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 American Film Institute has listed the Coen brothers’ latest movie, A Serious Man, as one of 10 movies of the year. The AFI’s intent is to generate a sort of visual history of American cinema by adding movies and TV shows of worth to the collection every year. Here is their explanation of what they do;

“AFI was created to protect and preserve the legacy of the moving image art form so that future generations will have a greater understanding and appreciation for the proud heritage reflected in the realities of a new modern day.

Each year, AFI AWARDS honors excellence in the moving image arts within the context of a Year in Review. One of AFI’s national mandates is the creation of an annual almanac that records and preserves the evolution of the moving image arts in the 21st century.”

Anyway, A Serious Man was joined by Coraline, The Hangover, The Hurt Locker, The Messanger, Precious, A Single Man, Sugar, Up and Up In The Air. Additionally, No Country For Old Men made the cut in 2007’s awards and Roger Deakins was awarded their Cinematographer of the Year award for The Man Who Wasn’t There back in 2001.

Skip Lievsay has worked on EVERY single Coen brothers movie. Now, as if that wasn’t impressive enough, he’s also worked with Martin Scorsese, Joe Carnahan, Cameron Crowe, Spike Lee and John Sayles. Much like longtime Coen cinematographer, Roger Deakins, he is very much at the top of his game. Indeed Lievsay received Academy Award nominations for Best Achievement in Sound and Best Achievement in Sound Editing for No Country for Old Men. FilmInFocus, the official Focus Features site, has interviewed him about his work in general and particularly on A Serious Man.

Of working with the Coen brothers he says;

“The Coens are precise — they have very specific ideas and they are very articulate in their scripts about the sound.  And they shoot their films in a way that lends itself to a more abstract sound [design].”

Empire magazine’s website has listed what they consider to be the the 20 best micro-part characters from the Coen brothers oeuvre. Here’s are those 20…

1. Loren Visser (M Emmet Walsh), Blood Simple

2. Dot (Frances McDormand), Raising Arizona

3. Nathan Arizona (Trey Wilson), Raising Arizona

4. Johnny Caspar (Jon Polito), Miller’s Crossing

5. Tic Tac (Al Mancini), Miller’s Crossing

6. Jack Lipnick (Michael Lerner), Barton Fink

7. W.P. Mayhew (John Mahoney), Barton Fink

8. Waring Hudsucker (Charles Durning), The Hudsucker Proxy

9. Buzz (Jim True-Frost), The Hudsucker Proxy

10. Mike Yanagita (Steve Park), Fargo

11. Officer Lou (Bruce Lohene), Fargo

12. Marty (Jack Keller), The Big Lebowski

13. Penny Wharvey McGill (Holly Hunter), O Brother, Where Art Thou?

14. Freddy Reidenschneider (Tony Shalhoub), The Man Who Wasn’t There

15. Gus Petch (Cedric the Entertainer), Intolerable Cruelty

16. Wheezy Joe (Irwin Keyes), Intolerable Cruelty

17. Deputy Wendell (Garret Dillahunt), No Country For Old Men

18. Gas Station Proprietor (Gene Jones), No Country For Old Men

19. CIA Superior (J.K. Simmons), Burn After Reading

20. Sy Abelman (Fred Melamed), A Serious Man

Nice to see a couple of entries from Intolerable Cruelty which I still think is massively underrated suffering, as it does, from the weight of Coen quality prior to it.

What do you think? Has anyone been missed?  Only ONE from The Big Lebowski? I would have Knox Harrington (David Thewlis) in there right away! And no Jesus Quintana (John Turturro), surely Jesus’ part is small enough to make this list? None from The Ladykillers? Let’s talk…

According to FirstShowing.net both Matt Damon and Josh Brolin are set to join Jeff Bridges in the cast of the Coen’s forthcoming adaptation of the Charles Portis novel, True Grit.

No reader of YKFK will need reminding of Brolin’s cracking performance in No Country For Old Men but Damon would be working with the Coen brothers for the first time, he joins George Clooney and Brad Pitt from the Ocean’s gang in having worked with them. Neither will play the 14 year-old girl who is the focus of both the novel and the movie, Damon is set to play LaBouef, a lawman alongside Bridges’ “Rooster” Cogburn while Brolin, surprisingly I thought, is due to play the murderer.

EDIT: According to the original Variety article the movie is due to go into production in March with a release date somewhere late in2010 with Paramount Pictures. The Coens reteam with producer Scott Rudin who worked with them on No Country For Old Men but interestingly, Steven Spielberg is also producing…

According to this Facebook page the Coens’ latest, A Serious Man, is to have, what could possibly be its UK premiere, at this year’s Leeds International Film Festival, in much the same way as they did for No Country For Old Men. No firm dates are available for the showing(s) as yet but the festival as a whole runs from 4th to 22nd November.

I’ll be keeping an eye on the Leeds Festival website.

IGN.com have reviewed the forthcoming 2-disc Blu-ray release of No Country For Old Men which is out in the US tomorrow and should be region free (this is unconfirmed at the moment but the last release was). Initially I was resistant to this release on account of the fact that this is the movie’s second Blu-ray release ALREADY. But is seems it might actually be worth a purchase.

The review, of course, gives the movie itself 10/10 and 9/10 for the both the audio and visual quality but most interstingly is the 10/10 given for the extra features. Apparenly the interviews contained on the first disc (2nd disc is just the digital copy) run to around 5 hours in total!!!

I think this only applies to readers in the UK but Sky Movies Indie is showing a “season” of Coen brothers movies building up to their premiere of No Country For Old Men showing on Sky Movies Premiere in HD. They’ve dubbed the season “Scream with the Coen brothers” and have put together this frankly ACE trailer which is a compedium of one of the Coens’ recurring themes- people screaming. It starts on 30th March and end on 12th April.

Information on the Sky site is not very well organised but I’ve been able to root this out;

The Hudsucker Proxy is showing on Monday 30th March at 20:00,

O Brother, Where Art Thou? on Monday 30th at 22:00 and Tuesday 31st at 20:00,

Blood Simple on Tuesday 31st at 22:00,

The Big Lebowski is showing on Wednesday 1st April at 22:00,

Raising Arizona is showing on Wednesday 1st April at 20:00 and Thursday 2nd April at 2:00

Beyond that, scrabbled together information I’m not sure if they’re showing more of their movies or not, certainly there are clips from both Barton Fink and Fargo in the trailer but they have no listings on the site. Perhaps those with a Sky subscription could clarify?

Thanks to Will for the info.

This time from one Blake Loosli who seems to specialise in caricature/portraiture. He’s created work based on a wide range of subject matter including quite a lot of movie related stuff, not least of which are his amazing No Country For Old Men, O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Walter Sobchak pieces.

Check out all of his excellent work here. Spotted on The Lebowski Podcast’s Twitter feed.

In what should be really annoying news but is now something us movie lovers fully expect from the movie studios comes news that No Country For Old Men may see another, more feature-packed disc release. Apparenlty due out on April 7th in the US, the three-disc DVD and two-disc Blu-ray Collector’s Edition will feature the following extra features;

• The Making of No Country For Old Men
• NEW: ABC “Popcorn” Video
• NEW: Channel 4 News — Joel And Ethan Coen Appearance
• NEW: Lunch With David Poland — IKLIPZ — Javier Bardem And Josh Brolin Interview
• NEW: WNBC Reel Talk With Lyons & Bailes — Josh Brolin
• NEW: LA WGAW Q & A Panel
• NEW: Six Additional Audio Interviews
• NEW: Digital Copy
• Working With The Coens
• The Diary Of A Country Sheriff
• NEW: Josh Brolin’s Unauthorized Behind-The-Scenes
• NEW: Q & A With Joel And Ethan Coen, Roger Deakins And The Sound And Production Design Crews
• NEW: Charlie Rose Featuring Joel And Ethan Coen, Josh Brolin And Javier Bardem
• NEW: EW.com “Just A Minute…With Javier Bardem”
• NEW: VARIETY Screening Series Q & A
• NEW: Instore Appearance With Javier Bardem And Josh Brolin