albert finney

millers crossing

I always make a big deal out of the first film I watch in a given year. I guess I feel like it sets the theme for the year or some such thing. Or maybe I just like stats and the first anything of the year seems randomly important.

As I noted in previous posts we were supposed to be in Kentucky today, the first day of 2024. But Covid kept us home. That and a million other things kept me from really thinking about what movie I’d watch today. In fact, I spent most of the day not watching movies at all, but binge-watching the excellent Amazon series Fleabag.

But as night came I knew I needed to watch a movie and my mind completely randomly thought of Miller’s Crossing, the 1990 gangster film from the Coen Brothers.

I love the Coen Brothers. I have ever since I first watched Fargo in 2006. That movie blew me away. It was so quirky, and funny, and violent. I had previously watched Raising Arizona, but at the time it didn’t make much sense to me. I now consider it one of the funniest movies of all time.

After Fargo I started seeking out Coen Brothers movies. I think I first watched Barton Fink (didn’t get it at first but now consider it a classic). Then I watched Miller’s Crossing and absolutely loved it.

That movie single-handedly turned me on to the writings of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler and made me a fan of film noir. I owe it a lot.

I hadn’t seen it in years so this viewing was somewhat fresh. It is still absolutely perfect.

It is loosely based on Hammett’s novels Red Harvest and The Glass Key, but with plenty of Coen Brothers spin. Gabriel Byrne plays Tom Reagan the right-hand man to mob boss Leo O’Bannon (Albert Finney) who gets into a war with up-and-coming gangster Johnny Caspar (Jon Polito). There are lots of twists and turns making the plot a bit confusing on first viewing, but it is full of wonderful dialogue and that Coen Brothers humor. It looks great, the acting is great, and the music by Carter Burwell is beautiful. It remains one of my all-time favorite films.

I think that makes a good start to 2024.

wolfen poster

If you are any sort of cinephile. If you have grown tired of the latest Marvel movie, or are looking for something besides the next big blockbuster coming soon to Disney+ then I highly recommend the Criterion Channel. They not only have some of the world’s greatest cinema, but they do an incredible job of curation. Most streaming services seem content to just throw a whole lot of stuff at your screen and hope that something sticks.

It amazes me that Netflix and Amazon and most of the other streamers will spend a ton of money to make a film or gather exclusive rights to a movie – movies with great stars and directors, etc. – and then will just dump it in next to all the other crap they bought on the cheap and give it absolutely no advertising.

The Criterion Channel actually thinks about the films they bring in, they support them and curate them. They come with themes and bring in critics to talk about them. I love it. I won’t say that every film they have available is the greatest ever, but I’ve never been disappointed that I watched something through their service.

What I really love is that they often bring to my attention films that I’ve never heard of. Like tonight’s film, Wolfen. I didn’t know it existed until it shows up in the 1980s horror collection.

It stars Albert Finney as a disgraced New York City detective who is brought back to solve a high-profile case of a rich mover and shaker who was ripped to shreds by someone (or something – one imagines it will be a werewolf given the title of the film, but I haven’t gotten that far yet).

I’m just a half hour in, but so far I’m loving it. And I would have never have seen it were it not for Criterion. God bless ’em.