Pretentious, bloated, story-less piece of crap

Rating: 1/10 (28 December 2007)

Like Martin Scorsese, the Coens used to be real good. I mean all-time great (Raising Arizona, Barton Fink, Fargo) type of good! But just like Scorsese, the brothers are now living off past reputations as more recent epic-like efforts (despite over the top acclaim) have been utterly pointless. This latest is a 3 hour long rambling mess with just enough sporadic violence (extreme violence used for shock rather than adding to a story which really doesn't exist to begin with) to keep viewers from falling asleep.
The title alone sets the tone for the type of long, drawn out, pretenses that intelligent audiences will hafta meander thru.
I hope I'm wrong, but like last year's "Departed" I have a feeling this will be an undeserving Oscar winner in 2008. Seems like the emperors are naked but everyone is too scared to point it out.