17. “Intolerable Cruelty” (2003)
After dabbling with “Sullivan’s Travels”-type comedy in “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” and noir in “The Man Who Wasn’t There,” the Coen brothers explored another classic Hollywood genre with this homage to Hepburn/Tracy-style “battle of the sexes” screwball comedies. Initially meant to just be scripted by them (Ron Howard and Jonathan Demme were attached first), the Coens came on board after their silent war pic “To The White Sea” fell apart. George Clooney returns to the fold to play a hot-shot divorce attorney famous for his signature iron-clad pre-nup, who meets his match in a divorcee played by Catherine Zeta-Jones, who is out to destroy him after he thwarted her plans to get rich off of her philandering ex. It’s not the disaster some painted it as — there’s still enormous fun to be had in places, particularly thanks to some of the stranger supporting characters. But for the most part, the broadness doesn’t click well with the more traditionally Coen-ish qualities, Clooney and Zeta-Jones never quite gel, and unusually the directors simply can’t seem to wrangle a coherent tone here. Ultimately, while you might have some fun (disappointing Coens is still leaps and bounds above most mainstream entertainment, obviously), it feels like the diet, low-fat substitute rather than the real thing.
16. “Paris, je t’aime” – segment “Tuileries” (2006)
Each section in the fun but ultimately uneven anthology “Paris je t’aime” is named for and set in a different neighborhood (or arrondissement) of Paris. The Coens, of course, chose a subway stop for their arrondissement, and of course, had it star Steve Buscemi as a perplexed tourist trying to navigate the Parisian subway system while trying to avoid getting beat up. (He fails.) The short has an almost giddy energy, and it’s amusing to see the Coens address the fact that they love torturing (and in most cases, killing) their frequent collaborator Buscemi. This is an inessential but still quite funny bit of Coens miscellanea, capturing both some of the zonked-out energy of their earlier work and a winning performance by Buscemi.
I love their work but this is a shit ranking
Of course these lists are always subjective, but I think your top 2 films (which I adore) are out of place simply by virtue of their inaccessibility. But kudos for ranking O Brother farther down on your list, a film that’s wildly overrated.
I had a feeling ThePlaylist would put those two at the top. Its just their taste, JUST this side of alternative. I knew it as as soon as I saw No Country for Old Men and Lebowski outside the top 5 somehow.
Yeah, there is a certain “Too Cool for School” quality about the reviewers and writers at the Playlist save for a couple of names. It’s starting to get quite predictable around here.
I’m going to have to agree with my fellow commentators, not really a great ranking of their incredible catalogue. Nice try nonetheless.
I’m kinda new to The Playlist and I’m unfamiliar with the writers’ taste, so I may be the only who really likes their ranking. Obviously I don’t agree entirely (I’m not a fan of Raising Arizona at all and I think Hail, Caesar! really needs much more love than what it’s getting). I still haven’t seen The Hudsucker Proxy and I truly need to re-watch The Big Lebowski (my first proper Coen knowing who they were, I saw Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers back in theaters and I had no idea who they were back then), still I’d say I agree and overlap on most. I would rank their 16 feature lengths I’ve seen like this:
1. Barton Fink
2. Inside Llewyn Davis
3. A Serious Man
4. Fargo
5. No Country For Old Men
6. Miller’s Crossing
7. The Man Who Wasn’t There
8. Hail, Caesar!
9. True Grit
10. O Brother, Where Art Thou?
11. Blood Simple.
12. The Big Lebowski
13. Burn After Reading
14. Intolerable Cruelty
15. Raising Arizona
16. The Ladykillers
1. Miller’s Crossing
2. Fargo
3. Blood Simple
4. Raising Arizona
5. No Country for Old Men
6. The Big Lebowski
7. Barton Fink
8. The Man Who Wasn’t There
9. True Grit
10. all the rest