Movie sounds pretty cool.  When is the official release date?





	Eric Gillaspie
	05/15/2000 01:40 PM
		 
		 To: Gerald Nemec/HOU/ECT@ECT
		 cc: 
		 Subject: Coen Bros


Coens hit most notes in ``Brother''
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (Southern comedy-drama, color, PG-13, 1:46) 
By Todd McCarthy, Daily Variety Chief Film Critic 
CANNES (Variety) - A musically tinged riff on ``The Odyssey'' set in the 
Depression-era Deep South, ``O Brother, Where Art Thou?'' is a charming, if 
lightweight, Coen brothers escapade flecked by plenty of visual and 
performance grace notes. 
Picaresque tale of three cons in flight from life on a chain gang is more 
memorable for its fantastic moments than for its somewhat insubstantial 
cumulative impact, which will likely translate into just OK box office 
results come domestic release in the fall. 


While the film's epigraph and inspiration come from Homer, its title derives 
from Preston Sturges' film-biz classic ``Sullivan's Travels,'' in which the 
successful director played by Joel McCrea wants to abandon comedy to make a 
socially conscious drama about the Human Condition called ``O Brother, Where 
Art Thou?'' Despite appropriating the handle, the Coens aren't about to fall 
into the trap of pretentiousness themselves, crafting instead a seriocomedy 
that makes a fanciful tour of an Old Mississippi in which kismet and good 
bluegrass music prevail over racism and criminality. 
Working with their customary tonal precision and immaculate craftsmanship, 
the Coens release into the wilds three escaped criminals, with the leader, 
Everett Ulysses McGill (George Clooney), telling his cronies Pete (John 
Turturro) and Delmar (Tim Blake Nelson) that he knows where $1.2 million is 
buried. The first person they encounter, however, a blind black man driving a 
railway handcar, warns them that they will find treasure out there, but not 
the treasure they're seeking. 
A preening fancy man obsessively concerned with securing the right pomade for 
his coiffure and given to highfalutin phraseology (''It's a fool who looks 
for logic in the chambers of the human heart,'' he advises), Everett stands 
by as his buddies are cleansed of their sins in a mass river baptism. Picking 
up a young black musician, Tommy Johnson (Chris Thomas King), on the road, 
the fellows wander into an isolated radio station/recording studio and, 
posing as a group called the Soggy Bottom Boys, cut a lively tune and are 
paid a few bills for their efforts. They then take off again and remain 
oblivious to the fact that the record becomes a huge hit. 
One eventful encounter follows another as the boys make their way across the 
lushly verdant landscapes, which have been photographed by Roger Deakins in 
slightly washed-out and burnished hues that are a constant delight. They hook 
up for a bank robbery with gleeful adrenaline freak George Nelson (a 
wonderfully live-wired Michael Badalucco), who hates his nickname, Babyface, 
and goes into a huge post-crime funk. 
In a humorously lyrical sequence that represents a magical synthesis of 
visuals, performance and music, the boys come upon three ``sirens'' who 
seduce them in a watery glade; when Pete disappears thereafter, the dense 
Delmar presumes that his friend has been turned into a toad, which he 
proceeds to carry around in a shoebox until a predatory one-eyed salesman for 
the word of God (a Cyclops-like John Goodman) squeezes the critter to death 
while beating the other two silly. 
Pete eventually turns up again, only to become perturbed when Everett reveals 
that his real goal, rather than the nonexistent treasure, is to reunite with 
the mother of his seven daughters, Penny (Holly Hunter), who is about to 
marry another fellow. In the course of things, the errant adventurers brush 
up against local politics, a governor's race that pits old incumbent Pappy 
O'Daniel (Charles Durning) against a reform candidate whose motto, ``Friend 
of the Little Man,'' is literally represented by a broom-toting dwarf who 
accompanies him at every campaign stop. 
After slipping in a quiet homage to ``Sullivan's Travels'' in which members 
of a chain gang are given a little recreation at a ``picture show,'' the 
Coens deliver one of their major set pieces, a stupendously choreographed Ku 
Klux Klan rally that is disrupted by the boys in a fashion that slyly evokes 
the invasion of the Wicked Witch's castle by Dorothy's friends in ``The 
Wizard of Oz'' Raucous, the-devil-gets-his-due musical climax is fun (and 
given a big charge by Durning in a splendid, performance-capping turn), but 
is also rather too fairy-tale-ish and too-good-to-be-true to truly satisfy, 
leaving this an ``Odyssey'' without full closure. 
Lack of irony and complexity in the wrap-up may be a shortcoming, but it also 
points up the welcome absence of condescension and ridicule in the film's 
portrait of dimwits, con men, rednecks and country folk. Most of the 
characters, including the three leads, may be dumb, misguided and delusional, 
but they are also engaging and straightforward, to be enjoyed for the 
colorful oddballs that they are. 
Not for the first time recalling Clark Gable in his looks and line delivery, 
Clooney clearly delights in embellishing Everett's vanity and in delivering 
the Coens' carefully calibrated, high-toned dialogue. Turturro and Nelson (a 
character actor who directed the 1997 indie ``Eye of God'' and the upcoming 
``Othello'' update ``O'') are a real dumb-and-dumber combo without veering 
into slapstick, while supporting cast reflects the typical Coen richness, 
from Durning and well-known regulars Goodman and Hunter through Stephen Root 
as the blind recording entrepreneur, musician King as the boys' sometime 
collaborator and Daniel Von Bargen as a relentless sheriff who pursues the 
escapees to the bitter end. 
Not as elaborate as ``The Hudsucker Proxy'' or ``The Big Lebowski'' pic is 
nonetheless a modest technical marvel in which Deakins' splendid camerawork 
blends seamlessly with Dennis Gassner's evocative production design, Mary 
Zophres' imaginative costumes and some special and digital effects that are 
all but imperceptible as such (watch for that cow). Delta blues music, a 
combo of T Bone Burnett and pre-existing tunes, is another major plus. 
Everett Ulysses McGill .. George Clooney 
Pete .................... John Turturro 
Delmar .................. Tim Blake Nelson 
Pappy O'Daniel .......... Charles Durning 
Big Dan Teague .......... John Goodman 
George Nelson ........... Michael Badalucco 
Penny ................... Holly Hunter 
Radio Station Man ....... Stephen Root 
Tommy Johnson ........... Chris Thomas King 
Homer Stokes ............ Wayne Duvall 
Sheriff Cooley .......... Daniel Von Bargen 
Pappy's Staff ........... J.R. Horne, Brian Reddy 
Wash Hogwallop .......... Frank Collison 
Vernon T. Waldrip ....... Ray McKinnon 
Junior O'Daniel ......... Del Pentecost


Eric Gillaspie
713-345-7667
Enron Building 3886