A Reply From the Coen Brothers

Due to the lack of response from the Coen brothers regarding my first post, I have taken the liberty of replying on their behalf.

Mr Paiva,

First and foremost may we congratulate you on your elegant prose and articulate reasoning, it isn’t often in our line of work that we get to see a young man such as yourself write so eloquently. That being said, where do you get off critiquing our films? Not only are you not involved in the industry in any way shape or form, but it would appear you lack even a cursory understanding of the process of evaluating a film’s merit.

You have chosen to focus upon, rather than fundamentals of storytelling, cinematography, character development or any number of relevant factors, an arbitrary and infrequent fabrication of your own creation to judge the merit of our films. I mean, in all seriousness, did you really expect us to take time out of our hectic film schedule (True Grit 2: the Re-Understandaning) to address your wild accusations of follicular irresponsibilty? Young man, you ask too much.

You can’t just go around comparing Woody to Satan with reckless abandon, for God’s sakes my daughter is in the other room. If she had stumbled upon your post and given even a sideways glance at your heretical jibberish my wife would have made me sleep in the garage. One time I woke up to night-pee and I found the car running. I ran to unlock the door to the house only to find a shovel and bucket of lye placed deliberately in front. I had to fashion myself a makeshift gasmask using my son’s bong and a screenplay for Black Swan I use as a grease rag.

In addition, Nicholas Cage is a fine actor and we were determined to have him play the role of Tom Chaney in True Grit, but he insisted upon playing the role of Mattie Ross sans negotiation. Upon questioning him, the only “reasons” we ever got were the words “final frontier” and “goddamn keratin deficiency”. He insisted upon looking us (both) in the eye as he said it and it was more of a murmur than anything. His voice is so musky…. upon realizing he had a raging erection we had no choice but to give the whole cast and crew the day off. He was so determined that he showed up on set in a dress. The movie was already in theatres.

To sully Tom Hanks and George Clooney is to sully two of the finest actors on the face of the Earth. Were it not for Tom Hanks’ stirring performance in Cast Away, I would not have been inspired for my new screenplay. It features three intrepid explorers searching for tigers at an abandoned Belorussian mine who discover a bicycle standing unsupported upon a patch of wild daisies. Only the worthiest of the trio can ride it you see, as he put on his pants both legs at the same time that very morning. Upon straddling the magnificent steel steed, he immediately enters a wormhole through space and time and finds himself impregnating a dinosaur. The dinobaby born as a result of their unholy union serves as the direct ancestor to the human crotchspawn who later becomes Tom Hanks, who then discovers his hidden Repto-DNA in his role as Prof. Curt Connors in the Spider-Man musical. Upon rampaging and slaughtering every man, woman, and child in attendance at the show he then eats Aaron Sorkin and the entire supporting cast of Cheers before self-destructing into a shower of asexually reproducing dino-sperms who serve as the stars in the long-awaited modern-day Godzilla sequel starring Matthew Broderick. Imagine an army of dinosaurs saying “there’s a snake in my boots”. Shit, every time I talk about it I get so excited. One time, we had no choice but to send everybody home lest I receive another sexual harassment charge from the lady who wires my microphone. And without George Clooney’s role in The American, I might have forgotten to take my Metamucil that afternoon. What I’m saying is the movie is shit.

But now it is I who digress….es. Your post was bunk. You were just shamelessly trolling our movies to achieve what, I don’t know. You had literally zero followers and your blog looks like it was designed by a white supremacist. Seriously, did colours pick on you as a child? Live a little why don’t you. 

To conclude, we are actually both very sorry about Richard Jenkins. We only realized after we had finished the film that he was even in it as we were both concerned over Brad Pitt’s guylights. Truthfully my brother and I have been smoking meth-amphetamines ever since we discovered my son smokes pot. His bongwater kept me alive overnight from my horrible wife and it’s something I live with every day. I’m sorry about your neighbours dog.

Joel & Ethan Coen

directors.

True Grit (2010) Review: 4.5/5

This review was a long time coming. I had heard about the wonder of True Grit from my friend Luke and was instantly excited. As a fan of classic film and westerns, I felt it was my duty to see if this movie was on the up and up. In short, it was. True Grit is an almost line for line remake of the 1969 version which was surprisingly refreshing, unlike most remakes. Jeff Bridges delivered a wonderful performance as the almost-constantly drunk Marshall, as did Matt Damon as the odd, rough-around-the-edges Texas Ranger. A new face, Hailee Steinfeld was actually believable, gritty and likeable as Mattie Ross.

The old saying goes, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” The original True Grit was definitely not “broke.” The Coen brothers did not abide by that saying, however there are exceptions to everything. This is one exception I would be glad to accept.