March 11, 1996

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Director Joel Coen, with his brother, producer-writer Ethan, have become the most celebrated brother filmaking act in recent history. Most of their films are either spoofs, take-offs or tributes to classic Hollywood films of the past. Both were born in St. Louis Park, MN, (Joel in 1955, Ethan in 1958), the two siblings have watched a lot of these movies. It shows in their work. They started writing screenplays, soon after college, then moved to editing low-budget productions, including friend Sam Raimi's popular Evil Dead (1982). The first film they made as director-producers was the witty film noir, Blood Simple (1984).

It was followed by the bravura display of their sense of humor and artistic versatility with the comedy classic Raising Arizona (1987), a zany film about a childless couple (Nicolas Cage and Holly Hunter) who decide to kidnap one of a set of quintuplets. Their recent work has included the gangster film Miller's Crossing (1990) and Barton Fink (1991), a black comedy about a screenwriter taking a long trip through hell. The film won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes film Festival. The most recent film project was the critical and financial failure, The Hudsucker Proxy (1994). The brothers Coen hope to bounce back with their next black comedy Fargo, which brings their unique filmaking skills back to their (as well as my) home state of Minnesota. Here's hoping for some success boys.

My rating on a scale of 1 to 10: 7

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