of course, to reach this status The Big Lebowski had to do something right. Luckily, it does a whole host of things. It’s the most perfectly cast of the Coen Brothers’ films. It’s literally impossible to imagine anyone else other than Jeff Bridges as The Dude, John Goodman as Walter, and Steve Buscemi as Donny. Just try it. You can’t. It also helps that its mere premise immediately sounds like perfect Coens fodder: as it’s a Raymond Chandler story populated by a bunch of nincompoops, who just want to bowl. The Big Lebowski’s true genius is in the detail that punctuates its dizzying plot, and either drives the narrative forward or proves to be a red herring. I mean, only in a Coen brothers film could a Chandler-inspired tale have a pissed-on rug as the catalyst. While the rambling, forgetful narrator, opening tumbleweed, penis eating ferret, Kenny Rogers tinged musical montage, bag of undies, German nihilists, Donny’s heart attack, Jesus (don’t fuck with him), and funniest cremation scene in cinema history all coagulate to make The Big Lebowski as funny as it is compelling.

Despite its undoubted brilliance, it still doesn’t quite make my top 5 Coen Brothers films. Why? It’s just a little too erratic and outlandish. It’s hardly an excuse, I know. But, when it comes to ranking Coen Brothers films even the slightest issue is enough for a film to pale in comparison against the perfection that's still ahead.

5. Inside Llewyn Davis

No other Coen Brothers film is as rewarding with repeat viewings as Inside Llewyn Davis. Like True Grit, when I immediately left the cinema having originally watched Llewyn I wasn’t sure if I liked it. Unlike True Grit, it only took the car journey home for me to decipher that it was actually genius. All of which is down to its disorientating structure, which leaves you in a state of bewilderment by the time you reach its conclusion. Yet, once you’ve had time to fully ingest Llewyn, it then begins to leave an impact. The titular character is a fine mixture of loathsome, rueful, bitter, and ambitious, and Oscar Isaac is utterly sublime, and almost poetic, in his depiction. Yet, despite his misanthropic ways, Llewyn always resonates.

Inside Llewyn Davis is really about the missed opportunities, the chances not taken, and sometimes being just plain unlucky. Is Llewyn ever going to make it? No. Not to the level that he pines for, anyway. Inside Llewyn Davis leaves more tantalizing questions than resolute answers, but in such a way that only makes in more compelling, and more watchable. And don’t even get me started on the haunting, beautiful soundtrack. In fact, the ultimate proof of its genius is that it somehow made Mumford & Sons seem cool.

4. Fargo

Probably the most important Coen Brothers film in their career. Before Fargo, the pair was seen as part of the cinematic alternative. They were obviously talented, but their attempts to go mainstream were always thwarted by their innate peculiarity. After its release, they’d picked up the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, while Frances McDormand won Best Actress. The decision to preface Fargo with the fabricated text of, "This is a true story," was a blatant attempt to prove that we were now in the real world, not the outlandish Coen universe. Which is interesting, especially when you consider that, rather than being inspired directorially by other filmmakers, the Coens’ main influence for Fargo was Blood Simple, with several scenes feeling as though they’ve been ripped right from their debut.

The real beauty of Fargo is in the writing though. There’s no fat at all to the story. Every single scene feels integral, and it builds seamlessly like a locomotive setting off from the station. The bad guys get their comeuppance. The pregnant cop comes out on top. And it’s the Coen Brothers' most satisfying story to watch unfold.

3. Raising Arizona

Raising Arizona is the touchstone of modern comedy. Without it, I’m not even sure if Wes Anderson would have a career, or if The Simpsons would have been as wonderfully irreverent and zany. Twenty-nine years after it was released, it still feels as fresh and hilarious as anything that’s currently in the comedic ether. It’s exuberant, imaginative, and wholesome. In a way, it’s the Coen Brothers’ Goodfellas, as you’re never more aware that they’re in control of the camera. The 10-minute-long opening montage might just be my favorite scene in all of cinema, as it not only sets up jokes that would be oft-repeated throughout the film, but immediately gets you up to speed with Ed and H.I.’s relationship, their problems, hopes and ambitions for a family, and does so in a sympathetic and compassionate way. The line, "I found myself driving past convenience stores that weren’t on the way home," still makes me laugh so brazenly that I might just go ahead and get it etched on my tombstone. And that’s just before the title! But the best thing you can say about Raising Arizona is that once it’s finished, you immediately have the urge to watch it all over again.

2. A Serious Man

The Coen Brothers’ most divisive film. If you love A Serious Man, you’re infatuated by it. If you’re a hater, you long ago dismissed it. Suffice to say, I think it’s their most probing and engrossing work. A Serious Man questions everything, does nothing, and leaves you lost in its haze of existentialism. It can be summed up by the fact that its most action-packed scene takes place off screen, when Sy Ableman dies in a car crash. Instead, as is with life, we’re just left to feel the build-up and repercussions. As the Coen Brothers have done throughout their careers, they infuse their own personal experiences into the story to make it more resonant. (You can immediately picture Ethan stoned at his own Bat Mitzvah).

Yet, they seemingly mock the audience and Larry Gopnik’s pursuit for answers in the process. It’s the darkest comedy they’ve ever created, as every issue Larry faces leaves him more and more lost and puzzled. From the beginning, they look to disorientate with a cold opening set in an Eastern European shtetl that seemingly has no connection to the rest of the film. Was he a dybbuk? Is he dead? We’re left questioning everything. Which just pulls us deeper and deeper in. In the end, it’s probably all connected to Schrodinger’s Cat. I’m damned if I know why, though. And that last shot really is everything.

1. No Country For Old Men

Three years after the disappointing double whammy of Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers, people had begun to dismiss the Coen Brothers. So they went back to the well. In the same way that The Hudsucker Proxy was followed by Fargo, the Coen Brothers’ antidote to The Ladykillers was No Country For Old Men. No Country For Old Men is the Coen Brothers best film because it includes everything you’d hope for in a thriller from the pair. But it’s just done better. It's their equivalent to Revolver. Everything that came before is great, as is everything after, but No Country is seismic while referencing their past work and teasing the future. The shootout and chasing sequences are more thrilling than Fargo, the deaths are more brutal than Blood Simple, the western landscape is more luscious and compelling than True Grit, while its ending is more thought-provoking and impactful than either Inside Llewyn Davis or A Serious Man.

In the same way that Raising Arizona is relentlessly zany, No Country For Old Men is relentlessly tense and only gets tenser. It starts off with Anton Chigurh – Javier Bardem in one of the finest performances in cinematic history - murdering a police officer with his handcuffs, before we then get to see his unique use of a captive bolt pistol to dispatch with the driver of a car he desires. And then it just builds and builds. But not predictably (while it also doesn’t try to surprisingly sideswipe viewers with its narrative deviations) instead it all feels organic. It also feels as though you’re watching the end of civilisation. While it undoubtedly feels as though you're in the presence of one of the greatest films of the last 35 years.

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It has been proven multiple times that George Clooney is a great fit for material produced by genius filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen. Their relationship began with the wonderful O Brother, Where Art Thou? in 2000, was followed by the vastly underrated Intolerable Cruelty in 2003, and then came the hilarious Burn After Reading in 2008. The three men recently completed their most recently collaboration, the upcoming Hollywood-set comedy Hail, Caesar!, but it looks like they're already planning yet another project - this time with Clooney helming one of the brothers' scripts.

Clooney has spent more than a decade trying to make the film Suburbicon - the initial plan being for the Coens to direct from their own script - but now Deadline is reporting that Clooney is back in talks to take the wheel of the project himself. At this time, not much is known about the film's plot - or its very strange title - but the trade report describes it as a noir drama that's tonally similar to the Coen brothers' breakout feature, Blood Simple. It's said to be a "small crime drama" and will be a period piece set in the 1950s.

While that description paints the project as being a dark film, movie-goers probably shouldn't go in thinking that it will be completely devoid of laughs. When George Clooney was originally attached to make Suburbicon back in 2005, he told Empire Magazine,

Instead of making Suburbicon, Joel and Ethan Coen decided to make an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's No Country For Old Men - which would up being a pretty brilliant choice considering it went on to be a huge hit and win the Academy Award for Best Picture. It was a year after the release of that film that the Coens reteamed with Clooney for Burn After Reading, and Suburbicon wound up being put back on the shelf.

Had plans gone through for Clooney to take the helm of Suburbicon back in 2005, it would have been set up to be the follow-up to his breakthrough hit as a director, Good Night, And Good Luck. Instead, he decided to make the forgettable football comedy Leatherheads, and since then has directed the political thriller The Ides of March and the World War II-set dramedy The Monuments Men. If all goes according to plan, Suburbicon will be his sixth feature effort.

In addition to George Clooney and Joel and Ethan Coen, the new feature also has the power of producer Joel Silver behind it, so that should potentially help grease the wheels in getting the film through production. Obviously things are still in the early stages now, so there's no release date announced, but hopefully we'll get to hear more about Suburbicon soon.

Upon viewing the trailer for Hail, Caesar! last week, the world instantly shone a little brighter, safe in the knowledge that a new Coen Brothers film is on the horizon. Throughout their 16 films, which includes Raising Arizona, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, No Country For Old Men, and Inside Llewyn Davis, the brothers have provided genre-bending films that mix comedy, crime, thriller, drama, and noir in an irreverent but poetic style. 

But, film audiences are greedy, and 16 Coen Brothers films just aren’t enough. That’s why, even with a 17th just around the corner, movie aficionados are gagging to know what’s after Hail, Ceaser!  Rather than looking to the future, though, how about gazing into the past, and considering the projects that the brothers almost made. Well, here at Cinema Blend, we’ve done just that. So here are six Coen Brothers films that we still hope and pray will make it to cinemas, even though we know that they’re almost certainly not going to. 

To The White Sea

Probably the most famous Coen Brothers film to almost make it to production, the pair were believed to have been working on an adaptation of James Dickey's book for several years. They even got Brad Pitt to sign on as the American pilot who is stranded in China and unable to communicate. Coen Brothers fans were particularly excited because of its lack of dialogue. However, its $80 million budget soon scared studios off, and it has been shelved indefinitely with no return date in sight. 

62 Skidoo

The Coen Brothers have painted a rich portrait of American history in many of their films. From the late 1800s with True Grit up to folk music scene in Greenwich Village, New York in the 1960s with Inside Llewyn Davis, with stopovers in the Prohibition and depression eras with Miller’s Crossing and O Brother Where Art Thou?, respectively. They never truly tackled the Cold War era, though, but Joel Coen admitted to IGN back in 2001, "We have a [Cold War comedy] called 62 Skiddo that I’d love to do someday." And since the brothers are die-hard Stanley Kubrick fans, all that makes me think is that this would have been their Dr. Strangelove. 

Musical Comedy Set In The World Of Opera

While the Coen Brothers have always used music to accentuate their films, most notably in O Brother Where Art Thou? and Inside Llewyn Davis, the pair are yet to do a full-blown musical. The closest we’ve come is the homage to Busby Berkley in The Big Lebowski, but while promoting Davis back in 2013, both Brothers teased that they were working on a script with something that Joel insisted consisted of "more traditional music numbers." However, Ethan made sure to add, "It’s a musical comedy." Other than that, all that was revealed was that it was set in the world of opera. I’m already sold.

The Contemplations

The least likely of the six to be made, which really means nothing because none of them will probably ever be produced, Joel and Ethan Coen first teased that they were working on The Contemplations all the way back in 1998. In what sounds as though it would have been their most daring piece to date, the Brothers were collecting short stories to make up a feature film. Ethan explained to The Hollywood Interview, "Over the years we've written a bunch of shorts to be used in an anthology, The Contemplations. It starts with a guy going through this dusty old library and he finds this old leather-bound book called The Contemplations. Each contemplation is then a chapter of the movie." 

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union

A detective story set in an alternative history that supposes Jewish refugees set up a settlement in Sitka, Alaska during the Second World War, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union revolves around alcoholic detective Meyer Landsman, who investigates the murder of Mendel Spilman. Dark, peculiar, but packed with comic relief and Yiddish humor, it was perfect fodder for the Coens. Which is why, according to the Guardian, Scott Rudin bought the book in 2007 and got the Brothers to work on an adaptation in 2008. However, after just one draft, the pair seemingly moved on, and writer Michael Chabon admitted that the rights have now returned back to him. 

Old Fink

Over the years there have been various rumors that the Coen Brothers were working on a Big Lebowski spin-off that focused on John Turturro’s character, Jesus Quintana. This speculation was mostly started by Turturro himself, who insists that he’d love to reprise the odd bowling die hard with a sketchy past. What’s more likely is the Barton Fink sequel, which the actor has admitted the directors have actually talked about doing. Tuturro told Playlist that they’re just waiting for him to get a little bit older. In fact, the Coens admitted to Slash FIlm that they’ve already planned out when and where the sequel will take place, insisting that it will see Barton Fink teaching at Berkeley in 1967, and that he’d "ratted on a lot of his friends to the House Un-American Activities committee."

When American spy Francis Gary Powers was captured and imprisoned in Russia back during the Cold War, the United States sprang into action to try and find a way to get him home – but the seized CIA agent didn’t actually know that. Stuck in a Russian prison and regularly interrogated, he had no contact with the outside world, and therefore had no idea what steps – if any - were being taken to have him released. This was an element that actor Austin Stowell took very seriously when portraying Powers in the Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies, and actually went as far as to ignore most parts of the film’s script in order to try and achieve a more authentic performance.

I had the great chance to sit down one-on-one with Stowell yesterday in Los Angeles, and it was during our conversation that I asked him about his personal approach towards reading the Bridge of Spies screenplay (written by the Coen brothers and Matt Charman). The film very much plays up the distance between Powers’ story and the efforts being made to free him (led by Tom Hanks’ character, James Donovan), and as a result I was curious how much attention Stowell paid towards the scenes in which he wasn’t featured. It turns out that he really made efforts to avoid them, explaining,

It’s an understandable and logical approach for the actor, and it also resulted in an interesting side effect. Because Stowell didn’t pay much attention to the parts of the script that center on James Donovan and his diplomatic struggles, he had a unique perspective when it came to actually getting to watch the finished film on the big screen. Discussing the experience of his first chance to see Bridge of Spies, Stowell said,

On some level, you actually have to give Austin Stowell a lot of credit for his ability to resist temptation. As a film fan, he surely must have had a hard time abstaining from reading both the newest Steven Spielberg project and the latest script from Joel and Ethan Coen. But it surely only made his performance that much better.

Bridge of Spies will be in theaters on October 16th.

Rejoice, rejoice! Joel and Ethan Coen are back at it with Hail, Caesar!, a behind-the-scenes spoof of Old Hollywood (with more than a few jabs reserved for the contemporary film industry, I don’t doubt). The star-studded affair just dropped its first look, and it’s loaded with all the quirks and eccentricities fans have come to expect from the sibling filmmakers. Drink in this glorious trailer, and make your day that much better:

Seriously, are there any major Hollywood stars who aren’t in this movie? Josh Brolin appears to be the star, playing studio "fixer" Eddie Mannix who is employed to keep major movie stars in line. When the lead in a Caesar picture (played with textbook Coen cluelessness by the delightful George Clooney) get kidnapped by a mysterious group known as The Future, everyone on the studio lot snaps into gear to make sure the wheels of the production don’t come off.

Judging by the looks of this uproariously funny trailer, Hail, Caesar! marks a return to the calculatedly slapstick form that is on display in movies like Barton Fink, The Big Lebowski, and the multiple Clooney collaborations of O, Brother, Intolerable Cruelty and Burn After Reading. They aren’t the brothers’ most popular films, but I absolutely adore how George Clooney plugs into their particular sense of humor. His reaction at the end of this trailer made me howl.

The physical comedy and the timing found throughout this Hail, Caesar! trailer is a marvel, and could be used to teach up-and-comers about how to space a joke on screen. Judging by Twitter’s reaction, Channing Tatum stole the show in this short tease:

Or this one:

But really, everyone looks to be having a ball, and the Coens are back to poking fun at their beloved industry after the somber, fine-tuned precision of Inside Llewyn Davis. Now, the bad news. Hail, Caesar! won’t be in theaters until February 5, 2016. That’s an eternity. If you need us, we’ll be over here, watching the trailer again and again.

Joel and Ethan Coen are best known for their original films, but they have quite a fantastic record with adapted works as well. Past titles include the amazing No Country For Old Men and the spellbinding True Grit - and now it appears as though the writer/directors are planning to expand this area of their resume with a live-action take on author Ross MacDonald's Black Money.

According to Deadline, Warner Bros. has optioned the rights to the 1960s crime novel, and while the Coens are currently only attached to write the script, they are viewing it as a potential directing vehicle as well. The film is going to be shepherded by famed producer Joel Silver - who knows a few things about making crime/detective movies, having previously been partially responsible for films like Lethal Weapon and The Last Boy Scout.

First released in 1966, Black Money was one of Ross MacDonald's most famous novels about private detective Lew Archer. The story begins as Archer is hired by a man to find a "suave Frenchman" who has run off with his girlfriend - but as always happens in these kinds of cases, everything from that point gets much more complicated. Before long the P.I. finds himself deep in a case involving a seven-year-old mysterious suicide, major gambling debts and sketchy casino dealings (the title refers to the money that casino owners take from their profits to avoid larger taxes). This will not be the first time that Lew Archer has made his way to the big screen, as Paul Newman played the character (albeit with an altered name) in Jack Smight's Harper (an adaptation of the book The Moving Target), and Stuart Rosenberg's The Drowning Pool.

I would personally love to see Joel and Ethan Coen take on this adaptation, if not only because the fit between the material and their style could be absolutely perfect. The brothers have shown a deep, deep appreciation of pulp detective stories in the past (one really needs to look no further than The Big Lebowski), and it would be amazing to see them fully take on a classic Lew Archer story.

We're now been without a Coen brothers-directed film for almost two years now, and while the wait has certainly been painful, we're finally going to be some relief early next year. The filmmakers have wrapped production on Hail, Caesar! - their comedy about a 1950s "fixer" in Hollywood - and Universal Pictures has plans to bring the star-studded feature to theaters on February 5, 2016. Once that project is done with post-production and ready to be released in theaters, hopefully they'll start to focus on Black Money as their eighteenth feature film. For now, I'll just keep my fingers crossed, and pray that I'll be able to deliver positive news about this project at some point.

If there's anyone that can be considered an equal to Steven Spielberg, particularly in the realm of projects falling by the wayside, it would most definitely have to be The Coen Brothers. Joel and Ethan Coen have their names on a lot of projects that just didn't make it, and are either never going to happen or are quietly waiting their turn to finally be brought into the light. Even their latest project, Hail Caesar , technically counts as a project they had on the books for a while, before finally making it into a reality. If both of these parties should meet, the resulting project would either be a quick and painless affair or a film that will never see the light of day. Here's hoping for Tom Hanks that his Cold War thriller with Spielberg, which has just hired The Coens for some rewrites, is one of those quick and painless deals.

The news comes from Variety, which reports that The Coen Brothers are continuing their recent pattern of stories based off of/inspired by actual events by signing on to rewrite original scribe Matt Charman's script. The as-of-yet-untitled film has Hanks (who worked with the Coens on The Ladykillers) cast as James Donovan, a lawyer who is drafted by the CIA to negotiate the release of an American U2 pilot who was shot down behind enemy lines.

With his obligation to the adaptation of The BFG coming due next year, it has been speculated that Steven Spielberg might be prepping this film for a quick turnaround before moving onto that children's film. After all, the effects that will be required for the Roald Dahl classic will undoubtedly take a lot more time and effort, and no word of a script or a cast is in play at this moment. As for the Coen Brothers, they have Hail Caesar in their production queue and George Clooney ready to take the lead. While that project won't take as much effort or lead time as The BFG would, it would still be mutually beneficial for this film to be up and running as soon as possible. Knowing the history of the brothers Coen, any sort of delay may trigger this project's return to the "To Do" pile.

Having a team like Steven Spielberg and The Coen Brothers working together is something that sounds like The Avengers of film-making. In fact, when you really think about it, Spielberg already has a film that meshes his emotional sensibilities with a healthy mix of the Coen Brothers' wit and tomfoolery. Remember this scene from Catch Me If You Can?

That right there is a good foundation for what a Coen Brothers/Steven Spielberg drama could look like. Much like Catch Me If You Can, this promises to be a project with a lot of solemn gravity behind it. Of course, that doesn't mean that there won't be time or opportunity for a couple of really well placed jokes, seeing as Joel and Ethan Coen know a thing or two about mining dark/bleak subject matter for a little bit of gallows humor. With Spielberg and The Coens behind the wheel, it looks like Tom Hanks might have to start thinking about what he'll wear to the Oscars.

If you're a movie lover (or like-er), there's a chance a new film from the Coen brothers is an event. The duo have been responsible for some of the greatest films of this recent era. And their last, Inside Llewyn Davis, only solidified the Coens' considerable skill and reputation. Now they're going back to broad comedy, re-teaming with George Clooney for Hail Caesar.

Deadline reports that Hail Caesar is the next film for the prolific duo, with George Clooney attached to star. The script focuses on Eddie Mannix, a mover-and-shaker in the 1950's tasked with protecting the seedier and more questionable aspects of the lives of certain movie stars. This was a regular occurrence in the movie world in the 1950's, where some of the bigger stars of the era had plenty of dirty laundry that had to be taken out. You do see some of this in L.A. Confidential, where the handlers of movie star Matt Reynolds (a young Simon Baker) start to clean up after his death to keep hints of his homosexuality away from reporters like Danny DeVito's Sid Hudgens, who promised fans Hollywood gossip, "off the record, on the q.t. and very hush-hush." Geez, that was a great movie. Hopefully you've seen it!

This would be Clooney's fourth collaboration with the Coens. Their first, and most beloved, was O Brother, Where Art Thou?, an unlikely hit that found Clooney as escaped ex-con Ulysses Everett McGill, who accidentally becomes a folk musician star in his journey to see his estranged wife and kids. Later, he showed up doing classy screwball comedy in Intolerable Cruelty as the debonair but dimwitted Miles Massey, genius divorce attorney. And when they reunited a third time, Clooney was dopey former U.S. Marshal Harry Pfarrer, wrapped up in a ridiculous clandestine operation to leak government secrets. Maybe the twist of Hail Caesar is that Clooney gets to play a smart guy?

No word on whether this will be a lighter Coen comedy, or a nasty, R-rated drama with comedic undertones, though the report claims it is "comical." With the Coen brothers, that could mean the cartoon world of The Big Lebowski or it could be the fatalistic place that swallows up Gabriel Byrne in Miller's Crossing. Maybe it's a musical?

Regardless, Clooney's a busy guy, with next summer's tentpole Tomorrowland promising to be his biggest hit. He's also considering Money Monster as one of his upcoming movies, while producing and maybe directing films like the remake of the Norwegian thriller Pioneer.

Last fall, FX was reportedly adapting the iconic Coen brothers film, Fargo, for the small screen. This came up way back in September of last year and as other network and cable projects made it to pilot and we failed to hear from the Fargo project, it seemed like more of a rumor than an actually possibility. As it turns out, the drama was just slow out of the gate, and today the network finally announced it has a star attached in none other than Billy Bob Thornton.

Although Thornton did take some TV roles early on in his career, he’s mostly been known for feature films like Sling Blade and Bad Santa (he also directed All the Pretty Horses, but was apparently smart enough to avoid acting in that flop). In the Fargo adaptation, he’ll play Lorne Malvo, a man who has no qualms manipulating others, which is sort of similar to bad guy Carl Showalter in the 1996 film. In the limited series, Malvo will find a small-town insurance salesman and put him on a path toward destruction.

When we first heard about the Fargo television remake, we didn’t know much about the project, beyond the fact that it would be “loosely” based on the Coen brothers’ popular movie. At the time, word on the street was that the Coen brothers would actually sign on to executive produce the drama. Today, it was confirmed the two brothers will executive produce alongside Warren Littefield and Geyer Kosinski. Noah Hawley is penning the script and Bored to Death and Californication director Adam Bernstein has signed on to do the camera work for the premiere.

FX has signed on for a ten-episode limited run for the series, which means Fargo is really, truly happening--not just getting a pilot. However, if you were looking for just a rehash of the film, that doesn’t seem to be what audiences will be getting. Instead, Fargo will be a loose adaptation of the series, and will set-up a brand new “true crime” story with a new case and characters in a setting similar to the film. The series is expected to hit FX’s schedule in the spring of 2014.

With some of FX’s programming headed to FXX when that channel launches this September, it stands to reason that the network would need to beef up its programming lineup somewhat. This summer, The Bridge has done strongly for the network, but FX has plenty of other projects in the pipeline, including The Strain and a live-action comedy from Russell Brand.

Assumedly, the limited series aspect of this project helped FX to say “yes” first, and we’ll keep you posted as more details emerge. Until then, if you need a Fargo refresher, you can check out the original trailer for the film.

How much more do I need to say beyond “It’s the new Coen Brothers movie” to get you interested in Inside Llewyn Davis? The above trailer, posted on Apple, should hook you … if the original (and equally spectacular) red-band teaser didn’t already whet your whistle. Here it is again, just to refresh your memory.

Honestly, if the rhythms of the dialogue, the pacing of the scenery, and the heartbreaking use of Bob Dylan in the red-band clip don’t get your pulse racing for Inside Llewyn Davis, then this movie isn’t for you. And I'm not sure we can be friends.

The new trailer strums different folk music, but bathes in the same period lighting that gives the new film a nostalgic texture. The use of the folk songs instantly reminds me of the siblings’ brilliant, brilliant O Brother, Where Art Thou? -- a movie that several critics in Cannes compared Inside Llewyn Davis to when the movie screened there earlier this year.

The biggest difference between this new preview and the red-band is that it gives Oscar Isaac more time to shine … an odd compliment given the fact that he’s the star and titular character of the filmmakers’ latest piece. Early clips allowed Isaac's co-stars – primarily John Goodman and Carey Mulligan – the chance to fill in the actor’s silences. In addition to beefing up the music, this new trailer gives us a better idea of the artistic purity Llewyn Davis brings to his craft (songwriting), and paints him as a more complete version of the classic Coen protagonist – a Job-like creature who is crumbling under the weight of his own insecurities, fears and hard-to-reach desires.

The most terrifying aspect of this new tease is the sentence pasted on the bottom of Apple’s page: “In theaters December 6th, 2013.” That’s an eternity to wait for a movie that I already know is going to knock me flat on my ass. Look at Goodman and Mulligan’s disgusted reactions to every little move Isaacs makes! That’s the subtle artistry of the Coens, and even though they are coming off their biggest hit (by far) in True Grit, I don’t see them trading in the storytelling qualities that have made them a valued commodity over the past 30 years. Get here soon, Inside Llewyn Davis, because I’m confident that I’m going to love what you are about to deliver.

Technically this is a red-band trailer, but it's pretty safe for work by our count. It does acknowledge sex, and the word "dick" is used. So discretion is half-heartedly advised.

Few filmmakers have captured America, for better or worse, in comedy or drama, as lusciously and captivatingly as The Coen Bros. Joel and Ethan Cohen have explored the American experience with fables (A Serious Man), with whimsy (O Brother, Where Art Thou?), with sadness (No Country For Old Men), with frank admiration (True Grit), and with stoner humor (The Big Lebowski). And for their next act they'll be delving into the game-changing folk music scene of the 1960s with a star-studded drama called Inside Llewyn Davis.

Set in New York City, the film centers on the titular folk singer/songwriter played by Oscar Isaac, who not long ago nabbed memorable roles in two polarizing features, Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive and Zack Snyder's Sucker Punch. Beyond scoring the lead in this Coen Bros drama, Isaac had here the opportunity to work with admired performers like Carey Mulligan, Justin Timberlake, John Goodman, Adam Driver, F. Murray Abraham, as well as Garret Hedlund. Yet little has been leaked about this venture shot on location in New York in the tail end of 2012's winter season.

The trailer above gives us some insight into Inside Llewyn Davis, and some justification for our intense anticipation. Along with a bittersweet tone of a musician struggling to make sense of himself, his work, and life in general, we get a peak of Isaac, Mulligan, Timberlake and Goodman in action. And that cut to the title has us all the more eager to see (and hear) what Inside Llewyn Davis has in store.

Inside Llewyn Davis makes its world premiere on May 16th at the Cannes Film Festival. It will open theatrically in the US in the thick of awards season on December 6th.

Film editors are mysterious figures in Hollywood. This is in part because so few people really understand what an editor does, and partly because so few directors like to recognize how crucial a great editor is to their final cut. (Quentin Tarantino and Martin Scorsese are notable exceptions.) So, it's not surprising if you haven't heard of two-time Oscar-nominated editor Roderick Jaynes, who is credited with cutting every film Joel and Ethan Coen have made. These fraternal filmmakers have described him as a cantankerous British chap whose in his late 80s or early 90s. But in all their years working with him, Jaynes has only ever spoken out about their collaboration once. Of course, that's pretty impressive considering Jaynes doesn't exist.

A creation of the Coens, Jaynes is little more than a pseudonym the brothers share when cutting their movies together. Though he's not up for any honors this year, with the Academy Awards around the corner, it seemed a good time to look back to the closest thing to an interview "Jaynes" ever granted. It's from The Guardian circa 2001 (via Movies.com) and in it, he reveals how he and the Coens came up with the title for The Man Who Wasn't There.

Jaynes began by confessing that living in Haywards Heath, he had no motivation to keep up with pop culture. So when it came time to pick a title for the neo-noir he'd been cutting, he was mystified by the Coen's suggestions. He derides their picks, from "Pansies Don't Float," "Missing, Presumed Ed," "The Nirdlinger Doings," and "Ed Crane, You So Crazy!" Yet Jaynes didn't hate "I Love You, Birdie Abundas!"

But as the brothers bandied about titles, Jaynes tells us, he focused on the cut, lamenting, "The chore was familiar to me, this being my seventh picture with these film-makers, and prompted me to wonder whether a deft and resourceful film editor mightn't sometimes be less the director's friend than his enabler, licensing the sloppiness and ineptitude of he who might otherwise reform. This is a theme upon which, sadly, I could at this point write a book."

However, he was inspired to come up with a title of his own once these bumbling brothers he calls "cretins" offered him a paid holiday weekend in Blackpool should they choose his suggestion. Here's how that went:

The whole scathing "recounting" is worth a read. But in the end the fictional man explains, "my musings on their personal vacuity bore me to what I thought was not a bad title for their film: "The Man Who Wasn't There," and a movie was born." And of course, Jaynes got his holiday.

Though the Coen Brothers are coming off a surprising financial success with True Grit, they decided to go the indie route with their follow-up film Inside Llewyn Davis. Not only that, but they also bypassed the festival circuit, instead screening the film last week for a group of Hollywood insiders-- and earning the kind of bidding war they would get at Sundance without ever having to strap on a pair of snowboots.

Now Deadline reports that the film has a buyer. CBS Films, the upstart film distribution unit of the TV network, has picked up the rights for close to $4 million. The film stars Oscar Isaac as a folk singer in the mold of Bob Dylan, making his way through the Greenwich Village folk music scene in 1960s New York. A trailer for the film dropped a few weeks ago, and it says everything about the greatness of the Coen Brothers and the potential of this new project that i can't. Take a look:

No word on when they're planning a release, but a fall Oscar-season date seems pretty obvious. In addition to Isaac, an up-and-coming star who's been in everything from Robin Hood to The Bourne Legacy , the cast the people you see in the trailer like his Drive co-star Carey Mulligan, John Goodman, Garrett Hedlund and F. Murray Abraham, plus Justin Timberlake and Girls boys Alex Karpovsky and Adam Driver. Now that we know it's actually got a distributor and is likely to see release this year, it's right at the top of our list for most anticipated 2013 movies.

The Coen brothers have always had a knack for finding the perfect lead actors for their films. From Jeff Bridges in both The Big Lebowski and True Grit to Francis MacDormand in Fargo to John Tuturro in Barton Fink, their selections may sometimes seem weird, but they are always dead on. Even The Ladykillers, which is considered by most to be the duo's weakest film, is strong up front with Tom Hanks as the southern gentleman prone to criminal acts. The point that I'm driving at is that we should expect impressive things from Oscar Isaac in the near future.

Deadline has learned that the Coens have hired Isaac to play the lead role in the upcoming Inside Llewyn Davis. The film is about the folk music scene that exploded in New York during the 1960s. The script is loosely based on the life and times of Dave Van Ronk, who witnessed the rise of incredible talents like Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and Phil Ochs. Isaac has had quite the busy year in 2011, having played roles in both Zack Snyder's Sucker Punch and Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive. Later this year the actor will be seen in Madonna's W.E. and alongside Channing Tatum in Jamie Linden's Ten Year.

While I didn't enjoy the movie that much, I can attest to Isaac's musical skills as he has a duet with Carla Gugino on the Sucker Punch soundtrack. As I mentioned before, we should know better than to question the Coens, but I'm not sure why anyone would in this case. Isaac is a bona fide upcoming talent and it will be great to see what the Coens can do with him.

Facebook games being turned into movies sadly isn't something new. Back in June of last year it was reported that Zynga's Mafia Wars was being looked at to be adapted, but fortunately we haven't heard anything else about it since. Sadly Zynga apparently really has a hankering to get into the movie business, however, because it looks as though another one of its games is looking to get the big screen treatment.

IGN recently spoke with Alec Sokolow and Joel Cohen, best known as two of the four writers on the original Toy Story, and the pair coyly revealed that they may be working on a movie version of Farmville. When asked about what projects they are currently working on, the pair revealed that they are "orking on several new and very exciting opportunities" and have been in contact with Zynga about a project. Not wanting to give too much away, they said, "Can't really say too much on that front yet, but 'Old MacDonald' didn't have a factory, if you get our drift." The site contacted Zynga for more information, but they responded with no comment.

What's interesting about this is that Farmville isn't nearly as popular as it used to be. While it used to be one of the most popular games in the world and ranked above all others on Facebook, as of last month it sat at number three behind both CityVille and The Sims Social. Considering how weak it is to make a video game adaptation about a farmer minding his crops, hopefully the game will become unpopular enough that the film project will go in the trash.

Kiefer Sutherland recently did an interview, in which he said, “Some of the best work I am seeing right now is on television. TV is where it’s going.” It would appear that the Coen Brothers would agree with that statement. Or, at the very least, TV is where they’re going as the duo is set to executive produce a TV comedy.

According to Deadline brothers Ethan and Joel Coen, who penned Fargo, No Country For Old Men and Burn After Reading, are set to pen a comedy series for Fox, along with writer Phil Johnston. Word is, the network has given the project a script commitment with a significant penalty.

Johnston will write the pilot, titled HarveKarbo. It centers on “an ill-tempered LA private investigator whose cases frequently involve the depraved doings of the Hollywood elite, and his deadbeat friends in Los Angeles’ El Segundo.” That alone sounds interesting, but what’s also interesting is that it’s set to be an hour-long comedy. I’m wondering if it’ll be more of a dramedy, or if the Coen Brothers are set to prove comedies can be longer than thirty minutes and still work.

Having just rewatched Fargo the other day, this news certainly puts a smile on my face. There’s nothing quite like the Coen Brothers. It’ll be interesting to hear more updates on this project, including who will star in the pilot. If Steve Buscemi weren't already taken, I'd throw his name out there! "I'm not gonna debate you, Jerry. I'm not gonna sit here and debate!"

Someone needs to rescue John Turturro from Michael Bay’s clutches. The once-respected character actor best known for collaborating with the likes of Spike Lee and the Coen Brothers apparently has spent so much time on Bay’s inane Transformers franchise that he’s now convinced everything needs a sequel or a spin-off. And he’d like by branching off and further exploring Jesus Quintana, his beloved, ball-licking bowler from The Big Lebowski.

Granted, Turturro’s intentions are more noble than just cashing in on the enormous cult following enjoyed by Lebowski. As he tells The AV Club, he’d mostly like to do a follow up to the Joel and Ethan’s 1998 comedy so that fans will stop asking him questions about it.

“Because people are obsessed with the movie and obsessed with that guy,” Turturro explains. “It’s really bizarre, because the movie didn’t even do that well when it came out here. Once again, it’s a movie that’s gotten better or something.”

But Turturro isn’t working off the cuff. Apparently he has come up with an outline for a spin-off that he’d really like to get to the Coens in hopes of receiving their approval. Turturro admits that the brothers have no interest in expanding on Lebowski -- sequels never have been their thing – he did say that if they approved his idea, there’s a “very good chance” a Jesus Quintana movie could happen.

It goes without saying that this sounds like a terrible idea. Jesus worked in very small doses. Did anyone want to follow him home from the bowling alley to see what kind of perverse lifestyle he led when not tormenting The Dude? No. In fact, I’m way more interested in the Barton Fink sequel Turturoo teases later in the article, though honestly, I’d actually prefer the Coens to just leave their past films alone and not sully them with remakes, reboots or sequels. And I’m pretty sure they feel the same way.

If there's only one reason why the 2011 movie year ends up being worse than the 2010 movie year, it's because there is no Coen brothers movie coming out in the next six months. Since 2007, the directing duo has released one feature film per year, and those projects have earned a total of 20 Oscar nominations and four wins, including Best Picture for No Country For Old Men. The last time the brothers took some time off it was after The Ladykillers in 2004, and they were absent from the film scene for three years. Hopefully this break won't end up being as long, particularly because it seems as though they've found the subject of their next movie.

The LA Times has learned from an unidentified source that the Coens are now planning a project loosely based on the work of Dave Van Ronk, the New York-based singer who was a figurehead in the coffeehouse folk culture of the 1960s. In addition to music, Van Ronk was also a political activist and under his movement artists like Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, and Joni Mitchell were discovered. After the artist died in 2002 at the age of 66, a memoir was released titled "The Mayor of MacDougal Street" and the paper says that the Coens will be "drawing in part from material in the book." Giving credence to the story, it was previously reported by The Playlist that the Coens would be working on a "music-based film," and it would seem that this fits the bill. Speaking on a stage with director Noah Baumbach at the opening of the Film Society of Lincoln Center, Joel Coen said the songs heard in the movie will be performed live with single instruments.

The last time that the Coen brothers made a music-heavy film the result was O Brother Where Art Thou?, and I don't think I need to explain why it would be amazing to see the directing duo dive back into that territory. Now all they need to do is reunite with John Goodman and Steve Buscemi and it could end up being their best project yet.

CBS Films has made five films since January 2010, and despite trying to reach all corners of the market they have yet to have a real solid opening. From Extraordinary Measures to Beastly none of their films have opened at number one on their respective weekend and while the latter film is still in theaters, none have been able to make more than $40 million domestically (The Back-Up Plan is their most successful film with a $37 million domestic take). Their newest acquisition, however, has something that none of their other films have brought to the table: Oscar Power.

Deadline is reporting that CBS Films has won the U.S. distribution rights for Gambit, the con-artist film written by Academy Award winners Joel and Ethan Coen and starring recent Oscar winner Colin Firth. Directed by Michael Hoffman, Firth will play an art curator who teams up with a "Texas steer roper" - played by Cameron Diaz - to bamboozle the richest man in England. The film is a remake of the 1966 Michael Caine-Shirley MacLaine film of the same name.

This movie should be a perfect litmus test for the young distributor. Considering the incredible amount of talent on display here, it should be easy to open this movie at number one, provided that they get the release date right. Let's hope they can do it.

It’s impossible to be surprised anymore when Joel and Ethan Coen put out an incredible film. Writing and directing roughly one project per year, the pair is never tied down to genre or type, instead always making the films that they want to make – and they do it brilliantly. This year’s project was an adaptation of the Charles Portis novel True Grit, and, predictably, they knocked it out of the park.

Earlier this month I was lucky enough to attend a press conference with the cast and filmmakers behind the movie, including the Coen brothers, Jeff Bridges, Hailee Steinfeld, Josh Brolin, Barry Pepper and cinematographer Roger Deakins. Answering questions for all of the hungry reporters, they discussed what its like cutting contractions in the dialect; why Henry Hathaway shot the 1969 version of the story during the daytime; and why Jeff Bridges wears his eye patch on the right eye instead of the left. Check out the press conference with the creators of True Grit below.

Hailee, this is your first big movie, so what was some of the advice that you got from your co-stars during production that you took to heart?

Hailee Steinfeld: I think the best advice that the actors have given me is to not take anything too seriously, but to have fun and… well, take it somewhat seriously [laughs]. But to just have fun with it.

Jeff, Joel and Ethan, you have an iconic character in this movie, but why was the eye patch moved from the left eye to the right eye?

Jeff Bridges: Because I’m a commie [laughs]. No, we put on the right eye, it felt good. We put it on the left eye, not so good. The right eye, “This feels right, what do you think, guys?” And we went back and forth like that.

Joel Coen: I remember going back and forth but I didn’t know at the end of the day that we ended up switching. Someone pointed that out to me recently. Did you know that?

Jeff Bridges: No.

Ethan Coen: We did talk occasionally about switching from eye to eye, scene to scene [laughs].

Jeff Bridges: And sometimes I would forget to put it down for the scene, so I’d be very pleased with the take, and say, “What did you think, guys?”

Ethan Coen: It was great except for the eye patch. There was an early idea discussed, but not for long, to have two eye patches [laughs].

Jeff, did you have any hesitation initially taking on a role that held so much weight?

Jeff Bridges: Well, I was curious why these guys wanted to make that movie again and I think it was Ethan who talked to me first, and he corrected me. He said, “We’re not making that movie, we’re making the book,” as if there weren’t any another movie made, kind of thing. Just referring to the book, and I wasn’t familiar with the book, and he said, “Go check that out, tell me what you think.” And I read the book and I saw what they were talking about, because it’s such a wonderful book and it suited them so well, I thought. And, God, what a great character! Most westerns have that strong, silent type, and here we have this boorish bah-bah bah [laughs]. And it was going to be a lot of fun, I thought.

To the Coens, you guys have done plenty of genre movies before, from the screwball comedy to film noir, what about the western specifically did you want to convey, or, for that matter, refute by making this film?

Ethan Coen: I don’t think we thought about it as a genre movie so much, or so much as you might think. It was an interest in the story, Charles Portis’ novel, it is a western inarguably – there are six-guns on horses – but it’s not a Zane Grey story. It’s not a western in that sense. Really we were thinking more about the novel than doing a western, per se.

Can you talk about the challenge of getting those iconic western landscapes filmed? Did you actually film in Arkansas?

Joel Coen: Where did we work? We worked in Colorado, we worked in Utah… Utah originally.

Jeff Bridges: Is there a tax break in Arkansas?

Joel Coen: New Mexico does have a lot of incentives to film there. There was another thing, actually, about Arkansas. The timing that we were filming, we knew that we wanted to have snow in the movie, but the trick was snow, but not too much snow. And we weren’t sure we were reliably going to get any snow that time of year in Arkansas. That actually was a consideration. I don’t think it was the main consideration, but it was one of them. And it was certainly the reason why we moved the show from…

Roger Deakins: Utah and Colorado we were going to get too much snow or we were going to get ten feet of mud at that time of the year. There were a lot of reasons we settled on Santa Fe.

And the importance of capturing those western landscapes for the story?

Ethan Coen: You know, that’s one thing that’s not faithful to the novel. The landscape is a total cheat. But we kind of thought people will think it’s a western and somethings you just can’t mess with. People want that.

Joel Coen: It does go to the whole pictorial idea of the movie where it would have been much different in a place like…

Roger Deakins: It’s really a film about characters, I’m not sure it’s a landscape western in the traditional sense.

Joel Coen: That’s true. It’s about the characters. The honest answer is that it becomes this mish-mash of different considerations that go into where you’re shooting and how you want to treat the landscape. They’re a little hard to sort out after the fact, but everywhere from the practical to just “What does the movie actually want to be about.”

Roger, in working with the Coens for each of their films since Barton Fink you’ve almost become the third Coen brother. What is it about these guys that keeps drawing you back to work with them?

Roger Deakins: They ask me [laughs].

Jeff, at what point did you find Rooster Cogburn?

Jeff Bridges: Each scene is an opportunity to show a different facet of the person you’re portraying. I began developing a character pretty much the same way every time. You’re looking at the script or if you’re lucky enough to have a book, you’re looking at that material and seeing what other characters say about your character, what you say about yourself, what the author says about you. That tells you quite a bit, and then one of the first things you do when you’re hired on to make a film is you work with a costume designer. In this case, it was Mary Zophres who was also the costume designer on The Big Lebowski. That’s one of the cool things about making movies, there’s a collaborative art form so you have all these other artists who are concerned about just specific areas that might be what the room your character lives in, what it looks like and what the clothes look like.

The first people you meet is the costumer because they have to make all those clothes. So Mary has these wonderful books that she brings out and so you look at here’s a hat like this, like this and your character starts to fall in place. You dress as you’re looking in the mirror. There comes a time when the character starts to tell you what it wants and you might prefer, “Oh, this scarf looks nice and the character [pretends to spit],” it won’t stick.

Probably the same thing happens when you’re making a movie too. Sometimes you want to do something, it’s not what the movie wants. There’s a wonderful time when that happens. I’m not sure there’s one particular time it happens. It’s kind of a slow process coming into focus.

Is it too much to say that this film is less a western that a dark comedy? Also, for the actors, can you talk about tackling the dialogue?

Joel Coen: Less a Western than a dark comedy? Well, there’s certainly a lot of comedy, there’s a lot of humor in the Charles Portis novel. It was one of the things that attracted us to the novel and the idea of adapting it. We wanted what was funny about the book, what was the humor of the book to come through in the movie. That was important.

Ethan Coen: And the dialogue too, the formality of it and the floweriness of it also is just from the book. Again, that might be a question for the actors. That was the first thing Jeff mentioned, noticed and liked, the kind of foreign sounding nature of the dialogue and lack of contractions. It wasn’t a problem for us. We just lifted it from the book. I don't know how the actors feel about it.

Barry Pepper: It was more like doing American Shakespeare. There’s almost like an iambic pentameter, a musicality and a rhythm to the dialogue. It’s so specific that you’re working very much with what’s on the page. There’s not endless rewrites throughout production. It’s such a specific script that it’s about trying to hit certain notes, maybe an irreverent falloff at the end of a line and just how you musically sort of… that’s where the brothers were so amazing. It’s such a gift to be able to give some sort of lateral idea to an actor like, “Oh, I didn’t hear the musicality of the line like that.”

The scene blossoms, completely changes and becomes darkly humorous or odd or quirky or wonderful, bizarre. But it’s a very structured piece I found, in that respect. Charles Portis has such a specific vernacular of the period. It’s so authentic in my mind because most people were probably pretty illiterate back then. They were maybe schooled on the King James Bible and that really infused the way they spoke. I think a lot of westerns missed that.

Jeff Bridges: I agree, he said it perfectly. It was a fun challenge to take on. Every once in a while we’d allow a contraction to slip, if it felt right musically.

Hailee Steinfeld: They spoke for me. When I first got the script that was the first thing I really had to work on was making sure that I understood what everything meant. And then I had to go back through and make sure I understood what everything meant to me emotionally and how I could relate to it in my own life. With the accent, just after getting on set and everyone talking and it kind of happened naturally.

Joel Coen: I have to say, one of the things when we first saw the first take of Hailee doing a scene from the movie, 99.9% of the hundreds or thousands of girls that read for this part didn’t have the facility to… they sort of washed out at the level of not being able to do the language. That was something which was never an issue with Hailee. Right from the beginning it was clear that she was completely comfortable with the language. The language isn’t, as everyone’s pointed out, our language. That was the threshold level at which you could sort of hope to do the part, but Hailee had it right from the get-go in a very, very natural way.

Ethan Coen: I’m sure Barry’s right. You feel even more strongly reading the novel, the frame of reference for her character who narrates the novel as told in first person by her character is King James Bible. It does seem clear that’s where the style derives from.

Josh, where do you have to go within yourself to find a violent simpleton?

Josh Brolin: No stretch. Well, it found me, didn’t it? [laughs] I wasn’t in the film, I don't know what you’re talking about. They just asked to use my name. When I came, I talked to Joel and Ethan about it in the beginning and they said something about he’s sort of a dim bulb and I thought, “No, he’s more like a broken bulb. No filament at all." I like the idea of doing this duality of a guy who he’s talked about throughout the whole movie so when you see him, you expect a monster. Especially when he turns around the first time, that shot with the horses. He’s got that look, whatever he’s doing, I’m not sure what the book is. Then he starts talking and it’s a different kind of guy. It’s like, “So what are you doing here? I don’t understand what you’re doing out here.”

I like that better because it’s different than what you… the mythology of what’s been created from the movie is ripped from you, whatever pigeonhole that you’ve created in your mind of what a sociopath is. And then you see it come back when he’s alone with her. You see that great low shot that they do of that transition that happens of, “I’m not taking this shit anymore” and now I realize I’m out in the middle of nowhere and now I have to manifest this rage again. You realize it’s true, a true sociopath.

It was fun. It was fun to be able to do that. Talking about the language before, we were doing rehearsals. I think a lot of things came together in rehearsals because I don't think anybody really knew how to do the language. Then you see Jeff come in and rarar [laughs]. Then you go, “Oh, I can say mine like that too.” Then Barry comes in and says rarararara [laughs]. Oh, so I can pull off the no contractions by doing that. And it’s true. You do, you do. Then you start to find this, because when I did the voice I thought, “Oh, this is going to stick out so horribly. It’s too much. I think I did too much.” And then I saw everybody else in the film. You don’t even notice it. Did that answer your question?

Jeff Bridges: Don’t forget the bear man!

Josh Brolin: Oh yeah, the bear man! The bear man was like, [really deep voice] “I think that…” [laughs]

Were there things about the original film you admired and wanted to pay homage to or carry through in some small way?

Ethan Coen: Not for us - not the negative either. We’d seen the movie, I think as Joel said, when it came out. But we were kids then. We hadn’t seen it since and only really vaguely remember it.

Roger, Ethan saying that this is not a western notwithstanding, there are western visual elements. How did you approach shooting that and using light sources like campfires and lanterns?

Roger Deakins: It just posed different stipulations for trying to create a realistic look, firelight, oil lamp, night light. The biggest challenge for me was still the big night exteriors, which was a nightmare because you’re out in the middle of nowhere. And really, in this film it’s supposed to be about to snow so therefore there shouldn’t be a moon, therefore there really should be a lot of black space, as you wouldn’t have seen anything. I tried to make it as realistic as possible because I felt that’s what the film was, but at certain times you have to stretch it. At certain times, like for Blackie’s journey then you stretch it into a more poetic kind of thing. For me, whether it was a western or whatever wasn’t important. It was the script and the sense of realism the script demanded, really.

Joel Coen: In one of those nighttime scenes I remember Roger kept coming up to me and Ethan and saying, “You know, in the original film they shot this during the day.”

Roger Deakins: They were lit by firelight and then it cuts to day time and the bad guys arriving. I know why they did that.

For the Coens, you have a great visual style. At what point do the visuals enter your process?

Joel Coen: It really depends. It really depends. There are some places where when you’re writing the script you are thinking a lot about what it’s going to look like. Other times you’re just writing and thinking Roger will figure it out [laughs]. It’s all over the map, honestly.

Josh and Hailee, the scene at the campfire was such an amazing scene. How did you prepare?

Hailee Steinfeld: Like 15 minutes after I met you for the first time we were rehearsing that and you were on top of me with a knife to my neck. It was kind of interesting.

Josh Brolin: I don't know how to answer that question, really. She’s so precocious and amazing and present and just kind of went with it. There was never any moment... I think it was more nerve-wracking for me than it was for her. She’s very comfortable in her own skin, you know? That scene was about her talking and being super confident and this little man-child hating the purity of her. Josh loves her purity. He loves it. I’m so taken by her in every which way. I just think she’s incredible, so it was much harder for me.

Everything she did was easy. The rest of us make it really hard, but it was great. I had a really good time. Other than the cursing, between me and Matt [Damon] and Barry, Barry doesn’t curse so much. How much did you earn? I think the F word was $5, the S word was...

Hailee Steinfeld: Every other word was a dollar.

Josh Brolin: She made about $100,000. An incredible experience though. We had a great time. Really, really great time. I can’t really tell you the process because it was a fairly easy process. In rehearsal it was different. We really searched a lot in rehearsal for character and all that, but she had already had it. She was the one person who had it down before the rest of us really started.

How was it being the only girl amongst all of these dudes and how did you learn to shoot a gun? Did you do your own stunts?

Hailee Steinfeld: I did most of them. There aren’t really any, besides the falling down the snake pit. That was the biggest stunt, right?

Ethan Coen: That was the biggest stunt per se, yeah. Hailee did all the riding except some of the riding in the river, but all of the other riding, yeah.

Hailee Steinfeld: So there wasn’t too much of that, but I learned to shoot a gun before I went on location. That was one of the things that I wanted to make sure I had a clue of what I was doing, so I had my dad take me to a shooting range with a friend of ours, who’s an LAPD officer, so he kind of told me everything I needed to know.

And working with the guys?

Hailee Steinfeld: It wasn’t bad [laughs]. They’re awesome. They’re amazing and I really wasn’t… I was surrounded by women the entire time. The hair and makeup people and wardrobe. My mom was with me, my tutor. So I was surrounded by women the entire time, but I feel like all of them are like big kids so it was a lot of fun.

What kind of research did you do for the story?

Joel Coen: We left all the research to Charles Portis. Obviously, he was very steeped in the period, the language, the periodicals, the weapons, the culture of the period in order to write the novel in such a detailed way. We were happy not to do any work we didn’t have to, basically. That’s from our point of view.

Josh Brolin: I think there’s a couple of things that happens and one is being authentic is really important, but authenticity in place of fluidity seems to... you know what I mean? There’s like, “Wow, that movie is perfect. They didn’t do anything wrong and I’m bored out of my mind.” There has to be a fluidity there and I think that’s what happens in rehearsal when you go, “Yes, you’re authentic. Listen, they wouldn’t have that gun. That’s 1871 and that actually wasn’t issued until 1873.” You’re like, “Are you joking?”

There are a few people out there that really matters to a lot and I do think it’s important, and you have amazing props people like Keith Walters who is extremely wound up about that stuff. That’s great. That’s his job. I love him on the set, but you try to create these composite things. You get in rehearsals and you go, “How does this work?” Even with my character, and I’m not in the movie very much but you go, “Well, what works?” What I came in with wasn’t working at all. We all knew it. There was no damning going on but we were like, “Okay, that doesn’t work, but what do we do?” I don't know. Let’s just keep mixing it up and keep mixing it up.' Then the little voice things comes out and Joel goes, “Oh, what was that?” Ethan goes, “I like that,” or I heard Ethan in the background like [pretends to laugh].” That’s when it comes together. And I think that’s it. Instead of the western, perfect, authentic… this is what they say to do, let’s make it.

If your jaw dropped when you watched the True Grit teaser trailer and you've got a thing for minimalist posters with an old-timey feel, well, Happy Friday. In Contention has snagged the first look at the teaser poster for the new film by Joel and Ethan Coen, which echoes the feel of Old West wanted posters or circus flyers, with a bullet hole and a stream of red blood to remind you that, well, this is a Coen Brothers movie about Retribution with a Capital R. And hey, does that tagline "Punishment Comes One Way Or Another" remind anyone else of No Country For Old Men's immortal "You Can't Stop What's Coming"? Check it out below (click for the larger version) and we'll talk after.

True Grit, as you probably know by now, is an adaptation of the same novel that inspired the 1969 John Wayne film of the same name. Jeff Bridges will be slipping on the eyepatch to play Wayne's role of Rooster Cogburn, a former U.S. Marshal hired by 14-year-old Mattie Ross (newcomer Hailee Steinfeld) to track down the man who killed her father. Josh Brolin and Matt Damon, as you can see above, also star. The movie doesn't come out until Christmas, so do your best not to jump out of your skin with anticipation before then. And now, because I like you and I'm excited too, the teaser trailer embedded again below for your viewing pleasure.

If you're not eagerly anticipating True Grit's release this December, well, I'm not sure how to talk to you. Not only is it the next movie from the Coen Brothers, not only is it an honest-to-God Western directed by the Coen Brothers, not only is it the first reunion between Jeff Bridges and the Coen Brothers since The Big Lebowski, but it's Jeff Bridges in a role originated by John Wayne that requires him to wear an eyepatch. Oh, and Matt Damon and Josh Brolin are in it too. Oh, and a 13-year-old girl is the main character.

True Grit won't hit theaters until December probably, but that won't keep me from wishing every day it were out already. To tide me and the rest of you over, Paramount (via In Contention) has released the first still from the movie, focusing on Hailee Steinfeld as tough-as-nails Mattie Ross but also featuring Jeff Bridges, eyepatch and all, in character as Rooster Cogburn. It looks gritty and very much like a traditional Western, but you just know there's some trademark Coen oddity lurking in there somewhere. Take a look below and cross your fingers that this means a trailer is coming soon to go with it.

For more detailed information on the project, check out Josh's review of the True Grit remake script right here.

When it was first announced that Jeff Bridges would be playing the role of Rooster Cogburn in the Coen brothers' remake of True Grit, it perplexed many people. After all, they had just cast The Dude to play the role that won his only Oscar. But if you were thinking that the Coens would just try and dress Bridges like The Duke, prepare to be surprised.

Joe M. O'Connell has posted five images of Bridges in costume on set, and between the goatee, the bowler hat and the three piece suit, is is evident that Joel and Ethan are going for a different approach. The images also give us our first look at 13-year old Hailey Steinfeld, who will play Mattie Ross in the film. Even if you are upset by the lack of tan coats, handkerchiefs and cowboy hats, at least take solace in the fact that he is donning the character's signature eye-patch.

Check out the images full size over at Joe M. O'Connell's website. Fill your hands, you son of a bitch!

Hot damn! I usually hate remakes (particularly remakes of films that I love), as each one serves as a reminder that Hollywood is slowly running out of ideas. But with the most recent casting announcements for the Coen's remake of the the John Wayne classic True Grit, it's hard to summon my normal snarky cynicism.

While it's been known for the past two months or so that Jeff Bridges would be playing Rooster Cogburn, Variety is reporting that Josh Brolin, who recently worked with the Coens in No Country For Old Men, and Matt Damon have joined the cast of the western drama. Damon will be playing La Boeuf, the well mannered lawman played by Glen Campbell in the original, while Brolin, in Jeff Corey's role of Tom Chaney, will be the man that the two heroes will be hunting down in Indian territory. The casting news leaves Mattie Ross, the 14-year-old who accompanies Cogburn and La Boeuf, as the only lead not yet cast.

There's a lot to love about Joel and Ethan Coen. They blow us away with an incredible Texas drama that cleans up at the Oscars. Then they get some of the most famous faces they can gather for a comedy about the CIA. This year they veered even further into left field, taking What The Hell Boulevard, and grouped a bunch of no-names for a darker-than-midnight comedy about an unlucky Jew, only to follow it up by putting The Dude in an eyepatch, pairing him up with Jason Bourne, and sending them into the desert to search for Brand Walsh. The Coens don't give a damn about how things are supposed to be done in Hollywood and God bless them for it.

In A Serious Man, Michael Stuhlbarg plays a very nice, very ordinary man forced to the end of his rope by a lot of awful but ordinary circumstances, like his brother's mental illness, his wife's affair with a neighbor, and a student's attempt to bribe him for a better grade. And while Stuhlbarg's life is looking nothing but up, snagging his first lead role in a Coen brothers movie, he shares Larry Gopnik's sense of decency and overwhelming niceness, not to mention an easygoing attitude that probably made him a dream actor for the Coens.

A few weeks ago, in our shared home city of New York, I talked to Stuhlbarg about the process of working with Coens and accepting the little guidance they give him, the resonance of the film's central quote in his own life, and how the movie promotional machine compares to the one that exists in Broadway, where Stuhlbarg is a veteran actor. It's clear just how much thought he's put into the character and the movie itself, not to mention how lucky he feels to be part of it at all. A Serious Man opens in limited release this weekend, and is excellent. Read parts of my chat with Stuhlbarg below.

The Coens have a reputation for being very no-nonsense and quiet on set. DId you know that reputation before getting to the set?

I had heard that that had been the case with some of their other films, but I didn't really know what to expect, and I tried to leave myself open to whatever was going to happen. They did pretty much leave their hands off of what I was doing.

When you saw the whole thing put together, was the film the same as the one you thought you were making?

That's interesting. It's never what you expect it to be in my limited experience with film and television. You can intend to do whatever, but I like being surprised with whatever ends up being there. In this case I was very pleased with what they ended up choosing in terms of particular cuts or shots. And it was different from my impression of what it might be.

Did you think it had a different tone?

I did indeed. The very first time I saw it, I was very taken with Carter Burwell's gorgeous music. It really takes you along on the journey in a way I didn't expect this film to be. It could have been directed many different ways. I think the way it came out was right.

Barton Fink feels like it has the most to do with this film. Did you revisit that one specifically before filming started?

I was actually surprised at how different it was when I saw it again than how i remembered it to be. I also remembered how amazing those performances are. That was a very different character too, so there really wasn't much danger in my opinion. My character was not a playwright, and had a very different sort of life. There's a different energy that comes across with being a Midwesterner.

There's a lot of Midwestern actors in the film. What's it like working with them?

Most of the people in New York are very often from somewhere else. I really didn't find that much difference. There's a great warmth and sincerity and kindness in the people that I met in Minneapolis while I was shooting there. They couldn't ahve been nicer. I don't think I had a bad day the whole time I was there.

What was it like being part of the period film shoot taking over the town?

Everybody was really generous. It was sort of like hometown boys make good, coming back. They love the Coen brothers, although some people have a bee in their bonnet about how thick they laid on the accents in Fargo.

Now that you've seen the ilm, are you able to draw your own conclusions about the meaning of some of the more mystifying parts? Specifically with the prologue.

I think the quote at the beginning of the movie--"Accept with simplicity everything that happens to you"-- has resonance for both that first parable and the rest of the movie. It's a goal to shoot for in one's life, and he tries to do that the best that he can. I don't know that there's much more one can do. I've found in my own life, if you try to struggle against what the universe is telling you, you set yourself up for more of a battle.

How does this film resonate with your own experience of Judaism?

I was raised in a reform synagogue. I think we all bring with us a sense of when hard things happen to us, we find ourselves asking questions of why are these things happening to me at this time in my life. I think in that sense, there's a certain resonance that I carry. It's more of a spiritual resonance as opposed to particularly of Judaism.

The movie promotion cycle is such a slog-- you might be doing it for 5 months. How does it copmare to something like for the Tonys?

Thus far it's much more involved, and I've spoken with many more people. My experience at the Tonys was a lot, very quickly, over just a few days, while I was continually responsible for carrying on that performance night after night. As opposed to this, where I did it a year ago, and I don't have to warm up and sustain what's being asked of me night after night. In that sense, the work is done, which is nice actually. i can talk to people from a different headspace.

The Coens seem utterly unfazed by the awards stuff. Did they pass that on to you?

That sort of attitude I find to be very helpful in terms of just taking it for what it iwas. They bring that kind of energy with them. It's admirable, I find. The work is done, and you stand behind your work. If you can carry that with you, the rest is gravy.

This is a very strange, very specifically Jewish movie. Are you concerned that it won't resonate with as may people as, say, Burn After Reading did?

I don't know. It's a different movie obviously. I think you need to take it for what it is. I think that's the truth with all of their movies. Each one is its own beast, and fabulously so, I believe. I think that it's steeped in this particular community, as particular and as specific as the communities of these other films that they've made. I don't think that it's exclusive either. I think it's a universal story.

Even though this movie hasn't come out yet, has it changed the roles available to you?

I think people are starting to become aware of who I am, and hopefully that will open more doors for me that way.

Joel and Ethan Coen aren't known for talking a whole lot about the meaning of their movies. Good luck getting them to explain the hotel fire at the end of Barton Fink, or what the deeper meaning might be in the Dude's White Russians. So it surprised me first of all that they did roundtable interviews at all for their new film A Serious Man, and I knew better than to try and get them to explain some of the odder elements of their newest, perhaps most inscrutable film.

Instead we talked about bar mitzvahs, Jefferson Airplane and religious scholars, given that A Serious Man focuses heavily on Judaism and the surrounding culture, as it affects a 1967 Minneapolis suburb that strongly resembles the one in which the Coens grew up. Sure, it's probably not the answers you will come out of the movie wanting to hear, but it's the Coens-- you pretty much take what these guys are willing to give. A Serious Man, which I gave 4.5 stars here, opens this Friday.

Where did the story for this film come from?

Joel: It's really always a hard question to answer, because you don't really know, is the truth of it. You start to think back on it and you impose more order and reationality on it than actually ocurred when you were thinking it out. We were thinking about short films years aog, and there was a particular rabbi in town who used to meet the bar mitzvah kids in town, and he was a sphinxlike, Wizad of Oz type of character, and we thought that would make an interesting short movie. And somehow that idea made its way into this movie. We thought it would be interesting to do something set in 1967 in that community, because that was such an interesting point in our own childhood. And part of it came from thinking about the music of that period, the combination of Jewish liturgical music and cantorial music and Jefferson Airplane. Just a bunch of different things.

Out of all the songs of the period, why "Somebody to Love"?

Ethan: Oh, it could have been any number of songs I guess. We just kind of focused on that early, lit on that early, because it's so much of that time. That time really specifically, not even just 60s, but spring of 67. It's so much of that. It smacks of the time. Also, we used the lyrics, they pay off in an end that it became clear it would be useful.

You used a lot of local actors. How do you think that added to the movie?

Ethan: Midwestern Jews, it's a different community, it's a different thing than New York Jews, L.A. Jews. It isn't just about a Jewish community, the geographic thing is kind of specific, so that was important to us.

Joel: That area happens to be a place [where] you can find lots of very, very good local actors. There's a practical reason as well as an aesthetic reason.

Did you have any consultants for the really intricate details of Judaism in the movie?

Ethan: We didn't do any research per se. Once the script was written and we actually started making the movie, there were a couple of people who were our Jew technical advisors, helping us the with the language and the liturgical stuff for the service or whatever. And of course, we got a raft of translators for the Yiddish beginning of the movie. A raft of dueling Yiddishists. Everyone had an opinion about what form of Yiddish we should use.

Joel: We actually did hve on problem we brought to a fluent Hebrew speaker, which is that we wanted to have a Hebrew expression or translation of "Help me" that was exactly 7 letters long.

Ethan: We wanted it to be a phone number. The main technical guy, a cantor and now a rabbi as well, named Dan Sklar, helped us with a lot of that stuff.

What were your bar mitzvahs like? Do you remember hte passages you had to read?

Ethan: God, no.

Did you help each other? What was it like?

Joel: It was, I don't know, a pretty typical conservative congregation bar mitzvah circa 1967. I don't know what they do now out there. I've been to a few in New York. They're not that different. There wasn't anything out of the ordinary.

Did you feel competition with each other as to who got more presents?

Ethan: There was three years difference, so not so much. We each got a kiddish cup, a gift of the sisterhood.

Do you still have them?

Ethan: Joel still has his, I don't have mine.

Much of the film seems to be contrasting this Jewish neighborhood with the cultural shift of the 60s. What did you feel was important to say about that shift?

Joel: The community we lived in was centered in the downtown area for many years, and it sort of shifted up to the suburbs. These new developments were populated by Jews. It's also a mistake to say that the Jews were in any way a majority of even that community. We grew up in a community that was predominantly not Jewish. It's just that the Jews were a big and significant community. You felt like the Jewish cmomunity was part of your experience. The way we had talked about it is this idea of the post-war thing, where the populations in terms of minorities in cities were shifting, and culturally things were shifting. I don't think we thought a lot about it, but we liked that period generally for that reason.

Do you think you'll help people better understand the Jewish experience, or just confuse them further?

Joel: it wasn't really our intent to have people understand the Jewish experience exactly. It's just a context for a story that we found very interesting because of our own direct experence with so much of where the story takes place and the kind of community and family that it takes place in. But you're always trying to be specific, whether it's about your own experience or whether it's a context that you don't have any experience in whatsoever. That specificity is important for the story. It becomes part of what the story's about, absolutely.