Blood Simple

An Hour-Long Interview between the Coen Brothers and Noah Baumbach

by Matt Goldberg    Posted: June 13th, 2011 at 2:13 pm

The Film Society of Lincoln Center held an hour-long discussion between Joel and Ethan Coen and fellow filmmaker Noah Baumbach.  Normally I’d bitch and moan about how jealous I was not to be there and then cry myself to sleep.  But not today!  Filmlinc.com has kindly posted the discussion online and I know what I’ll be watching when I get off work today.  Some of the topics covered include how the Coens open their movies, their use of voice-over, how they use misdirection, and how their films compare to Baumbach’s.  The interview is also worth watching because the Coens rarely speak about the films and instead prefer to let them stand on their own.  People continue to speculate on the symbolism of the hat in Miller’s Crossing.

Hit the jump to check out the video and quotes pulled from the interview.

Posters Revealed for Alamo’s 2011 Rolling Roadshow; Details on TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE Screening

by Matt Goldberg    Posted: June 1st, 2011 at 7:27 am

In previous years, Alamo’s Rolling Roadshow would travel the globe to hold screenings in places significant to the movie being shown.  This year, Alamo is keeping the Roadshow to Texas and today they’ve released the custom posters for The Searchers, The Texas Chainsaw Masscare, Blood Simple, Hud, Red River, Bonnie and Clyde, Tender Mercies, No Country for Old Men, Giant, and The Last Picture Show. They’re all great and we’re all going to be super jealous if we don’t get one.  You know, if you already weren’t super jealous over not being able to make it to these screenings.

Speaking of stuff that will make you jealous, Alamo has provided details of what’s going to make their special screening of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre so special.  Hit the jump to check out the posters along with details on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  The 2011 Rolling Roadshow begins Friday, June 3rd with The Searchers.  Click here for a full list of dates.

The Alamo Drafthouse 2011 Rolling Roadshow Will Mess with Texas and Only with Texas

by Matt Goldberg    Posted: May 16th, 2011 at 9:28 am

The Alamo Drafthouse’s Rolling Roadshow is one of the year’s great screening series as the vaunted theater brings classic films to a location that’s significant to the film being shown.  So for instance, films shown at last year’s Roadshow like Dirty Harry and The Blues Brothers were shown San Francisco’s Washington Square Park and Chicago’s Joliet Prison, respectively.  The shows also tend to have special guests and sweet merchandise.  Oh, and the shows are free.

I was hoping that one of the screenings would swing by Georgia this year, but my state and 48 others are out of luck.  Texas, home of the Alamo Drafthouse, will also be home to all of the 2011 Rolling Roadshow pictures.  The films on this year’s roadshow are (I’m already jealous writing this) The Searchers, The Texas Chainsaw Masscare, Blood Simple, Hud, Red River, Bonnie and Clyde, Tender Mercies, No Country for Old Men, Giant, and The Last Picture Show.  Hit the jump for the full press release and to find out where each film will play.  The 2011 Rolling Roadshow begins June 3rd.

Wacky Trailer for THE FIRST GUN, Director Zhang Yimou’s “Remake” of the Coen Bros. BLOOD SIMPLE.

by Matt Goldberg    Posted: November 18th, 2009 at 1:12 pm

If I didn’t know that Zhang Yimou’s (Hero) upcoming film The First Gun (formerly Amazing Tales: Three Guns) was a remake of/re-imaging of/in-anyway-connected-to the Coen Brothers classic, debut film Blood Simple., then I never would have guessed it from the Chinese trailer that just went online.  Now I don’t speak Chinese (or Mandarin or whatever dialect or language they’re speaking in the trailer) but none of the images clue me in to the plot of a cuckold who hires a hitman to murder his adulterous wife and her lover.  It’s not the setting.  I just can’t see the plot.  I guess maybe the guy in black with the bow and arrow and a cannon is the hitman?  Clearly, Yimou has made some radical changes, but when you see this trailer, I doubt you’ll think, “Huh.  This kind of reminds me of Blood Simple.”

Check out the trailer after the jump and maybe you can see a resemblance that I’m missing from all this.

The Coen Brother’s BLOOD SIMPLE Is Being Remade by Zhang Yimou

by Nicole Pedersen    Posted: July 28th, 2009 at 9:40 pm

Sony Pictures Classic has acquired the North American rights to legendary Chinese director Zhang Yimou’s latest, currently untitled film.  This is not really big news considering that the studio has previously handled distribution for ten of the director’s earlier works, including “Raise the Red Lantern” and “House of Flying Daggers”.  No, the really cool part of this story is the nature of Zhang Yimou’s next project – a remake of the Coen Brother’s very first feature film “Blood Simple”.  To find out why, in this case, a remake of an excellent film is NOT a bad idea follow the jump…

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