Tags for this video have been changed from 'Gwen Stefani Soggy Bottom Boys' to 'Gwen Stefani, Soggy Bottom Boys, 00s, usa, cheerleaders, country, coen brothers, banjo' - edited by Eklek

I think 'Miller's Crossing' is still my favorite Coen brothers film. Great video.

If you liked this, also check out:

http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Films-of-Martin-Scorsese
http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Films-of-Paul-Thomas-Anderson
http://www.videosift.com/video/Coen-Brothers-Films-Mashup

All done by the same poster on YouTube!

The end of the trailer for "Burn After Reading" (the new Coen brothers movie) has a great Pitt laugh as well.

^
"It's really hard to watch this with someone who doesn't "get" this type of humor..."

Like my wife. I'll be convulsing with laughter and she'll say "what's so funny?" She liked "Raising Arizona" OK, probably because of the cute babies. I went to see it 3 times in 2 weeks when it first came out in the theaters. Coen brothers = my favorites film makers.

this has got to be cage's best role. one of the coens' best as well imo.

The Coen Brothers create masterpieces, not movies. Their films make almost every modern movie look like 90 minutes of an ass that occasionally farts.

1. Kurosawa
2. Scorsese
3. Alexander Payne
4. Welles
5. Coen Brothers

Honorable Mention:

6. Francis Ford Coppola - Sure, his later work sucked, but anyone who made The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, AND Apocalypse Now deserves at least some sort of recognition, for crying out loud.

7. Sergio Leone - How could no one mention him? He did The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, Once Upon a Time in The West, and Once Upon a Time in America. Show a little respect, capisce?

8. Steven Spielberg - Some people hate him, but he's given us a lot of good films.

9. John Waters - Hello? Why am I the only one to mention this genius?

10. Hitchcock - No explanation necessary.

Top 10 in no particular order:
Stanley Kubrick, Terry Gilliam, Pedro Almodovar, Joel and Ethan Coen, David Cronenberg, Quentin Tarantino, Lars von Trier, Emir Kusturica, Andrey Tarkovsky, Takashi Miike, Errol Morris

Top 13?

1 Kubrick
2 Lynch
3 Gilliam (pre Brothers Grimm)
4 Tarentino
5 Coens
6 Spielberg
7 PTA
8 Richard Linklater
9 Ridley Scott
10 Clint Eastwood
11 Segio Leone
12 Michel Gondry
13 Todd Solondz

I'm going to make my list more difficult (or maybe easier, depending on your point of view) by limiting myself to current, contemporary, living persons. This removes obvious picks like Kubrick, Welles, Kurosawa and Hitchcock who would otherwise be at the top. Here's my list, in no particular order:

1) The Coens - plural I know, but you can't have one without the other. These brothers have produced masterpieces in every genre they've attempted. Crime, drama, comedy, mobsters, whatever. Always entertaining and very deserving of their recent Oscar.
2) Paul Thomas Anderson. A not terribly prolific director, but a thoughtful one. One of the few whose movies you must attend in the theatre simply because HE made it!
3) Wes Anderson- You can count on Wes for taking you to a place you've never been before, and no matter how fucked up your family may seem to you, the families portrayed in a Wes Anderson film are more disturbed and dysfunctional. Not to say that they're not loving and well-intentioned, just misguided.
4) Clint Eastwood- He has become a master of his craft. Few others will take the time to luxuriate in a scene like Eastwood. His long cuts and deliberate pacing show a respect for the intelligence and attention span of his audience.
5) Martin Scorsese- of all the great Directors born in the new Golden Age of Hollywood in the 1970s, only Scorsese remains at the top of his game. Others such as Spielberg, Lucas (ugh), Coppola, Friedkin etcetera have left their best work in the distant past.

Best movie- No Country, no question. In most any other year it would have been Blood, but this year the Coen's outdid themselves and everyone else. Darjeeling was a little gem, but not in the best film league. Good to have Wes Anderson back on track after his lazy last effort.

^Yes, Robert Elswit was a great win! What makes him so great is how flexible he can be as a DP. Did you read about There Will Be Blood in American Cinematographer? After reading that article, you'd have a lot more respect for him.

Though, as for PT not getting Best Director, I have to agree with the Academy. Coens did a pretty amazing job at directing the No Country film - the tension of the first two Acts were indescribable. But I do think There Will Be Blood should have won Best Picture.

Indeed. Though I would have loved to see PTA win for direction, I guess if you have to lose, losing to the Coen brothers isn't so bad. I was also really really happy to see Robert Elswit win.

The movie, imho, was the best of the year (sorry, Sarzy). I share the opinion of others that the assassin played by Javier Bardem was bloodcurdling terrifying- the most relentless, unstoppable killer since the first Terminator film.

The Coen's have made some of my favorite films. Among them The Big Lebowski, Fargo, Miller's Crossing and the overlooked Man Who Wasn't There. This film stands above all of the others- though The Big Lebowski holds a special place in my heart as a personal favorite.

Also, a note about the book- the movie is almost a perfect adaptation, right down to the "feeling" the viewer or reader develops. There is no further elaboration on the motivations of the characters, nor is the ending less esoteric. I saw the movie first and read the book over the Christmas holidays- loved it. Interesting that there is almost no punctuation in the novel... no quotations for dialogue, no commas in the text. Only the occasional period. It worked.