38 | ‘HAIL, CAESAR!’, CYNICISM, & THE SYSTEM, MAN

Frames and Fools: Film, Filmmakers, and Foolishness

‘Hail, Caesar!’ (2016) wasn’t what we expected when we asked our buddy Tyler to join us on the show. We knew we’d like to talk about a Coen Brothers movie (Tyler and Henri watched every single one in a movie marathon that took several weeks), but their shiny ‘love letter to Hollywood’ isn’t the first that springs to most peoples’ minds when they think about Joel and Ethan’s impressive body of work. Some didn’t know what to think about the movie when it came out, us included. But what initially felt like a loosely strung-together sequence of vignettes leading to nothing becomes, under closer inspection, a carefully constructed sendup of cinema as church, ruthless and reactive business, and “balm for the ache of a toiling mankind”, as the narrator puts it. Unsurprisingly, the brothers did it again, giving us a sunny day-in-the-life that is silly and cynical, savvy and smiling, and ultimately more human than the fantasy it portrays so deftly.
The Future is calling.

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