Looking at my compulsion to collect DVDs... like movies I don't want to own, even to complete the set.
A Romantic Comedy
Being a DVD completist doesn't just mean you feel you have to get every season of a TV show you like (even the bad seasons) or every film in a film series (even the bad films), it can also be about the works of a director, or in this case, directors... the Coen brothers.
INTOLERABLE CRUELTY (2003)
The Coen brothers are at their best when they're doing modern film noir or absurdist black comedies. They've even done a good screwball comedy, 1994's The Hudsucker Proxy (The Hudsucker Proxy [Blu-ray]
), but even that had issues (like Jennifer Jason Leigh's Amy Archer slipping from homage to parody of Katherine Hepburn) but Intolerable Cruelty's (Intolerable Cruelty (Widescreen Edition)) screwball rom-com just doesn't work for me. There are touches of the Coen's trademark black comedy and absurdism but too little.
), but even that had issues (like Jennifer Jason Leigh's Amy Archer slipping from homage to parody of Katherine Hepburn) but Intolerable Cruelty's (Intolerable Cruelty (Widescreen Edition)) screwball rom-com just doesn't work for me. There are touches of the Coen's trademark black comedy and absurdism but too little.
The best of Coen brothers work are their bizarre anti-formula. Film with their own energy and story, films that you don't know where they're going to go. Intolerable Cruelty is a romantic comedy, following the Rom Com rules and so is far more formula then their usual stuff.
The acting is broad, exaggerated style that can sometimes heighten comedy, but is dangerously hit and miss. In this case, it's all miss.
Intolerable Cruelty isn't the only Coen Brothers film I don't own, but it's not certainly one I don't want to get on DVD.
~ DUG.
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