"Burn After Reading". Burn before watching, how 'bout?

You'd think 12 Oscar wins/nominations between both the Coen brothers (winners), George Clooney (winner), Frances McDormand (winner), John Malkovich (nominated), Tilda Swinton (winner), Brad Pitt (nominated), Richard Jenkins (nominated) and Emmanuel Lubecki (nominated - cinematographer) would up the odds that a movie is successful. I'm not talking box office success - but the plot, story, writing, etc. Critical success.

Not in this case. Here I'm all ready for a funny, Coen brothers flick (lured by the trailers which truly were the best parts of the film) and...ended up like some poor sonofabitch who shoots blanks. Like I was listening to a funny joke, and the joke ends 1/2 or 3/4 of the way through and I never hear the punchline.

"My sentiments exactly, Brad."

Malkovich clearly was consistently the most entertaining. Clooney and Pitt had moments (Clooney, the "I-gotta-run" bit and his homemade "toy"; Pitt, his scene with Malkovich). Jenkins was good - everyone played their part well. Pitt's character was a stretch. He's supposed to be a dolt - and funny. He wasn't funny. So this lends me to think the issue was with the script and the directing.

Oddly enough, the movie was nominated at the 2009 Golden Globe awards for Best Comedy or Musical and for Best Lead Actress in a Comedy or Musical. The National Board of Review named the movie to their list of the Top 10 Movies of 2008. Noel Murray of The A.V. Club named it the 2nd best film of 2008, Empire magazine named it the 3rd best film of 2008, and Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly named it the 7th best film of 2008.

(scratching my head). Glad I didn't pay to see this. Perhaps the commentary in the movie on the "idiocy of America" was also a reference to "how many suckers we can pull in at the box office, on this one, eh, Joel?". OK - gonna go watch reruns of Small Wonder now.