false 16717 2 1 O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Raising Arizona, The Hudsucker Proxy) to film noir (Miller's Crossing, Blood Simple, The Man Who Wasn't There, No Country for Old Men), to movies where genres blur together (Fargo, The Big Lebowski, and Barton Fink). The brothers write, direct and produce their films jointly, although until recently Joel received sole credit for directing and Ethan for producing. They often alternate top billing for their screenplays while sharing film credits for editor under the alias Roderick Jaynes. They are known in the film business as "the two-headed director", as they share such a similar vision of what their films are to be that actors say that they can approach either brother with a question and get the same answer.]]> male Minneapolis, Minnesota 1957/09/21 175849 0385334389 9780385334389 36 <![CDATA[Gates of Eden]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172438149m/175849.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172438149s/175849.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/175849.Gates_of_Eden 3.58 258 Fargo, etc.). You've got the bleakly realistic Midwest settings: a frazzled dad driven crazy driving his kids on a camping trip in "The Boys." You've got the minutia of the middle-class life captured down to the last speck of "abstractly speckled linoleum" ("The Old Country"). You've got comically incompetent thugs (Mafiosi spectacularly failing to bring Mob rule to Minneapolis in "Cosa Minapolidan," a college-boy boxer turned private dick in "Destiny"). You've got ghastly, amusing caricatures of showbiz moguls: the record-company guy soliloquizing in "Have You Ever Been to Electric Ladyland" could be as real as his allusions to the personal foibles of Cat Stevens and Danny Thomas. Above all, you've got a mockingly self-conscious yet vibrantly original style of pulp-culture homage and spoofy, sharp, vulgar dialogue like nobody else on earth can write, except Joel Coen (who cowrites movies with brother Ethan).

In print, Coen can show off a descriptive gift that can't fit into screenplays. His fiction is bright and never boring, but not ambitious--it lacks the obbligato of grim mystery and lyricism that throbs in some of his films. It's on the light side--more like Raising Arizona than Miller's Crossing. It's also the most penetrating glimpse into a Coen brother's mystery-crammed skull since the revealing The Big Lebowski: The Making of a Coen Brothers Film. --Tim Appelo

]]> 16717 3.86 628 79 1998 400261 0609609467 9780609609460 11 <![CDATA[The Drunken Driver Has the Right of Way: Poems]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1174439951m/400261.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1174439951s/400261.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/400261.The_Drunken_Driver_Has_the_Right_of_Way_Poems 3.47 53
In his screenplays and short stories, Ethan Coen surprises and delights us with a rich brew of ideas, observations, and perceptions. In his first collection of poems he does much the same. The range of his poems is remarkable–funny, ribald, provocative, sometimes raw, and often touching and profound.

In these poems Coen writes of his childhood, his hopes and dreams, his disappointments, his career in Hollywood, his physically demanding love affair with Mamie Eisenhower, and his decade-long battle with amphetamines that produced some of the lengthier poems in the collection. You will chuckle, nodding with recognition as you turn the pages, perhaps even stopping occasionally to read a poem. Handsomely and durably bound between hard covers, this is a book that will stand up to most readers’ attempts to destroy it.]]> 16717 3.86 628 79 2001 400266 0571210961 9780571210961 3 <![CDATA[Ethan Coen and Joel Coen: Collected Screenplays 1: Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, Miller's Crossing, Barton Fink]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1174439954m/400266.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1174439954s/400266.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/400266.Ethan_Coen_and_Joel_Coen_Collected_Screenplays_1_Blood_Simple_Raising_Arizona_Miller_s_Crossing_Barton_Fink 4.47 40 </div>]]> 16717 3.86 628 79 90097 4.40 225 20 2002 852758 0571193358 9780571193356 6 <![CDATA[The Big Lebowski]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1223634819m/852758.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1223634819s/852758.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/852758.The_Big_Lebowski 4.49 39 The Big Lebowski begins with a case of mistaken identity which escalates when Jeffrey Lebowski-alias The Dude-attempts to seek recompense for the despoliation of his ratty-ass little rug, and then finds himself entangled in a kidnapping caper as a bagman-a situation that goes from bad to worse due to the interference of his hapless bowling partners.

In this film the Coen brothers have taken on the preoccupations of Raymond Chandler, but have given them a postmodern spin, while at the same time leaving Philip Marlowe's ethos intact as The Dude wanders through the fractured world of nineties L.A. trying to do the right thing. Like the award winning Fargo, The Big Lebowski is suffused with a droll humor and a verbal felicity that is as delightful as it is startling.
</div>]]> 16717 3.86 628 79 90097 4.40 225 20 1998 697840 0571205186 9780571205189 2 <![CDATA[O Brother, Where Art Thou?]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1177367673m/697840.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1177367673s/697840.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/697840.O_Brother_Where_Art_Thou_ 4.17 24 O Brother, Where Art Though?, The Oscar-winning team returns to the period-piece films of their earlier career (Miller's Crossing, Barton Fink, The Hudsucker Proxy) and showcase once-again their pitch-perfect ear for hilarious and outrageous dialogue, as well as their penchant for the fantastic.

Based on Homer's Odyssey, the movie stars George Clooney as Ulysses Everett McGill, along with Coen-mainstay John Turturro, and Tim Blake Nelson as fugitives from a chain gang who embark on a mystical and musical journey through 1930s Mississippi. History and allegory are expertly entwined as, along the way, the three escapees encounter a blind prophet, are tempted by sirens, do battle with a Cyclops (in the form of a one-eyed Klansman), fall in with George "Baby Face" Nelson on a bank heist, and cut a blues record with a young guitar prodigy who bears a striking resemblance to the real-life Robert Johnson.
</div>]]> 16717 3.86 628 79 90097 4.40 225 20 2000 29680 1578068894 9781578068890 1 <![CDATA[The Coen Brothers: Interviews (Conversations With Filmmakers Series)]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1168040760m/29680.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1168040760s/29680.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29680.The_Coen_Brothers_Interviews 3.87 15 Joel and Ethan Coen (b. 1954, 1957) started their careers in obscurity on a shoestring budget cajoled from family and friends in Minneapolis. Working entirely outside the studio system, the Coen brothers scored an unlikely first success in 1984 with their postmodern noir film Blood Simple. Two decades and nearly a dozen movies later, the Coens are now among the best-known writer/directors in Hollywood, turning out major studio releases featuring such stars as George Clooney, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Tom Hanks.

The Coens' films all share a distinctive, quirky ambience that critics have come to identify as "that Coen brothers feeling." Tricky moving camera work, frequent use of the voiceover, homages to directors and cinematic genres, a fascination with unexpected and off-kilter violence, and omnipresent black humor are all defining elements of the Coens' cinematic world.

From such highly stylized movies as Barton Fink and The Man Who Wasn't There to more mainstream but dark comedies such as Raising Arizona, Intolerable Cruelty, and O Brother, Where Art Thou?, the Coens are equally at home with existential despair and comic exuberance and are known for scripts packed with an obvious love for language. This collection of their most important interviews spans twenty years and is the most comprehensive published on the brothers.

William Rodney Allen teaches at Louisiana School for Math, Science, and the Arts. He is the author of Walker Percy: A Southern Wayfarer and the editor of Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut, both published by University Press of Mississippi.

]]> 16717 3.86 628 79 6292 3.92 121 6 2006 6404767 030746041X 9780307460417 5 <![CDATA[Almost an Evening]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6404767-almost-an-evening 3.64 14
Raising Arizona, Fargo, No Country for Old Men, Burn After Reading–the Coen brothers’ films are some of the most critically acclaimed and iconic of our time. Now, one half of the duo, Ethan Coen, adds playwriting to his eclectic bio. In these three short plays that ran to sold-out audiences Off-Broadway in 2008, the theme is hell–both on earth and in the hereafter.

In “Waiting,” a man faces an uncertain future in an uncertain location that seems to be some kind of waiting room. The anxiety and despair hark back to dramas of the fifties–Sartre, Beckett, Pinter.

“Four Benches” depicts an unlikely meeting in a steam room between a straight-talking Texan and an uptight Brit. Both men learn from the encounter, though only one survives it.

In “Debate,” the cantankerous god of the Old Testament roundly abuses the mealymouthed god of the New. His profanity and ill humor receive a startling comeuppance, and further reversals and changes of point of view lead to a denouement that is no more preposterous than anything else in the play.

Clever, provocative, and as engaging as the best fiction, these plays showcase yet another talent of one of our most celebrated contemporary writers.]]> 16717 3.86 628 79 2009 1065270 0571171907 9780571171903 0 <![CDATA[The Hudsucker Proxy]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1180678723m/1065270.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1180678723s/1065270.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1065270.The_Hudsucker_Proxy 4.12 8 The Hudsucker Proxy is in many respects the most accomplished of the Cohen brothers' movies. The film is so quickly paced that it is a real treat to have a copy of the finished screenplay. This book will allow you to savor every nuance of this extraordinarily detailed and tremendously entertaining movie.]]> 16717 3.86 628 79 90097 4.40 225 20 419130 4.17 12 0 1994 4975786 0571245226 9780571245222 1 <![CDATA[Burn After Reading]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4975786.Burn_After_Reading 3.33 3 16717 3.86 628 79 90097 4.40 225 20 2008 6369040 9645675316 2 <![CDATA[فارگو، فیلم‌نامه]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1238393909m/6369040.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1238393909s/6369040.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6369040 3.50 2 16717 3.86 628 79 2887141 3.50 2 2 1379