TheRetroCritic

Directed by Joel Coen and released back in 1991, Barton Fink is a dark comedy about a playwright who gets the opportunity to write a wrestling picture for a big Hollywood studio but quickly experiences writer's block. This is perhaps one of the Coen Brothers' least well-known yet best movies. It failed at the box-office upon its release but sweeping the Cannes Film Festival, earning a few Oscar nominations and being a critical hit more than made up for that. The film follows Barton Fink (John Turturro), a passionate playwright who wants to create important work for the "common man", as he travels to Los Angeles to write a wrestling film for a Hollywood producer. He soon experiences writer's block in his dingy hotel room and befriends his neighbour Charlie (John Goodman) before slowly but surely spiralling down into confusion and despair. Part-Hollywood satire, part-surreal thriller, Barton Fink is a strange little movie that explores various big themes witho

Back in 2007, The Coen Brothers swept the Oscars with No Country For Old Men , the bleak tale of a man who finds a briefcase full of money only to then be hunted by a madman. Based on Cormac McCarthy's novel, this was a return to darker territory for the Coens after a couple of more light-hearted efforts. An exploration of young and old, good and evil, right and wrong, No Country For Old Men was maybe Ethan and Joel Coen's most serious and dense film since Miller's Crossing . It stood out mostly thanks to a chilling performance by Javier Bardem as Anton Chigurh, the psychopath with twisted morals who toys with innocents and kills people with an oxygen tank. Tommy Lee Jones' Texas Sheriff Ed is our good guy who desperately tries to make sense of this new unpredictable brand of evil that has landed on his doorstep and Josh Brolin's everyman Llewelyn is the one in the middle of it all who meant well but doomed himself and others by taking something that didn't

So the Coen Brothers are finally back with yet another Oscar-nominated effort, Inside Llewyn Davis , starring the conveniently first-named Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, Justin Timberlake and John Goodman. The movie follows a fictional folk singer's journey to try and make his music relevant at a time when folk music was transitioning more towards commercial pop. Llewyn Davis is a bit of a loser, that's hard to deny, jumping from couch to couch, always crashing at family/friends/ex-girlfriends/strangers' apartments, not really working. At the same time, though, there's a purity and an honesty to his music you do respect and want to see be rewarded in the end. This is a much less caricatural Coen Brothers film than we're used to, none of it is over-the-top and, although Davis is a made-up dude, this still feels like it could easily be a true story. Much more so than Fargo , a film which actually claimed to be based on true events. You still get some memorable char