Fancast Friday Five: The Coen Brothers’ Ouevre

Yes, No Country for Old Men finally got them the recognition they deserve, but Joel and Ethan Coen have been making fantastic movies for years now. Here are films you must now seek out if you haven’t before. When you rent No Country on DVD next week, grab a few of these, too.

Miller’s Crossing: This is perhaps their best work, definitely a cut above their Oscar winners. Gabriel Byrne is Tom Reagan, right-hand man to mob boss Leo (Albert Finney), loyal to a fault, save for the fact that he’s caught up in an affair with Leo’s Verna (Marcia Gay Harden). When rival boss Johnny Caspar (the fantastic Jon Polito) starts making waves until an all-out mob war erupts over Verna’s desperate brother Bernie (John Turturro), only Tom can navigate the twisted web he weaves. Beautifully shot and perfectly crafted, anyone who says the like the Coens better have seen this film. Don’t give it the high hat. That ain’t ethics, kid.

The Ladykillers: One of their more dismissed efforts, it’s entirely worth the viewing to see Tom Hanks in an extreme departure in character and tone in this dark comedy about a self-proclaimed criminal mastermind and his band of ridiculous thieves who can’t manage to off an old woman. Not only does J.K. Simmons mandate a watch, but the Coens can even make good use of a Wayans.

The Hudsucker Proxy: The Coens are masters of the stylish, intelligent and absolutely left-field weird screwball comedy, and the story of the naive, wide-eyed idiot Tim Robbins making it big on hula hoops rankling Paul Newman’s ranklables is a perfect example of it. Come on, it’s Paul Newman! Need I mention Jennifer Jason Leigh’s rat-a-tat monotone finally finding its perfect home?

The Big Lebowski: Everybody quotes this movie constantly, which makes one wonder how exactly it managed to not be a moneymaker since No Country’s relatively modest returns make it the Coens’ biggest hit. A somewhat subtler comedy than Hudsucker, even if it’s more ridiculous. Jeff Bridges plays the amiable clueless dork at the center of the mistaken-identity craziness, while John Goodman steals the show as a foul-mouthed bowling enthusiast, and then Turturro steals it from him as a lusty bowling fetishist. Always rewatchable.

Fargo: The screenplay won the Coens their first Academy Award, in the typical “interesting young filmmakers who we feel haven’t ripened yet” slot that Diablo Cody had this year and Quentin Tarantino had back when before he decided to spend his entire career reviving various trends from the 70s. Frances McDormand as a pregnant cop in North Dakota on the homicide trail while a relentlessly weaselly William H. Macy bumbles around in his own shoddy intrigue makes for a truly unique experience.