癲狂院 Vixen Owl Cigar..。o○

Letter-perfect, Belly-laugh Farce..


CAPTAIN OF THE GOOD SHIP AMOUR VERITAS...
"Intolerable cruelty "... now there's an interesting little phrase.
It kept popping into my head as I sat through Daredevil and The Matrix: Reloaded earlier this year, staring at the banal images on the screen as my brain cells marched one by one to the gallows.
Boy, those movies sucked.
"Intolerable Cruelty ", however, is actually very pleasant.
Heck, it's one of the year's funniest pictures, and I think it stands beside the Coen's best work. Okay, so maybe it’s no Raising Arizona. But, really, what is
In case you’re lost, here's the story so far. Joel and Ethan Coen are film makers. Darn good ones, too.
They're critical darlings, and many of their films (Fargo, Barton Fink, and the aforementioned Arizona ) are revered cult classics.
The Coens' movies are always hilarious in a strange, crazy way, and they often pay homage to some of the Coen’s favorite directors.
Also distinctive about the work of the Coens is the fact that their characters are, quite frankly, total morons.
They're narrow-minded, egotistical, absurdly foolish morons, and boy do I relate to them.

All of these things hold true for the entry in the Coens' catalog, "Intolerable Cruelty ".
With a respectful salute to the zany, screwball comedies of the good ol' days, this film and its gloriously flawed cast of characters make for one of the funniest movie-going experiences you'll have all year, and though it’s the most mainstream and commercially viable Coen flick yet , it’s got the same sharp writing, brilliant music, and whimsical spirit that made Raising Arizona and The Hudsucker Proxy such beloved classics.

【Catherine Zeta-Jones】Intolerable Cruelty【George Clooney】
Verrrrry Interesting...but Stupid !!!!
That fateful night at the cinema was where I saw Intolerable Cruelty , the film directed by the Cohn Brothers, Joel and Ethan.
The movie is a comedy starring George Clooney and Catherine Zeta-Jones.
While some of the Cohn's previous work, including such films as Fargo, Barton Fink, and O Brother...
Where Art Thou ?, were more successful with the arthouse crowd, the brothers' movie is, on the surface, a play to the masses.
It's a romantic comedy complete with marriages, sappy pontifications on , and wacky situations.
However, a reasonably smart viewer will immediately recognize this film as more of an homage to old fashioned screwball comedies, rather than an attempt at a serious, sappy romantic comedy.

Clooney is Miles Massey, a lawyer who specializes in marriage and divorce cases, and who is famous for the "Massey Pre-Nup " -- a prenuptial legal document so well-designed that it has "never been penetrated ".
His own morality is suspect, naturally, being a movie lawyer -- he’s not interested in the truth, but in making an argument that will sound good in court.. Such skills go to ridiculous extremes in a number of situations both in and out of the courtroom...

Into Massey's life walks Marylin Rexroth, played by Catherine Zeta-Jones.
She seeks a divorce after the private investigator she hired videotaped her husband in a compromising position.
Her hope is to be able to get a huge chunk of the man's extraordinary wealth, but Massey is able to deny that dream in a wacky courtroom scene when he brings out a surprise witness who exposes Marylin for the scammer that she is -- she deliberately went out to marry a foolish man who would cheat on her, so she would win a lot of money from him during the divorce case....

But as Massey massacres Marylin in the courtroom, he also gains an infatuation with her, because she’s just as ruthless in her way as he is in his.
He lets his guard down and attempts to get involved with her before she moves on to her next victim , an oil baron played by Billy Bob Thorton.
But, even if Marylin and Miles do get together, could they ever really trust each other enough to remain in
After all, they both are very tricky and clever people, so who's to say that they wouldn't try to act that way toward each other as well as people around them....

The key to this film is that you shouldn't take seriously for a moment anything that transpires here.
Both halves of our couple are corrupt, and the road to, and during and after, , is paved, not with sweet, un-ironic romance, but crazy twists and wacky behavior that, by the time the climax arrives, would make you want to get these two locked up , if this were indeed real life.
Even during the seemingly sappy bits that play out during a sequence at a lawyers' convention, we can hear the snickering of the screenwriters as they mock the crushingly obvious conventions of the romantic comedy.

Think of "Intolerable Cruelty " as a comedic version of those suspense thrillers where everything the character thought they knew was wrong.
Comedies don't need to have an intricate story to be funny, but this film takes the opposite approach.
You never know what surprise is going to happen next and each is more outrageous and funnier than the last.
It's a classic battle of the sexes in a most unusual style.
The average viewer might not see the brilliance in executing the story this way, but to those trained in the Coen Brothers School of Irreverence it's fantastic and hilarious.