Coen Brothers

If Netflix can bring David Letterman back to TV, you can bet they’d have a good shot at landing the Coen brothers. The revered directing pair have officially joined Netflix as the home of new western anthology series The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, set for a 2018 premiere.

In the idyllic planned community of Suburbicon, everything appears to be in its right place. Apple-cheeked kids race home from school every afternoon, white picket fences outline immaculately manicured lawns, and a cheery mailman greets you in the same way at the same time every day. But there‘s trouble brewing in this homogeneous paradise. Is that a drop of blood?

Here’s a new theory I’ve been testing out as of late: the more inscrutable a TV episode’s plot summary is, the better it will ultimately be. It first dawned on me during the glory days of Mad Men’s run, when viewers were regularly given no more to work off of than some variation on “Next week, Don does a thing, and is sad.” The current airing of Twin Peaks’ revival season doubled down on the concept, almost taunting viewers with how little salient information the summaries provide. (A recent highlight merely read, “Don’t die!” which is actually pretty solid advice when you’re watching Twin Peaks.)

There is a whole lot going on with Universal’s Scarface reboot. Today brought a few big announcements: first off, Joel and Ethan Coen, who are script doctors in their own right, have been tapped to rework the screenplay. The two have previously polished the scripts of Angelina Jolie’s Unbroken and Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies. But we’re not done yet. While Antoine Fuqua exited the project to focus on the Equalizer sequel, the film is close to landing a new director, and Peter Berg and Hell or High Water’s David Mackenzie are frontrunners.

While countless football fans  —  myself included  —  embark on a stomach and liver-related training regimen for next weekend, there is more to the Super Bowl than just the game on the field. The Super Bowl has always secretly been a big day for cinephiles as well, featuring big trailers for much-anticipated movies and clever commercials from some of the best filmmakers of our generation. Directors such as Doug Liman, Ridley Scott, and Judd Apatow have all directed Superbowl commercials, and now you can add two more big names to the mix: Joel and Ethan Coen.

The prospect of a TV Fargo may not have been enough to lure the Coen brothers to TV, but one of their unexplored projects just might. Reports claim the iconic directing pair will write and helm a new western miniseries, perhaps taking a TV/film hybrid approach for The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.

In addition to writing and directing their own films, Joel and Ethan Coen have been known to provide scripts for other directors, like Angelina Jolie (Unbroken) and Steven Spielberg (Bridge of Spies). Granted, it’s always better when the duo directs their own material, but a new Coen Brothers project is a new Coen Brothers project, and their latest screenplay assignment is no exception.

In news that might make you go “Uhh…,” John Turturro is reportedly filming a secret spinoff to The Big Lebowski. Turturro is said to be shooting the new film, which is based on his salacious Jesus Quintana character from the Coens’ cult classic, under a misleading production title in New York. The only thing more surprising than this movie is its bizarre plot.

The Guardian tells me Hail, Caesar! is the Coen brothers’ “biggest bomb since Intolerable Cruelty” 13 years ago. CinemaScore, which polls opening night moviegoers and translates their reactions into letter grades, gave Hail, Caesar...

In Hail, Caesar!, the new comedy from Joel and Ethan Coen, Alden Ehrenreich accomplishes a seemingly impossible task: He steals a movie from a cast that includes Josh Brolin, George Clooney, Scarlett Johansson, Ralph Fiennes, Frances McDormand, Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum, and two Tilda Swintons. (She plays twins.) Amidst that incredible array of talent, it’s Ehrenreich who emerges as the film’s breakout star, and shares (with Fiennes) its funniest scene, in which a Hollywood director (Fiennes) desperately tries to coax a believable Mid-Atlantic accent out of Ehrenreich’s dopey cowboy, Hobie Doyle. This extended riff, which was already heavily featured in the Hail, Caesar! trailer, is an instant classic from the Coen brothers, and will almost certainly go down in history as one of the best scenes of their entire career.