Before giving you my thoughts on Burn After Reading (which I saw Wednesday night thanks to AICN and The Alamo Drafthouse), I want to rank it among the Coen Brothers’ past movies. This is subjective, but here’s how I rank their 13 films:

1. Fargo
2. No Country For Old Men
3. The Big Lebowski
4. Blood Simple
5. Barton Fink
6. The Man Who Wasn’t There
7. Miller’s Crossing
8. Burn After Reading
9. Raising Arizona
10. O Brother ,Where Art Thou
11. The Hudsucker Proxy
12. Intolerable Cruelty
13. The Ladykillers

First off, I probably have The Man Who Wasn’t There ranked higher than most, but I love that film. Maybe it’s the Coens and Roger Deakins in black and white (just stunning)? Or maybe it’s the stellar turn by Billy Bob Thornton? I’m also a noir freak, so maybe that’s it? Some might have Raising Arizona higher. Not me. While it might be more rewatchable than most of the films slotted above it, it’s not a better film. That’s about where Burn After Reading fits in. I have it ranked slightly above Raising Arizona, for now, mainly because of the strong acting performances by its celebrated ensemble cast.

Also, keep in mind that the bottom three are not in the same league as the top 10. Not even close.

I really enjoyed the film, though, and feel it’s one of their titles that’s going to be extremely rewatchable. After watching The Big Lebowski in theaters, I felt about like I do now about Burn After Reading. Lebowski grew on me big time, similar to Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums. It’s not uncommon for movies to grow on me, especially comedies, but it is uncommon for them to do so to such a degree. It’s hard to say if Burn After Reading will move up like Lebowski, or stay put like Raising Arizona. I’ll play it safe and guess the latter.

The film feels disjointed for a while, possibly because you’re trying to figure out who the protagonist is. But I also like that it does feel that way. Kind of gives you that Washington outsider-type feel, which works well when you discover that the protagonist is Linda Litzke, Frances McDormand’s cosmetic surgery-obsessed fitness instructor. You kind of feel out of the loop or in over your head, which really all the five main characters are. You just never know how far in over they are until–BAM!–it hits you. That’s all I can say since I want to keep this a spoiler-free post.

It’s also a genre bender, like Barton Fink was. I mean, what the hell do you call this thing? It’s Coens all the way, but it almost has a Tony Gilroy (Bourne series, Michael Clayton) quality to it, or at least a bizarro Gilroy feel. Like if Gilroy penned a black comedy with a no-explosions stipulation. There’s even a car chase. Bourne After Reading? It’s part spy thriller, part black comedy, part satire, part ensemble flick and ALL Coens. One big clusterfuck of intelligence, technology, vanity, infidelity, Internet dating, middle-agedness, physical fitness and sex toy fetishes. What does the cluster fuck say to us in the end? That we take things like these and ourselves way too seriously.

Brad Pitt’s “Chad” defines why movies like Ghost Rider do well at the box office, and how W. got elected for not one but two terms. A brilliant performance. Green Day may have coined the phrase American Idiot, but nobody’s pulled it off as well as Pitt. His character sums up the whole movie; a bunch of confused dipshits who would serve themselves well if they realized they weren’t even half as smart as they thought they were. This movie says that we need to be OK with not being perfect, or we’ll end up a race of ignorant, fake, murderous infidels, fucking up all kinds of “shit” (as Chad would say) to keep from looking at ourselves in the mirror.

I definitely recommend Burn After Reading. Both to go see in the theaters and scoop once it hits DVD and Blu-Ray.

Sorry I’ve been AWOL the past week–had a lot of stuff come up. Tomorrow, I am fortunate enough to be on the list for the free Burn After Reading screening at The Alamo Drafthouse South. I love the Coen Bros., and this movie is No. 6 on the upcoming last installment (top ten) of my Fall/Winter Movie Preview. I smell shades of The Big Lebowski. Back soon with the scoop…

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I’ve mentioned this before, but tickets are now on sale. I can’t wait to see one of my favorite films from the 90s, with one of its stars there to talk about the film. Gotta love The Usual Suspects. Gotta love the Alamo Drafthouse, too. Gotta love Chazz Palminteri (A Bronx Tale, Bullets Over Broadway). This is a no-brainer. Go get your tickets while you still can. I’m buying mine right now.

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One of the great things about Austin is its free movie screenings. Thanks to the likes of Aint It Cool News and Alamo Drafthouse, among others, these type of events go down all the time. Fortunately, I was lucky enough to get on the Pineapple Express list, even though I missed out on the Tropic Thunder one. You can still go to either and wait for a stand-by ticket, but you’ll need two hours and some luck to pull that off. If I would just hurry up and buy my damn Fantastic Fest badge. Next week, I’m finally buying one next week. That and trying a little harder to pull some strings and get on all of these lists.