Rejoice, rejoice! Joel and Ethan Coen are back at it with Hail, Caesar!, a behind-the-scenes spoof of Old Hollywood (with more than a few jabs reserved for the contemporary film industry, I don’t doubt). The star-studded affair just dropped its first look, and it’s loaded with all the quirks and eccentricities fans have come to expect from the sibling filmmakers. Drink in this glorious trailer, and make your day that much better:
Seriously, are there any major Hollywood stars who aren’t in this movie? Josh Brolin appears to be the star, playing studio "fixer" Eddie Mannix who is employed to keep major movie stars in line. When the lead in a Caesar picture (played with textbook Coen cluelessness by the delightful George Clooney) get kidnapped by a mysterious group known as The Future, everyone on the studio lot snaps into gear to make sure the wheels of the production don’t come off.
Judging by the looks of this uproariously funny trailer, Hail, Caesar! marks a return to the calculatedly slapstick form that is on display in movies like Barton Fink, The Big Lebowski, and the multiple Clooney collaborations of O, Brother, Intolerable Cruelty and Burn After Reading. They aren’t the brothers’ most popular films, but I absolutely adore how George Clooney plugs into their particular sense of humor. His reaction at the end of this trailer made me howl.
The physical comedy and the timing found throughout this Hail, Caesar! trailer is a marvel, and could be used to teach up-and-comers about how to space a joke on screen. Judging by Twitter’s reaction, Channing Tatum stole the show in this short tease:
Or this one:
But really, everyone looks to be having a ball, and the Coens are back to poking fun at their beloved industry after the somber, fine-tuned precision of Inside Llewyn Davis. Now, the bad news. Hail, Caesar! won’t be in theaters until February 5, 2016. That’s an eternity. If you need us, we’ll be over here, watching the trailer again and again.
