As noted earlier in the day, the first seven minutes of Rian Johnson’s whimsical crime caper, “The Brothers Bloom” are on Hulu. Or as they call it, “a globe-trotting comedy about the last great adventure of the world’s two best con men.”
It’s basically a long opening sequence that tells you the back story of the lead brother characters in the film played by Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo and how they got to be the little schemers they are (the film also stars Rachel Weisz and Rinko Kikuchi). It also features Rod Stewart’s rejiggered cover of The Temptations’ “(I Know) I’m Losing You.“
It’s not unlike the long opening sequence in “Raising Arizona” which has always been one of our favorite openers.
It reveals nothing to us, because we’ve already seen it (you probably know how we felt about it by now, we saw it last year at TIFF and didn’t love it; and note “Brick” was polarizing to some, but we loved it), but it does remind us that Max Records, child star of “Where The Wild Things Are,” also plays the young Mark Ruffalo in the scene and actor/ magic-enthusiast Ricky Jay does the narration. Ok, how do others feel about it? We think it’s probably a love or hate thing, but let’s see.
Movieline calls it a “nifty (if essentially nonsensical, conspicuously derivative) short film”
EW’s blogger only says, “anything that features….not one, but two blackly comic gags about injured cats is just aces by me.”
The New York Observer calls it “Wes Anderson without Wes Anderson, but we think that’s ok!”
/Film says the open introduced you to the “quirky tone” and calls it a “great” movie.
Ok, not as many reactions as we expected. Oh well! The Brothers Bloom,” opens in New York and L.A. on May 15, expands to select cities on May 22 and is in theaters everywhere on May 29. It also played at the the Independent Film Festival of Bosto yesterday.
A couple things:
1. Liked this intro the first time when it was in Magnolia.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4k16Q3bK3w
At least Ricky Jay’s getting work.
2. The dialouge (like is Brick) is too self-conscious. Rhyming?? Please.
3. He didn’t get very many lines, but the Max kid seems like he can’t act. Makes me worry bout “Wild Things.”
4. And yes, the slomo at the end, as well as the camera movements, echo not only Wes Anderson, but Paul Thomas Anderson as well.
Overall, we’ve seen this all before but better.
3. He is a little stiff. And this was part of WB’s concerns early on. I’m slightly worried.
When are you going to write for us again? 😛
I enjoyed it. Sure it’s unoriginal, but there’s a lot worse things out there. The Andersons aren’t exactly prime examples of originality either. If Scorcese, Altman and Mamet are the old bluesmen like Willie Dixon and Robert Johnson, then PT Anderson is Led Zeppelin and Johnson now seems to be The Black Crowes.