Word: burned
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...their game, which is to keep moviegoers off balance. With Burn After Reading, the Coens are back to their old tricks. And this one is either such a cunning conundrum or such a lame jape that despite the star power of George Clooney and Brad Pitt, almost no one will get the joke...
...tanned Hollywoodians, and the press who stream into Ontario from three continents, TIFF is seen as the launching pad for films that have eyes on the Academy Awards. So do the movies' largest luminaries. Brad Pitt, John Malkovich, Frances McDormand and Tilda Swinton will be there in aid of Burn After Reading, a quirky spy caper from Joel and Ethan Coen, who nabbed the top Oscar with No Country for Old Men. George Clooney, another of the film's stars, may not be in Toronto, but he was all over the place last year with Michael Clayton. Matt Damon, Julianne...
...close to an answer as you'll get here is that Burn After Reading is an essay in the cocoon of ignorance most of us live in. It pushes the old form of movie comedy - smart people saying clever things - into collision with today's dominant model of slackers whose utterly unfounded egotism eventually worms its way into an audience's indulgence. Which is to say that most of the people here seem like bright lights but are actually dim bulbs. They're not falling-down stupid; they radiate the subtler variety of idiocy that can be mistaken for charm...
...have the sinking feeling I've made Burn After Reading sound funnier than it is. The movie's glacial affectlessness, its remove from all these subpar schemers, left me cold and perplexed. I did appreciate the nicely modulated turns from Richard Jenkins as Linda's sweet-souled boss and J.K. Simmons as the head of the CIA. But for me, the surest laughs came from the portentous percussion in Carter Burwell's wonderful underscoring; it pile-drives an expectation of suspense that the film never delivers...
...movie. Film critics aren't supposed to confess bafflement at the end of a review, but that's what I feel here. Either the Coens failed, or I didn't figure out what they're attempting. I must be like Harry or Osborne, pretending to a sophistication I lack. Burn After Reading is a movie about stupidity that left me feeling stupid...