Several movie news sites have posted stories claiming that Joel and Ethan Coen are currently writing a script “loosely” based on the memoir of New York Greenwhich Village folk legend, Dave Van Ronk. The memoir, “The Mayor of MacDougal Street” was released a couple of years after Van Ronk’s death in 2002. He is credited with the discoveries of Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell and was a political activist. Now, any regular reader or YKFK, will know that the Coen brothers write an awful lot so, for me, this doesn’t necessarily mean that this will be their next movie. Indeed, I’m still hoping for The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. However some of this is backed up by quotes made by the brothers during an hour-long discussion at the Lincoln Center event hosted at the Elinor Bunim Monroe Film Center in New York (video of whole discussion here);

“We’re working on a movie now that has music in it but it’s pretty much all performed live, single instrument…” – Joel.

Thanks to Derrick and Joshua for emailing me.

Another Coen brothers movie is making its way to hi-def beauty with Disney’s release of O Brother, Where Art Thou? scheduled for September 13th in the US and Canada. It will, of course, be in glorious 1080p but no word yet on the audio specs. The special features are simply those from the existing DVD release;

• Painting with Pixels featurette on the digital intermediate used to create the look of the film
• Production featurette
• Storyboard-to-Scene comparison
• “Man of Constant Sorrow” music video
• Theatrical trailer

Roger Deakins’s cinematography coupled with the ground-breaking, full-screen colour treatment should make your hi-def TV really sing! Looking forward to this one!

On August 30th, 20th Century Fox are releasing the Coen Brothers Collection Blu-ray boxset comprising Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, Miller’s Crossing and Fargo. Other than Fargo they are Blu-ray debutants. They will all be available separately and will contain the same special features as their DVD equivalents (links below will take you to the Amazon.com pre-order pages)…

Blood Simple: Director’s Cut —

• Commentary with Kenneth Loring of Forever Young Films
• Cast and crew biographies
• Production notes
• Theatrical trailer

Raising Arizona —

• Theatrical trailer
• TV spots

Miller’s Crossing —

• Shooting Miller’s Crossing: A Conversation with Barry Sonnenfeld featurette
• Interview Soundbites with cast members Gabriel Byrne, Marcia Gay Harden, and John Turturro
• Still gallery
• Theatrical trailers

Fargo —

• Commentary with cinematographer Roger Deakins
• Minnesota Nice featurette
• Trivia track
• Trailer
• Still gallery
• American Cinematographer article on the film