Coen Brothers’ ‘Burn After Reading’ Headed to Blu-ray
FROM UNIVERSAL STUDIOS HOME ENTERTAINMENT: An all-star cast including George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton and John Malkovich come together in this outrageous spy comedy about murder, blackmail, sex addiction, and physical fitness!
BURN AFTER READING
Available on DVD and Blu-ray Hi-Def December 23, 2008
FROM UNIVERSAL STUDIOS HOME ENTERTAINMENT
“A Comedic Masterpiece” -Larry King
OVERVIEW: Intelligence is relative in this hilarious new spy comedy from Joel and Ethan Coen, the Academy Award(R) -winning directors of No Country for Old Men and The Big Lebowski. Academy Award(R) winners George Clooney and Frances McDormand, Brad Pitt, John Malkovich, and Academy Award(R) winner Tilda Swinton star in this brilliantly clever and endlessly entertaining comedy of errors.
SYNOPSIS: When a disc filled with some of the CIA’s most irrelevant secrets gets in the hands of two determined, but dim-witted, gym employees, the duo are intent on exploiting their find. But since blackmail is a trade better left for the experts, events soon spiral out of everyone’s and anyone’s control, resulting in a non-stop series of hilarious encounters!
BONUS FEATURES (AVAILABLE ON DVD AND BLU-RAY HI-DEF):
* FINDING THE BURN: The making of Burn After Reading from inspiration to
the big screen.
* DC INSIDERS RUN AMUCK: We show the strength in putting together some
of the most amazing talent in the world to create a world of
Washington, DC insiders all trying to get ahead or find true love.
* WELCOME BACK GEORGE: This is a companion, comedy piece, focusing on
Mr. Clooney as he returns for his third collaboration with Ethan and
Joel Coen.
BONUS FEATURES EXCLUSIVE TO BLU-RAY HI-DEF:
* Get Connected with BD-Live!
* Access the BD-Live Center through your Internet-connected player and
download even more bonus content, the newest trailers and more!
* Plus, explore MY SCENES and collect your favorite clips from the
movie then share with your BD-Live buddies!
http://www.burnafterreading.com–live.com/#/home
TECHNICAL INFORMATION:
Selection Number: 62102034 Anamorphic Widescreen
Price: $29.98 SRP
Running Time: 1 hour 36 minutes
Layers: Dual Layer
Aspect Ratio: Anamorphic Widescreen 1.85:1
Rating: R for pervasive language, some sexual content, and violence
Languages/Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish and French
Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
TECHNICAL INFORMATION – BLU-RAY(TM):
Selection Number: 62105851 Widescreen
Price: SRP $39.98
Running Time: 1 hour 36 minutes
Layers: BD-50
Aspect Ratio: Widescreen 1.85:1
Languages/Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, French
Sound: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, DTS Surround 5.1
CAST AND FILM MAKERS:
Cast: George Clooney, Frances McDormand, Brad Pitt, John Malkovich,
Tilda Swinton, Richard Jenkins
Written, Produced and Directed by: Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
Executive Producers: Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner
Executive Producer: Robert Graf
Director of Photography: Emmanuel Lubezki, ASC, A.M.C.
Edited by: Roderick Jaynes
Production Designer: Jess Gonchor
Costume Designer: Mary Zophres
Associate Producer: David Diliberto
Supervising Sound Editor: Skip Lievsay
Music by: Carter Burwell
Coens’ “Burn After Reading” ignites box office
“Burn After Reading,” a screwball spy comedy from Oscar-winning filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen, fired up the weekend box office in North America on Sunday, helping overall sales rebound from the five-year low plumbed a week earlier.
“Burn,” whose cast includes George Clooney, Brad Pitt and John Malkovich, opened at No. 1 after selling an estimated $19.4 million worth of tickets across the United States and Canada, distributor Focus Features said.
The three-day tally set a new record both for the Coens and for Focus, the arthouse arm of General Electric Co’s NBC Universal unit. It also represents the first No. 1 for Focus. The brothers’ previous best was “Ladykillers” with a $12.6 million opening in 2004.
Three other new releases followed, all within their respective studios’ expectations: prolific filmmaker Tyler Perry’s latest domestic saga “The Family That Preys” at No. 2 with $18 million; the Robert De Niro-Al Pacino cop drama “Righteous Kill” at No. 3 with $16.5 million; and a critically maligned remake of the 1939 distaff drama “The Women” at No. 4 with $10.1 million.
Critics were hardly more enthused about the other new releases, including “Burn After Reading,” the Coens’ first release since they won the best picture Oscar in February for the Texan drama “No Country For Old Men.”
- from Reuters
Coen brothers return to Minnesota for next film
The Oscar-winning Coen brothers are returning to their home state of Minnesota to shoot their next movie.
Joel and Ethan Coen are scheduled to start shooting A Serious Man on Monday in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.The movie — about a professor whose life is falling apart — is set in 1967 in an unspecified suburb similar to St. Louis Park, where the Coens grew up.
It’s the first time the Coens have filmed in Minnesota since 1996’s Fargo.
- from USAtoday
Tommy Lee Jones seeks $10M in ‘No Country’ lawsuit
Tommy Lee Jones is suing the makers of “No Country for Old Men” for more than $10 million that the Oscar-winning actor claims he is owed for starring in the 2007 hit crime thriller.
The lawsuit against Paramount Pictures claims that Jones was promised “significant box-office bonuses” and other compensation depending on the success of the film, which went on to make more than $160 million.
The movie, which is set in Texas and based on a critically acclaimed Cormac McCarthy novel, garnered four Academy Awards, including “Best Picture.”
A message left for Paramount Pictures on Saturday was not immediately returned. Jones declined to comment through his publicist, Jennifer Allen, the San Antonio Express-News reported.
“The paperwork stands for itself,” Allen said.
- from AP
Screwball comedies natural for Coen brothers
Joel and Ethan Coen are analog guys in a digital world, highly amused by the absurdity of talking about big ideas amidst the frenzy of a film festival.
The sibling filmmakers are also just off the plane from the coast, having arrived for last night’s North American premiere of Burn After Reading, their spy vs. stupidity spoof at the Toronto film festival. (The movie opens wide Sept. 12.)
While chatting with the Star last night in an exclusive Canadian interview, Joel, 53, reclines in a hotel chair while Ethan, 50, paces the room. Jet-lagged and jumpy, they act as if someone – Batman’s Joker, maybe? – just filled the place with laughing gas. They do love to kid.
If the bros sound even more playful than usual, it’s forgivable in the context of “the idiocy of today,” a theme of their movie, which stars George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Tilda Swinton, John Malkovich and Frances McDormand.
Q: You worked on both Burn After Reading and No Country for Old Men at the same time …
Ethan: Sort of writing it at the same time, yeah …
Joel: (interrupting) Is that a question?
Q: It is. It’s like we’re playing Jeopardy. I actually see a link between No Country and this one.
Joel: (laughing) We did work on them at the same time …
Ethan: (interrupting) Actually, to tell you the truth, we’re laughing because Claudia (the studio publicist) told us, “He only has one question.”
Joel: You were very clever. You came in and made a statement for us to react to. So we were going to pull your leg a little bit.
But okay, to answer your question, it’s only that this one was so complicated to pull together from the point of view of all these high-profile actors all being available at a specific time. So we shot it after (No Country). It was sort of a window of opportunity when we could shoot George and Brad and John Malkovich and Fran and all that.
Ethan: (laughing hysterically) Whereas, for No Country, Josh Brolin was always available! Josh’s schedule was open!
Joel: Yes, Josh was available. I’m sure he’d be saying right now, “Thanks, guys!”
Ethan: (laughing) Can you write about that in an especially slighting way …
Joel: (laughing) … so we can send it to Josh?
- from here
Coen brothers dark comedy premieres at Venice fest
The Coen brothers wrote their dark comedy, “Burn After Reading,” with stars George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Frances McDormand in mind. Not necessarily a compliment.
The movie, which premieres Wednesday at the Venice Film Festival, is a tale about idiots — and what happens when their worlds collide.
Pitt and McDormand are a pair of hapless gym employees who get in way over their heads when the memoirs of a failed CIA analyst (John Malkovich) fall into their hands and they try to peddle them as classified intelligence secrets. Clooney plays a hypochondriac philanderer having an affair with the CIA analyst’s disappointed wife, played by Tilda Swinton.
“Looking at the parts we are playing, I’m very concerned about what you think of us,” Clooney said at a news conference.
It’s Clooney’s third film with the Coen brothers — completing what he called “his trilogy of idiots” after “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” and “Intolerable Cruelty.”
Pitt said he had waited a long time to work with the Coen brothers.
“Like George … I’m not sure if I should be flattered or insulted,” he said. “I’m still a bit unsure.”
Asked if the movie is a love letter from her husband, Joel Coen, McDormand quipped: “Have you seen the film? And you call that a love letter?”
The movie’s opening shots are of McDormand’s Linda Litzke having her behind, belly and arms scrutinized by a plastic surgeon in her attempt to fend off middle age.
“We started writing the movie as kind of an exercise, thinking of what kind of parts these actors might play, what kind of story they might inhabit,” Ethan Coen told a news conference.
- from AP
Coen brothers cast ‘Serious’ men
The Coen brothers have tapped a pair of relative unknowns to star in their next pic, “A Serious Man.”
Michael Stuhlbarg, a Tony-nominated actor with little experience in front of the cameras, and Richard Kind, a character actor best known for his role on ABC’s “Spin City,” will star as brothers in the period black comedy.
Set in 1967, story centers on Larry Gopnik (Stuhlbarg), a Midwestern professor whose life begins to unravel when his wife sets out to leave him and his socially inept brother (Kind) won’t move out of the house.
Shooting is set to start at the beginning of next month in Minneapolis.
- from Variety
Coens’ ‘Burn’ Venice
Joel and Ethan Coen’s “Burn After Reading,” the duo’s next movie after the Oscar-winning “No Country for Old Men,” will open the summer’s Venice Film Festival.
The dark spy comedy stars John Malkovich as an ousted CIA operative whose memoirs fall into the hands of two gym workers who set out to exploit their find. The film also stars Venice regulars including George Clooney, Tilda Swinton and Brad Pitt.
The movie’s world premiere will immediately follow the opening ceremony for the 65th edition of the Venice event, on Aug. 27. The festival runs through Sept. 6.
“Burn After Reading” is a Working Title production, produced, written, and directed by the Coen brothers. Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, and Robert Graf are the film’s executive producers.
Via THR
Ross Geller Auditions for the Coen Brothers – Details on their next movie!
Late last year, for instance, Schwimmer walked into a room and read for the Coen brothers, who were looking to cast the lead for their upcoming film, “A Serious Man,” which the Coens recently told The Times is “about a Jewish community in the Midwest in the 1960s.” Schwimmer read for the lead, a college professor named Larry. The project felt to Schwimmer like a Bernard Malamud novel meets, well, the Coen brothers. “I think I knocked it out,” he said with a chuckle, talking about the audition last week over coffee at Bazzini, a gourmet market in TriBeCa, not far from Schwimmer’s New York residence. Schwimmer doesn’t know if he’ll be cast in “A Serious Man,” but the audition alone still meant something significant to him. “Part of it was just being able to be in the room with two people I absolutely respect and would kill to work with,” Schwimmer said.
Via LAtimes
Coen Brothers feel the Burn
“Focus Features and Working Title have decided to go wide when opening the Coen brothers’ next film, “Burn After Reading,” on Sept. 12 because of the film’s comedic appeal and cast. Dark spy-comedy stars George Clooney, Brad Pitt, John Malkovich, Frances McDormand and Tilda Swinton, who recently starred with Clooney in “Michael Clayton.” The Coens wrote, directed and produced “Burn,” which revolves around an ousted CIA official whose memoir inadvertently falls into the hands of two bumbling Washington, D.C., gym employees.”
Via Variety
