New, super hi-res images from Burn After Reading have emerged online for all to see. You can see them over in the multimedia section (they're the last 5 images).

Thanks to Karl Mundt on the forum and Joseph by email, for the tip off.

While, surprisingly, Burn After Reading is not making an appearance at the Cannes Film Festival it is set to open the 65th Venice Film Festival on 27th August.

Thanks to Doug and Lachlan for taking the time to email me.

Ethan Coen has written three short plays which make up a show called Almost An Evening. It is on now until June 1st at The Theatres at 45 Bleecker off-Broadway in New York. How I wish I lived in the US right now. If you get out to see it please let me know how it was and if you'd like to do a little write up for the site I'd appreciate it. Hopefully it will be as good as Theatre of the New Ear.

Thanks to Sheryl for emailing it in.

MTV.com has a brief interview with George Clooney primarily about Burn After Reading but he also goes on to mention that he may NOT be directing the Coen-penned Suburbicon as previously reported. Here's what he had to say;

"No, no, I wanted to do that, [but] I haven't stolen that one away from them yet. I think they are going to do it, I think they are going to direct it, but I love that project. I have a part in it that I would love to play."

Thanks to Bunnie for emailing this in.

Have a peek here- a Flickr photoset from the set of Burn After Reading and another one. There are some more pics to be found there too, do a search for "burn after reading" and sort by relevance.

Thanks to Alberto for sending this in.

The world's most awful newspaper, the UK's Daily Mail, is reporting that the Coens are set to work on True Grit. Apparently they are to adapt the original Charles Portis novel as opposed to remaking the John Wayne movie. "The book recounts the girl's story," Joel apparently told said newspaper. "In the John Wayne film, she was played older. We want her to be her real age - it's her story!"

This stinks of either crappy journalism or a Coen joke to me. Let's not forget that the Coens have spoken about making a violent western in the recent past (see the entry dated 30th Dec below).

For anyone, like me, who was unable to watch the Oscars this year (damn you BBC for not picking it up!) here are the relevant acceptance speeches;

On Accepting Best Adapted Screenplay:

Joel Coen:
“Thank you very much for this. Thank you, Scott Rudin for bringing us this novel and giving us the opportunity to make the movie. I think whatever success we’ve had in this area has been entirely attributable to how selective we are. We’ve only adapted Homer and Cormac McCarthy, so thank you.”

Ethan Coen:
“We, uh… Thank you very much.”

On Accepting Best Director:

Ethan Coen:
“I don’t have a lot to add to what I said earlier. Thank you. “

Joel Coen:
“Ethan and I have been making stories with movie cameras since we were kids. In the late ’60s when Ethan was 11 or 12, he got a suit and a briefcase and we went to the Minneapolis International Airport with a Super 8 camera and made a movie about shuttle diplomacy called “Henry Kissinger, Man on the Go.” And honestly, what we do now doesn’t feel that much different from what we were doing then. There are too many people to thank for this. We’re really thrilled to have received it, and we’re very thankful to all of you out there for letting us continue to play in our corner of the sandbox, so thank you very much.”

On Accepting Best Picture:

Scott Rudin:
“This is an unbelievable honor and a complete surprise. So many people have a part of this, chief among them Cormac McCarthy, who wrote a wonderful book that it was an honor to make into a movie. The three men sitting down front, Josh Brolin, Tommy Lee JOnes, Javier Bardem, without them there would be no movie. These two gentlemen [to Joel and Ethan Coen], I can’t think of anybody I would rather be standing here with than the two of you. Thank you so much for this. Everybody at Vantage and Miramax who financed the movie together. The entire team at Miramax who did a brilliant, brilliant job selling it. Thank you to all of them. I want to thank Mark Roybal, It’s a pleasure to work with Him every day. I want to thank my friend, Sydney Pollack, who taught me that with the responsibility — with the opportunity to make movies comes the responsibility of making them good. This for him. This is also for my partner John Barlow. Without you, honey, this would be hardware. Thank you so much. Thank you.”

No Country For Old Men brings home FOUR OSCARS! Wins for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay!!! A truly wonderful and deserved end to awards season.

In one night Joel and Ethan walked away with more Oscars than the Academy have deemed worthy to lavish on their presented, Martin Scorsese, which is just not right is it?

I am so happy that this movie has garnered so many awards and particularly the ones last night, here's hoping the win gives the Coens the clout to be able to raise the money to make To The White Sea which I would really, really love to see made one day.

I'm gutted for Roger Deakins who has been doing incredible work for years and despite many nominations throughout his career for Best Cinematography, indeed he was up for an award TWICE this year, he still cannot bag himself a golden baldie!!!

Here are some pictures from the show;

Joel and Ethan having been presented their awards by the legendary Martin Scorsese 1 and 2

Joel and Ethan dual wielding awards

Javier Bardem doing his red carpet thing

Bardem with fellow acting gong winners Daniel Day Lewis, Tilda Swinton and Marion Cotillard 1, 2, and 3

Bardem with giant Oscar

Bardem with Jennifer Hudson

Bardem admiring his award's ass

Matthew emailed in a link to an interesting, little interview with the Coens. You can read it here.

You can read many, many, many interviews with the Coens and other members of the cast and crew of No Country For Old Men by following links from the Miramax site above. Too many for me to list here.

No Country For Old Men keeps on racking up awards! At last night's BAFTAs Joel and Ethan won Best Director, Javier Bardem won Best Supporting Actor and, quite rightly, Roger Deakins won for Best Cinematorgraphy. 3 wins out of 9 is alright I guess but it was beaten the Best Picture by Atonement again! GAH!

Over on the BAFTA site you can watch a 25 minute interview with our favourite siblings chatting to Mark Kemode about their life in movies. Apparenlty it took place on 13th December! I wish I'd known!!! It's not particulary illuminating but it's always nice to hear them chat and giggle isn't it? You can also see a few pics from the BAFTA in the multimedia section, strangely none have Ethan in them so he must have been unable to attend.

No Country For Old Men producer Scott Rudin was interviewed by the Guardian newspaper here in the UK on February the 8th and dropped this little nugget of information; apparenlty "He has already started working on the next Coen brothers film, an adaptation of The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon." Interesting? Anyone read it? I'm gonna!

Nate, over at Chabon website, sugarbombs.com, has had it personally confirmed by Chabon himself so it must be legit information!

Thanks also to Jonathan for mailing in with the link..

Hurrah! Joel and Ethan Coen have won the Director's Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film for No Country For Old Men. Apparenlty this award is a very accurate barometer for the winner of the Oscar for same.

You can download a podcast of their acceptance speech and a Q&A with the press here.

Thanks to JD for the link to the podcast.

A list of what is possibly/probably the specs of the forthcoming DVD and Blu Ray releases of No Country For Old Men have emerged on the internet. Extra features include;

Working with the Coens: Reflections of Cast and Crew - Learn more about Joel and Ethan Coen from the perspective of their collaborators, cast and crew.

The Making of No Country for Old Men - Take a journey through the Coen Brothers’ process and back to their roots as storytellers with a unique voice and vision.

Diary of a Country Sheriff - Explore the relationship between the compassion of Sheriff Bell and the brutality of Anton Chigurh.

Irritatingly but probably because they're busy finishing off Burn After Reading is is once again bereft of a Coen commentary track. Both the DVD and the Blu Ray are out on March 11th. I cannot wait!

I don't know where it came from but here's an annoyingly small image of the press announcement of the release. If anyone finds this image in a better, legible resolution please let me know.

The ceremony was cancelled due to the WGA strike but the awards were still dished out. That's right the Golden Globe winners have been announced and the fact that you're reading this here can mean only one thing- No Country For Old Men has won something! Not just some thing but TWO things. Javier Bardem took home the Globe for Best Supporting Actor while Joel and Ethan took home the award not for directing but for writing- Best Screenplay. Surprisingly Best Film (Drama) went to Atonement, Best Film (Comedy/Musical) to Tim Burton's Sweeny Todd and Best Director to Julian Schnabel for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

Congrats to all and let's hope for further recognition at the Oscars.

The New York Times is carrying an interesting article about the sound design of No Country For Old Men. Sound Editor Skip Lievsay, a Coen stalwart since Blood Simple is quoted along with Composor Carter Burwell and, of course, Joel and Ethan. You can read it by following the link.

Thanks to William for the link.

The Directors Guild of America has announced it list of nominees for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film and, I'm delighted to say, No Country For Old Men is one of them. This year marks the 60th DGA awards and it's a good one to win as the directors up for the award have been nominated by their peers not some stuffy board. The Coens are up against Paul Thomas Anderson with There Will Be Blood, Sean Penn with Into The Wild, Tony Gilroy with Michael Clayton and Julian Schnabel with The Diving Bell And The Butterfly. I'm afraid to say I am yet to see any of No Country's competitors as yet. The winner will be announced on January 26th.

Good luck to the Coens then!

About.com have an interview with Joel and Ethan Coen in which they discuss both No Country For Old Men and the forthcoming, Burn After Reading. They don't give much away (as usual) but it's always nice to hear from them. Nothing new is said about No Country but they talk about shooting in their current home town of New York for Burn. Ethan- “We live there and we had never shot and gone home at night to bed, so it was strange by virtue of that." Joel made the amusing comment about their relationship with George Clooney- “George loves to play idiots for us.” Ethan Coen added, “The day we wrapped, just a few days ago, we called wrap on George’s last shot and he said, ‘All right, that’s it. I’ve played my last idiot.’ So we told him it was sad that he wouldn’t be working with us anymore.”

Thanks to finishdish for the head's-up.

Working Title's site confims who is playing who in Burn After Reading. Thus;

George Clooney - Harry Pfarrer

Frances McDormand - Linda Litzke

Brad Pitt - Chad Feldheimer

John Malkovich - Osbourne Cox

Tilda Swinton - Katie Cox

Happy New Year one and all. And what better way to start a new year than taking yourself off to the cinema to see a new Coen brothers film? That's right the UK release date of No Country For Old Men is now confirmed as 18th January with previews on 12th and 16th. The release date of this movie has moved around a fair bit, from the originally reported February (the horror!) to the end of January before settling on 18th.

I'm going to go see it again I know that much for sure! Are you gonna go? Call it Friend-o...

Buzzing about the internet in December was the fact that Joel and Ethan had mentioned that they had written a western movie. Being the Coens it's gonna be kinda violent, Joel; ”We've written a western with a lot of violence in it. There's scalping and hanging ... it's good. Indians torturing people with ants, cutting their eyelids off.” Ethan; "It's a proper western, a real western, set in the 1870s. It's got a scene that no one will ever forget because of one particular chicken."

Sounds awesome, bring it on! What genre next? Sci-fi?

Thanks to Kevin, finishdish and Christopher for emailing in.

The awards for No Country For Old Men have started coming in already. There's a heck of a lot, here's the list so far;

National Board of Film Review- Best Picture of the Year, Best Adapted Screenplay (Joel and Ethan Coen), Best Ensemble Cast and Career Achievement in Cinematograpgy (Roger Deakins)

New York Film Critics Circle- Best Picture, Best Screenplay (Joel and Ethan), Best Director (Joel and Ethan), Best Ensemble, Best Supporting Actor (Javier Bardem)

Boston Film Critics- Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Javier Bardem)

Washington DC Film Critics- Best Picture, Best Director (Joel and Ethan), Best Ensemble, Best Supporting Actor (Javier Bardem)

San Francisco Film Critics Circle- Best Director (Joel and Ethan)

New York Film Critics Online- Best Supporting Actor (Javier Bardem)

Gotham Awards- Gotham Award Tribute (Javier Bardem)

Chicago Film Critics- Best Picture, Best Director (Joel and Ethan), Best Adapted Screenplay (Joel and Ethan) , Best Supporting Actor (Javier Bardem)

Glenn Kenny from Premiere.com seems to be a quite the fan of No Country For Old Men as he has dedicated a couple of articles to it on his blog. His articles are really informative and contain many screen grabs from his screener DVD (I imagine). Also do read the comments below the articles as it's just possible Kenny has the most intelligent readership on the net. Spoilers are within so do be careful;

Motel Shots, or Gimme Some Chigurh

Notes on the final quarter of No Country For Old Men

The Coens are turning into such workaholics! After banging out No Country For Old Men then swiftly moving to to shoot Burn After Reading, younger Coen sibling, Ethan, has found time to write a triptych of short plays. This sums it up neatly;

"In the world premiere of Ethan Coen's Almost an Evening, three short plays unsuccessfully tackle important questions. In Waiting, someone waits somewhere for quite some time. In Four Benches, a voyage to self-discovery takes a British intelligence agent to steam baths in New York and Texas, and to park benches in the U.S. and U.K. In Debate, cosmic questions are taken up. Not much is learned."

Sounds VERY Coen.

It will play Off-Broadway Atlantic's intimate second space — Atlantic Stage 2 on West 16th Street.

Previews begin Jan 9, 2008, toward a Jan. 22 opening. The troupers under the direction of Atlantic artistic director Neil Pepe will also include Jonathan Cake, J.R. Horne, Jordan Lage, Del Pentecost and Joey Slotnick. The limited engagement will play to Feb. 10, 2008.

In addition to the plays he's also written a short story called The Russian, which is in the Fall 2007 (I'm a little late on this one) issue of Zoetrope All Story. If anyone has that and could scan or transcribe it I would be very appreciative.

Thanks to Kevin R for emailing both of these in.

Just some site news. By the time you read this the new forum will be fully operational and linked to from the banner buttons at the top of every page. In additi I have now given Burn After Reading it's own sections in the pull down menus above.

Please do take the time to register at the new forum as it is much, much better than the old one.

This months Empire magazine has a 13 page article about the Coen brothers movies called, The Complete Coens. There's a two page interview with our favrourits siblings about No Country For Old Men and a page dedicated to each movie (except the last four which get half a page each). In addition there's a section about the three forthcoming movies, Burn After Reading, A Serious Man and Hail Caesar. Well worth picking up however, for me, there's too much time wasted discussing subtext.

The BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) has awarded No Country For Old Men a 15 rating with this caveat;

"It was felt that a '15' rather than an '18' certificate was sufficent as there was a lack of both clear detail of injuries and prolonged focus on the suffering of victims.

This feature also contains two uses of strong language."