O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) - Much to love in fabulous Coen music yarn

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Three convicts flee a chain gang with part of the chain still attached on this neat poster for Ethan and Joel Coen's O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Three escaped convicts in Mississippi in 1937 venture out on an adventure after a buried treasure, which will soon get flooded, and they record a country single on their way.

 

O Brother, Where Art Thou? is written and directed by Minnesotan master filmmakers, brothers Ethan and Joel Coen (Blood Simple (1984)). Ethan Coen also produced the film. It is a very loose adaptation of Homer's epic poem the Odyssey (8th/7th century BC).

It is an enthusiastic yarn full of fun, speed, visual panache (cinematography by Roger Deakins (Shadey (1985))), a delicious color scheme, - and energetic actors: Tim Blake Nelson (Dallas & Robo (2018, TV-series)) especially as the simple-minded Delmar, and George Clooney (Red Surf (1989)) as vain idiot Ulysses McGill are terrific.

Clan members and politics get mixed into the bargain, and towards the end things get a bit thick and contrived. But O Brother, Where Art Thou? is still a good and fun film that could only have come from the inimitable Coen brothers.

 

Related posts:

Ethan and Joel Coen: Hail, Caesar! (2016) - The Coen brothers serve a whimsical, flashy letdown
Unbroken (2014) - Despite good elements, Jolie's Grand WWII Biopic is mostly distant and weak (co-writers)

2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED V] 
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) or, The Man Who Wasn't Dylan  
True Grit (2010) - The Coens' grand western present

Top 10: Best dramedies reviewed by Film Excess to date 

2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III] 

2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II] 
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess
A Serious Man (2009) - One of the Coens' best; a philo-religious serio-comedy
Burn After Reading (2008) or, Idiocy 2008

No Country for Old Men (2007) - Undigestible McCarthy adaptation lets you hang in midair 
Top 10: Best comedies reviewed by Film Excess to date
Top 10: The best big hit movies reviewed by Film Excess to date 
The Big Lebowski (1998) - The stoner comedy to reign over all

1996 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 

Top 10: Best crime movies reviewed by Film Excess to date 

Fargo (1996) - The Coen brothers make movie magic with dark-humored crime thriller 

Top 10: Best films about filmmaking 
Barton Fink (1991) or, The Writer's Hell

 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 26 mil. $

Box office: 71.8 mil. $

= Box office success (returned 2.76 times its cost)

[O Brother, Where Art Thou? premiered 13 May (Cannes Film Festival, main competition) and runs 107 minutes. Neither of the Coens have ever read the Odyssey. The title of the film is a reference to Preston Sturges' Sullivan's Travels (1941). Clooney was paid 1 mil. $ for his performance in the film. Shooting took place from June - August 1999 in Mississippi and California, including in Los Angeles. The film opened #27 to a 195k $ first weekend in 5 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #9 and in 847 theaters (different weeks), grossing 45.5 mil. $ (63.4 % of the total gross). The film was nominated for 2 Oscars: Best Adapted Screenplay, lost to Stephen Gaghan for Traffic, and Cinematography, lost to Peter Pau for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It was also nominated for 4 BAFTAs, a European Film award, won 1/2 Golden Globe nominations and 2 Grammys, among other honors. Roger Ebert gave the film a 2.5/4 star review, translating to a notch under this one. The Coen brothers returned with The Man Who Wasn't There (2001). Clooney returned in The Perfect Storm (2000); John Turturro (Somewhere Tonight (2011)) in Two Thousand and None (2000); Nelson in The Good Girl (2002); and John Goodman (In the Electric Mist (2009)) in The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle (2000). O Brother, Where Art Thou? is certified fresh at 79 % with a 7.20/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of O Brother, Where Art Thou??

Ma (2019) - Spencer entertains in Taylor's uneven revenge horror

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Star Octavia Spencer's face through a shattered glass makes up this simple poster for Tate Taylor's

 Ma

A group of high school students get a woman named Sue Ann to buy them alcohol, and not long after they are even throwing parties in her basement. - But why is she interested in them doing that...?

 

Ma is written by Scotty Landes (Deadcon (2019)) and co-produced and directed by Mississippian master filmmaker Tate Taylor (Pretty Ugly People (2008)), whose 5th feature it is.

Octavia Spencer (Next of Kin (2008)) is good as the scarred, lonely Sue Ann, SPOILER but we get no answer as to why exactly now, 20 or 30 years after her own traumatic high school experiences, she goes off the rocker... Although there's some timeliness to the implication that violations can be avenged decades later by the victim!

Luckily Ma also has a good secondary cast and sexy youths, although it doesn't really compute that Allison Janney (Away We Go (2009)) is here in a non-role as a mean boss. (The reason must be that both Spencer and Janney are friends of Taylor, as they both acted in his 2008 debut.)

The bonkers ending doesn't hit bull's eye, but Ma is still very entertaining up until this.

 

Related posts:

Tate Taylor: 2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 
2011 in films - according to Film Excess 

The Help (2011) - Taylor and an impeccable ensemble portray heart-thumping change in Jackson, Mississippi 

Watch a 1-minute clip from the movie here

 

Cost: 5 mil. $

Box office: 61.1 mil. $

= Mega-hit (returned 12.2 times its cost)

[Ma premiered 30 May (Germany and 12 other markets) and runs 99 minutes. Shooting took place around February 2018 in Mississippi. The film opened #4 to a an 18 mil. $ first weekend in North America, behind fellow new release Godzilla: King of the Monsters, holdover hit Aladdin and fellow new release Rocketman, where it left the top 5 in its 2nd weekend and grossed 45.8 mil. $ (75 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were France with 2.3 mil. $ (3.8 %) and the UK with 2 mil. $ (3.3 %). The film made in excess of 3.1 mil. $ additionally on the North-American home video market. Taylor returned with Ava (2020). Spencer returned with 3 voice performances and a miniseries prior to her theatrical return in The Witches (2020). Ma is rotten at 56 % with a 5.60/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Ma?

The Help (2011) - Taylor and an impeccable ensemble portray heart-thumping change in Jackson, Mississippi

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3 Time Film Excess Nominee:


Best Film (lost to The Descendants)
Best Director: Tate Taylor (lost to Agnieszka Holland for In Darkness)
Best Supporting Actress: Octavia Spencer (lost to Agnieszka Grochowska for In Darkness)

+ Best Mississippi Movie of the Year
+ Best Ensemble Movie of the Year

The late-summer treat of 2011, Tate Taylor's The Help

Jackson, Mississippi in 1963: An aspiring young, white female writer persuades a black housekeeper ('the help') to tell her about her life, plagued by the racism that defined the South at the time. That starts a change.

Splendid, handsomely produced, shot in Mississippi, (the biggest production there since O Brother Where Art Thou (2000)), The Help is an empowering, uplifting, marvelous film about a multitude of women.
In it plays an ensemble to be reckoned with: Emma Stone (Magic in the Moonlight (2014)), Viola Davis (Doubt (2008)), Bryce Dallas Howard (Manderlay (2005)), Octavia Spencer (Fruitvale Station (2013)), Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty (2012)), Allison Janney (Mom (2013-15)), Cicely Tyson (Diary of a Mad Black Woman (2005)) and Sissy Spacek (The Straight Story (1999)) are all inspiring and stand out individually. - Bravo!
Social and political change for the better is a powerful thing, which we witness in The Help. Tate Taylor (Pretty Ugly People (2008)) adapted the same-titled, bestselling 2009 novel by his childhood friend Kathryn Stockett and directed the film, making a precise and edifying heartbreaker and certainly one of the year's best films.

Related posts:

2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2011 in films - according to Film Excess 

Octavia Spencer and Viola Davis in Tate Taylor's The Help

Watch the fantastic trailer for the film here

Cost: 25 mil. $
Box office: 216.6 mil. $
= Huge hit
[The Help took America by storm: Opening #2, behind Rise of the Planet of the Apes, the film took 26 mil. $ in its first weekend, but then rose to first place, which it held for impressive 25 days, the longest #1 streak for a movie in the US since The Sixth Sense (1999, 35 days #1), also an August premiere. The film ended up making a spectacular 169.7 mil. $ in the US (78 % of the total gross). At the Oscars, Spencer won her first Oscar so far as Minnie Jackson, and the film was nominated for three more statuettes.]

What do you think of The Help?
Other good films about racism and fighting it?

Mud (2012) - Career-defining, electric Americana

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+ Best Mississippi Movie of the Year

Matthew McConaughey in one of his career's best roles in Jeff Nichols' Mud

Two 14-year-old Mississippi River-boys find a boat and then a man on an island. He is in hiding, and they decide to help him.
Fantastically strong and beautiful film, photographed deftly by Adam Stone (Take Shelter (2011)). Wildly exciting and with a killer cast: Matthew McConaughey (Killer Joe (2011) has perhaps the best role of his career, and the two young boys are wonderful: Played by the star-rising Tye Sheridan (Joe (2013)) and Jacob Lofland (Justified (2014)). Secondary parts are played by great actors such as Reese Witherspoon (Walk the Line (2005)), Sam Shepard (Black Hawk Down (2001)), Sarah Paulson (12 Years a Slave (2013)), Michael Shannon (Boardwalk Empire (2010-13)), Ray McKinnon (Deadwood (2004)) and Joe Don Baker (Charley Varrich (1973)). - Very solid, impressive cast!
Search for love is the thematic center of this Huckleberry Finn-inspired coming of age drama-thriller that's full of local color.
The beginning could possibly have been a tad stronger, but writer-director Jeff Nichols (Take Shelter (2011)) still delivers real American gold here.
If you're not from Mississippi, be sure to watch Mud with subtitles, because the slang is very heavy and at times almost incomprehensible.
Nichols, who debuted with Shotgun Stories (2007), is now busy with his next picture, the Adam Driver/Kirsten Dunst-starring sci-fi. drama, Midnight Special. - Can't wait!

Related posts:

2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED V]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]

Watch the trailer for Mud here

Jeff Nichols' Mud is astoundingly beautiful. - Watch it!

Budget: 10 mil. $
Box office: 32.6 mil. $
= Box office success

What do you think of Mud?
Any other great Mississippi River-centered movies?
What do you think of Jeff Nichols' other movies?

Biloxi Blues (1988) or, '45 Army Camp Confidential

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Young, charming Matthew Broderick send out to sell, sell, sell! - Mike Nichols' Biloxi Blues

QUICK REVIEW:

Jerome's weeks as a private trainee in Biloxi, Mississippi in 1945, until the war ends, is a time with discoveries, exhaustion and drama.
Matthew Broderick (Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)) is tremendous, and Christopher Walken (The Deer Hunter (1978)) as the eccentric and semi-loony Sergeant is just as good.

Matthew Broderick and Christopher Walken in the fine film by Mike Nichols, Biloxi Blues

Many of playwright/screenwriter Neil Simon's (The Odd Couple (1968)) lines are hilarious, and the structure of the film is impeccable.
Biloxi Blues is moving and universally relevant with a few minor problems in the supporting cast.
Its German-born director Mike Nichols (The Graduate (1967)) finished his formidable career recently with Charlie Wilson's War (2007).

Related review:

Mike Nichols: Angels in America (TV mini-series, 2003) or, Dying in the 80s, of AIDS, at L-E-N-G-T-H

Watch the film's short, funny trailer here

Budget: 20 mil. $
Box office: 51.6 mil. $
= Box office success and # 1 in the US

What do you think of Biloxi Blues?
Other army comedies that simply tickle your ribs?

Black Snake Moan (2006) or, The Mississippi Blues

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+ Most Undeserved Flop of the Year + Best Music Movie of the Year + Best Mississippi Movie of the Year

Samuel L. Jackson and Christina Ricci make a sexually charged pair on the poster for Craig Brewer's Black Snake Moan

QUICK REVIEW:

I love Black Snake Moan!
It's not 110 % perfect like some 6-hearted masterpieces are, but it has its heart so strongly in the right place and tells such a fantastic and multi-faceted story that I can't but bow down in the dust before it.
Samuel L. Jackson (Django Unchained (2012)) is brilliant, - although his blues-voice is nowhere near the strength of probable role models like John Lee Hooker or Howlin' Wolf. He plays an aging blues-man, who finds a young, white (!) nymphomaniac in the ditch and decides that he should right on some of the wrong in her life, because it is the will of God.
Christina Ricci (Anything Else (2003)) is equally amazing as Rae, the fiery young woman, and all the supporting parts are accomplished simply phenomenally.
The blues music, the longing and the pain all stream through this sexy, authentic, unique film, making it a soul-filled joy to watch and listen to. Moan is as much a music film about blues as it is a drama with sexual and societal overtones.

Ricci has disappointingly lashed out at the sexy posters for the film, (which, after all, she must have posed for at some point?), calling them exploitative of women and solely aimed at college boys. Both statements couldn't be farther from the truth. In any case, they unfortunately didn't get very many people to see this excellent gem of a movie.
Writer-director Craig Brewer (Hustle & Flow (2005)) of Virginia has yet to make anything else of anywhere near the imposing quality of Black Snake Moan, but he is also still just a relatively young director (of 42).

Related posts:

 

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

This trailer doesn't look like much, but trust me, this is a hefty, great, great film

Budget: 15 mil. $
Box office: 10.9 mil. $
= Flop

What do you think of Black Snake Moan?
Other blues-movies that need to be seen?