Hail, Caesar! (2016)

Arguably the best trailer of the year, if not all time, guaranteed that Jack and I would love this hilarious parody of 1950s Hollywood. To paraphrase Woody Allen's Stardust Memories (1980), we enjoy the Coen Brothers' work, especially their funny ones.

The top billed cast all deliver terrific, over-the-top, hammy work (Josh Brolin, last blogged in Sicario; George Clooney, Our Brand Is Crisis; Alden Ehrenreich, who played a kid in Blue Jasmine; Ralph Fiennes, The Grand Budapest Hotel and Spectre, though I didn't mention him in the latter; Scarlett Johansson, Avengers: Age of Ultron; Tilda Swinton, Trainwreck, Frances McDormand, Promised Land and the outstanding mini-series Olive Kittredge; Channing Tatum, Magic Mike XXL; and Jonah Hill, How to Train Your Dragon 2), as do the rest.

Joel and Ethan Coen (most recently in these pages for co-writing Bridge of Spies and for directing and writing Inside Llewyn Davis) employ the vast talents of cinematographer Roger Deakins (Oscar-nominated for Sicario but didn't have a chance against The Revenant) with his rich colors shot on 35mm film instead of today's standard of digital. Costume designer Mary Zophres should score her second nomination, after True Grit (she also worked on, among others, Fargo (1996), The Big Lebowski (1998), O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), Ghost World (2001), Catch Me If You Can (2002), The Ladykillers (2004), A Serious Man, Iron Man 2, Cowboys & Aliens, and Interstellar), for the fabulous wardrobe, especially Swinton's and Johansson's. Production Designer Jess Gonchor, also Oscar-nominated for True Grit, and by his peers in the Art Directors Guild for The Last Samurai (2003), No Country for Old Men (2007), Burn After Reading, A Serious Man, True Grit, Inside Llewyn Davis, and Foxcatcher, among his many accomplishments, should join her for a second Oscar nomination for the marvelous sets in this one.

The trivia list on imdb will tell you many connections between actual movies and this one.

The soundtrack by Carter Burwell (last blogged for Anomalisa and Oscar-nominated for Carol, but I'm very happy Ennio Morricone won for The Hateful Eight) can be streamed from this link.

The Rotten Tomatoes averages have risen a point since we saw this on vacation three and a half weeks ago, to 83% critics and 46% audiences. I can't imagine why the audiences (who voted) were so disappointed but we were not.