When The Coen Brothers go goofy, all bets are off.

Full disclosure; I wasn’t raised in The Church of Joel & Ethan – I converted. I was a late conversion at that. But ever since I did, I have dutifully made my way to the house of worship every year or so to give my offering at the altar and listen to the good word. Thing is, “the good word” isn’t always so good…especially when they want to paint with bright colours instead of grim.

On some level or another, I have enjoyed every one of their films, but movies like INTOLERABLE CRUELTY, LADYKILLERS, and BURN AFTER READING gave me less to cling to than earlier screwballs like O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU?, THE BIG LEBOWSKI, and THE HUDSUCKER PROXY.

So what to make of HAIL, CAESAR! (?) Note- I can already tell, that exclamation point is going to get annoying.

Well, we can tell that they want to have fun again after the whole decade spent in fits of self-reflection and melancholy. We can also tell that they clearly have a love for Hollywood’s golden era and want to graft their sensibilities into that era. So this could all be a real lark in the early part of 2016.

…or it could be INTOLERABLE CRUELTY again.