@@barrybarnes96 But without recognizing that he's a part of it. He thinks he's so incredibly important, builds it up the entire movie, and yet we find out in an instant when "no biggie" describes sigint at the classified level he was being DEMOTED from at the beginning. I think this video could've made a point that we as the viewers can easily put ourselves in the shoes of Osbourne Cox and think we're way better than all these people fumbling around and wreaking havoc wherever they go, and the chances are just as likely that we're below average and wreaking our own havoc without knowing it. Even the fact he lost his supposedly ridiculously important sigint which wound up being found in a gym by a janitor gets completely lost on him. He never acknowledges that he didn't take care of this classified info and that he himself committed a federal crime by letting it get out in the open if it really was that important. He's just as much of a walking abomination as everyone else and of course running outside with a hammer to bludgeon a guy to death drives that point home.
@@Crooky0 I think you make a good point. However, in my experience, we humans have an unconscious drive to want to be right even if we have to sacrifice our happiness. It is a fundamental flaw in each of us. I did an extensive amount of work learning about the things I do to sabotage my own life. The need to be right is the number one offender. Confirmation bias is rampant. Isn't Pride the deadliest of all the deadly sins?
Maybe you hit the nail on the head there about the meaning. The movie makes us feel smarter than the characters. But when it's over and we "don't get it" so we feel as dumb as the characters. Like a reminder that we're probably not as smart as we think. We suffer from Above Average Effect too. Or maybe like No Country For Old Men it's mostly just the Coen brothers saying "Life is meaningless, so is this ending" lol. I find that end scene just hilarious. "For fucks sake, put him on the next plane to Venezuela."
Thanks for making a good analysis! I'd love to see more like this. Personally I'm trying to figure out the meaning of the little obsessions Clooney's characters have. The Dapper Dan in O Brother, the floors in this one.
When Chad died! I almost had a heart attack! He was the only likable character in the movie, in my opinion. Also, when Ted died, that was kind of sad. I guess good people die early!
In the scene toward the end when she's talking with Harry, you see the guy she went on a date with prior getting ready to go on another date with someone else. Linda on the other hand is about to lose Harry because of the whole incident, and that's the only person she found herself resonating with. She got the surgery but she's probably going to be lonely for the rest of her life. No support, no love, no nothing.
...And nobody ends up being any wiser for any of it. Nobody learns any lessons and nobody has any character arc. Every single person ends up either exactly where they were in terms of mindset or they're functionally dead.
I find it more of a mirror to any agency, business or relationship. The arrogance. Everyone feels as though they're important, in control, indulging in whatever they please, making decisions they seem fit but in reality, have no idea the impact or chain of events that can stem form it.
I work for the U.S. government and the Malkovich and Clooney characters are perfect examples of thinking they are somehow important even in reality they are mid level and easily replaceable. They are not dumb just delusional. The Pitt character is actually the best person in this whole movie but also the dumbest. Unlike the rest he is fine with his dumbness and a threat to no one. He dies because of his goodness which is a form of stupidity I guess.
Oh they're dumb, just not in the extremely obvious ways that Pitt's character is. Malkovich was bad enough at his job to get demoted from a "no biggie" sigint position and lose his supposedly damning classified intel, not to mention towards the end running outside to bludgeon a guy to death with a hammer in broad daylight. Clooney's character is a pseudo-intellectual showing cracks with things like "shell food", "lactose reflux", comically short showers after running (military showers are still 1-2 minutes, not 15 seconds), etc. Blows a guy's brains out then is calling out to him as he goes back up like there'd be even the slightest chance he's still alive. Perfectly melds with another idiot, McDormand's character. The point of this movie is none of these people think they're stupid but they're all definitely stupid and their stupidity is wreaking more havoc than they could possibly imagine.
Intelligence rarely correlates with wisdom, common sense, or self-insight. Take Sam Harris for instance. The guy probably has a high 140's IQ, but is utterly incapable of seeing when he's beeing a humongous hypocrite.
@@Crooky0 Well put. Even Cox's wife, who probably has the highest IQ of the bunch is a raving retard also. She was oblivious that Harry's heart wasn't in the relationship or that her ice-cold personality and domineering manner would always drive men away (or to drink). I find it interesting that none of these people have children. It seems like a lot of this idiocy could be avoided if they had children in their lives to focus on rather then on themselves. To me it's an unintentional commentary on the typical liberal mindset- atheistic, narcissistic, short sighted and emotionally stunted.
@@stopthephilosophicalzombie9017 Harris' problem is a combination of denial and narcissism. He clearly knows when he is being hypocritical, he just can't bring himself to admit it seeing how he calls out hypocrisy in others. Instead of just admitting to his own personal prejudices, he engages in the same mental gymnastics he calls out in others. I actually agree with him on more issues than I don't, but his defence of all the media propaganda and lies to prevent Trump's re-election seriously made me lose all respect for him. I can still agree with him on a ton of things, but ultimately, he lost me when he showed a distinct lack of moral fortitude.
This is one of the least enjoyable movies I’ve ever seen. I hated it so deeply. There is something I liked about the movie. Brad Pitt played an absolutely idiot and really far from his Troy and Fight Club characters. It showed some range.
This movie is genius. If you feel dumb at the end, take solace in the fact that you’ll never have to worry about understanding film at this level of hilarity. It is a well-crafted work of art that stands out against a backdrop of the cliche and shallow “drivel” of other dark-comedy attempts. It gives the greats like Dr. Strangelove a damn good run for their money. This movie will wonderfully stand the tests of time. “We were young and committed, and there was nothing we could not do...”
hogwash. Th plot is mediocre at best, and understanding this film , overall, has damn little to do with our intellectual ability to decipher that which is too mudded up with tarnished shades of "film noir" to be decipherable. Take th film at its face value----however it may present itself - - - - and laugh along with it. Comparing it to Dr Strangelove is absurd.
I was rather insufferable as a teenager, and a young adult. I suffered from the "above average" effect as well. Whatever relatively mediocre intellectual accomplishments I achieved went to my head. I thought I was better than everyone. I was also far too cowardly to act like that to other people, so I came across as rather nice, but in my head I maintained a sense of superiority and distanced myself from people who I felt were "intellectually inferior" to me. As the years have gone on, I have learned that I am actually quite average. There are many colleagues who are far more intelligent than I am, and they have the grace to help me and be kind to me. It was a very unpleasant learning experience, but invaluable. But still, old habits die hard. Occasionally I still have those arrogant thoughts, and I need to repeatedly remind myself that, no, I am not better than that person, just because I earn more, or just because I have a fancy piece of paper framed on my wall. We are not our payslips, we are not our degrees or lack of degrees. We are just people, and I have no more worth to this world than the vast majority of people. In short, I used to be a slightly nicer version of Osbourne Cox (minus the alcohol problem). And once I realised it, I hated myself for it. But, change is possible.
This is a very honest and revealing comment. More of us share your experience than will admit it. I am just like you in many ways. I score well on standardized tests and have a reasonably high IQ, but it was very hard realizing I didn't have any extraordinary gifts and that I would have to work really hard to achieve anything just like anyone else. I developed the terrible idea that because I was smart that I wouldn't have to work as hard, and that lack of discipline has been my achillies heel my whole life.
Every single measure of intelligence that I have ever taken has put me around the 80th percentile. That’s SATs, ASVAB, LSAT, and several other IQ type tests. I also have a masters degree in mathematics. So I don’t think it’s my own imagination when I believe I am smarter than most people. However, I generally surround myself in my work and awuaintsnces with the credibly smart people that make me feel really stupid on a daily basis. I am very well aware that I am not even close to the level of intelligence necessary to really provide true transcendent value to society or organizations. That being said, whenever I interact with the general public, it’s painfully obvious to me that there is a very wide gap not only between me and really smart people, but the other way between me and 50% of the population.
Ok, that cobble-stoned street in DC that Clooney's character is running up at 2:04....that's 36th NW or something like that....got a great story...some thirty years ago, when I was an undergraduate, I was taking classes at Georgetown University. A freak ice storm had swept through the region the day before the Spring semester began (sometime in mid-January). Every school as far north as Villanova in Philadelphia and Duke down in North Carolina had closed.....except f'ing Georgetown. So like a moron, being ex-Navy, vanity dictated that I HAD to make class, particularly since it was the FIRST day of the semester. So I got up on that first day of classes at 5AM, de-iced my car (which took about an hour), drove to the local metro station only to find that it was so cold that the first train had broken down. So I rode the second train to Rosslyn, which was close as you can get to Georgetown (or so I thought), and walked in near-zero temperatures across the Potomac River to the campus. As I carefully made my way across Key bridge (EVERYTHING was coated in an inch of ice...railings, sidewalks, steps, the streets, EVERYTHING), I looked out at the Potomac River to find a scene like something out of Ice Station Zebra. Ice floes had piled up on one another, the river was iced over from the Virginia to the DC shorelines, etc. Now, as an ex-sailor, I know about dressing for the weather, so I had prudently layered myself with a thick parka, beneath which I wore a jacket, a sweater, a pull-over and a scarf. For the lower part of my body, I had donned three pairs of trousers, two pairs of heavy woolen socks and work boots. And of course I had a good thick scarf on....however, as for the part of the anatomy from which a majority of body heat escapes (the head), the best I could do was a baseball cap. As I got to the bridge's mid-span, I could feel my brain shutting down, like a light bulb growing ever dimmer from the cold. I thought to myself "If I go down here, on the sidewalk side of the jersey barriers, my body won't be found for a couple days". I was in my late 20s at the time and was at the peak of physical condition. I could bike 35 miles, do 150 sit ups, worked out daily with weights, etc., but despite all that, I found myself receiving ominous signals of distress and danger from my body. For the first time in my life, I thought my body might actually fail me. Somehow I managed to make it to the far side of the bridge, which you can clearly see in the background in this shot. Then the REAL challenge began. Because everything was caked in inch-thick ice, I literally had to climb on my hands and knees, grabbing onto shrubbery, iron fence-posts, car bumpers, etc., to get up the street. Twice I lost my grip and slid back down to M Street. Eventually, after what seemed like super-human exertions on my part, I made it up the street and to the building. I was about an hour early, so I got to chatting with the campus police officer who was posted to the building. I proudly bragged that I had just walked all the way over from the Rosslyn metro station, to which the officer replied "Why didn't you take the shuttle bus? It runs every 20 minutes.". I was floored. I can assure you, I took full advantage of the bus on the way back to the metro station after class but what really chaps my ass is that I caught pneumonia from that little exercise in stupidity that kept me bed-ridden for nearly a month. I learned a valuable lesson from that experience: sometimes its more prudent to accept graciously a minor setback rather than trying to fight it and ending up dealing with a severe reversal.
I like the idea that the title "Burn After Reading" and the line "What did we learn?" go hand in hand with one another as a reference of our inability to learn. It's like if you read a book from cover to cover, didn't absorb a single word of it, then burnt it immediately afterwards without learning any lesson or moral from it, inevitably leading you to one day have to read it again to try to gleam the same meaning only to fail once more. "What did we learn?" And the unspoken answer: "Nothing."
When Osbourne goes into the basement in the beginning of the film ( when the phone rings ) there are several stains in the drywall ceiling. If you look at the way the scene is shot, it is obvious Cohen wanted us to notice that. At the end of the film when Osbourne shoots the store manager (after Osbourne moved out) there are no stains at all. Perhaps its a metaphor for the fact that Osbourne is sloppy and his wife will make sure a mess gets cleaned up. Or maybe it was Harry's OCD that had him cleaning up the basement.
They couldn't find a better casting choice for Cox than Malkovich, I think they casted him specifically for this movie. Malkovich didn't even need to put much an effort other than just be himself.
Oh, Fargo is the best. These movies , although very well made with outstanding actor work and dialogues are all a little bit over the top. Like SNL skits. Don't get me wrong I thoroughly enjoyed almost all Cohen brothers movies. Fargo is really unmatched. Among recent I would single "Serious Man'".
Osborne Cox was unleashing his psychotic ramblings that characterized his nonsense everyone on this film but he had yet to remind himself he was in the League of Morons as the Leader of Morons himself.
I like your take on this movie. I even though I thought the movie was good I didn’t understand it until I watch this video. The only thing off was that Cox wasn’t fired. They told him he’d be moved to state with a lower security clearance. They specifically said we’re not terminating you.
Intelligence is retaliative, you may be knowledgeable in one area while someone else isn't that doesn't make them an Idiot, just unknowledgeable in that area. Same goes for you.
I knew this movie was genius, I just couldn’t quite articulate why, but you nailed it, this was a hilariously dark comedy of errors, and the last lines in the film cap it off so perfectly.
The film is about vanity and self-obsession. The characters appear stupid, because the scope of their understanding is limited by their inability to see beyond their own personal wants and needs. Their reality is warped, distorted around the mass of their selfish desires. And other, good natured people can be destroyed if they get caught in the orbit of another person’s pointless self-obsession. What makes Burn After Reading unique is how this indictment of this traditionally American consumerist self-obsession (which is a fairly common narrative trope), is pitted in a Kafka-esque, morally indifferent world dominated by bureaucratic entities that are similarly self-obsessed on an institutional level. They don’t care about what’s wrong or right, only about what serves their (often lazy) needs.
Spot on! These movie reviewers are mostly people who could barely get through any other under-grad course like chemistry or English at a proper college/university with their trite and simplistic and cliched observations, but this review was pretty good!
Maybe the movie is saying that dramatic things happen not because of any higher cause or motivation. But they just happen due to human idiocy and irrationality.
Seeing what kind of idiots and mediocre dullards have formed history with smart people being clear minority of those formers of history makes your argument ring true. For every Kangxi Emperor and Sir Winston Churchill there are dozen and dozens of Donald Trumps just lurking about, shoving things to unplanned motion without even deliberate attempt to shove things in motion.
I love Osborne 💕 I don’t think it’s stupidity that they’re mocking I think it’s ego, grandiosity and arrogance….each character thinks they know the next step to take but they don’t understand that life is not as predictable as they think it is 🤷🏻♀️ I love this movie
Couple more idiots you missed: - Cox's wife. Here's a woman that wants to divorce a man with anger issues and a drinking problem and move on to not just sleeping with but moving in with a childish idiot who has no personality traits in common with her: Pfarrer. She and Cox at least share some kind of commonality- this man she wants to spend the rest of her life with is even further from the mark. At least if she was divorcing Cox for someone better, that's understandable, but Pfarrer? Really? Or if she was just using him with no desire for any long-term commitment (remember, she's the one that wants to move in together, not him). On top of that she lets herself be manipulated into the divorce, wallowing in her superiority so much that she doesn't realize her lawyer is literally leading her down the path and dictating her entire life. - the CIA. You know Cox has a drinking problem and is volatile, and you begin his termination with "you have a drinking problem"? Jesus christ, they didn't have some way of making this idiot feel the move to State was a special assignment or something so he wouldn't just go off the rails? He's not a huge clearance risk, sure, but he's apparently high up enough that he's able to draw a salary to live the way he does, and he's shown to come from money and have connections- that's still someone who could let out a lot of shit in public. - Pfarrer's wife. This one doesn't seem to be an idiot on the surface, until you see that she's a different kind of idiot. She's apparently cheating on Pfarrer with that one guy in that one city (I forget which) she keeps 'being sent' to, and it's established this has been a long-term thing. And the fact that her lawyers had a guy following her husband around as recently as the events of the film possibly means she doesn't know for sure that Pfarrer is a philanderer. So here's someone that's been considering divorce from a guy she has no evidence is cheating because- guess what, she wants to use that as an excuse to shack up with the guy SHE'S cheating with. Fucking christ. Other than the Russians, the CIA bossman, and Cox's friend at the club, I can't think of anyone that wasn't an idiot here. Hell, even Linda's first hookup is a fucking idiot for letting some random woman rifle through his apartment while working at the State department.
I enjoyed this film but have almost completely forgot what it was about. All I remember is Brad Pitt getting shot in the face and feeling bad for his character.
I dont understand why people are making shitty comments saying you dont understand humor. He described exactly what the Coen brothers were trying to achieve.
I'm not certain why the film would be confusing. Humans are destructively dumb is a message that needs to be shared. Maybe it's like the Brothers Karamazov. We go into the story hoping that the lesson isn't the obvious one...and then, when the poor choices and selfish stupidity reaps the inevitable clusterF...we react with disapproving confusion.
The film is fucking hilarious. People can be like this. I hate the "ideal" way many of the characters in films are portrayed. The ending is punk, though.
He wasn't fired b'cuz of his drinking problem, it literally was political [tje cross], b'cuz of Olson's recommendation; using alcoholism as a means to fire him. "You're a mormon! next to you, we all have a drinking problem''
We don't know that Osborn was actually fired for having a drinking problem, we've seen him drinking heavily throughout the film but that's understandable considering circumstances. And firing someone for being a drunk is probably easier than firing someone for being an asshole, which seems to me more like the real reason he was fired. Harry was a player and a narcissist. Flawed but no villain. And not really an idiot either. Linda: obsessed with an irrational goal to the point of self destruction and endangering those around her. I'd say the best word to describe her is "crazy". Chad: yeah, just an idiot so basically: Osborn: asshole Harry: narcissist Linda: crazy Chad: idiot
the whole point, or *moral* of the film is.. ~stuff that you thought mattered an awful desperately intense LOT.. winds up not mattering at all. Including your message to the world.
Although utterly hilarious, I was really saddened when Chad died.
@@Machaotake same, I lost my shit when it happened, i'll never forget that scene lol
just watched it for first time today( ik i’m late) but man i almost turned movie off after that
Yeah, the poor guy was like a big stupid puppy, so naive, so eager to please, so totally oblivious...
Osbourne Cox didn't get fired - he was demoted and then quit himself.
Exactly
He was also the only character who sees the idiocy everywhere and is completely fed up with it.
@@barrybarnes96 but yet he's also an "idiot" for not seeing he has a drinking problem and that his wife is cheating on him
@@barrybarnes96 But without recognizing that he's a part of it. He thinks he's so incredibly important, builds it up the entire movie, and yet we find out in an instant when "no biggie" describes sigint at the classified level he was being DEMOTED from at the beginning. I think this video could've made a point that we as the viewers can easily put ourselves in the shoes of Osbourne Cox and think we're way better than all these people fumbling around and wreaking havoc wherever they go, and the chances are just as likely that we're below average and wreaking our own havoc without knowing it. Even the fact he lost his supposedly ridiculously important sigint which wound up being found in a gym by a janitor gets completely lost on him. He never acknowledges that he didn't take care of this classified info and that he himself committed a federal crime by letting it get out in the open if it really was that important. He's just as much of a walking abomination as everyone else and of course running outside with a hammer to bludgeon a guy to death drives that point home.
@@Crooky0 I think you make a good point. However, in my experience, we humans have an unconscious drive to want to be right even if we have to sacrifice our happiness. It is a fundamental flaw in each of us. I did an extensive amount of work learning about the things I do to sabotage my own life. The need to be right is the number one offender. Confirmation bias is rampant. Isn't Pride the deadliest of all the deadly sins?
This is the movie that made me a Malkovich fan, his way of switching his intensity levels is crazy af.
This is one of his better roles. I usually find him to be extremely annoying.
Maybe you hit the nail on the head there about the meaning. The movie makes us feel smarter than the characters. But when it's over and we "don't get it" so we feel as dumb as the characters. Like a reminder that we're probably not as smart as we think. We suffer from Above Average Effect too.
Or maybe like No Country For Old Men it's mostly just the Coen brothers saying "Life is meaningless, so is this ending" lol.
I find that end scene just hilarious. "For fucks sake, put him on the next plane to Venezuela."
I think you're right about the undercoat of "life is meaningless", the whole thing wouldn't work without this "glue". Thanks for paying attention !
Thanks for making a good analysis! I'd love to see more like this. Personally I'm trying to figure out the meaning of the little obsessions Clooney's characters have. The Dapper Dan in O Brother, the floors in this one.
@@DannyDisease u sound like you're an actor/artist as well
Prolly the smartest thing about the movie is the Venezuela plan 🤣
That’s a good name
I approve
When Chad died! I almost had a heart attack! He was the only likable character in the movie, in my opinion. Also, when Ted died, that was kind of sad. I guess good people die early!
drug dealers, criminal offenders and alcoholics tend to have shorter lifespans.
Thanks for the spoiler you crusty fuck
@sandalssuck Not only was it to make Harry go insane but to also make ties between the characters
Yup just goes to show,most of the good die young and the bad can sometimes live forever.
@@dekoyone4844 Calling somebody out for spoiling a movie that is 18 years old......
Who's the crusty fuck now?
I love how Linda actually ends up getting what she wants lmao
linda got the plastic surgery she wanted
Yes. She’s the only winner out of the whole thing. Lol
But at what cost. Loss of people that care for her.
@@drhmufti they cared about her but she def didn't care abt them more than her surgery
In the scene toward the end when she's talking with Harry, you see the guy she went on a date with prior getting ready to go on another date with someone else. Linda on the other hand is about to lose Harry because of the whole incident, and that's the only person she found herself resonating with. She got the surgery but she's probably going to be lonely for the rest of her life. No support, no love, no nothing.
So Chad dies
Ted dies
Osbourne goes in a coma
Harry flees to Venezuela
And Linda gets the procedure she wanted.
So... happy ending?
John Smith pretty much it’s a wild story with a good ending
...And nobody ends up being any wiser for any of it. Nobody learns any lessons and nobody has any character arc. Every single person ends up either exactly where they were in terms of mindset or they're functionally dead.
Spoiler Alert!
@@jsmith434w No. But, Happy Viewing
I find it more of a mirror to any agency, business or relationship. The arrogance.
Everyone feels as though they're important, in control, indulging in whatever they please, making decisions they seem fit but in reality, have no idea the impact or chain of events that can stem form it.
I love the score, too, for that reason: all orchestral percussion, portentious and massive, no melody, no harmony. Just boom boom!
I work for the U.S. government and the Malkovich and Clooney characters are perfect examples of thinking they are somehow important even in reality they are mid level and easily replaceable. They are not dumb just delusional. The Pitt character is actually the best person in this whole movie but also the dumbest. Unlike the rest he is fine with his dumbness and a threat to no one. He dies because of his goodness which is a form of stupidity I guess.
Oh they're dumb, just not in the extremely obvious ways that Pitt's character is. Malkovich was bad enough at his job to get demoted from a "no biggie" sigint position and lose his supposedly damning classified intel, not to mention towards the end running outside to bludgeon a guy to death with a hammer in broad daylight. Clooney's character is a pseudo-intellectual showing cracks with things like "shell food", "lactose reflux", comically short showers after running (military showers are still 1-2 minutes, not 15 seconds), etc. Blows a guy's brains out then is calling out to him as he goes back up like there'd be even the slightest chance he's still alive. Perfectly melds with another idiot, McDormand's character. The point of this movie is none of these people think they're stupid but they're all definitely stupid and their stupidity is wreaking more havoc than they could possibly imagine.
Intelligence rarely correlates with wisdom, common sense, or self-insight. Take Sam Harris for instance. The guy probably has a high 140's IQ, but is utterly incapable of seeing when he's beeing a humongous hypocrite.
@@Crooky0 Well put. Even Cox's wife, who probably has the highest IQ of the bunch is a raving retard also. She was oblivious that Harry's heart wasn't in the relationship or that her ice-cold personality and domineering manner would always drive men away (or to drink). I find it interesting that none of these people have children. It seems like a lot of this idiocy could be avoided if they had children in their lives to focus on rather then on themselves. To me it's an unintentional commentary on the typical liberal mindset- atheistic, narcissistic, short sighted and emotionally stunted.
@@stopthephilosophicalzombie9017 Harris' problem is a combination of denial and narcissism. He clearly knows when he is being hypocritical, he just can't bring himself to admit it seeing how he calls out hypocrisy in others.
Instead of just admitting to his own personal prejudices, he engages in the same mental gymnastics he calls out in others.
I actually agree with him on more issues than I don't, but his defence of all the media propaganda and lies to prevent Trump's re-election seriously made me lose all respect for him. I can still agree with him on a ton of things, but ultimately, he lost me when he showed a distinct lack of moral fortitude.
@@stopthephilosophicalzombie9017 How is being a hypocrite contrary to being intelligent, wise, or having common sense?
5:31 I just love that stupid face he makes before getting shot. This scene had me rolling on the floor.
My mom has that same sick sense of humor. It was her favorite part!! 😬
Me too, funniest shot ever
Brad Pitt is just an very good actor. His facial expression is always on point.
thank god i wasnt the only one shocked and laughing at the same time, i thought i was a sick fuck lmao
@@SirVergewaltig0re He's actually a better comedic actor than he is a dramatic actor.
This movie is utterly brilliant!
I disagree
@@JackDonnell96 I respect your opinion
@@JackDonnell96 I respectfully disrespect your opinion.
@@bruhhh._.150 I disrespectfully disrespect your respectful disrespect of his opinion 😏
This is one of the least enjoyable movies I’ve ever seen. I hated it so deeply.
There is something I liked about the movie. Brad Pitt played an absolutely idiot and really far from his Troy and Fight Club characters. It showed some range.
This movie is genius. If you feel dumb at the end, take solace in the fact that you’ll never have to worry about understanding film at this level of hilarity. It is a well-crafted work of art that stands out against a backdrop of the cliche and shallow “drivel” of other dark-comedy attempts. It gives the greats like Dr. Strangelove a damn good run for their money. This movie will wonderfully stand the tests of time. “We were young and committed, and there was nothing we could not do...”
hogwash. Th plot is mediocre at best, and understanding this film , overall, has damn little to do with our intellectual ability to decipher that which is too mudded up with tarnished shades of "film noir" to be decipherable.
Take th film at its face value----however it may present itself - - - - and laugh along with it.
Comparing it to Dr Strangelove is absurd.
I was rather insufferable as a teenager, and a young adult. I suffered from the "above average" effect as well. Whatever relatively mediocre intellectual accomplishments I achieved went to my head. I thought I was better than everyone. I was also far too cowardly to act like that to other people, so I came across as rather nice, but in my head I maintained a sense of superiority and distanced myself from people who I felt were "intellectually inferior" to me.
As the years have gone on, I have learned that I am actually quite average. There are many colleagues who are far more intelligent than I am, and they have the grace to help me and be kind to me. It was a very unpleasant learning experience, but invaluable. But still, old habits die hard. Occasionally I still have those arrogant thoughts, and I need to repeatedly remind myself that, no, I am not better than that person, just because I earn more, or just because I have a fancy piece of paper framed on my wall. We are not our payslips, we are not our degrees or lack of degrees. We are just people, and I have no more worth to this world than the vast majority of people.
In short, I used to be a slightly nicer version of Osbourne Cox (minus the alcohol problem). And once I realised it, I hated myself for it. But, change is possible.
"I've learned a lot since I knew everything."
This is a very honest and revealing comment. More of us share your experience than will admit it. I am just like you in many ways. I score well on standardized tests and have a reasonably high IQ, but it was very hard realizing I didn't have any extraordinary gifts and that I would have to work really hard to achieve anything just like anyone else. I developed the terrible idea that because I was smart that I wouldn't have to work as hard, and that lack of discipline has been my achillies heel my whole life.
take up drinking
Every single measure of intelligence that I have ever taken has put me around the 80th percentile. That’s SATs, ASVAB, LSAT, and several other IQ type tests. I also have a masters degree in mathematics. So I don’t think it’s my own imagination when I believe I am smarter than most people. However, I generally surround myself in my work and awuaintsnces with the credibly smart people that make me feel really stupid on a daily basis. I am very well aware that I am not even close to the level of intelligence necessary to really provide true transcendent value to society or organizations. That being said, whenever I interact with the general public, it’s painfully obvious to me that there is a very wide gap not only between me and really smart people, but the other way between me and 50% of the population.
My aunt called this film ‘Burn After Watching’. She would make a great character for this film.
Ok, that cobble-stoned street in DC that Clooney's character is running up at 2:04....that's 36th NW or something like that....got a great story...some thirty years ago, when I was an undergraduate, I was taking classes at Georgetown University. A freak ice storm had swept through the region the day before the Spring semester began (sometime in mid-January). Every school as far north as Villanova in Philadelphia and Duke down in North Carolina had closed.....except f'ing Georgetown. So like a moron, being ex-Navy, vanity dictated that I HAD to make class, particularly since it was the FIRST day of the semester. So I got up on that first day of classes at 5AM, de-iced my car (which took about an hour), drove to the local metro station only to find that it was so cold that the first train had broken down. So I rode the second train to Rosslyn, which was close as you can get to Georgetown (or so I thought), and walked in near-zero temperatures across the Potomac River to the campus. As I carefully made my way across Key bridge (EVERYTHING was coated in an inch of ice...railings, sidewalks, steps, the streets, EVERYTHING), I looked out at the Potomac River to find a scene like something out of Ice Station Zebra. Ice floes had piled up on one another, the river was iced over from the Virginia to the DC shorelines, etc. Now, as an ex-sailor, I know about dressing for the weather, so I had prudently layered myself with a thick parka, beneath which I wore a jacket, a sweater, a pull-over and a scarf. For the lower part of my body, I had donned three pairs of trousers, two pairs of heavy woolen socks and work boots. And of course I had a good thick scarf on....however, as for the part of the anatomy from which a majority of body heat escapes (the head), the best I could do was a baseball cap. As I got to the bridge's mid-span, I could feel my brain shutting down, like a light bulb growing ever dimmer from the cold. I thought to myself "If I go down here, on the sidewalk side of the jersey barriers, my body won't be found for a couple days". I was in my late 20s at the time and was at the peak of physical condition. I could bike 35 miles, do 150 sit ups, worked out daily with weights, etc., but despite all that, I found myself receiving ominous signals of distress and danger from my body. For the first time in my life, I thought my body might actually fail me. Somehow I managed to make it to the far side of the bridge, which you can clearly see in the background in this shot. Then the REAL challenge began. Because everything was caked in inch-thick ice, I literally had to climb on my hands and knees, grabbing onto shrubbery, iron fence-posts, car bumpers, etc., to get up the street. Twice I lost my grip and slid back down to M Street. Eventually, after what seemed like super-human exertions on my part, I made it up the street and to the building. I was about an hour early, so I got to chatting with the campus police officer who was posted to the building. I proudly bragged that I had just walked all the way over from the Rosslyn metro station, to which the officer replied "Why didn't you take the shuttle bus? It runs every 20 minutes.". I was floored. I can assure you, I took full advantage of the bus on the way back to the metro station after class but what really chaps my ass is that I caught pneumonia from that little exercise in stupidity that kept me bed-ridden for nearly a month. I learned a valuable lesson from that experience: sometimes its more prudent to accept graciously a minor setback rather than trying to fight it and ending up dealing with a severe reversal.
Your story is just as funny as Burn After Reading. You should keep writing. You make the world a happier place, Blessings and respect.
I like the idea that the title "Burn After Reading" and the line "What did we learn?" go hand in hand with one another as a reference of our inability to learn. It's like if you read a book from cover to cover, didn't absorb a single word of it, then burnt it immediately afterwards without learning any lesson or moral from it, inevitably leading you to one day have to read it again to try to gleam the same meaning only to fail once more.
"What did we learn?" And the unspoken answer:
"Nothing."
Everytime I watch this movie I just grin the entire time.
Everyone dumb?...yes.....but Linda got what she sought from the beginning, so.......
I think this movie kicks ass
It's one of those movies that people would enjoy if they like stupid humor. It's so stupid but it's hysterical.
That stupid look on Chad's face when he gets shot is hilarious.
More precisely the characters exhibit the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Lol how long had you been waiting to find the perfect use for that? Sounds like you have been holding in for ages.
When Osbourne goes into the basement in the beginning of the film ( when the phone rings ) there are several stains in the drywall ceiling. If you look at the way the scene is shot, it is obvious Cohen wanted us to notice that. At the end of the film when Osbourne shoots the store manager (after Osbourne moved out) there are no stains at all. Perhaps its a metaphor for the fact that Osbourne is sloppy and his wife will make sure a mess gets cleaned up. Or maybe it was Harry's OCD that had him cleaning up the basement.
They couldn't find a better casting choice for Cox than Malkovich, I think they casted him specifically for this movie. Malkovich didn't even need to put much an effort other than just be himself.
This is actually what every movie of Cohen Brothers is about.
"most of their films rely on the stupidity of their characters" - someone who has seen less than half of the coen brothers filmography.
This, Lebowski and No Country...the Coen's best in my opinion.
Oh, Fargo is the best. These movies , although very well made with outstanding actor work and dialogues are all a little bit over the top. Like SNL skits. Don't get me wrong I thoroughly enjoyed almost all Cohen brothers movies. Fargo is really unmatched. Among recent I would single "Serious Man'".
Osborne Cox was unleashing his psychotic ramblings that characterized his nonsense everyone on this film but he had yet to remind himself he was in the League of Morons as the Leader of Morons himself.
Beautifully analyzed and presented. 👏🏻
Dude, this was awesome. Please, Please keep making videos. More people will watch once you get your name out. This was just what I was looking for.
I loved this hidden gem
I've watched this movie 10 times I think I never get tired.
This explanation sums up my workplace, management and co workers
honestly chad death is the most shocking thing ever, i screamed NO CHAAAAD in my mind, got, especially his smile right before harry shot him dead
Notice the wedding ring on the tuckman marsh fella hahaha
Interesting perspective I like how you explored the themes, I would just warn before spoilers
Great video! Though you should have included how Linda gets what she wanted in the end and what makes it happen.
I like your take on this movie. I even though I thought the movie was good I didn’t understand it until I watch this video. The only thing off was that Cox wasn’t fired. They told him he’d be moved to state with a lower security clearance. They specifically said we’re not terminating you.
So this is why I felt such a connection between this and The Big Lebowski (beyond the Coens).
Reminded of why I love this film.
Intelligence is retaliative, you may be knowledgeable in one area while someone else isn't that doesn't make them an Idiot, just unknowledgeable in that area. Same goes for you.
I knew this movie was genius, I just couldn’t quite articulate why, but you nailed it, this was a hilariously dark comedy of errors, and the last lines in the film cap it off so perfectly.
That movie summed up every government agency in a nice neat package.
Dunning-Krueger Effect: The Movie.
Bro. U kept me wanting more. I was upset the video ended. Good vid👍
Thanks for making this video, made some more things clear about the movie
So glad I stumbled upon your video! Keep it up!
The film is about vanity and self-obsession.
The characters appear stupid, because the scope of their understanding is limited by their inability to see beyond their own personal wants and needs. Their reality is warped, distorted around the mass of their selfish desires.
And other, good natured people can be destroyed if they get caught in the orbit of another person’s pointless self-obsession.
What makes Burn After Reading unique is how this indictment of this traditionally American consumerist self-obsession (which is a fairly common narrative trope), is pitted in a Kafka-esque, morally indifferent world dominated by bureaucratic entities that are similarly self-obsessed on an institutional level. They don’t care about what’s wrong or right, only about what serves their (often lazy) needs.
Spot on! These movie reviewers are mostly people who could barely get through any other under-grad course like chemistry or English at a proper college/university with their trite and simplistic and cliched observations, but this review was pretty good!
Maybe the movie is saying that dramatic things happen not because of any higher cause or motivation. But they just happen due to human idiocy and irrationality.
Seeing what kind of idiots and mediocre dullards have formed history with smart people being clear minority of those formers of history makes your argument ring true. For every Kangxi Emperor and Sir Winston Churchill there are dozen and dozens of Donald Trumps just lurking about, shoving things to unplanned motion without even deliberate attempt to shove things in motion.
I love Osborne 💕 I don’t think it’s stupidity that they’re mocking I think it’s ego, grandiosity and arrogance….each character thinks they know the next step to take but they don’t understand that life is not as predictable as they think it is 🤷🏻♀️ I love this movie
Good job for pointing some things out for me Jaun..thank you
What did we learn? I don’t know… but we won’t do it again.
Watching this synopsis I realized who I am for a brief moment. Thank you.
This is such a great take, cheers!
appearances can be... deceptive
IT'S DECEIVING. THE PHRASE IS "APPEARANCES CAN BE DECEIVING"!
YOU! I'M SURROUNDED BY LEAGUES OF MORONS!
(I make joke)
This was great analysis
That was an interesting spin on that...
Beautiful analysis!
Thanks to all of you. :) I happen to be more active on vimeo, that's why I didn't answer your comments earlier. But they are deeply appreciated.
Couple more idiots you missed:
- Cox's wife. Here's a woman that wants to divorce a man with anger issues and a drinking problem and move on to not just sleeping with but moving in with a childish idiot who has no personality traits in common with her: Pfarrer. She and Cox at least share some kind of commonality- this man she wants to spend the rest of her life with is even further from the mark. At least if she was divorcing Cox for someone better, that's understandable, but Pfarrer? Really? Or if she was just using him with no desire for any long-term commitment (remember, she's the one that wants to move in together, not him). On top of that she lets herself be manipulated into the divorce, wallowing in her superiority so much that she doesn't realize her lawyer is literally leading her down the path and dictating her entire life.
- the CIA. You know Cox has a drinking problem and is volatile, and you begin his termination with "you have a drinking problem"? Jesus christ, they didn't have some way of making this idiot feel the move to State was a special assignment or something so he wouldn't just go off the rails? He's not a huge clearance risk, sure, but he's apparently high up enough that he's able to draw a salary to live the way he does, and he's shown to come from money and have connections- that's still someone who could let out a lot of shit in public.
- Pfarrer's wife. This one doesn't seem to be an idiot on the surface, until you see that she's a different kind of idiot. She's apparently cheating on Pfarrer with that one guy in that one city (I forget which) she keeps 'being sent' to, and it's established this has been a long-term thing. And the fact that her lawyers had a guy following her husband around as recently as the events of the film possibly means she doesn't know for sure that Pfarrer is a philanderer. So here's someone that's been considering divorce from a guy she has no evidence is cheating because- guess what, she wants to use that as an excuse to shack up with the guy SHE'S cheating with. Fucking christ.
Other than the Russians, the CIA bossman, and Cox's friend at the club, I can't think of anyone that wasn't an idiot here. Hell, even Linda's first hookup is a fucking idiot for letting some random woman rifle through his apartment while working at the State department.
"A low-ranking sigh-yayai analyst"
I enjoyed this film but have almost completely forgot what it was about. All I remember is Brad Pitt getting shot in the face and feeling bad for his character.
“I should get a run in”
I dont understand why people are making shitty comments saying you dont understand humor. He described exactly what the Coen brothers were trying to achieve.
It's fascinating to compare Brad Pitt's performance here and in Moneyball.
I'm not certain why the film would be confusing.
Humans are destructively dumb is a message that needs to be shared.
Maybe it's like the Brothers Karamazov. We go into the story hoping that the lesson isn't the obvious one...and then, when the poor choices and selfish stupidity reaps the inevitable clusterF...we react with disapproving confusion.
This movie is a masterpiece
Frances McDormand got a nice rear.
This is life. Life is for the gambler one prophet said once, 2000 years ago.
I love this flick. It's like the Seinfeld of spy movies.
The film is fucking hilarious. People can be like this. I hate the "ideal" way many of the characters in films are portrayed. The ending is punk, though.
I'm writing a ... memwah.
This film was like a Coen Brothers episode of Trailer Park Boys.
This movie is fantastic because they are all clueless. Everyone did a super job.
Tilda Swinton is gorgeous in this film. I enjoyed watching this. Not my favorite Coen Bros film but still enjoyable to watch.
I love this movie!
This film is The Big Lebowski but in Washington, DC instead of LA.
The cornerstone of intelligence, is to grasp how little, one knows.
I felt as dumb as they are
No one says “no” to Pappy O’Daniels.
I was pissed that Linda didn’t suffer or pay for her transgressions.
People do heinous things and …really nothing external happens to them.
@@namedrop721 an allegory/metaphor for life, I suppose.
If I understood this movie I wouldn’t be on this CZcams video....
Wow, a guy who made a video essay that wasnt pretentious and didnt go for 40 minutes
Chad is an early adopter of Apple stuff. Not so stupid after all.
Why don't you upload regularly? You are amazing!!!
Great video
Great video brother
Brilliant review/explanation!!! Thanks.
He wasn't fired b'cuz of his drinking problem, it literally was political [tje cross], b'cuz of Olson's recommendation; using alcoholism as a means to fire him. "You're a mormon! next to you, we all have a drinking problem''
He wasn't fired. He quit because he was demoted.
I did learn something: Im stupid and should not try to help those that think they are smarter than me.
when chad died i bursted up laughing
Spoilers galore if you haven’t seen it and plan to.
We don't know that Osborn was actually fired for having a drinking problem, we've seen him drinking heavily throughout the film but that's understandable considering circumstances. And firing someone for being a drunk is probably easier than firing someone for being an asshole, which seems to me more like the real reason he was fired.
Harry was a player and a narcissist. Flawed but no villain. And not really an idiot either.
Linda: obsessed with an irrational goal to the point of self destruction and endangering those around her. I'd say the best word to describe her is "crazy".
Chad: yeah, just an idiot
so basically:
Osborn: asshole
Harry: narcissist
Linda: crazy
Chad: idiot
the whole point, or *moral* of the film is.. ~stuff that you thought mattered an awful desperately intense LOT.. winds up not mattering at all. Including your message to the world.
Report back to me......when it makes sense, best line in the history of cinema
Do one for Balls Of Fury?
pWhy the fuck is this excellent video in 480p
A "League of morons" you might say! Love this movie
i never thought of that. nice... wait. 😓
How do I turn off the french subtitles?
Very Political, man.
Osborne Cox was so irrelevant to our characters, he even dies off screen. A final kick in the balls to his ego.