'Burn After Reading' (2008)

Sensationally droll & black & worldly, "Burn" is simply the best
pic I've seen fr US in 20 years. But then, I'm eccentric. The NY
critics razzed pic, so I dismissed unseen, alas alack, forgetting
that NYcrits slumber in Philistia. (Pic became b.o. whooper).
Until seeing "Burn," I admit -- I was never big Coen fan, or quite
understood them. Or wanted to. Now I await their projects.
My take, then, is all about me.

"Burn" is superbly directed, with remarkable Dp-work (not one
wrong shot), and the all-star cast - even extras - is a knockout.
The conceit: 2 dumdum gym bunnies (Brad Pitt-Frances McDormand)
find a stray cd that they attach to fired spook (John Malkovich) whose
wife (Tilda Swinton) is having affair with DC guy (George Clooney).
Deception, self-deception, misunderstandings and criss-cross
purposes color the narrative, suggesting Shakespeare or the
Restoration playwrights.

The Coen's were clearly influenced by Preston Sturges, whom
they admire (yah, yah!) but Sturges always had - here, there -
3 or 4 likeables. The Coens scorn likeability. They push the
envelope. No one in pic is likeable. Everyone is a fool. And, yet,
they pull-it-off -- even when the dead bodies fall.

The Coen Brothers show, with straight face, that they're keen
satirists and students of manners. They give fraud and pretense
a merciless thrashing. There's no vanilla in their offensive world.
I don't quite figah how their sophistication disarmed mass
audiences...but let's not ask for the moon when we have
the stars.