Anyone who thought the Coen brothers’ 2008 feature, Burn After Reading, was a satire of dizzy-eyed American incompetence may want to take a second look. After an excoriating editorial in the New York Times following the surprise election of You Know Who, it seems that Ethan Coen is as mad as hell and he’s not going to take it any more, and Burn After Reading was in fact a piece of melancholic social realism.
In customarily acerbic style, Coen frames his comic jeremiad as a list of ‘thank yous’ to those he sees as instrumental in forging a path for what many commentators are referring to as the end of days. Third party politicians are first in line, particularly Green Party candidate Dr Jill Stein who, in leaching votes from Hillary Clinton, has now allowed an entire army of climate change deniers to skip down the halls of power.
Perhaps his harshest words are reserved for repellant prank monkey/goombah Jimmy Fallon, a host on the American late night talk show circuit. In his lust for ratings mana, he opted to invite Trump on to the show for a informal chat and, at one key moment, even deigning to ruffle his guest’s hair to show the world that this monster has a fluffy kitten light side. Aww… Coen goes on to offer Fallon some suggestions for future guests, but the way things are going in the world right now, it’s not a sure thing that some of the wouldn’t eventually find themselves sashaying across his shiny floors.
Read the full New York Times piece here.
Published 13 Nov 2016
As the world is transformed into a sickening hellscape, the great and good of moviedom give their two cents.
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