Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from July, 2016

Empire Magazine (2008) Greatest Movies List - #117: Miller's Crossing

With your average gangster film you can expect criminals in suits, gunfights, and femme fatales. In the Coen Brothers’ Miller’s Crossing (1990) you get all that, but also criminals chasing their hats, a labyrinthine plot, and of course, the inevitable death of Steve Buscemi’s character. It is very difficult to describe the style of Joel and Ethan Coen, which probably explains the creation of the word “Coenesque,” but it is a unique style that works on whatever genre they decide to crack, including the 1930s gangster genre. My first introduction to the world of the Coen Brothers was with the cult classic The Big Lebowski , so I never know what to expect when I watch one of their more violent projects. It can be pure violence with absurdist scenes, such as with Blood Simple , or there can be brief moments of humour such as with their award-winning Fargo . I knew nothing about Miller’s Crossing when I bought the DVD a few years ago, and to this day I still have a hard time naviga