SEE ‘Burn” After reading this

Went to a preview screening of the Coen Brothers “Burn After Reading” at the Aero (we love the Aero!) and it was funny and great – sort of a slacker comedy about grown ups international espionage adultery made by incredibly experienced and talented filmmakers.

Every role was incredibly well cast and every performance terrific. Brad Pitt will get the most attention (doesn’t he always?) but he is having a good time in his role — Clooney is better than usual (he actually does some acting here and leaves his smirking to a minimum), Frances McDormand is great as always.

Now, to take my critical duties seriously for a second, as you may know, around the time of “No Country for Old Men” Spike Lee made a comment to the effect that although he likes the Coen brohters’ filmmaking, he finds their attitude towards death on screen troubling, because they treat murder and death as entertainment. Spike is not wrong about this.

If you were to watch “Burn After Reading” through the lens of a moralist of the high-on-his/or/her-horse-variety, you could certainly say “Burn After Reading” presents a world without any moral structure — a Godless world in which everyone curses, marital vows have no meaning, nor does life have much value — people do their jobs but their is no higher purpose or meaning to what they do. Humans just act and they do so our of greed, lust, anger, revenge, vanity, and stupidity.