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In an effort to decompress from the hoopla surrounding their Oscar winning film No Country for Old Men, the Coen Brothers appear to be taking a sabbatical from the highbrow. MTV.com has posted some encouraging comments from the stars of the next two Coen films, Burn After Reading and Suburbicon, and the key words seem to be “insane”, “goofy”, and my favorite, “so fucking funny.”

Burn After Reading is about two dimwitted gym employees, played by Clooney and Brad Pitt, who find a disc with a CIA agent’s book manuscript. The inept duo schemes to sell the disc while the disc’s owner, played by John Malkovich, tries to get it back. Wacky espionage antics ensue and according to the cast at least, the comedy is most closely comparable to the Coen’s best film, The Big Lebowski. That makes me happy. (And glad that the new film wasn’t compared to the “comedy” of Intolerable Cruelty or The Ladykillers.) Josh Brolin, who isn’t in the film but has seen some of the Malkovich footage, says “The barely contained rage and the shit being thrown at him, it’s pretty much the funniest stuff I’ve ever seen.” Brolin really doesn’t do a lot of comedy… in fact you have to go back twelve years to the much-underrated Flirting with Disaster to find him in one… but he’s a Goonie so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.

Nothing at all was revealed about the plot of Suburbicon, but one recent online rumor regarding the directorial reins was addressed. It had been reported that Clooney could be directing, but he says he hasn’t “stolen that one away from them yet.”