Miller's Crossing

All right, a confession. I have enjoyed every single Coen Brothers film I have seen, but none more so than Miller's Crossing. I found a video tape of this for sale in a grocery store around six years ago. Someone borrowed the tape and it wasn't until this weekend that my order for a replacement came in (after a two week wait; no, it doesn't take half a decade to get a copy!).

Oh my, what a joy to watch it again. Is this the Coens best film? No, I'm sure that's yet to come. But I think it's better than, say, "Fargo." I can watch it repeatedly, back to back, and not get bored. Two other Coen films are close, "Raising Arizona" and "O Brother, Where Art Thou." But both take a backseat to "Miller's Crossing." Not by much, but enough.

There is not a wasted frame. Virtually every word is important. At just under two hours, this is a lean film. Again, nothing is wasted, from the moment three ice cubes hit the glass, to a hard look from an up-tilting head it's all glory. Yet at its core it seems like such a simple plot. Sure. Much like any other Coen film.

Please, check it out. Demand a DVD, because I'm sure I'll wear out this tape before I loan it. All the other Coen films I have are on DVD, and the few I don't have are also on DVD. "Miller's Crossing," for mysterious reasons, isn't. In fact, a check of the Internet Movie Database shows that "Miller's Crossing" is the only Coen film not on DVD, damnit (except for some strange thing called "Crimewave," which I've never even heard of; ah, they only wrote that one).

Ah well, there's always next year, with "Intolerable Cruelty"!