I don't think I'm going to do a next. There are a few filmmakers whose work I do want to deep dive into--Spike Lee, Soderbergh, Hitchcock, Wong Kar Wai--but I think I'm going to skip their lesser films if I've already seen them. Like, I never need to see The 25th Hour or Spike's Old Boy remake again.
MILLER'S CROSSING is, IMO, their best film. I find something new in it every time.
The other thing I wonder is why so many of their movies are set in the past. It's as though they're both nostalgic for the old days and yet clear-eyed about how bent things were back in the day.
The amazing thing about the Coens is that any of their films can be someone's favorite. Like, Miller's is an incredible movie! But so is Raising Arizona and so is Fargo and so is Barton Fink and so is Blood Simple... There are no wrong answers (except for two of them).
Correction: if you've seen TWO Coen brothers movies, you've seen them all. They have their two modes: wacky (Burn After Reading, O Brother Where Art Thou, Hail Caesar etc) and serious enough to get Oscar noms (Fargo, A Serious Man, True Grit etc).
And I'd love your deep dive on Wong Kar Wai! In 2021 my local cinema was showing one of his movies each weekend, and being immediately post-covid lockdowns it was an exciting thing to get to go, so I've seen all of them. I certainly don't recommend all of them. But the good stuff is so good, and his recurring motifs are so...motif-ey, and his working methods so unusually improvisatory; our Wong Club was such an interesting thing to do.
Do Todd Haynes next!
I don't think I'm going to do a next. There are a few filmmakers whose work I do want to deep dive into--Spike Lee, Soderbergh, Hitchcock, Wong Kar Wai--but I think I'm going to skip their lesser films if I've already seen them. Like, I never need to see The 25th Hour or Spike's Old Boy remake again.
MILLER'S CROSSING is, IMO, their best film. I find something new in it every time.
The other thing I wonder is why so many of their movies are set in the past. It's as though they're both nostalgic for the old days and yet clear-eyed about how bent things were back in the day.
Dead on.
The amazing thing about the Coens is that any of their films can be someone's favorite. Like, Miller's is an incredible movie! But so is Raising Arizona and so is Fargo and so is Barton Fink and so is Blood Simple... There are no wrong answers (except for two of them).
Correction: if you've seen TWO Coen brothers movies, you've seen them all. They have their two modes: wacky (Burn After Reading, O Brother Where Art Thou, Hail Caesar etc) and serious enough to get Oscar noms (Fargo, A Serious Man, True Grit etc).
And I'd love your deep dive on Wong Kar Wai! In 2021 my local cinema was showing one of his movies each weekend, and being immediately post-covid lockdowns it was an exciting thing to get to go, so I've seen all of them. I certainly don't recommend all of them. But the good stuff is so good, and his recurring motifs are so...motif-ey, and his working methods so unusually improvisatory; our Wong Club was such an interesting thing to do.