Just wondering, because I just finished watching it and thought it was pretty funny, perhaps not the greatest Coen brother movie but still enjoyable. I looked it up on Ebert's film review archive and was surprised to see he only gave it *1/2 stars. Seeing as I wasn't born when this was made, it just made me wonder, how was this received?
I remember when it came out and it got pretty positive reviews for the most part. I read Ebert's review and he didn't "get" the movie. Siskel enjoyed it. It didn't do too much damage at the box office but quickly developed a strong cult following and sales once it came to HBO and video. It was listed at #31 on AFI's 100 Funniest films a few years ago.
Most of the Coen films do better with repeat viewings.
Thank you! I agree, Coen films do warrant multiple viewings.
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This film was a "must-see" if you were in college at the time (1987)...very well receieved by that age group at the time.
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Yep. I was in college at the time. I went with a group of friends to see it. We all loved it. But I do remember there weren't many people in the theater. And I don't remember a lot of buzz around the movie or anything. I always felt at the time, that the mass public didn't know about it. And like others said, the popularity didn't grown until it was on HBO and home video. Great movie.
shareThanks for refreshing my memory! I was one of the film critics at UMd daily Diamondback, and I went to the preview on campus and it was a huge smash hit! I also remember the film getting universally hailed around town, from both the DC papers and general media. One of the funniest movies I've ever seen.
shareThanks for the memory, siebertws. I was at that screening at UMd, and I remember the entire theater shouting with laughter. We talked about this movie for days afterward. That gigantic screen, the free movies... good times!
shareIt was incredibly well received and hailed as a masterpiece.
shareSiskel & Ebert's review:
http://bventertainment.go.com/tv/buenavista/ebertandroeper/index2.html ?sec=6&subsec=raising+arizona
Ebert has no good reason to be a reputable source. 80% of the time he has WACK opinions. I believe he hated Home Alone, among many other modern classics. I don't know why he's so trusted.
shareIf "Home Alone" is a mondern classic & WACK is a word of common vocabulary, I certainly don't think it's Ebert's credibility in question.
shareFor the record, I love "Raising Arizona." I certainly don't agree with Ebert all the time. I simply found the above comment by sdws17 extremely unfair and uneducated.
shareI don't think he was off base. I remember as a child being rather perplexed by the film. It was certainly different but people have come to appreciate the Coen's sense of style over time and will think more highly of past films in hindsight.
Raising Arizona is a terrific film but there is a certain hollowness to the characters. I do think the Coen's were a little too involved with the dialogue and the character development suffered as a result. In the end I didn't know how to feel about them and there didn't seem to be a conclusion. The characters, aside from some life lessons, were moreorless the same as they were when the film began and the ending was ambiguous to a fault. I'm not saying there should have been a happy ending but I think the ending should have been handled differently.
All told the film remains terrific because the pros far outweigh the cons.
Exactly, it's a very strange movie; I'm the same; I didn't like it either the first time I saw it. Maybe Ebert would like it too...even the great critics change their mind. Coen's are brilliant, but most of the time their movies have to grow on me. I get more out of the characters each time I watch it and used to think they were hollow too, now I think they're pretty brillianly conceived. This goes with most Coen characters, even "Fargo"...Margie's a woman of very strong character, but she seems very sterotyped the first time (especially for someone living in MN when the movie was first released as myself), but as I've seen it many times since, I think she's one of the greatest characters in film history. I was interested in the question too, because it is one of those movies that only gets better with age. I was surprised with some of the posts that confirmed it as positive on its first release; that's usually not the case for Coens with only a few exceptions (Fargo, Man Who Wasn't There & No Country...probably Blood Simple, but i was only 4 then, so I don't know). Enough rambling, but Coens rock, & i can't wait to see A Serious Man.
shareThe Coens said on Charlie Rose that Raising Arizona made a fair bit of money and that it "did well."
As far as Ebert goes, it seems to me that it's just an issue of his personal taste. He doesn't really enjoy the Coens' comedies. He also gave thumbs down for O Brother Where Art Thou? and The Big Lebowski, which are, in my opinion, both brilliant, hilarious films, and two of their absolute best. And he had nothing nice to say about either of them. Oh well. He has his opinions. Sometimes I agree. Sometimes I don't.
"And he had nothing nice to say about either of them".
Actually, he originally rated The Big Lebowski 3/4 and later went on to elevate it to the realm of his Great Movies. But indeed the only other Coen comedy to receive a rating higher than 2,5/4 from him was Burn After Reading (although, in his review for BAR, he makes a passing reference to Raising Arizona and The Hudsucker Proxy which sounds vaguely positive... so maybe he later adjusted his opinion of those for the better, as well).
"facts are stupid things" Ronald Reagan
Thanks for posting, nobody nameless. It was a treat to see Siskel again.
shareI remember when Siskel & Ebert first began on TV, I didn't like Ebert, and I don't know anyone--family or friends that thought much of his reviews. He seemed pretty arogant. Later, I found out he had tried his hand at co-writing or co=directing (or both) a sequel to Valley of the Dolls but as a softcore porn movie, and some other softcore movie. Both flopped in their time. So I always saw him the same as the British music critics. Their attempts to become rock stars failed so they became critics, and of course the media knows that most people love to be told what to like. But they're just people giving their opinions. What makes their opinion better than yours or mine? Ebert made a career, like other paid critic, for doing nothing! I only watched his show to see the movie clips. My wife and I were usually surprised when he liked a movie that we liked.
Under our clothes, we are all naked!
Everyone I know, including myself, saw this film in an empty theatre. Loved it.
shareI saw the film when it came out, and hadn't seen Blood Simple, so I didn't know who the Coen Brothers were. As I live abroad, and this was before wide use of the internet, I hadn't read any reviews. But the film blew me away, and I was immediately on the brothers' bandwagon.
"Sometimes you have to take the bull by the tail, and face the truth" - G. Marx
I don't think I paid much attention to reviews in those days, when I was around 18, 19 years old. But I do remember that pretty much everyone in my circle of friends back then loved the hell out of it.
shareLike many others, I remember watching it in the theater the year it was released, and loving it. Most of the reviews praised the style and film making, but even some positive reviews found it a little hollow, more style than substance. There were some expectations, since it it had been three years since Blood Simple, which was very highly praised and was showing on cable and on campus. Filmed on a very modest budget of about 6 million, Raising Arizona did make a profit, although it didn't earn enough to make the the top 50 in 1987 according to Box Office Mojo, finishing behind such cinematic masterworks as Harry and the Henderson,s Police Academy 4, Mannequin and Ernest Goes to Camp.
shareI was only 8 or 9 when this came out, so I didn't see it until it was on video or cable. My entire family LOVED it and would watch it all the time. At the time I loved it for the goofy humor. It felt like a living cartoon, with all of the slapstick violence and silly characters. As I got older I started to see the underlining themes, brilliant acting, writing and cinematography, not to mention the wonderful music throughout. One of my top ten movies of all time.
share"Filmed on a very modest budget of about 6 million, Raising Arizona did make a profit, although it didn't earn enough to make the the top 50 in 1987 according to Box Office Mojo, finishing behind such cinematic masterworks as Harry and the Henderson,s Police Academy 4, Mannequin and Ernest Goes to Camp."
If this is true (and I totally believe it) then it's finally official: people are dumb.
I think it actually got great reviews. Ebert seemed to be in the minority there. Must check to see how he and Gene disagreed about it, since Gene was a fan of the Coen brothers.
shareI'm of the opinion that Ebert changed his mind.. at least a little.. on Raising Arizona due to his review of The Big Lebowski. In it, he adds this line "In spirit, ``The Big Lebowski'' resembles the Coens' ``Raising Arizona,'' with its large cast of peculiar characters and its strangely wonderful dialogue."
In his review of Raising Arizona I remember him really harping on the dialogue as being distracting and inappropriate for these types of people.
So it sounds to me like maybe he's warmed to it after all.. ;P