Posterized: The Coen Brothers

Hail, Caesar!, opening in theaters nationwide today, marks the 17th feature film from the highly decorated and much cinephile-obsessed over sibling auteurs Joel Coen and Ethan Coen.  Joel is the elder by 3 years and after he worked as an assistant on Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead, the brothers made their first feature, Blood Simple (1984) which caused a mini sensation at festivals and the arthouse. From there on out they slowly became more mainstream directors in the best way possible: they brought the mainstream to them rather than changing their genre-hopping singular ways. Thirty-two years later they're now a showbiz institution with four Oscars and actual big hits on their resume. 

Their seventeenth feature is only their second movie about movies. The first was the rather discomfiting Barton Fink (1991) which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes. Will Hail, Caesar! age as well? How many of their films have you seen? 

all the posters after after the jump...

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Let My People Link

The Daily Beast the Coen Bros on diversity vs the Oscars. But they don't take kindly to complaints about Hail, Caesar!'s whiteness
Decider Joe Reid ranks the top 50 performances in Coen Bros movies. Much to argue with but also to agree with. The #1 is indisputable.
i09 Dan Stevens (Downton Abbey) signed as the male lead of X-Men spinoff tv series Legion who may or may not be insane
Variety Jake Gyllenhaal's Boston Marathon bombing movie is a go  
Decider "Let My People F***" amusing piece on the conservative sexual morality of the Duplass Brothers filmography 

IndieWire Viggo Mortensen's new film Captain Fantastic, which sounds intriguing, will open on July 8th. It co-stars Frank Langella, Kathryn Hahn, and George Mackay (who played the young photographer in Pride)
Theater Mania Mark Rylance, fresh off his Oscar nomination, returns to the New York stage with Nice Fish (and possibly Farinelli and the King)
THR Bel Powley and Martin Wallström who both broke out this past year in Diary of a Teenage Girl and Mr Robot, respectively, will costar in WWII drama Ashes in the Snow
Playbill Oooh, look. They're putting up the marquee for American Psycho on Broadway. Benjamin Walker, currently in theaters in The Choice (and who is a singing charisma machine onstage) is playing Patrick Bateman 
Interview Peter Dinklage interviews Paul Dano 

DANO: I just did this film, called Youth, that Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel and Jane Fonda are in. And I have to tell you, Michael Caine is so happy. Happy and healthy. I think he enjoys life. I think he's 82 now, and I have no clue if I'll be working at that age, but it was amazing and inspiring to see him bring it, because you know that the search never ends. I talked to Jane Fonda about acting and about what we want to work on, and I was like, "Jane Fonda and I are talking about how to be better actors."

DINKLAGE: It never stops. 

DANO: Which I also find so beautiful and healthy to see in people who have had so much success. They still have skin in the game. 

Annie Hall is the Funniest!

Murtada here.The Writers Guild of America released their list of the 101 funniest screenplays of all time. The screenplays were voted on by members of both the East and West coast branches of the WGA. The eligible screenplays had to be in English and at least one hour in length.

Woody Allen is by far the most popular name on the list. He has seven titles including the WGA’s top pick Annie Hall (1977) which he co-wrote with Marshall Brickman. Compartively Billy Wilder only has two titles on the list, The Apartment (1960) and Some Like it Hot (1959). Other writers scoring multiple films include Mel Brooks, Preston Sturges, Christopher Guest, Charlie Chaplin, the Coen Brothers and surprisingly Harold Ramis.

Perhaps to ward off criticism about the lack of representation of women and people of color, the WGA acknowledged the list’s heavy “white bro dudeness”:

"Comedy screenwriting has long been a playground that women and writers of color have not had enough time in. The work of Richard Pryor on Blazing Saddles, Tina Fey on Mean Girls, Amy Heckerling on Clueless, and Hagar Wilde, co-writer of Bringing Up Baby, makes you wonder what a list would be if the playground had been more inclusive all along."

That’s all well and good but even when included the stories of women were low on the list. Really The Hangover and Wedding Crashers are funnier than All About Eve and Mean Girls ? Come on !

Surely everybody looking at the list will have their own reservations and “Really!!!” moments. Tell us yours in the comments. 

The list in full after the jump:

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Hail this Teaser for "Hail, Caesar!"

Hail the teaser for the new Coen Bros picture, which will launch a thousand internet memes! Since it's mostly a collection of catchy images and title credits we'll leave the full Yes No Maybe So treatment for later but know that we're "Yes" on literally every shot therein. Zany Coen Bros comedies are to be cherished when they arrive. I still remember my first times seeing both Raising Arizona (1987) and Burn After Reading (2008) in theaters and just hurting from laughter. 

5 favorite things (and boy was it hard to narrow down) in the trailer after the jump...

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Cannes Jury: Coen Bros to Boss Auteurs & Pretty Things Around

We've long since known that the Cannes jury would be headlined by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, better known as The Coen Bros, the world's most famous sibling auteurs (though not the only of course: see also the Wachowski siblings, the Dardenne Bros, and more). We now know who'll be joining their jury and therefore deciding those incredibly prestigious prizes like the Palme D'Or, the Grand Jury Prize, Best Director, Best Actress and more.

As usual the jury is a mix of directors from multiple countries, one non-actor/non-director, and a beautiful actress or, um, three. In fact the jury is almost half women this year. The jury is, from top left:

• Joel & Ethan Coen  (US), filmmakers
  How many masterpieces would you say they're up to now?
• Rossy de Palma (Spain), actress
  You know and love this Picasso-assymetrical godess from Almodóvar's oeuvre
• Guillermo del Toro (Mexico), writer/director
  Of Pan's Labyrinth & Hellboy fame. Can't wait for Crimson Peak.
• Xavier Dolan (Canada), writer/director/producer/actor/costumedesigner
  The film world's youngest all-purpose cinematic godsend
• Jake Gyllenhaal (US), actor/object-of-obsessions
  He's testing his range and still hasn't found his limits. He's only getting better. This is a good get for a super actor whose entire family is in the biz. 
• Sophie Marceau (France), actress/director
  One time Bond girl and Braveheart co-star, diversified into directing in her home country
• Sienna Miller (UK), actress
  Her career is on the upswing after starring in two Oscar favorites last year 
• Rokia Traoré (Mali), composer
  She doesn't have many film credits but you can learn about this African goddess here 

With more actresses than usual and two men (Jake & Xavier) who are every bit as gorgeous as your typical Cannes jury actress this is an unusually easy-on-the-eyes jury. Will their various aesthetics mix well or will the jury awards be a series of compromises?  We shall always wonder... even after the official prizes are handed out late next month since they don't exactly let press into the jury room.