MR. SPARKLE'S REVIEW OF:
O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU?

OPENING THOUGHTS

    I love this movie. This is one of my favorite of the Coen Brother's movies, but the sole reason it didn't get an A, is because The Big Lebowski is better. There has got to be room for movies that are better, and that is why I don't go throwing around A's like they are candy. Now, B +'s, those are different. B +'s for everyone!

ACTING

    GEORGE CLOONEY was freaking perfect in this movie as the protagonist who had a lovely hairdo nearly the entire movie. God, that hair! Simply delightful. Georgy-boy played this smooth talking, street smart, well read felon, who... talks smoothly, and does things. Best description you will ever read. He plays this part so well, and delivers his lines so well that I don't know how to react, so I just turned the movie off. I didn't really see about three quarters of it, so I am not really going to be the best representation of what this movie really is. I would still read it though, if I were you, just to see what movies I actually review.
    JOHN TURTURRO pulled off another fantastic character like he always does. He gave such an animated and almost cartoonish performance. I don't remember ever seeing him do something I didn't like him in, or for that matter that I didn't like... now after saying that i am going to look on IMDB later and see that he played the Creeper in Jeepers Creepers, and that it was really him in an enormous amount of make up as Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. Well, in this movie he was great, so there is that. I certainly won't be taking this one back, that is for sure, look it turns out I really hate him in everything he has ever been in. Where am I?
    TIM BLAKE NELSON was the best part of the movie for me for sure. This guy is usually a director, and he was pulled in on a favor, according to rumor, by the Coen brothers to act in this movie. This was his first role, I think he ever acted in, and he mastered his character so well I can't believe it. He was hilarious, and genuine, and I believed every moment... except for the part (SPOILER WARNING) where he frowned, that was bullshit! His character was the character I watched the whole movie just for his reactions to whatever else was going on at the time. Also, he said some of the best lines, in just such an oblivious way, like he just popped out of the womb and everything was new... only there was no doctor, or screams of "You did this to me!".

DIRECTION AND SCRIPT

    JOEL COEN did a smashing job making this movie a realistic fairy tale. The style of the movie was surreal, as well as based in reality. Joel took concepts familiar to the viewer from The Odyssey, the book this movie was based on, and added the time period of the depression, a time unfamiliar to most viewers, but not to far from recent memory. Granted a lot of this has to do with the writing, but it also has to do with the director, and how he incorporates the visuals of these concepts into the feel of this partial fantasy. If you can weed through that, and you get the meaning of that statement, you win.
    ETHAN COEN and JOEL COEN wrote a stodgy, fresh, excellent, entirely boring, new, very old and outdated awesomely-poopy movie. It tickled me that I wrote that just now, because I kept contradicting myself! So the moral of that sentence is Homer blows balls, and Ethan Coen rocks my socks off, just like Jack Black and Kyle Gass. The way the Coen's translated the events in The Odyssey was very well done. They brought you the Sirens, the Cyclops, the Oracle, the sheep in the Cyclops's den, the war of the two kings, the debacle of Odysseus's wife-y, and various other events in the book to us, and they did it with great imagination and innovation. I loved the dialogue in this movie as well, there were some very memorable lines made possible by both the writing, and the acting. Just a great script, one of those that come along only once or twice a year, and this one is probably the best of it's year.

THE VERDICT

        This is a movie that I would recommend for everyone that enjoys light fantasy, or at least does not take everything seriously all the time, which should be everyone. It has awesome performances from everyone involved, no matter how small their role happens to be, fantastic and innovative direction, plus some freaking incredible music which really sets a great mood for the whole movie. A great film that many will not like based on it's sheer silliness and just plain absurd nature, but those people just need to learn that they are just wrong... justly.
 
 

RATING: B +

Disagree with this review? Have a question?
Want to request a movie for Mr. Sparkle to review?
Tell Him!!
mrsparkle@hollywoodguys.net


If you think these reviews taste good, you should sign up for The Hollywood Tickle! You will get a buffet of fun jammed right in your inbox!


ACTOR LIST~~MOVIE LIST~~DIRECTOR LIST~~SCREENWRITER LIST