I didn't come into this with the highest expectations, but I think I kind of adored it. Let me try to unpack why...

For one, its anti-Adorno/Horkheimer stance is refreshing. Honestly, those guys always ruin everyone's fun. The film's handling of the Marxists was all very cheeky and well done, a fantastical-conception of Blacklist-era Hollywood. The Coens take much more of a Dyer-esque, "Entertainment and Utopia" approach to the studio system, and the movie's all the better for it. I just love how there's room for this conversation at all in the first place in this movie, rather than surrounding it.

Also, crucially, the character names were goofy/creative/brilliant, obviously a great example of the playfulness and inventiveness that shot like a streak throughout the movie. "Chunk Mulligan" is such a fun thing to say. These names are all funny on such a basic, phonic level.

I hate to say this, but as a "love letter to movies!" or whatever it kind of succeeded. I can say that the glimpses we saw of pastiche - particularly "No Dames" and Hobie's cowboy sequence - are exhilarating on their own, divorced from the larger story. They are a joy and a treat and I felt so lucky to be watching what was probably the best tap dance on film in the last 40 years, at least.

I have to give one shout-out to "Lazy Ol' Moon". It's the sort of joke The Simpsons would've had at its peak. Gleefully absurd.

I loved the pacing, and how it would kind of leave characters behind. I'm all for it. It was a whirlwind that didn't take up any more of our time with frickin' Jonah Hill than necessary.

The religious themes, as always in a Coen film, were handled in an interesting way, lacking reverence and overflowing with wit. The scene with the priests and the rabbi ended with such a classic Catskills punchline.

The 9pm screening I was at was packed, but there were moments when my friend and I were in complete fits of laughter - from a look, from a line reading, from Channing Tatum's graceful leaps - and the rest of the audience was dead-silent. This obviously isn't for everyone. I'm going back to see it again, for Alden Ehrenreich alone.