Raising Arizona (1987) DVD / Blu-ray

By: Abby Olcese (A Toast) -
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There are few directors out there who began their careers as impressively as Joel and Ethan Coen. They started off with a bang in 1987 with Blood Simple, and haven’t really quit since. That first film was a seedy, scary crime thriller. Their follow up, a mere three years later, was Raising Arizona, a comedy with a spectacular script, cast, and atmosphere that established the off-kilter, just-quirky-enough vibe that would come to define much of the brothers’ movies for the rest of their career.

In the overall scope of the Coens’ unbelievable career, Raising Arizona tends to get overlooked in favor of their later, higher-profile movies like O Brother, Where Art Thou? or The Big Lebowski. That’s a shame, since I think it’s probably the funniest, sweetest movie these two have ever produced. Unlike Lebowski, which uses humor to illustrate the stupidity of its characters, Raising Arizona is endearingly funny, and that makes all the difference in the world.

A Toast

Raising Arizona is a comfort movie. It’s what you should watch when you’ve had a hard week, and all you want to do is sit down, unwind, and laugh, without totally compromising your intelligence and popping in, say, anything with Will Ferrell in it. Arizona is a heartfelt movie about relationships and family that also manages to be funny as hell. It also looks incredible, thanks in no small part to its American Southwest landscape.

Hi McDunnough (Nicolas Cage, before he became a national punchline) is a small-time crook who can’t seem to stay out of jail. One day at the police station, he meets Ed (Holly Hunter), a cop in charge of processing. Hi falls in love, and eventually reforms and convinces Ed to marry him. Ed and Hi want to start a family, but can’t, due to Ed’s infertility, so the couple steals a baby from a local furniture magnate whose wife recently birthed quintuplets. Of course, raising a kid isn’t as easy as it might first seem, especially when a couple of Hi’s criminal buddies break out of the joint, and the baby’s parents issue a hefty reward for the return of their little angel.

Understandably so–the kid is really stinkin’ cute.

If that setup sounds a bit like a screwball comedy, you’d be right. Arizona is all outrageous situations and larger-than-life characters, but with that signature Coen touch of having one foot planted in reality. The laughs come fast and heavy, but the total lovability of the characters keeps things from getting too off-the-wall.

Cage gets to use his manic powers for good by making Hi an often confused but devoted husband who wants to do right, but has a hard time sticking to the straight and narrow. As Ed, Holly Hunter gives a crackerjack performance, showing without a doubt who wears the pants in the relationship, and just how desperate she is to start a family. The cast is rounded out by a plethora of excellent character actors (including early turns from later Coen regulars Frances McDormand and John Goodman) who simply add their own particular brand of awesome to the mix.

Holly Hunter reeeeeeally wants that baby.

Verdict

Raising Arizona is a great early example of why the filmmaking community respects Joel and Ethan Coen so much. It’s a very entertaining movie that just about anyone can enjoy. But it’s also a smart, well-made movie created by a pair of very capable filmmakers, despite the fact that this was only their second film, and the first one with any kind of major budget. Your copy of Lebowski is getting worn out. You know it is. So this weekend, when you need something to watch, why not give this a spin instead? You’ll be glad you did.

Drinking Game

Take a Drink: every time you hear the phrase “Or my name ain’t Nathan Arizona.”

Do a Shot: every time you see the woodpecker tattoo.

When the Arizona Quints show up together: Take Five Successive Drinks

Take a Drink:  at any reference made to “huggies.”

Take a Drink:  every time a shopkeeper breaks out a gun

G.I. Joe: Retaliation

G.I. Joe : Retaliation – Trailer #1 [VO|HD] by addictomovie.com

G.I. Joe: Retaliation, aka CGI: The Movie, had a major delay to work in a 3D conversion process. In other words, Paramount delayed the movie by almost a year just so we could have ninjas and explosions fly out of the screen. Wait a minute…that’s kind of awesome when you think about it! There are two things that are awesome flying out of a screen. One of them is a ninja. The other rhymes with Scoobies. Despite the delay, I’m pretty pumped. Retaliation is probably going to be the Honey Badger of modern action cinema, fully aware that it’s a movie version of action figures and raging forward regardless. Ninjas fighting on a mountain top? Bruce Willis shooting from the bed of a truck? A villain named Cobra Commander?

Beer Prediction:

It’s going to be stupid. It’s going to be absurd. But it’s going kick ass. I’m wearing my jean shorts to this one.

I should really get a tan though.

The Host

The Host Trailer 2 Official [HD] – Saoirse Ronan, Max Irons by ClevverTV

Aliens take over the world and possess people, and one of the last remaining human girls gets captured and possessed. But she fights the possession in the name of love. Just typing that sentence gave me a permanently smaller package. That’s right, this “love can survive” assfest will shrink your dick, gentlemen. It’s fear; your penis will recede back inside, screaming bloody murder and mourning the downfall of quality romance films. This movie is going to be like eating Indian food at a first date. I don’t know what that means, but that’s what it will be like.

Beer Prediction:

It’s a Stephanie Meyer story. There is literally nothing else to say.

Tyler Perry’s Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor

Tyler Perry’s Temptation Confessions of a Marriage Counselor – trailer #2 [HD] (2013) Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Lance Gross, Kim Kardashian, Vanessa Williams, Robbie Jones, Brandy Norwood, Renee Taylor, Ella Joyce by myfilm-gr

Tyler Perry’s Another Generic Fucking Movie About Black People and Their Lives: Based on the Play by Tyler Perry and Here’s a Joke About the Novel Push by Sapphire. Some lady is a marriage counselor, and her husband forgets about her birthday again because all he cares about is sports (wait, is this a Tyler Perry movie or a Lifetime production?). She meets another black guy, he’s super neat and they like each other, she cheats on her husband, etc. People probably cry a lot. I don’t even care. I care so little about this movie that I don’t even want to finish the joke I was going to use for this synopsis. The fucks I do not give about this film are falling from the sky.

Beer Prediction:

Do I really even need to spell this out? Once again, Tyler Perry reached into the toilet and pulled out another piece of shit. If there’s anything worth praising in this movie, it’s the (apparent) exclusion of cinema’s most annoying character.

Can you believe this an actual poster for Big Happy Family?

I was going to say “This movie could have ended so much better” but I decided that would be in poor taste.

Admission

Admission Trailer Official [1080 HD] – Tina Fey, Paul Rudd by ClevverMovies

Holy shit, this looks annoying. I don’t care if your movie is from the director of About a Boy. I care slightly that the movie has Paul Rudd and Tina Fey, but it doesn’t stop the trailer from being almost wince-inducing bad. It has things like “humor” and “comedy,” with Fey and Rudd having “romance” and “cuteness.” It’s a “movie” that I will “see,” by which I mean it will probably be a piece of shit that will cause me to vomit pure darkness.

Beer Prediction:

Looks like one of those bullshit “feel-good” moves that just ends up being artificial and infuriating.

 I’m so alone. How many times have I used this picture joke?

The Croods

The Croods 3D – Official Trailer 3 by FanReviews

Either I’m getting old and bitter, or animated movies are looking stupider, because it took me a grand total of 3.1 seconds after learning the title to The Croods for me to say “Damn, I hate movies.” This movie is about a cave-dwelling family that doesn’t dare venture outside due to fear of death from the vicious elements (so basically, every day of my life), but eventually does journey outside and discovers a world of life and color (so basically, my worst nightmare). It just looks….rudimentary at best, and it doesn’t really seem to bring anything to the table in terms of…anything. But it does have Nicolas Cage, and I am sworn to experience every Nicolas Cage movie until the end of time (don’t ask). I do at least dig the visual style, which is basically, a huge, colorful explosion—kinda like Willem Dafoe’s orgasm after getting his nuts smashed in Antichrist.

 I know; horrible, right?

Beer Prediction:

Blah blah blah, animation, blah blah, kids, who cares.

Olympus Has Fallen

Olympus Has Fallen trailer by TheGazette

I’ll be honest and say that this looks like it might be pretty good. It’s been too long since we’ve had one of those “claustrophobic action movies” like the original Die Hard, and this one just might fit the bill. Of note, it’s got Gerard Butler in his first movie that isn’t for housewives and little girls in quite a while, Aaron Eckhart as the first white President in years (now that the real thing happened, Hollywood can stop being progressive), and Morgan fuckin’ Freeman. It also has special effects that are apparently designed by whoever it is that did the Asylum movies. Still, Gerard Butler kicking ass in the White House is hard to argue with.

Beer Prediction:

I’m holding onto hope for a good action movie. At the absolute, barest minimum, this is Gerard Butler finally killing people again.

I was going to say “This movie could have ended so much better” but I decided that would be in poor taste.

Sera: Don’t you like me, Ben?

Ben Sanderson: Sera… what you don’t understand is- no, see, no. You can never, never ask me to stop drinking. Do you understand?

Sera: I do. I really do.

To me – Leaving Las Vegas is the quintessential drinking movie.  Mike Figgis’ Leaving Las Vegas is a tragic masterpiece. Say what you will about the now publicly lampooned Nicolas Cage; his quirks and eccentrics were perfectly cast and put to use as he no doubt earned the 1995 gold statuette for Best Actor at the Oscars.  As the recently fired Hollywood screenwriter who moves to Las Vegas to drink himself to death, Cage’s Ben Sanderson meets Sera, a hooker with a heart of gold (Elizabeth Shue). Cage’s performance will have you raising a toast and putting it down before you drink it.

MOVIE: Leaving Las Vegas

RELEASE DATE: 10/27/1995 

INTERESTING FACT: To get ready for his role, Nicolas Cage would film himself drunk to study his speech patterns.

DRINK OF CHOISE: Whiskey.  That and anything else that contains alcohol.

DRUNK MOVIE MOMENT: Plenty of them, but the supermarket sweep scene that has Ben whistling his suicide note takes the rum cake.