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Gosharooney, we still don't have the word "Coen-esque" in our cinema lexicon. When the brothers tackle comedy, the Capra-esque singularity of their style should conjure all manner of specific and style-centric wonders. Take yer...
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Gosharooney, we still don't have the word "Coen-esque" in our cinema lexicon. When the brothers tackle comedy, the Capra-esque singularity of their style should conjure all manner of specific and style-centric wonders. Take yer iconicness. In "The Hudsucker Proxy," we find Good and Evil literally and figuratively battling for the soul of the titular protagonist (as we found John Goodman playing The Wrath of God in "Raising Arizona.") We find Jennifer Jason Leigh in an absorbing homage to Rosalind Russell's and Katherine Hepburn's best career girls. We find Tim Robbins dissolving into his strange, naive character like melted sugar, a good thing. We find Paul Newman at his stylized best, Charles Durning as a lunatic CEO, even in the afterlife. We have dream sequences, hilarious headlines, visual and dialogue allusions to classic films, high style set dressing that never fails to intrigue, and new LOL laughs every different time one views the darn thing. This film should give the "Ed Wood" film fans of retro nostalgia alongside trenchant modern irony a new obsession. Why this isn't on everyone's Top Ten comedy classics is beyond me. An aside: Wham-o Toys proved incredibly wise in licensing the invention story to this fabricated tale. All p.r. is good p.r.

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Posted apr 14, 2008 4:22 am pt

goldtop2007

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I'm a Coen buff and this movie is my favorite one so far. Firstly, the story is just great. Secondly, the overall style of the movie which is a throwback to the ol'days of cinema and something of an homage to 30s 40s flicks, which is something...
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I'm a Coen buff and this movie is my favorite one so far. Firstly, the story is just great. Secondly, the overall style of the movie which is a throwback to the ol'days of cinema and something of an homage to 30s 40s flicks, which is something that warms the cockles of any vintage movie fan. This is a retro-cinema universe that stays true to itself all the way through. Did I mention it was funny?

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Posted dec 26, 2007 2:15 pm pt

amauriel

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Another Coen brothers' movie, so you'd know what to expect going in. Well, you got it! Silly, entertaining and great performances by the entire cast. It's developed into more of a cult movie over the years, but that's only because it is hysterical!

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Posted feb 10, 2007 11:00 pm pt

shotime1979

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This was an above average movie. The Coen Brothers film are truly unique, and this is a unique movie, it's unlike anything that I saw before. It was good, and if you liked the Coen Brothers movie you would like this one as well.

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Posted feb 8, 2007 9:51 pm pt

jsd

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"You know, for kids!"

After Fargo became a huge commercial and critical hit for the Coen Brothers, they teamed up with uber-producer Joel Silver (The Matrix), who gave them tons of money and a carte blanche to do whatever...
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"You know, for kids!"

After Fargo became a huge commercial and critical hit for the Coen Brothers, they teamed up with uber-producer Joel Silver (The Matrix), who gave them tons of money and a carte blanche to do whatever they wanted. I don't think anybody expected them to crank out a picture like this. Imagine a screwball comedy in the Preston Sturges style with Terry Gilliam as the Art Director and you're halfway there. Throw in some amazing performances from Tim Robbins (as a slack jawed yokel/idiot savant), Jennifer Jason-Leigh (chewing, swallowing, and spitting out the scenery with a dead on Katharine Hepburn imitation), and Paul Newman (cigar chomping businessman parody), and you've got yourself the recipe for one poorly received and sadly misunderstood film. There's a cult audience for this film who love it dearly, but it nearly killed the Coens' career.

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Posted dec 12, 2006 2:23 am pt

• [+] ReelViews
  
  88
  With its refined wit and glorious vision, The Hudsucker Proxy is certainly deserving of a wide audience.

  by James Berardinelli | Read Full Review »
• [+] Chicago Tribune
  
  88
  In The Hudsucker Proxy, the filmmaking Coen brothers make dark, startling, wittily extravagant sport of the American Dream. The movie is opulent and wry, a bitingly intelligent fable about business and romance. [25 Mar 1994, p.A]

  by Michael Wilmington | Read Full Review »
• [+] Empire
  
  80
  While not to everyone's tastes, this is without doubt one of the most exhilarating films of 1994.

  by Kim Newman | Read Full Review »
• [+] TV Guide
  
  75
  A lavish parody of/homage to Hollywood big business comedies, The Hudsucker Proxy is gorgeous but lifeless, a very small joke writ very large by the talented but perversely insular Coen brothers.

  by Staff (Not Credited) | Read Full Review »
• [+] San Francisco Chronicle
  
  75
  The Hudsucker Proxy is the Coens' fifth feature in a decade, and you can see their tremendous artistic growth in every frame of the film. Classically composed, beautifully shot by Roger Deakins ("Barton Fink") and co-produced by legendary action-flick producer Joel Silver, Hudsucker has technique and visual invention to spare. [11 Mar 1994, p.C3]

  by Edward Guthmann | Read Full Review »
• [+] Austin Chronicle
  
  67
  Hudsucker Proxy works more like a fairy tale in which all implausibilities are acceptable and none of it has to play by real-world rules. But it's a fairy tale without any lessons, a satire without any targets.

  by Marjorie Baumgarten | Read Full Review »
• [+] USA Today
  
  63
  Frigid soul or not, it's the most unforgettable supernatural comedy since Brazil. Could be it's time for the Coens to drop the pretense, and embrace sci-fi head on. [11 Mar 1994, p.4D]

  by Mike Clark | Read Full Review »
• [+] Christian Science Monitor
  
  63
  The comedy has moments of great humor and terrific visual appeal. It's a solid achievement for Joel Coen, who directed; Ethan Coen, who produced; Sam Raimi, who wrote the screenplay with the brothers. [25 Mar 1994, p.A]

  by David Sterritt | Read Full Review »
• [+] Los Angeles Times
  
  60
  If The Hudsucker Proxy is a triumph, it is a zombie one. Too cold, too elegant, too perfect, more an exhibit in a cinema museum than a flesh-and-blood film, "Proxy's" highly polished surface leaves barely any space for an audience's emotional connection. [11 Mar 1994, p.1]

  by Kenneth Turan | Read Full Review »
• [+] Boston Globe
  
  50
  The movie seems destined to win a place in the nocturnal-cityscape-hell hall of fame. Its externals are brilliant, but The Hudsucker Proxy is virtually nothing but externals. [25 Mar 1994, p.52]

  by Jay Carr | Read Full Review »
• [+] Entertainment Weekly
  
  50
  For all its technical bravado, The Hudsucker Proxy is an unsettling contradiction, a ''whimsical'' fable made by acerbic control freaks. It's a balloon that won't fly.

  by Owen Gleiberman | Read Full Review »
• [+] Chicago Reader
  
  50
  At its best it's a free-form fantasy with glitzy, well-executed effects and assorted metaphysical conceits but little feeling for any of the characters apart from derision (with a few touches of racism here and there).

  by Jonathan Rosenbaum | Read Full Review »
• [+] The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
  
  50
  The Coen brothers have made the A-list of writer/directors with their big-budget replicants of Hollywood genres, but the wisecracking Hudsucker Proxy is all comic sound and fury signifying nothing All talk, no substance. [11 Mar 1994, p.C3]

  by Geoff Pevere | Read Full Review »
• [+] The New York Times
  
  50
  Stylish and witty though it is, The Hudsucker Proxy has its problems, even for Coen fans. But throughout, there are wonderfully rich touches.

  by Caryn James | Read Full Review »
• [+] Chicago Sun-Times
  
  50
  The movie is that it's all surface and no substance. Not even the slightest attempt is made to suggest that the film takes its own story seriously. Everything is style. The performances seem deliberately angled as satire.

  by Roger Ebert | Read Full Review »