CHICAGO – When two brothers confront the sins of each other and it expands into a psychology of an entire race, it’s at a stage play found in Chicago’s Invictus Theatre Company production of “Topdog/Underdog,” now at their new home at the Windy City Playhouse through March 31st, 2024. Click TD/UD for tickets/info.
Blood Simple
Blu-Ray Review: Coen Brothers Hit HD With Four of Their Best
Submitted by BrianTT on September 7, 2011 - 3:36pmCHICAGO – Few directors have ever kickstarted their career more confidently than Joel and Ethan Coen. And they did it with such an array of genre and subject matter from the gritty noir of “Blood Simple” to the subversive comedy of “Raising Arizona” to the gangster epic “Miller’s Crossing” to the heavily-symbolic drama “Barton Fink” to the whimsical charmer “The Hudsucker Proxy” and head-first into one of the best movies ever made — “Fargo.” Four of their first six films have been collected in the “Coen Brothers Collection” and while Fox was, very sadly, only able to send over one of them individually, we didn’t want this stellar collection to go unmentioned.
Blu-Ray Review: Zhang Yimou’s Odd ‘A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop’
Submitted by BrianTT on February 15, 2011 - 11:56amCHICAGO – I could never quite get my finger on why the super-talented Zhang Yimou (“Hero,” “House of the Flying Daggers”) chose to make “A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop,” a loose remake of the film that introduced Joel and Ethan Coen to the world, “Blood Simple.” It is a case of a talented Chinese director attempting to make a very American genre: noir. To what end? Would it be interesting to watch the Coens remake “Hero”? Sure, but mostly as curiosity and I expect more than curiosities from someone as notable as Yimou.
Blu-Ray Review: ‘Don McKay’ Fails to Evoke the Coen Brothers’ Spirit
Submitted by mattmovieman on July 6, 2010 - 7:24amCHICAGO – The Duplass Brothers recently told me that they avoid making movies blatantly modeled after the work of other filmmakers because they often end up “derivative and bad.” Jake Goldberger’s debut feature “Don McKay” is living proof of this principle. It is a monumentally awkward rip-off of the debut feature from the most well-known filmmaking team of brothers in modern cinema.