Quentin vs. Coen: An Art Show Tribute to Tarantino and the Brothers

Last night was opening night for Spoke Art’s newest pop culture art show entitled “Quentin vs. Coen: An art show tribute to the films of Tarantino and the Brothers.” A follow-up to last year’s highly successful “Bad Dads: An Art Show Tribute to the Films of Wes Anderson,” Spoke Art has arranged a battle-royal style art show featuring over 100 world class artists from the new contemporary art scene. Painters, screen printers and digital artists were invited to reinterpret their favorite scenes, characters and films from the heralded directors, resulting in an eclectic showing of inspirational fine art.

The first installment of Spoke Art’s “versus” series, “Quentin vs Coen,” looks to expand on the concept of a pop culture themed art show by pitting together two directors who share overlapping or similar stylistic themes, and allowing the viewer to decide their favorites. Though there are many distinct differences between the bodies of work created by both Quentin Tarantino and the Coen Brothers, their crafting of generation-defining soundtracks, the penchant for ubiquitous violence, their casting of the same actors (notably Steve Buscemi), and their ability to constantly create spectacular works of varying genres (everything from Kung-Fu to crime dramas to westerns), have cemented both Quentin and the Coens as some of the most important directors of our generation.

With over 100 artists participating, The Blot can’t highlight (or even list) all of the amazing talent involved in this show. So instead I picked a couple of my favorites to highlight in this post like “Putting out the Fire” by Cassie Podish, “Raising Arizona” by Matt Leunig and “True Grit x Kill Bill” by Steve Seeley. To see more click here.

“Quentin vs. Coen - An art show tribute to the films of Tarantino and the Brothers” presented by Spoke Art opened last night, Thursday, April 7th, at the Bold Hype Gallery in New York City and will be on view until Saturday, April 9th.

Houston's Lebowski Bash - Celebrating 10 Years of the Dude

Speaking of Joel and Ethan Coen, for all the Coen brothers fans out there in the Houston, TX area (and specifically fans of my favorite Coen brothers film, The Big Lebowski) you should check out Houston’s very first Lebowski Bash celebrating the movie's 10th Anniversary. It’s this Saturday, June 21st, at the Caroline Collective and it’s completely free. The event follows in the footsteps of the highly successful Lebowski Fest, which has been held yearly in Louisville, KY and around the country for the past 7 years.

To find out more about this weekend’s Houston Lebowski Bash click here. It sounds like a good time, and The Blot definitely plans on making an appearance so I can check out all the the dude-ness going on in the H.

Burn After Reading Movie Poster and Theatrical Trailer

While I don’t really know all that much about Burn After Reading, after watching the movie’s red band trailer I’m really excited to see this soon to be released Coen brothers comedy. Oscar winning directors Joel and Ethan Coen have assembled an all-star cast including George Clooney, John Malkovich, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton and Brad Pitt for their latest screwball comedy, and so far it looks to be a worthy follow up to last year’s critically acclaimed film (and winner of the Oscar for Best Picture) No Country For Old Men.


Considering how solemn and dark No Country was, it’s nice to see the Coen Brothers return to their quirky comedic style. If you want to read more about the movie’s plot, check out its Wikipedia page here for the lowdown. As I’ve said before, I’m a huge Coen brothers fan, so I may be a tad biased on how good Burn After Reading looks. Regardless, check out the trailer below and judge for yourself just how good it looks. Burn After Reading is set to hit theaters on September 12, 2008.

No Country For Old Men Leaves The Blot With Mixed Emotions

Sorry to have been M.I.A. the past few days, but The Blot was in Dallas for Thanksgiving with no internet access since Thursday. Trust me, it is as scary as it sounds...but now we're back on track and it's time for The Blot Says' first movie review:

The Blot was pretty excited to see the new Coen Brothers’ movie No Country For Old Men ever since seeing the trailer for it a few months ago. I love Joel and Ethan Coen (Barton Fink, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Intolerable Cruelty, The Ladykillers) and have intently followed their careers ever since seeing The Big Lebowski. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy Fargo and haven’t seen Raising Arizona a million times, but come on, you just can’t top The Dude.

Don’t worry, I won’t give away any spoilers or plot points in this post except to say that the description of the movie’s story line on IMDB is pretty accurate, “Violence and mayhem ensue after a hunter stumbles upon some dead bodies, a stash of heroin and more than $2 million in cash near the Rio Grande.” (Link) The movie is based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy and the story is as riveting as it is bloody. Like all Coen Brothers’ movies the dialogue is the best part and the casting of the movie was spot on. Javier Bardem (Before Night Falls) is the star of the movie for his portrayal of the psychotic Anton Chigurh. His transformation into the relentless Chigurh is amazing and terrifying all at once. He reminds me of Jack Nicholson’s Joker in the original Batman…a character so off kilter you never know what he is going to do next.

The biggest surprise of the movie to me was Josh Brolin (The Goonies, In The Valley Of Ellah) as Llewelyn Moss. While I can’t claim to have seen all of his work, his role as the hunter who stumbles upon a drug deal gone bad was amazing and possibly the greatest role of his career. I’d be shocked if he wasn’t on many critics’ Best Of Lists come awards season. The movie is really portrayed through Llewelyn’s eyes and gives the movie its greatest suspense. Unfortunately the star of the movie, Tommy Lee Jones, isn’t on screen near enough but does a very good job tying all of the different subplots together and fleshing out the story of violence raging through this small Texas community.


All in all the movie was great except for the last 5 minutes where the movie, in my opinion, kind of flames out. When the credits hit the sold out movie theater gasped but not in a good way. Most of the movie patrons were shocked that the movie had ended. Even after all of the different story lines finally converged, the audience seemed to want more. And then nothing happened. I felt like I was watching the last episode of The Sopranos all over again. The big resolution that everyone was hoping for or expected never happened and I think that left the audience unfulfilled. If you’re worried about the ending ruining the movie going experience then I recommend waiting for it to come out on DVD, but if you enjoy the Joel and Ethan Coen’s dialogue and filmmaking as much as I do then I definitely recommend checking out No Country For Old Men. Just be prepared for lots of blood, which I definitely wasn’t.