OK so it now seems that the artwork I posted earlier IS the official artwork (below is another image to confirm). Here is the text from the press release…

 BURN AFTER READING

         Available on DVD and Blu-ray Hi-Def December 23, 2008
               FROM UNIVERSAL STUDIOS HOME ENTERTAINMENT

                  “A Comedic Masterpiece” -Larry King

OVERVIEW:  Intelligence is relative in this hilarious new spy comedy from Joel and Ethan Coen, the Academy Award(R) -winning directors of No Country for Old Men and The Big Lebowski.    Academy Award(R) winners George Clooney and Frances McDormand, Brad Pitt, John Malkovich, and Academy Award(R) winner Tilda Swinton star in this brilliantly clever and endlessly entertaining comedy of errors.

SYNOPSIS:  When a disc filled with some of the CIA’s most irrelevant secrets gets in the hands of two determined, but dim-witted, gym employees, the duo are intent on exploiting their find.  But since blackmail is a trade better left for the experts, events soon spiral out of everyone’s and anyone’s control, resulting in a non-stop series of hilarious encounters!

 BONUS FEATURES (AVAILABLE ON DVD AND BLU-RAY HI-DEF):
 *  FINDING THE BURN:  The making of Burn After Reading from inspiration to
    the big screen.
 *  DC INSIDERS RUN AMUCK:  We show the strength in putting together some
    of the most amazing talent in the world to create a world of
    Washington, DC insiders all trying to get ahead or find true love.
 *  WELCOME BACK GEORGE:  This is a companion, comedy piece, focusing on
    Mr. Clooney as he returns for his third collaboration with Ethan and
    Joel Coen.

 BONUS FEATURES EXCLUSIVE TO BLU-RAY HI-DEF:
 *  Get Connected with BD-Live!
    *  Access the BD-Live Center through your Internet-connected player and
       download even more bonus content, the newest trailers and more!
    *  Plus, explore MY SCENES and collect your favorite clips from the
       movie then share with your BD-Live buddies!

            http://www.burnafterreading.com–live.com/#/home

  TECHNICAL INFORMATION:
  Selection Number:  62102034 Anamorphic Widescreen
  Price:  $29.98 SRP
  Running Time:  1 hour 36 minutes
  Layers:  Dual Layer
  Aspect Ratio:  Anamorphic Widescreen 1.85:1
  Rating: R for pervasive language, some sexual content, and violence
  Languages/Subtitles:  English SDH, Spanish and French
  Sound:  Dolby Digital 5.1

  TECHNICAL INFORMATION – BLU-RAY(TM):
  Selection Number:  62105851 Widescreen
  Price:   SRP $39.98
  Running Time: 1 hour 36 minutes
  Layers: BD-50
  Aspect Ratio: Widescreen 1.85:1
  Languages/Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, French
  Sound: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, DTS Surround 5.1

  CAST AND FILM MAKERS:
  Cast:  George Clooney, Frances McDormand, Brad Pitt, John Malkovich,
  Tilda Swinton, Richard Jenkins
  Written, Produced and Directed by:  Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
  Executive Producers:  Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner
  Executive Producer:  Robert Graf
  Director of Photography:  Emmanuel Lubezki, ASC, A.M.C.
  Edited by:  Roderick Jaynes
  Production Designer:  Jess Gonchor
  Costume Designer:  Mary Zophres
  Associate Producer:  David Diliberto
  Supervising Sound Editor:  Skip Lievsay
  Music by:  Carter Burwell

The above Blu-ray information confirms that it is to be a dual layer disc (BD50) not the previously reported single layer. All this means is that there is likely to be less compression on both the picture and the audio, better quality basically. The extra storage space provided by the second layer has also allowed the inclusion of a DTS soundtrack which is great news!

Just stumbled across a site on the internet that had cover artwork for December’s release of the Burn After Reading Blu-ray and DVD. Not sure if these are official or not but they certainly look it…

Details are starting to emerge about the DVD and Blu-ray release of the Coen brothers latest movie, Burn After Reading. It will be out in the US on both formats on December 23rd (just in time for Santa!). At the moment I only have details of the Blu-ray release. It will be on a single layer disc (BD-25) at 1080p (obviously) with a 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack. The extra features of the Blu-ray are listed thus; Finding the Burn, DC Insiders Run Amuck, Welcome Back George and BD LIve- My Scenes Sharing.

So seemingly no Coen commentary (again!), but I suppose they are busy crafting their next, A Serious Man.

Just a quick note to let you know that I have just updated the site with around 30 new images from Burn After Reading. There are now almost 90 images to enjoy, you can see them all in the movie’s Mulitmedia section, to see the new additions- start at the bottom.

Burn After Reading sits atop the UK box office after its opening weekend with a take of £2.04m which is double that of thriller, Eagle Eye, which is in second with £1.09m. You can see the top 10 here. As Coen fans you might like to know that Igor, an animated kid’s movie with Steve Buscemi on voice duties is at number 3. 

Just a note to let you know that I saw Burn After Reading last night which, here in the UK, was opening night. You can find my review over in the review section but here it is below…

And so the culmination of around 18 months of obsession ended last night. After over a year of hunting down every little scrap of information and news about the next Coen brothers film, I sat, in the middle of a full house last night to watch their latest offering, Burn After Reading. Running this site is very much a catch 22 situation for me. I love to find out every little nugget of information to share with the readers but, when it actually comes to watching a new Coen brothers movie for the first time it’s a strange feeling. The movie is usually very familiar to me through reading anything and everything and watching every little clip and interview but never in 10 years of running this site has this been more true than of Burn After Reading. Like you, I am a huge Coen brothers fan. First and foremost all I want to do is see their movies and enjoy them time and time again and, on this occasion, my first viewing was blighted by the very fact that I run You Know, For Kids! Honestly, from the first frame I felt that I had already seen the movie which is a real shame. If the past is anything to go by the second viewing will fill me with entirely different feelings. It’s my cross to bear.

Burn After Reading features the typical Coen conceit that people with big plans are usually total fucking idiots- too stupid to pull them off. A whole series of unfortunate events begins with Osbourne Cox (a very swearly and shouty John Malkovich, but then, who swears and shouts better than he?) resigning from his job as a CIA analyst after being told he was being bumped to a lower security desk due to his drinking problem. To Cox, everyone is a moron and this includes his bosses who take the full hit of an f-bomb laden rant – and this is the first two minutes! Irked by this he decides to use this experiences at the CIA to write what he thinks will be an explosive book- his “mem-wahs” as he hilariously and conceitedly refers to it. Now it gets messy – Cox’s wife, Katie (Tilda Swinton) is planning to divorce him to be with US Marshall Harry Pfarrer (an excellent George Clooney) who is also married. Harry seems to be something of a sexaholic. He’s constantly picking up women on internet dating sites and thinks nothing of using tools to enhance his sex life- to wit his purple sex wedge and awesome basement invention.

During the Cox’s divorce proceedings Katie collects all of her husband’s financials (and accidentally- a draft of his “mem-wah”) on a disc which convolutedly winds up being found on the floor of the ladies changing room at Hardbodies gym. It is found by the employees, two of whom decide to use it to gain a reward. The two knuckle-heads in question, Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt) and Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand), attempt to blackmail Cox to gain the moneys required to pay for Linda’s battery of cosmetic surgeries. Suffice to say these are the two people with a relatively simple plan without the nous to pull it off. This being Coen Country, things inevitably spiral out of control resulting in blood being spilt (in much the same was as Fargo). In a Coen movie, simple plan is never that simple. The plot strands tangle further still when Linda, looking for love on the internet, ends up dating Harry- the circle is complete – basically everyone is shagging everyone.

For me Clooney stole the show. A lot of people have said that Pitt did it for them but I disagree. While Pitt’s Chad was excellent and very funny, I found Clooney’s Harry to have more interesting characteristics. His obsession with women and sex (and post-coital exercise) while simultaneously being the most insecure man imaginable is a delicious dichotomy. There were two distinct scenes where I had laughing fits and both involved Harry. Skip this next sentence (in grey) if you don’t want to know which two as they’re spoilers- the first was when, after shooting Chad in the head from point-blank range, he ran downstairs to grab a kitchen knife as he wasn’t sure Chad would be dead- never having “discharged his gun in 20 years of service” you see. He’s a moron, like everyone else. The second was when, after an argument with Katie he stormed upstairs to collect his sex wedge thing before leaving. Two truly hilarious scenes that I think stand up to anything else the Coens have ever created.

Special mention must be made of David Rasche and JK Simmons’s performances as the CIA head-honchos. They are totally bemused at everything that is happening especially since the hub of it all, Cox, has such low security clearance. Their final exchange had the whole cinema in stictches.

Remember the sudden, brutal acts of violence in Fargo? Remember how shocking they were when viewed in juxtaposition with the black comedy bookending the scenes? Well this movie contains two very, very shocking scenes of graphic violence, both a little out of the blue. The big, hefty, tough looking guy sat next to me literally had his hand on his mouth in shock when the first happened. The Coens do this a lot. It’s one of their tricks. They make you laugh and then- BAM! – shock you, then make you laugh again. I found the first such event very funny indeed but I am plugged into the Coen sense of humour, my laugh was the only one I heard.

Good though the movie is I have to say that for a comedy it was very light on laughs for about the first 45 minutes though it made up for it as the plot gathered momentum.

I’ve read a lot about how this movie is throw away and a let down following the Oscar winning triumph of No Country For Old Men but this is, to my mind, a nonsense. Sure this movie will never make anyone’s top ten movies of all time and maybe not even their top ten Coen brothers movies but is that such a bad thing? I think the reason this movie has garnered sporadic negativity is simply because the Coens have set the bar so ridiculously high for themselves. For me this movie can sit happily in the little sub section of their movies including the likes of Raising Arizona, The Hudsucker Proxy, The Ladykillers and Intolerable Cruelty (the latter two of which have always been unfairly lambasted). There’s no possibility of this movie being mentioned in the same breath as Miller’s Crossing, The Big Lebowski, Fargo or No Country For Old Men on a purely qualitative level. But that is not the point. Is it a fun movie? Was the whole crowd laughing uproariously at times? Were the performances good? Was the dialogue up to scratch? Yes, yes, yes and yes. Burn After Reading is a good movie, not great or brilliant, just plain old good. Because it is not great, certainly not as great as other Coen offerings does that mean it is devoid of merit?

Go see it for yourself but don’t expect Citizen Kane or The Godfater, or even Fargo- expect to be entertained for 90 minutes and you won’t be disappointed. I’m gonna go see it again!

Just a quick bit of housekeeping news. I’ve just added Burn After Reading to the poll on the right (and within this post) so if any of you should happen to think that the Coens latest offering is your favourite feel free to vote for it.

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Sing Hosanah! The day is finally here! I’ll be off to see the movie at some point today (I should probably get work out of the way first!). When I’ve seen it I’ll write something up for the site.

Here’s hoping and expecting it to live up to the excellent looking trailers and clips.

Pop on over to Sky TV’s website to see their Burn After Reading mini-site (which is already better than the official UK one). Mike from Sky, who reached out to me said that for the moment it is based around Burn but will mutate into a Coen site later in the year. Anyhoo, they have a lot of pictures and clips from BAR along with stuff from other Coen brothers movies. Could be worth keeping an eye on.

Hmmm, competition…

Total Film, which is a distant 2nd to Empire magazine in terms of both sales and quality (in my opinion at least), has reviewed Burn After Reading giving it three stars (only 4 days till I see it for myself- yay!!!)…

“Intelligence is relative,” runs the tagline for Burn After Reading. So is impact. If this were the work of some self-taught young tyro, there’d be headlines cheerleading its wit and zip; its slippery subversiveness and antic spirit. As it is, coming from the Coen brothers, off the back of a masterpiece, it feels a bit slight. A bit knocked-off. Not as good as you’d expect, basically.

Funny guy. But the problem with all these characters is that they’re self-absorbed without self-awareness, which makes them easy to laugh at but hard to love (unlike, say, The Dude). Finding distraction in the visuals proves tough, too. Set in Washington DC but lensed mainly in New York, this is the most functional and anonymous-looking of all the sibs’ pics. Like we said though, it’s all relative. Burn After Reading may emerge free of consequence, but it’s also without flab, filler or faffing, its trim 96 mins a bit of a blessing after the Apatow-instigated trend for bloated running times. And with ’08 hardly shaping up as a vintage year for the Holly-com, its sleek combo of zigzag plotting, nimble pratfalls and random, blithe zaniness makes it burn all the brighter.

Verdict:

The title says it all. Seemingly eager to show us that they’re still pranksters rather than players, the post-Oscar Coens whip up a screwball soufflé that only the perverse will ponder at length. Snappy, snarky and full of big stars being very, very silly.- Sam Ashursh”