The Coen Brothers shot “Hail, Caesar!” on seemingly every movie lot in Los Angeles, turning various soundstages, bungalows and screening rooms into the studio of our minds, a manifestation of our collective imagination of Golden Age Hollywood, when moguls chomped cigars, bathing beauties formed kaleidoscopic patterns in oversized swimming pools and gossip columnists lurked behind every palm tree.
Bringing their deadpan absurdism to those final glorious days in L.A. — before stars ran their own production companies and the studios had to stop owning theaters and that damn television box was in every home in America — the Coens revel in both the glamour and the squalor of post-war Hollywood with a film that more than makes up in wit and flash what it might lack in substance.