I have no idea why I have had writer’s block regarding this movie for so long.., it’s only one of MY FAVORITE MOVIES EVER! Mark and I talked about this a month ago and I watched it for the thousandth time and still laughed my ass off and then I just got stuck. I think it’s because I didn’t really know how to approach this classic. Should I just do my usual shtick and throw in some personal memories? Should I talk about the quality of the film itself? The direction? The cinematography? The music? The intro? The dialogue? The acting? The sets? I really still don’t know the best approach to explore this but here we go.
The very short scene depicted in the picture above is one of my favorite things out of all of the movies I’ve seen. It comes in the super long intro and involves these words that my friend and I have said ten thousand times and driven my wife crazy forever:
Cellmate: …and when there was no meat, we ate fowl and when there was no fowl, we ate crawdad and when there was no crawdad to be found, we ate sand.
H.I.: You ate what?
Cellmate: We ate sand.
[pause]
H.I.: You ate SAND?
Cellmate: That’s right…
I guess, if you haven’t seen this (wth???) that might not make sense to you, The Good and Most Beloved and Cherished Reader, but – well – this is it - that’s MY kind of humor. I’ve gone public and told the world that I don’t like the likes of Will Ferrell and Danny McBride and Dane Cook and that kind of shit. I don’t like LOOKATME LOOKATME I’MEATINGCATSHIT IHAVEABONER type of comedy. I like my humor sly and subtle and ironic and sarcastic and quiet. For example, one of my other favorite moments in this is when Tex Cobb’s bounty hunter walks into H.I. and Edwina’s trailer, bends down to pick up the ad for the bank, and spends a good ten seconds staring at this:
I like it slow – and deliberate – that’s what gets me laughing. Like when Goodman and Forsythe rob that general store. Forsythe tells the clerk to get down and count to (I think) 900 and then back again and they might just come back and check on him. They get down the road and realize they left the baby in the parking lot. Goddamn I’m laughing writing this. So they start screaming and screaming and whip the car around and scream constantly all the way back to the store and the clerk is laying there on the ground and he’s all “awwww BULLSHIT!!!” and they come screaming down the road and his eyes get all buggy and he drops to the ground. Outside, they pick up the baby and in the background you can hear him “sevenhundredninetyninemississippi. sevenhundredninetyeightmississippi. sevenhundredninetysevenmissippi.”
Or how about when the cops and FBI come into Nathan Arizona’s house and “interrogate” him. He gets all pissed off and gets the fingerprint ink on his expensive coat and then starts yelling and screaming – and cleaning up the living room. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! There’s also talk about wife swapping, men with menstrual cramps, and one of the greatest chase scenes I’ve ever seen. If I had the ability I would endlessly loop that chase on some sort of screen in my office at work. From the convenience store through the streets through a house through a grocery store with endless gun shots. FUCKING HILARIOUS!!
I can’t say enough good words about this. If you haven’t seen this – I IMPLORE you to do so. To me: this is a master piece of comedy and film making in general. I just looked at my “OVERVIEW” page and I thought that I had written up a reason why I use Top Hats as a rating scale but, apparently, I didn’t. Here’s the thing: a few years ago I went to see the new Star Trek at the theater and I was blown away. The next day I was instant messaging with my friend, telling him how good it was. I told him it was so good he needed to dress up in his formal suit, grab his monocle and wear a top hat. That in fact, it was so good he needed to wear five top hats and that’s how that came about (I need to update my about page). When I write stuff up I don’t balance something against the canon of movies out there, I base my thing on whether or not I was entertained. This entertains me no matter how often I see and this would get a five TH. or a ten TH. or 100 panties on your head.
Whew – that was good fun!! Now let me pass this one over to my main Mucker – Mark!
***
In 1984, “Blood Simple” was released and it marked the debut of a certain couple of siblings named Joel & Ethan Coen. It’s was a marvellously dark and twisted, low-budget, modern noir and put their names on the film industry’s map. You’d think that once a particular, successful, style has been established it would be wise to stick with that winning formula but the brothers’ sophomore effort went in an entirely different direction and they delivered a wickedly, wacky and hilarious comedy, proving that their talents are comfortable in any genre.
