Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by Troy (A) on May 01, 2002 at 13:48:22

Rented "The Man Who Wasn't There" the other day. It was the Coen Brothers movie from last year. The same guys that made critically and viewer acclaimed movies like "Fargo", "Raising Arizona", "The Big Lebowski", "Blood Simple", Barton Fink" and on and on.

TMWWT was released last year to very few theaters, only ONE screen in all of the San Francisco / Oakland / San Jose area. It played for about 2 weeks and disappeared without a trace.

What a freekin cool movie! Richard Deakins' black and white camera work is phenomenal: dark, smokey and mysterious. There were times where the cinematography overwhelmed the story, but it was just so dang cool! An homage to film noir with it's tongue planted firmly in its cheek, in a similar way that Fargo was. Billy Bob Thornton gives a wonderfully mute and stylized performance of a man who's world falls apart around him.

Why was this movie witheld? Easily better than ANY of the Oscar® nominees for best picture last year, how come we never even had a chance to see it?