Out in a mere 4 days the Blu-ray release of A Serious Man has received its first (to my knowledge at least) review. Blr-news.com gave it 10/10 for picture quality, saying;

“The level of details is of the highest quality on Blu-ray. Whether it be a close-up or wide shot, everything stands out and looks great. There are many wide shots in particular that are jaw-dropping. Even a grocery store shot from the air captures every little detail, everything pops and everything has dimension.”

The review also confirms the lengths of the three featurettes; ‘Becoming Serious’ is 17:04 long, ‘Creating 1967′ is 13:43 and ‘Hebrew and Yiddish for Goys’ is 2:14. All four are in “HD”.

Check out the full review here.

I can’t wait for mine to arrive!

Here’s an amazing little interview with Joel and Ethan Coen discussing their debut, Blood Simple, in probably 1983 or ‘84.

Their sense of humour is there and they look sooooo young, which of course they were, Joel would have been 30 and Ethan 27.

Lurking in Twitter I found a link to this, frankly awesome, collection of re-imagined Coen brothers movie posters. The designers at Poster Lab have reworked posters for Blood Simple, Barton Fink, The Hudsucker Proxy, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, The Man Who Wasn’t There and No Country For Old Men. I think you’ll agree that they’re truly beautiful.

Click on the images below to see the full size posters;

Which is your favourite? Mine? It’s a toss-up (no pun intended) between No Country and Hudsucker.

I’ll keep an eye on Poster Lab and update if they do the missing movies, I really hope they do.

The BAFTA nominations are announced, just one nomination for the Coen brothers’ latest, A Serious Man. Predictably it’s in the Original Screenplay category. An Education, The Hurt Locker and James Cameron’s Sci-fi bonanza, Avatar lead the way with 8 nominations each. The awards ceremony takes place on 21st February.

Click here to see a complete list of nominations.

That’s right, the news section of You Know, For Kids! has some technical wizardry under the hood so that it displays in a more friendly manner on your smart phone of choice. Basically it’ll load faster, be easier to read on the smaller screen and commenting will still work too, so feel free to let me know what you think of this (or any other news piece). If you don’t like the new layout, don’t worry there’s a toggle at the bottom to revert to the normal appearance. So if you’re browsing the net on your posh iPhone (for example), don’t forget to check out YKFK News.

Thanks to Marc, for helping to set this up.

Now we have an extra reason to look forward to Christmas this year! Not only will you be able to indulge yourself with too much wonderful food and drink but you’ll also get to see the new Coen brothers’ movie, True Grit! Paramount have announced via Variety that they have set the release date for the movie – Christmas Day!

Hopefully they will have found their Mattie Ross by then…

Only 338 days to wait!

A Serious Man’s one and only Golden Globe nominee, Michael Stuhlbarg, missed out in the Best Performance by an Actor Comedy or Musical category to Robert Downey Jr for his stint as Sherlock Holmes.

It’s not all bad news for the Coen brothers fraternity though, The Dude himself, Jeff Bridges, won in the category Best Performance by an Actor Drama for his role in Crazy Heart and T. Bone Burnett won for Best Original Song in a Motion Picture for this theme for the same movie. Burnett, for those that don’t know, has collaborated with the Coen brothers in the past most notably on O Brother, Where Art Thou?, The Ladykillers and The Big Lebowski in the role of musical archivist / music producer.

Complete list of nominees and winners can be seen here.

Roderick Jaynes, that cantankerous, old Englishman has been nominated for his sterling editing work on the Coen brothers’ latest movie, A Serious Man. The 60th annual American Cinema Editors dish out their “Eddies” ond February 14, 2010 at the Beverly Hilton.

The best of luck to him.

Buried at the foot of an article on Variety is a brief mention of Joel and Ethan Coen’s script for a remake of the 1966 Michael Caine and Shirley MacLaine starring British heist movie, Gambit actually going into production. Un/fortunately they will not be directing. Producer, Mike Lobell, is apparently searching for a director. As you will have read here on YKFK before, the movie has been long mooted with cast members rumoured to include [Sir] Ben Kingsley and Colin Firth.

I’m kind of glad that the Coens aren’t going to direct this themselves as I much prefer them to work on their own material rather than adapting others’ work. Though I have no problem with No Country For Old Men, indeed it is among their very finest movies, or the forthcoming adaptation (it’s NOT a remake of the John Wayne movie!) of Charles Portis’ True Grit which I am very excited about, I just prefer their own, unique look at the world. Other material they have directed and/or adapted includes Intolerable Cruelty (for which they did a re-write of a story by Robert Ramsey, Matthew Stone and John Romano with the intention of Barry Sonnenfeld directing but, when that fell through, they chose to do it themselves) and, of course, The Ladykillers.

Joel and Ethan Coen have been nominated in the category Original Screenplay for A Serious Man at this year’s Writer’s Guild of America awards to be held on 20th February simultaneously in LA and New York. Here is the complete list of nominees;

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

(500) Days of Summer, Written by Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber; Fox Searchlight

Avatar, Written by James Cameron; 20th Century Fox

The Hangover, Written by Jon Lucas & Scott Moore; Warner Bros.

The Hurt Locker, Written by Mark Boal; Summit Entertainment

A Serious Man, Written by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen; Focus Features

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Crazy Heart, Screenplay by Scott Cooper; Based on the novel by Thomas Cobb; Fox Searchlight

Julie & Julia, Screenplay by Nora Ephron; Based on the books Julie & Julia by Julie Powell and My Life in France by Julia Child with Alex Prud’homme; Sony Pictures

Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire, Screenplay by Geoffrey Fletcher; Based on the novel Push by Sapphire; Lionsgate

Star Trek, Written by Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman; Based upon Star Trek, Created by Gene Roddenberry; Paramount Pictures

Up in the Air, Screenplay by Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner; Based upon the novel by Walter Kirn; Paramount Pictures

DOCUMENTARY SCREENPLAY

Against the Tide, Screenplay by Richard Trank & Rabbi Marvin Hier; Moriah Films

Capitalism: A Love Story, Written by Michael Moore; Overture Films

The Cove, Written by Mark Monroe; Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions

Earth Days, Written by Robert Stone; Zeitgeist Films

Good Hair, Written by Chris Rock & Jeff Stilson and Lance Crouther and Chuck Sklar; Roadside Attractions

Soundtrack for a Revolution, Written by Bill Guttentag & Dan Sturman; Freedom Song Productions and Louverture Films