Would that it were so simple?
I went to see Hail, Caesar on Tuesday night and I’ve been thinking on it ever since. It’s a great film that is not, when you get to the end, a great film. A confusing contradiction that makes perfect sense once you’ve seen it, because it does so much right that it’s vaguely disappointing when you get to the end and find yourself asking, “so, that’s it?” It reminded a good deal of seeing Zoolander for the first time back in 2001. A whole lot of people love that film and regard it as a classic, but it drove me crazy. The plot is…slight. An excuse to hold together a whole bunch of comedy set-pieces that are, on their own, funny, but never add up to something bigger. The difference, in this instance, is that I loved Hail, Caesar. It was exactly three scenes into the film before I knew I’d purchase a copy of it when it come out on DVD, because
