Rating: 
Summary: forgotten coen brothers
Review: Because of their sucess with Fargo, people tend to forget the Coen brother's work before fargo. Husokry proxy is a really funny and interesting work that more fans of the coen brothers should go see to have a better undstanding of their work.
Rating:
Summary: Lyrical and funny
Review: Though certainly not the best Coen brothers movie, "Hudsucker" is my personal favorite if only for the "aw shucks, ma'am" innocence of Robbins' character. Terrific performances from everyone in the cast - Tim Robbins as the wide-eyed optimist with a dream ("You know...for kids!"), Paul Newman, as the irascible, single-minded corporate tiger, Jennifer Jason-Leigh as the fast-talking "career gal" reporter, John Mahoney as her even faster-talking editor (their scenes together, among others, bring to mind another great newsroom comedy, "His Girl Friday"), Jim True as the elevator boy straight out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon, and Bill Cobbs as the wise old seer who sees all but says little. Even cameos delight in flash performances from Peter Gallagher as the Dean Martin-ish 'Vic Tenetta', crooning to adoring fans with drink in hand, to Anna Nicole Smith (yes, THAT Anna Nicole Smith) as sex kitten Za-Za. "Evil Dead" Director Sam Raimi makes an appearance in the brainstorming scene, but you'll only see his silhouette and hear his voice, and ED star Bruce Campbell gets his share of beatings from Leigh as her charming, but sexist newspaper buddy Smitty.Almost everything about this movie will make you smile or laugh, but the real star of the movie is the dialog, a throwback to the good old days of screwball comedies when smart and confident writing and delivery was a must. The DVD is good quality, but doesn't have any of the extra stuff - the Coens are obviously movie lovers who've been influenced by many different genres and styles, so an audio track from them would've been perfect - but you can't have everything. All in all, a delightful, lyrical morality tale that will whet your appetite for more Coen fare - and with gems out there like "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?", "Fargo", "The Big Lebowski", "Raising Arizona" and "Blood Simple", you won't have far to look.
Rating:
Summary: The Greatest Comedy Ever!
Review: I think I have figured out why the quality of this film is so heavily disputed: It is a comedy without jokes. Everything onscreen, from the characters to the sets to--especially to--the dialogue is so incredibly amusing that many folks cannot seem to comprehend what the film is doing. I'll enlighten those who have yet to enjoy the majesty of this film: It isn't cracking mundane, vulgar, stereotypical gags like every other film, it is reinventing humor, redesignating what is funny, what it takes to make the audience laugh. You can't watch five minutes of this film and find it humorous, because everything about it is an experiment in new and interesting ways to amuse a crowd; obviously they can't please everyone, but for me the film has become my all time favorite comedy. Humor, as defined by the Coens, is more obscure than you or your Webster's considers it. For them, humor is an all encompassing showcase that cannot be taken apart into simple categories of performance, and script, and intelligence--and yet all three of these succeed well beyond most other films, as the Coen brothers are perhaps the most inventive in the industry today. Because the funny aspect of the Hudsucker Proxy lies in a perfect amalgamation of every element of the film, it disappoints those people who are looking for "one moment in time; so they can say right here, right now; this is it." With the Coens, this is impossible, since it is always about the sum of the parts rather than the integrity of a single aspect at a single moment. But even beyond the humor of this film, I cannot help but praise it incessantly. Visually, as usual, it sets a stunning image, achieving a style that is entertaining in itself. The dialogue, whether you consider it funny or not, can be deemed nothing but intelligent and witty. The performances are dead-on and borderline eccentric/absurd, for what the Coen brothers are famous. The direction is always superb--and proof positive that even the direction plays a major role in the "jokes" of the Hudsucker Proxy, watch the camera during the Lounge Singers performance; the single greatest shot in the film has no dialogue and not even one of the main characters, and yet it punctuates the intended frivolity of the entire picture. Some have commented that the viewer has little affection for the characters. To everyone their own, but MY own is that I TOO heartily fall in love with these characters. Tim Robbins is the clumsy everyman that any humbled human will see in himself; Jennifer Jason Leigh is our ambition, and tragic despite the darker side of her story. I'd go even so far as to say I like Paul Newman's character, whom despite the evil way in which he is portrayed, models our lowest and greediest selves. And so, while many contest the characters to be too inconsequential, I say they are the driving force, relating the viewer to himself in new and impossible ways amidst a superbly entertaining script. Again, some call the script pointless, but truth be told, I find this plot to be more well developed than most of the Coen brothers' other works. And through all of these traits, Hudsucker takes the cake as my favorite comedy of all time. There is just something incredibly inventive, humorous, and intelligent in every single shot, every single word, every single expression and mannerism that the talented cast, crew, and filmmakers have put on the screen. There is a gift in everything to be witnessed, as every individual part is perfect--and perfectly implemented, since the final product far exceeds the sum of its parts. In short, from the minutest detail to the overall scheme, everything about this film pleases in new and unexpected ways that intend to spoof--and appear to--but really reinvent what it means to make a comedy. Take care to pay close attention to what this film offers, as I hope others take note and observe the magic it possesses; The Future is Now!
Rating: 
Summary: A BAD MUSICAL WITHOUT THE MUSIC
Review: THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN GREAT. i RESPECT TIM ROBBINS CHOICE OF ROLES, THE COEN BROTHERS ARE ALWAYS BETTER THAN THE REST. I KEPT WAITING FOR THE CAST TO BREAK OUT IN SONG, IT HAD THAT FEEL TO IT. IT MIGHT HAVE WORKED AS A MUSICAL. SORT OF LIKE "HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING."
Rating:
Summary: very underrated
Review: I still don't understand the disapproval of even Coen fans to this movie. What's so wrong with it? It's classic 50's-era screwball comedy, with beautiful visuals and a feel good atmospehere. I consider Tim Robbins a great actor (and director) after seeing this, the Shawshank Redemption, Bob Roberts, and The Player. The sweeping score is moving, and elevates the action on the screen in a new height. It begins on an anynomonous note, and ends on a more happy note. The usual 'substance over story' quote used for the Coens is wrong; their writing isn't like other films. It can be deadpan and odd, and it's perfect as it is. It's astonishing that it only made two million (!) dollars at the box office - while Miller's Crossing and Barton Fink made more at a limited theater run (I guess it's understandable. Both films are better). It still deserves more of a widespread audience.
Rating: 
Summary: One of the strongest Coen films, depsite popular opinion
Review: In The Hudsucker Proxy the Coen brothers tackle the genre of classic American studio-produced comedy. It talks like the 30's, looks like the 40's and is set in a 50's New York that only exists as the workplace. The film, like any film by the Coens, is populated with characters that feel like they're something less than wholly human. The directors push their characters toward emulating the past's character actors with such uncanny precision that they become misshapen. None of these characters has a home or a life outside the workplace. The film, which follows the rise and fall of a mailroom clerk (Tim Robbins) that lives and creates the American dream, exists entirely within the tight sphere of its genre, and to stop to suggest more would only detract from the overall, streamlined effect. In my opinion, The Hudsucker Proxy is the closest the Coen brothers have come to creating a mission statement. It's a clever satire of the phoniness of the studio system's product that simultaneously seems to be celebrating it (or, perhaps, its ability to expose its own falseness). There's such a corporate cleanliness and symmetry to the film that one suspects the brothers' main target is assembly line, Hollywood-ized narrative itself. It's probably not coincidental that this film was the first Coen brothers film with a significant budget (over $30 million). The film's key sequence, and perhaps the key to understanding all of the Coens' work, is one in which a female reporter's (Jennifer Jason Leigh - channeling Katherine Hepburn and Rosalind Russell) investigations into what makes the Hudsucker Company tick take on a bold literal dimension. She meets Moses, a black custodian (a part that would feel racist if not for the film's satiric bent) that tends to the firm's oversized clock. The keeper of the machinery, he is the only person that understands the events as they transpire. He explains to Leigh's reporter the circularity of the situation and predicts the outcome of the events. The assertion here is that these characters act as they do because they've been programmed like machine parts to do so in order to achieve the film's desired outcome. In this film, which has been programmed so that the little guy will "win", he isn't even free to lose, since the story is ultimately being told by the big guys - complete with their biases, stereotypes, and rigid sense of class structure. They've been getting rich off of selling the little guy a simpleminded, counterfeit dream that he eats up time and again. Worse yet, many little guys are tricked into thinking the big guy's version of their dreams is actually their dream. When the film closes with Moses' narration, his knowledge of another, similar, story that took place on an even higher floor that this one did sounds like nothing less than a threat. It's rare to see such directness in a Coen brothers production, as they usually seem somewhat aloof about their motives. This film seems to be the key to understanding their work as a whole. Every head whip and hand swing of Leigh's character has to be accompanied by a whooshing sound because that's the requirement of the genre taken to its full extreme. They pump up the falseness inherent in this sort of character stereotype until it reaches its breaking point. In some of their films, such as O Brother, Where Art Thou?, the bubble breaks revealing nothing profound underneath the façade. In their better films like this one, and The Big Lebowski, their best film, they manage to make that core of hollowness a reprimand to the ideals that the film's very specific time and place represent. Here, Hollywood's corporate perception of the American dream being a direct function of ingenuity and hard work seems to be the target. The inevitability of the story's outcome and the pre-destined happiness of its stars both feel like arbitrary rules a cruel game. And cruelly, at the film's end, there's little implication that the future holds anything but more of the same.
Rating:
Summary: Don't judge the movie by the title
Review: I admit I didn't see this movie for years because of its strange title, but it kept appearing in various places. Finally, I put it on my "to watch" list and it was an enjoyable movie. Waring Hudsucker, head of Hudsucker Industries, commits suicide, his board of directors, led by Sidney Mussberger, come up with a plan to make a lot of money and appoint a moron to run the company and drive down stock prices. When the stock falls low enough, Sidney and co. plan to buy the stock for pennies on the dollar, take over the company, and restore its fortunes. They select Norville Barnes, who has just started working in the mail room. Norville doesn't quite have the drive to avoid running the company into the ground. Reporter Amy Archer suspects something begins an undercover investigation of Hudsucker Industries. If you're looking for a fun movie with odd twists and humor, you'll get it here. This was not as far out as "Fargo" or as gross as "Evil Dead" and viewers get the opportunity to see the Coen Brothers and Sam Raimi in action without the violence, blood, and gore. First thing I thought is that this reminded me of "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" and it is along those lines with the main character rising to the top right away rather than halfway through the show. The movie does have flaws, but it doesn't prevent anyone from enjoying it.
Rating:
Summary: Funny, Crazy, Silly
Review: The first time I saw this movie I thought it was OK, amusing, but not as good as I expected, but each subsequent time I have seen it I have enjoyed it more and more. The humour is bizarre, the plot is crazy and I think essentially idiotic, but as with Raising Arizona or O' Brother Where Art Thou or any of their comedies, that really isn't relevant - what makes these movies hilarious is the strange characters, their bizarre behaviour and insane interraction. I recommend hiring before buying, and if you don't like it? Give it at least one more chance.
Rating:
Summary: The Brothers' Tribute to Frank Capra
Review: Hard-charging female newspaper reporter takes advantage of new boy in town and a secret plan to discredit the boy is uncovered. Boy is going to jump off building at midnight New Year's Eve. Boy is saved at last minute. Sounds a lot like Hudsucker Proxy, but it could be Frank Capra's Meet John Doe.
Rating:
Summary: Lousy Movie
Review: The Coen brothers are great, but this is a lousy movie, there are some original parts, but a lot of the humor doesn't work. Jennifer Jason Leigh uses the most grating voice imaginable.
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