Casting an eye over the generally positive early reviews of the Coen brothers' upcoming Burn After Reading, the folks at Vulture wonder whether it will be "a goofball comedy like their good one, The Big Lebowski, instead of a goofball comedy like their two subsequent crappy ones (The Lady Killers and Intolerable Cruelty)." The slight to the Coens' other good (in fact, great) goofball comedy, Raising Arizona, while only implied, is nonetheless inexcusable, and an insult to fans of babies and yodeling everywhere.
That said, there are reasons for optimism regarding Burn After Reading (which I haven't yet seen). First, the Coens best comedies to date (Arizona and Lebowski) came on the heels of their first two exceptional thrillers (Blood Simple and Fargo, respectively), and Burn After Reading comes on the heels of their third, No Country for Old Men. Second, the trailer kills:
--Christopher Orr