It's safe to say that I'll never run a company that makes movies. But...but...I almost ran a company that shows movies. At least, I had a chance to.
A couple of weeks back, I entered an essay contest to win a movie theater in Houlton, Maine. I think the current owner needed just over three thousand entries (along with the 250 word essay, and a hundred bucks) to pull the trigger, but alas, he fell short, and cancelled the contest. But in the ten days between my entry being accepted and the dream-crushing cancellation...the possibility remained.
Regarding the movies actual people see, I was going to be the one calling the shots.
Sounds fun...at least for a little while, right?
Unless, of course, you're Eddie Mannix in Joel and Ethan Coen's latest comedy, Hail, Caesar!, then it's all bad, all the time. Played with a steady dose of stifled bewilderment by Josh Brolin, Mannix is the guy behind the guy. His job? Keeping the highly dysfunctional movie studio, Capitol Pictures, running in 1950's Hollywood. With a host of characters having a host of problems, Mannix's own included, keeping this ship afloat is going to take an effort of Biblical proportions. If only I knew anything about the Bible...
Not quite as slapstick-y as I would have liked, Hail, Caesar! is still a good time, and perhaps a great time, if you're able to catch all the winks and nods. The Coens' latest basks in not only satirizing old Hollywood (and the America it existed in), but contemporary religion as well. While the latter was mostly lost on me, being the heathen a-hole that I am, the final line and shot of the film knocked me on my ass due to each being utterly perfect. Quite the epiphany it was...
See, Mannix is dying for a multitude of sins at his job, the so-called 'fixer' for Capitol Pictures. Initially, it's a starlet posing for lewd pictures at odd hours, but the hits just keep coming. From a sexy actress from the 'mermaid pictures' getting knocked up out of wedlock, to a hayseed (actual) cowboy being cast as the debonair lead in a Lawrence Laurentz picture, Mannix is putting out fires left and right. Hell, even his home life is kind of mess, when he's there anyway, not to mention the relentless pursuit of a Lockheed Martin job-recruiter.
But his main concern, one that twin (gossip?) reporters Thora and Thessaly Thacker pether him inthethently about? The alleged disappearance of leading man Baird Whitlock, played by non other than Coen mainstay George Clooney.
A couple of weeks back, I entered an essay contest to win a movie theater in Houlton, Maine. I think the current owner needed just over three thousand entries (along with the 250 word essay, and a hundred bucks) to pull the trigger, but alas, he fell short, and cancelled the contest. But in the ten days between my entry being accepted and the dream-crushing cancellation...the possibility remained.
Regarding the movies actual people see, I was going to be the one calling the shots.
Sounds fun...at least for a little while, right?
Not quite as slapstick-y as I would have liked, Hail, Caesar! is still a good time, and perhaps a great time, if you're able to catch all the winks and nods. The Coens' latest basks in not only satirizing old Hollywood (and the America it existed in), but contemporary religion as well. While the latter was mostly lost on me, being the heathen a-hole that I am, the final line and shot of the film knocked me on my ass due to each being utterly perfect. Quite the epiphany it was...
See, Mannix is dying for a multitude of sins at his job, the so-called 'fixer' for Capitol Pictures. Initially, it's a starlet posing for lewd pictures at odd hours, but the hits just keep coming. From a sexy actress from the 'mermaid pictures' getting knocked up out of wedlock, to a hayseed (actual) cowboy being cast as the debonair lead in a Lawrence Laurentz picture, Mannix is putting out fires left and right. Hell, even his home life is kind of mess, when he's there anyway, not to mention the relentless pursuit of a Lockheed Martin job-recruiter.
But his main concern, one that twin (gossip?) reporters Thora and Thessaly Thacker pether him inthethently about? The alleged disappearance of leading man Baird Whitlock, played by non other than Coen mainstay George Clooney.
