Burn After Reading | Through the Shattered Lens

Welcome To The Dark Side Of Life

Ted K (2021) is a film about Ted Kaczynski, the overeducated loser who moved into a Montana cabin and who sent people bombs because of …. reasons, I guess? I know that Ted had a big manifesto and that there are people who claim to have found some sort of genius in his ramblings but truth be told, Ted was a second-rate philosopher who has been embraced by third-rate people. This film features Sharlto Copley at Ted and it takes an honest and unbiased look at him, his beliefs, and his crimes. If you’re wondering how we got to where we are, this is one of the films to watch. The film is on Tubi.

River’s Edge (1987) features Keanu Reeves, Crispin Glover, and Ione Skye as teenagers who learn that one of their friends (Daniel Roebuck) has murdered his girlfriend and who …. do nothing. Eventually, one of them does go to the police and finds himself being targeted by his former friends. Meanwhile, Roebuck hides out with a one-legged biker (Dennis Hopper). This is a disturbing and well-acted true crime film. We’ve all seen a lot of examples of bystander syndrome over the past few years. This week, I’ve wondered why so many people, on that North Carolina bus, just walked away after Iryna was stabbed. This is film examines an early example of that tendency. It’s on Tubi.

Blue Caprice (2013) was a film made about the DC snipers. It didn’t really get the attention that it deserved when it was initially released, largely due to the fact that 1) it starred Isaiah Washington and 2) it was such a disturbing movie that I imagine a lot of people had a hard time recommending it. But if you want to see a film about how a madman can find ways to justify his amoral behavior, this film provides a lot of insight. It’s on Tubi.

The Stanford Prison Experiment (2015) tells the true story of an infamous social experiment from the early 70s. It examines just how quickly people will lose themselves in a situation. While the students playing the prisoners feel as if they are literally fighting for their lives, the students playing the guards enjoy their power trip and never seem to consider that things are going too far. This film features a great performance from Michael Angarano, as the most enthusiastic of the guards. It’s on Tubi.

Finally, Christine (2016) tells the story of Christine Chubbuck, the Florida news anchor whose on-air suicide partially inspired the film, Network. Christine is not a happy film but it does feature a great performance from Rebecca Hall. It’s on Tubi.

Welcome To The Ligher Side Of The Life

Good news! Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) exists! This film, one of the funniest ever made and definitely one of my go-to comforts, is currently streaming on Tubi!

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986) remains the ultimate teen fantasy. Actually, it’s also probably the ultimate adult fantasy. Everyone deserves a day off. Ferris Bueller skips school and manages to fit a month’s worth of events into just 9 hours. We should all be so lucky. I love this film. Alan Ruck deserved all the Oscars in the world. The film is currently streaming on Netflix.

Burn After Reading (2008) never seems to get the respect that it deserves. The Coen Brothers followed up the award-winning No Country For Old Men with an absurdist CIA comedy in which no one learned anything and nothing was accomplished. It’s hilarious, as both a film and a concept. John Malkovich, Brad Pitt, Frances McDormand, J.K. Simmons, David Rasche, and George Clooney are all wonderfully used. Burn After Reading is currently on Prime.

Odds and Ends

12 Angry Men (1957) is a true rarity, a classic that everyone agrees is a classic. Not only are all 12 of the angry men perfectly cast (Henry Fonda, Jack Warden, Ed Begley, Martin Balsam, Lee J. Cobb, E.G. Marhsall, Robert Webber, and all the rest …. I could go on for paragraphs about how brilliantly cast this film is) but it’s also still a thought-provoking look at the justice system. Personally, I think the kid was guilty. And I think that the men all deciding that the woman was too vain to admit that she wore glasses is a perfect example of why women should serve on juries. Henry Fonda talked them into letting a murderer loose! It’s still a great film though. It’s streaming on Tubi.

The Philadelphia Story (1940) features James Stewart, Cary Grant, and Katharine Hepburn. It also features a lot of great lines, a lot of funny moments, and — most importantly — Jimmy Stewart singing Somewhere Over The Rainbow! What more could you ask for? It’s streaming on Tubi.

For today’s entry in the Days of Paranoia, let’s take a look at Joel and Ethan Coen’s wonderfully satiric look at espionage, greed, lust, and stupidity, 2008’s Burn After Reading.

Like most Coen Brothers films, Burn After Reading tells the dark story of a group of obsessives who all think that they’re far more clever than they actually are. Osborne Cox (John Malkovich) is a CIA analyst who, because of his alcoholism and generally sour personality, is demoted. Cox angrily quits his job and then starts working on his memoirs. Meanwhile, Cox’s wife Katie (played by Tilda Swinton) is having an affair with the handsome but idiotic Mark (George Clooney). On the advice of her divorce lawyer, Katie secretly downloads copies of all of Osborne’s records, including his memoirs. Katie gives the disc to her lawyer’s secretary. The secretary then proceeds to accidentally leave the disc at Hardbodies Gym.

This is where things, in typical Coen Brothers fashion, start to get complicated. Two trainers at the gym — Linda (Frances McDormand) and her fitness obsessed friend Chad (a hilarious Brad Pitt) — find the disc and mistake Osborne’s very mundane files for national security secrets. Linda, who is obsessed with raising enough money to get a boob job, convinces Chad that they should blackmail Osborne and demand that he pay them before they return his disc. Osborne, who has no idea that Katie copied his records, refuses to pay so Linda takes the disc to the Russians. This leads to a series of misunderstandings that eventually lead to several murders, all of which have to be covered up by the CIA, despite the fact that both the director of the CIA and his assistant agree that there’s no way to understand how any of this happened and that, in the end, neither one of them has learned anything from the experience.

Perhaps because it was released between the Oscar-winning No Country For Old Men and the Oscar-nominated A Serious Man, many critics tend to dismiss Burn After Reading as just being an enjoyable lark and nothing more. While it’s true that there’s not a lot going on underneath the surface of Burn After Reading, the surface itself is so fun, vivid, and vibrant that it seems rather petty to complain. Burn After Reading finds the Coen Brothers at their most playful and snarky.

The Coen Brothers have made films in several different genres and styles but all of their work has one thing in common. The Coens tell stories about obsessive characters who aren’t anywhere close to being as smart as they think they are. When critics complain that the Coens tend to view their characters with a rather condescending attitude, they’re usually talking about films like Burn After Reading. Fortunately, in the case of Burn After Reading, the Coens assembled one of their strongest casts. From the insanely focused Frances McDormand to the perpetually smiling Brad Pitt to cynical John Malkovich, everyone does such a great job that you can overlook the fact that they’re all essentially playing idiots. Perhaps the film’s best performance comes from George Clooney who, in the role of Harry, proves himself to be a very good sport by satirizing both his own reputation as a womanizer and his career as an old school movie star. In one of the film’s best moments, Harry, gun drawn, dramatically leaps and then rolls into an empty bedroom. Like almost all of the characters in Burn After Reading, Harry is just a big kid playing action hero and Clooney’s performance here is perfect.

As for Burn After Reading, it may not be perfect but it’s certainly a lot of fun.