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!

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.

Just spotted this on Twitter but, for some reason, the Raindance website has made the screenplays for EVERY, and I mean EVERY, Coen brothers’ movie available for download. Now, this includes the screenplays for both A Serious Man AND their next movie, True Grit!!! You heard me right- including TRUE GRIT!

I suggest you get them ALL while you can because I can’t imagine the True Grit one being available for long. Get them HERE!

Obviously most of them are available right here on YKFK and have been for a long time however, I have gotten into a bit of legal deep water in the past for posting up scripts for forthcoming movies before which is why I have not uploaded the ones for Burn After Reading, A Serious Man and True Grit…

Andyrama has kindly agreed to make his three tremendouns, themed, alternative DVD covers available for download, in hi-res, right here on You Know, For Kids! You can download them using the links below (once they’re opne, right click them and choose “save as”)…

Andyrama cover for The Hudsucker Proxy

Andyrama cover for The Big Lebowski

Andyrama cover for O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Some printing tips from Andy- “I would recommend that your readers print them at full size, without checking any “fit to page” links or the like, as these will distort the dimensions as not to fit in cases. These should print nicely within the margins of A4 sheets. However, those in North America should be aware that it may not fit within the margins of Letter size paper depending on their printers’ capabilities. In their case, they should try to print to a Legal (8.5″x14″) or Tabloid (11″x17″) size sheet if they are able. 

After that, just cut ‘em out, and stick them in cases. ”

Please let me know how you get on with these, I have printed these myself and will post some pics when I’ve united them with my DVDs at home! Also do stop by Andyrama.net to check out his other artwork, he has a lot of cool stuff.

Thanks again to Andy for letting us do this. Here’s hoping he creates more in the future. It would be great to have a unified look for the Coen brother’s DVDs.

Ponders the Guardian’s Joe Queenan using the fact that the Coens are yet to make a tear-jerker as evidence that they are not fit to be so highly regarded. Once again a journalist bemoaning the fact that the Coens have gone from making a serious, Oscar-winning movie (No Country For Old Men) to a light, knock about comedy (Burn After Reading). Like that’s a bad thing! His comment that “the Coen brothers revert to being smart-alecks making films for snarky college students” is so boring, so well-trodden and so wrong that I almost stopped reading the article right there. And again the line about the Coen brothers “creative slump” is regurgitated, only this time, to fit the theme of his article, Queenan, has decided to make that slump a lot longer than the period in which the much maligned (unfairly, or at least overly harshly, in my opinion) Intolerable Cruelty (“a real horror”) and The Ladykillers (“a gabby, klutzy reworking of the 1955 British classic of the same name”). He extends it to include the period 1998-2006, a period in which he claims the Coen brothers “hit the skids”, conveniently beginning after most people’s favourite Coen movie, The Big Lebowski to the aforementioned serious, worthy movie, No Country For Old Men. This merely gives him the [false] evidence to back up his claims and overlooks two truly tremendous movie offerings in O Brother, Where Art Thou? ,which, in his esteemed opinion, has nothing to recommend it but (you guessed it) the multi-million selling, award winning soundtrack, and The Man Who Wasn’t There.

He also contends that- “Everything the Coen brothers do is clever, eye-opening, and stylish. That puts them in a class with Salvador Dalí. It doesn’t put them in a class with Rembrandt”.  Suits me, I much prefer the work of the surrealist master over that of Rembrandt.

In my opinion it is Queenan’s article that is a “recycling – more like a regurgitation” displaying for all to see how easy it is to write from a grumpy stand point. Of course, much like this post, his article is merely one man’s opinion to which he is entitled, however wrong it may be.

Do you live in North Carolina in the US of A? Assuming you haven’t landed at YKFK by mistake, you love the movies of the Coen brothers. Well, what could be better than watching them for FREE and partaking in discussions about them with critics and fans? Interested? Read on…

ASHEVILLE — People love or loathe the Coen brothers’ movies. A critics’ roundtable event will break them (the movies, not the people) down at screenings of the films at Pack Library.

The critics are Ken Hanke, Marcianne Miller, Jason Souther and Buncombe County Library director Ed Sheary. All showings are at 2 p.m. and are free.

• “Blood Simple” (rated R), Saturday: Introduced by Sheary, a long-time fan of the Coen brothers’ films, this film was the first collaboration between the Coen brothers. Sheary decided to show the film because, he said, “when I saw this film, I began to really understand ‘The Big Lebowski.’”
• “Miller’s Crossing” (rated R), Aug. 23: Introduced by Hanke, this densely plotted film mixes a couple of Dashiell Hammett novels into a cocktail of shaky ethics and ambition.
• “The Big Lebowski” (rated R), Aug. 30: This film will be introduced by Miller, who for many years worked as a TV producer/writer in Los Angeles and, as an avid bowler, used to roll strikes and spares at the Holly Star Lanes seen in this Coen
• “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” (rated PG-13): Introduced by Souther, the DVD includes a comment about the film by Joel Coen: “We sort of combine the Three Stooges with Homer’s Odyssey.”

Thanks to Bunnie for mailing this one in.

That’s right, Waring Hudsucker has hit the pavement in a whole new way!

Charles Durning the actor who played two memorable roles for the Coens, Waring Hudsucker in The Hudsucker Proxy and Pappy O’Daniel in O Brother, Where Art Thou? was added to the Hollywood Walk of Fame yesterday.

The veteran of World War II (during which he won three (count them- THREE!) Purple Hearts and a Silver Star) and over 100 movies said, “I never thought this would happen. This is one of the secret awards I wanted. I was hoping this would happen in my lifetime and it did.” He can put his plaque on the shelf next to his Screen Actors Guild Lifetime Achievement award which he won in January.

His star is the 2,366th and puts him next to his hero James Cagney of whom he said, “Cagney was my favorite actor and favorite person. I met him once and he was very kind to me. I never got a chance to tell him what I thought, that he was my hero.”

Three cheers for Charles and here’s hoping he has many more movies in him. Hurrah!

Thanks to Juan on the forum for the notification.

Charles Durning will need to introduction to anyone reading this site I’m sure. The fine character actor who brought us Wareing Hudsucker (The Hudsucker Proxy) and Pappy O’Daniel (O Brother, Where Art Thou?) is to be honoured with a lifetime achievement award by the Screen Actors Guild. He’s 84 years old now and has led quite a life which would, one day, make a fascinating biopic. He served his country WWII including the Normandy landings on Omaha beach which was, of course, made famous by Speilberg’s Saving Private Ryan and was also the sole survivor of the battle of Malmedy in Belgium. He received three Purple Hearts and a Silver Star for bravery. Hats off to the man and I hope he has many more memorable roles in him.

Thanks to M@ for emailing this in.

Empire Online runs a series of quizzes, their “How Well Do You Know…” series. The latest is How Well Do You Know O Brother, Where Art Thou? Pop over and see how you do. I scored 18/20.

Looks like “BURN AFTER READING” will be the Coen’s follow up to the forthcoming No Country For Old Men. Focusing on a member of the CIA who pens a book about his top secret missions then loses a CD with it on and featuring George Clooney as the hitman on his tail this semi-comic movie sees the Coens and Clooney team up for a third time. This is the second time this movie has been mentioned now, check the Future Projects secion for more details. Here’s hoping it’s as great as O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Empire article