[1]Larry Gopnik
2,515 words
I don’t have much use for light comedies, but I love dark ones. Thus I have been a fan of the Coen brothers [2] ever since their first movie Blood Simple, which I regard as a masterpiece.
But not all of their movies succeed. The Coens are at their best when they are working with tight and ingenious plots. Blood Simple, Miller’s Crossing, Fargo, The Hudsucker Proxy, and No Country for Old Men (no comedy that) come immediately to mind. However, when they stray from tight plotting, their movies tend to fail. But one still has to grant that films like Barton Fink, The Big Lebowski, and O Brother, Where Art Thou? are at least interesting failures.
At first viewing, I thought A Serious Man [3] was just another interesting failure. But my mind...