With 'Hail, Caesar!' the Coens Don't Want You to Get the Point of Hollywood, and That's the Point

When I saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens in December I also saw the trailer for Hail, Caesar! and remember thinking that this could be one of the Coen Brothers’ best films. That first trailer portrays so many different movie genres, and something about the title screamed classic to me. I pictured future electronic textbooks saying, “The Coen Brothers dominated story telling with their chameleon-like tastes, but once they released Hail, Caesar!, the world simultaneously bowed down in awe of their skills.”

Well, I can’t say I’m not still bowing down to the duo, but at the same time I have no idea what I just watched. The entire film seemed to have been made just to make fun of itself and the film industry. It was like watching a well-produced Adult Swim movie.  But it’s elusive point can be summed up in one of the beginning scenes, where producer Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin) asks men of multiple faiths whether the movie he’s creating, Hail, Caesar!, will offend anyone religiously. Instantly, one of the men states that a scene in the film where one person jumps from one chariot to the other is not realistic, which leads to the men arguing over who or what God is, and whether Jesus was the son of God. No resolution to Eddie’s question is given, and that’s the point.

Stars such as Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum give us truly impressive introductions to their fictional movie star characters as they dance and swim on fake sound stages. But after that they disappear from the plot entirely, only to be given extremely outlandish conclusions at the end of the film that we the audience just have to accept actually happened. There’s not a solid plot to the entire story, and it’s all in the name of the Christian film that Eddie Mannix is producing with the clueless actor Baird Whitlock, played with ease as always by George Clooney. It’s Just so comical to watch though, because every character seems to have no idea how anything truly works, and yet the point of Eddie’s film is to try and explain who runs the universe to the masses.

But I doubt that this movie will offend people religiously, because the Coen Brothers are literally telling us that films shouldn’t try explaining religion, by simply giving us the story of the incompetent filmmakers who try. 

The reason I really enjoyed this film was because I left the theater with a better understanding about society that has illuminated aspects of spirituality for me more than any religious film I’ve seen before. This is also why I love the Coen brothers. Their “point” is elusive, but it still exists. Overall it’s a fun ride of a film, but if you have absolutely no idea what happens behind and around the camera in order to make a movie, some of the key jokes will go right over your head. It wasn’t the classic that I thought it would be, but as long as you don’t take anything in this film seriously, (seriously anything), you will enjoy Hail, Caesar!.

Hail, Caesar! In Theaters February 5. http://www.hailcaesarmovie.com Four-time Oscar®-winning filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen (No Country for Old Men, True Grit, Fargo) write and direct Hail, Caesar!, an all-star comedy set during the latter years of Hollywood's Golden Age. Starring Josh Brolin, George Clooney, Alden Ehrenreich, Ralph Fiennes, Jonah Hill, Scarlett Johansson, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton and Channing Tatum, Hail, Caesar!

'The Martian': NASA’s Kickstarter Trailer

When you watch movies like Apollo 13, Lincoln, Argo, or any other movie based on a real event, you always end up thinking, “It’s pretty amazing that this actually happened.” Stories carry a grander emotional weight when you become aware that they’re a part of your own history. But as I watched Ridley Scott’s, The Martian -- a movie about a stranded astronaut who attempts to survive on Mars -- I had to repeatedly remind myself that this story is fictitious.

Thanks to the source novel by Andy Weir, the attention to accurate problem solving alone will have you feeling like you could survive on a foreign planet. But on a emotional level, Ridley Scott’s ensemble directing makes this story not just about isolation, but really a collective of humans working together to achieve impossible tasks. It’s a clear and bright vision of what our space program can become, provided that we continue to fund it. A depressing thought when you consider that we’ve only sent robots to the red planet.

While I enjoyed the emotional pacing of the piece, I thought the filmmakers could have done more with the Martian planet itself. Mars is a place that used to be flooded with water, and might have even harbored organic life. But now it’s clutching to the last of its atmosphere, as if someone left it behind like the stranded astronaut, Mark Watney (Matt Damon). The mix of practical and special effects to simulate Mars makes you feel as if you are there, but the editing during the scenic shots is too quick. The audience isn’t allowed enough time to let their eyes wander in a shot.

The story jumps through Sols (a day on Mars) fairly quickly too, so the pressure of Watney’s time in isolation is minimized. I think by extending these scenic shots, the audience would have more time to stare off into the Martian horizon and think about the planet, exactly as Watney does every Sol to plan his survival. Overall the editing was well executed, it’s just at certain points the planet feels more like a prop than an actual location where Watney is stuck.

I’ve seen this type of rushed editing a lot in recent sci-fi flicks, most popularly in Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar. Every time they show a shot of Saturn, or any kind of space scenic, they cut to something else. It makes me long for the editing style in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, or the opening shots in The Coen Brother’s No Country For Old Men. I understand the need to keep the runtime low, but adding two minutes of Mars scenic shots would have done the trick. There actually could be an interesting way to link virtual reality (VR) headsets, and movies here. Imagine that every time the movie stops to show you a scenic shot of Mars, you could wander the planet in VR, as if you’re Mark Watney, and this is your free time to explore.

For a survival story that manages to stay light-hearted, Watney's ultimate fate is never made too obvious, which makes the movie extremely enjoyable to watch. The experience is similar to watching Apollo 13 as a kid before any one told you about the outcome of the mission. So go see it, or instead donate your $14 to NASA so you can see Mars with your own eyes in this lifetime. Either way, this movie will inspire you to become a fan of supporting the U.S. space program. #NASAKickstarter