3. The Coen Brothers
Try as I might (and believe me I have tried) I have never understood the appeal of the Coen brothers and with a few exceptions I find all their films leave me highly unsatisfied. The thing that annoys me the most about the Coen brothers- and I'd be really interested if any one else has made the same observation as I have- is that in my opinion none of the Coen brothers films really end. They seem to start off pretty great, have a thrilling middle act and then just end- with absolutely no third act and no real conclusion, as if they just got bored and decided they were running out of screenplay pages, coming up to 100 minutes already and it was about time they ended the films. I think I could have really enjoyed many Coen brother films had they just bothered to put a third act onto them. Fargo kind of suffers from this problem, but I found this film to be one of the Coen's most watchable and one of their best. The Big Lebowski on the other hand really didn't leave any lasting impact on me. I am fully aware how many people would like to marry this film, and I constantly hear people quoting the film (the dude abides etc. etc.) but I simply don't get it. I didn't find it even remotely funny and apart from the look and style of the film, nothing else grabbed my attention. I'd like to say more about why I dislike the film but despite having watched it a couple of times, I really can't remember it all that well because frankly it bored me that much. No Country For Old Men really didn't deserve to win best picture at the Academy Awards... did it? This is a prime example of a film failing to have an interesting third act and kind of just ending really obscurely and out of the blue. Before I criticize this film too much I am sure, had I researched the film and studied it for perhaps a university essay for example there is probably some hidden brilliance to this film that I am just not picking up on, but it is my opinion that regardless of how mature, intelligent and deep a film is when you really research into it, if it doesn't entertain you on first watch, then all of the intellectual stuff really doesn't matter all that much. I will say however that I was enjoying the film until it ended, as I also was enjoying True Grit until it ended also. I fully expected that film to go on for at least another hour and was actually really surprised when Mattie shot Chaney so easily dead in the chest and the film ended about 10 minutes later. This film had absolutely no third act and personally I found it to be an embarrassment that certainly shouldn't have been considered for any Oscars other than those in the acting categories. If you want to watch a truly great modern Western watch "The Assassination of Jesse James" instead- far superior in every imaginable way.