a quirky, delicious comedy with an A-list cast clearly enjoying every moment of their screen time
Burn After Reading (2008)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted: 209
Fresh: 162
Rotten:47
Average Rating: 6.8/10
Consensus: With Burn After Reading, the Coen Brothers have crafted another clever comedy/thriller with an outlandish plot and memorable characters.
Rated: R [See Full Rating] for pervasive language, some sexual content and violence.
Runtime: 1 hr 36 mins
Genre: Comedies
Theatrical Release:Sep 12, 2008 Wide
Box Office: $60,338,891
Synopsis: With their overtly comedic follow-up BURN AFTER READING, the Coen Brothers return--about a third of the way--from the dark, dank recesses of the human psyche they traversed in their Oscar-winning... With their overtly comedic follow-up BURN AFTER READING, the Coen Brothers return--about a third of the way--from the dark, dank recesses of the human psyche they traversed in their Oscar-winning NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN. For those unfamiliar with the landscape of modern movie psychoanalysis, this puts the fraternal filmmakers square in the cruel, misanthropic, and farcical realm of their 1990s-era body of work, somewhere between the tragicomic crime thriller of FARGO and the disconnected noir-homage anti-storytelling of THE BIG LEBOWSKI, with 2007's NO COUNTRY retroactively adding new nihilism-tinged dimensions of smart skepticism to the proceedings. In a more linear trajectory, BURN AFTER READING also stands as the third entry, after BLOOD SIMPLE and FARGO, in what could be an unofficial Tragedy of Human Idiocy trilogy, wherein characters make the most outlandishly moronic moves to devastating consequences simply by adhering to true human behavior. Indeed, Carter Burwell's emotionally weighty score, which washes over biting scenes of explosive, anesthetizing belly laughs, is very reminiscent of his FARGO work. BURN is ostensibly structured and propelled by a spy-thriller plotline involving a classified CD lost by a disgraced CIA spook and found by two simple gym employees. But, in actuality, it's simply--amazingly--a collection of brilliant caricature studies interwoven by veracious, if Coenesque, social interactions, as epitomized by the pathos of the Frances McDormand character's precipitous quest for cosmetic surgery. The CIA superior who learns of the film's events (always second-hand and sometimes along with the viewer) doesn't know what to make of it, and why would he? This is the first Coen film in almost 20 years not shot by cinematographer Roger Deakins, yet the "new" guy, Emmanuel Lubezki (CHILDREN OF MEN), has created as visceral and emotionally fraught a high-definition cartoon as any since BARTON FINK. [More]
Starring: George Clooney, John Malkovich, Frances McDormand, Brad Pitt
Starring: George Clooney, John Malkovich, Frances McDormand, Brad Pitt, Tilda Swinton, J.K. Simmons, Richard Jenkins
Director: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Director: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Screenwriter: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Producer: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Composer: Carter Burwell
Studio: Focus Features
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Reviews for Burn After Reading
Please send Get Well cards to the Coen Brothers. After last year's No Country for Old Men, for which they won the Oscar for Best Picture of the Year, Joel and Ethan Coen have had a relapse. Their new offering Burn After Reading is reminiscen
Una disparatada comedia que le toma el pelo a la (des)inteligencia norteamericana, de la mano de un puñado de personajes absurdos animados por un estupendo elenco.
Influenciados pelos mesmos clichês que comprometem tantas produções do estilo, os próprios personagens de Queime Depois de Ler parecem não saber diferenciá-los da realidade.
Showcases a pitch-black comic sensibility that will either attract or repel moviegoers.
All in all though, fun times. I look forward to revisiting it again in the future, like most Coen bros movies.
Burn After Reading is part spy spoof and part rumination of middle-aged loneliness, which goes a long way to explain why its elements never cohere.
Even though Burn After Reading is often funny, it rarely achieves either the hilarity of Intolerable Cruelty or the iconic goofiness of The Big Lebowski.
aristotehniki diaheirisi mias fainomenika polymplegmenis plokis, tin opoia ksepsahnizoyn me haraktiristiki anesi kai aksiozileyti oikonomia, ksediplonontas me pliros sobaro antikataskopiko styl ap' ti skinothesia kai ti fotografia, mehri to montaz kai ti
These are functioning morons, they walk and work among us. And they are brilliant and funny and in spite of the screwball-comedy nature of the story, they are completely believable.
, Frances McDormand might get nominated for an Academy Award in a supporting role. She was great.
It’s morbidly absurdist, thoroughly pointless, and can certainly be funny at times.
It's surely old-hat by now to note the writer/directors' pervasive condescension and smugness, a criticism I don't think always holds true, especially when the Brothers more fully explore, e.g. The Man Who Wasn't There, their no less ubiquitous spi
Big stars act like darn fools in this broad black comedy, a lesser effort from the Coen Brothers.
Latest News for Burn After Reading
May 11, 2009:
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One of the most diverse and celebrated talents of her generation, the directors on Tilda Swinton's CV represent a veritable who's who of independent cinema and include David... More...
January 08, 2009:
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The 14th Annual Critics' Choice Awards were given on January 8, 2009, to honor the finest achievements in 2008 filmmaking. A list of nominees follows below, with winners in bold: More...
January 04, 2009:
The Coen Brothers go undercover creatively for this playful spy comedy, twisting colliding plot schemes and lines alike while juggling online stranger sex and an uncooperative ex-CIA extortion victim with violent tendencies. ![]()
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January 03, 2009:
The Coen Brothers go undercover creatively for this playful spy comedy, twisting colliding plot schemes and lines alike while juggling online stranger sex and an uncooperative ex-CIA extortion victim with violent tendencies. ![]()
More...
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